Caufmann figures that if Rennin believes him, he’ll be fine. If he knew part of his brain was removed it would damage him badly. Rennin, on the other hand, can’t believe he’s getting a lecture on emotions from an android.
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Anything else?”
Rennin shakes his head, then, “Oh wait, yes,” he reaches into his webbing pocket and pulls out a slightly beaten envelope. “Rethrin asked me to give you this.”
Caufmann takes it, opens the picture of Forgal Lauros, and his eyes scan over it for a second before his entire form freezes. He’s so still he could literally pass for a statue. After a long pause he looks slowly back to Rennin with an expression of absolute neutrality, if there is such a thing. “Where did she say she got this?”
“She didn’t. I only looked at it after she was gone. She said I had to place it in your hand and if I’m right about what that picture means, I can see why.”
“He’s wearing HolinMech armour,” Caufmann says as if he’s about to be sick.
“Let’s show Drej then, ask what he knows.”
“We don’t need to. I know what it means,” his shoulders slump.
“But Drej—”
“No one else sees this, or hears of it, am I understood? If Godyssey finds out you’ve seen this picture you’ll be killed.”
“What, and leave all this?” he says gesticulating at the situation they’re in.
“Or you could be converted and enslaved like my kind.”
Rennin feels an ice needle suddenly lodged in his chest. “Can I get back to you on that?”
“Buy a vowel?”
“Something like that,” Rennin cracks his neck. “Look, William, I think all this is pretty far over my head, but it seems to me that all this is pointing to another CryoZaiyon War. I fought that last battle. We fought it. The Solar System was under siege for the entire last year.
“It was absolute bedlam. There wasn’t one single fight that stopped. For a fucking year. Because you guys don’t need sleep. If Venus III hadn’t happened, we’d still be at war with the GA. Only now it would be with sticks and stones. There was nothing left at the end. The world won’t survive another one.”
Caufmann’s eyes are wide and focussed. “We’re at war now. What is all this destruction if not a war?”
Rennin glances down then up again. “Did you ever study history?”
“I have detailed files on studies conducted on more civilizations, real and mythical, than you could possibly know of.”
Rennin lets the condescension of the comment slide. “Over three hundred years ago there was a war in Chechnya that most of the world ignored because no one knew what to do.”
“Meaning?”
“This is just a city. In ten years if this fight against the multiplying infection is still going, and it probably will if we don’t stop it here, it will remain ‘just a city.’”
“It will not be going for ten years, I assure you.”
“I think you see my point, sir,” he moves to walk away.
Caufmann grabs his arm. “Ren, pack your gear and get the team ready.”
“Next mission?”
“For now, yes. I told you we’re getting out of here and we will. Alive. All of us.”
Rennin smirks, “You don’t have the power to make that kind of promise,” he says, thinking of Wayne and making him a promise to get him out of here too.
Caufmann sees something in Rennin’s expression. “What’s on your mind?”
“I have a stop to make on the way out,” he says, feeling a slight rise in his mood already. I’ll get you out if you’re alive, Wanker. I will. Then I’m going to kick your arse so hard, for not leaving sooner, that you’ll be undoing your tie to take a dump.
Caufmann doesn’t say much more, he just walks off staring at the picture, the recent picture, of his former commander. He absorbs the image of HolinMech Forgal Lauros, burning it into his brain.
He has no idea where it came from. Someone recognised Lauros and thought it important enough to smuggle this single frame from wherever it was taken. People may die for seeing this picture, if they haven’t already. Caufmann scans back through his memory and makes himself relive the moment that Forgal and Saifer’s life signs suddenly flatlined.
For over a decade he thought they were both dead. He should be happy to see him alive, but to see him in HolinMech armour carrying a HolinMech weapon means only one thing to him.
Traitor.
Maybe Saifer was right to distrust him all those years ago during the war. Because here is evidence of the techno-era Achilles alive and well, yet Saifer is not. Something about that thought makes Caufmann’s head twitch, and readings suddenly fly up his glasses’ lenses:
Status achieved.
Encryption Code Parameter One: Accepted.
Parameter Two: Pending… Pending… Failed.
Unlocking hidden memory file 86.
Blocking outside invasive surveillance.
Caufmann feels his scalp prickle. His eyes clamp shut in pain, followed by loud feedback sounds screeching agonisingly against his eardrums. It’s an android jamming technique as a safeguard to prevent remote hacking. Not that it has ever happened before, as far as Caufmann knows. He doesn’t even know about hidden memory files within his own mind. Also this is Number 86, no less, so there are at least eighty-five others.
The feedback screaming in Caufmann’s ears abruptly stops and he’s alone again in silence. Caufmann’s mouth falls ajar as he realises that the jamming signal is designed to stop anyone listening to certain frequencies from decoding a message that’s being received from an outside source. Caufmann’s own reflexive jamming system activated because he just downloaded something, not because he was opening a hidden memory from in his own head.
Downloading from where?
The collar of his black armour-weave lab coat feels excessively tight suddenly. Somewhere out in the solar system there must be a copy of his mind that’s obviously programmed to send him particular information at particular times. He must have rigged it himself. But he doesn’t know when, or where. He scans but there’s no data available for him.
Parameter One: Accepted.
Memory 86 begins playing in his head. All around him the scenery changes but stays the same as if a superimposed image is placed over reality. In waves of a few seconds each it changes from reality being dominant to the memory. He feels his head tilting upwards and the barely visible reality slides but the memory layer doesn’t.
In his mind’s eye he’s standing in icy tundra but it’s not the roaring blizzard of Venus III, he’s sure. He was stationed in Alaska for a while and at that thought Saifer Veidan flickers into view a few metres away in his visual range. The flickering image soon stabilises and looks all too lifelike for a mere holographic memory. Once the image is completely clear it walks a few steps forwards facing away from Caufmann’s vantage point as if surveying the area. He falls deeper into the memory and the entire atmosphere shrouds out his conscious mind. The sounds of war can be heard way off on the horizon where there are flashes against the sky from detonations and artillery fire.
Saifer Veidan’s form is filthy. His bare arms are snaked with fresh wounds, his black armour is cracked and his hair is longer than Caufmann can ever remember it. Veidan turns to face him revealing a hole blown clean through his chest plate. Most of his blood is dried but the wounds are all still emanating cold mist.