Coldcell technology fuelled the dead race of CryoZaiyons and is what gave them all their power. That power cell technology alone was a wondrous achievement by the Germans well over a century ago. It’s what made CryoGen Industries famous, as well as powering their creations. It also drew the attention of the all-assimilating Godyssey Corporation.
Perhaps it was the mix of the two elements—the living and the dead—that led to a strange hysteria surrounding the apparent androids. A new phobia spread across the world like a plague before the turn of the twenty-fourth century.
In the twenty-first century, it didn’t exist. By the twenty-second century it affected hundreds of thousands. The number is paltry compared to the numbers lost during the Black Death. However, when the Prime Minister or President of a country is almost incontinently sobbing, in the grip of untold fear, behind a desk on Intersolar Television upon meeting an android, it makes an impact. Rennin remembers the footage fondly. There is something about someone’s exposed weakness and humiliation that truly satisfies him.
The people it affects still remain totally random. Some people react instantly; others take a lot of time. Regardless of when it manifests, the result is crippling. Amusing, thinks Rennin, but crippling.
Four months pass. Not one single suspicious incident has been reported, and with each week that no one does something suspicious causes Rennin to become even more suspicious. Suspicious of their lack of suspiciousness. He shakes his head snapping himself from his boredom momentarily.
It’s now only a week before a scheduled Gorai Aurelia rally. Periodically the humanist fanatics get together on a large scale and parade around the streets spruiking their newest and most annoyingly catchy jingle.
Typically they just protest against Godyssey. Rennin can’t deny that the company is just as sinister as they believe. But those bastards aren’t saints.
They may preach peacefully now but twenty years ago they were a fully armed, military juggernaut hellbent on wiping the world clean of androids. Crunching the numbers by themselves, for every android the GA took down they also killed approximately two-dozen Standard troops and forty civilians. In some of the battles the civilian death toll versus military losses went up to over one hundred non-combatants to one soldier. That was just the battles, though, not the massacres between them.
Rennin knows the Gorai Aurelia were desperate to turn the tide against the androids by winning over the public. But when you start a war by detonating a nuclear weapon over a civilian city, it’s hard to gain support. They said they were framed, of course, but Rennin bitterly disagrees.
Hiroshima was the first city to be struck by atomic arms, and like Rennin’s home of Melbourne it was also a civilian city. Rennin used to believe that it was the right decision to destroy it to end the Second World War. Until he saw his own city aflame. Hundreds of thousands killed in one single flash. The scorched remains of his family burned into his mind as clearly as what he sees before him now.
It’s easy to disconnect from something that you haven’t the ability to fathom. Rennin can never forgive that atrocity. And since then he can no longer excuse the mass murder of the Japanese.
Hiroshima and Melbourne are in different categories though. Many have argued this over the years since it happened. Hiroshima was to end a war. So they say. Melbourne was the beginning of one. Some said it was done in an attempt to end a war before it began, a pre-emptive strike. The result is the same to Rennin. It’s all just weak people attempting to justify mass murder.
As far as Rennin’s concerned, the GA began the war they were apparently trying to prevent by blockading Melbourne in the first place. They put the Skyhook over the city. The very Skyhook that fell from low orbit and detonated at precisely the right altitude for maximum damage.
The biggest affront to Rennin is that they now pretend that it never happened. No one talks about it anymore. And the Gorai Aurelia are even lauded for their efforts in exposing company corruption. But Rennin sees them for what they are. Butchers. Murderers.
This line of thought is doing absolutely nothing for his hangover. Rennin is in his tower overlooking the most mind-numbing part of his job: the logging of inbound and outbound cargo. He believes that this mundane part of his job, coupled with his marriage to solitude, is what is driving him mad.
Rennin needs to scan the inbound crates whilst making sure the outgoing ones will get to their assigned addresses. Ten containers of flu vaccine have gone out this morning, and more are scheduled for the next few days before all shipments are cut off.
He sighs and checks the screen for the displayed details of the current solid metal crate outside the gates. “So… we have five hundred hypodermic syringes, five crates of assorted test tubes and beakers, half a tonne of synthetic Thermosteel plasma—since real Thermosteel is just so bourgeois—and a partridge in a pear tree,” he mutters pressing the green button.
The gates open allowing the delivery to be placed in the centre of the courtyard. The truck backs out the gate after setting it down and Rennin presses another sequence of buttons.
After a moment, barriers spring up around the crate, holding it in place. Then the ground lowers, and continues to lower for fifty metres to the laboratory stock bay to be divided up
Upon the plate returning to ground level, micro sprinklers spring out of the ground, spraying a thick ectoplasmic substance over the broken edges of grass, instantly sealing over with new flora. You’d never know there was an elevator plate there.
Rennin shakes his head at how ridiculously and unnecessarily elaborate everything at the lab is. The courtyard is open and can be seen from any overhead satellite, or helicopter, that passes by.
“What is the point of spraying that shit to make it invisible?” Rennin shakes his head.
Working alone is taking its toll on him. No matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it, he misses Wanker.
The buzzer on the console beeps and he looks out to see another truck has pulled up. This one is nondescript, stripped of any identifying symbols or marks. He presses the button to receive, “Yes?”
“Organics delivery,” responds a guttural voice.
“What kind?”
“Open the gate, this delivery is urgent.”
Rennin is not in the mood for any lip. “You do not order me to do anything. Clearance code, now.”
“There is no clearance code, this order is for Doctor Caufmann, it’s degradable organic material.”
“Hold, please, your vagueness,” says Rennin disconnecting the line and calling Caufmann’s personal line. “Doctor Caufmann, there’s an urgent delivery of organic material.”
“From where?” comes Caufmann’s voice, far more strained than usual.
“They didn’t say and they didn’t provide a clearance code.”
“Deny it.”
“They said it was for you, sir, are you sure?”
“My only organic material order was shot down at the docks by the Portmaster, whatever is at the gates is not mine,” Caufmann disconnects.
Rennin opens the channel with the delivery, “Are you there, dear?”
There’s a slight pause. “I hear you.”
“Venture forth and fornicate.”
There was a breath heard drawing on the other end for a rebuke but Rennin cuts the line off smiling like the Cheshire cat.
The truck isn’t showing any signs of reversing. Its driver is attempting to re-establish communication with Rennin. Too bad he’s ignoring the flashing console. Rennin feels distinctly uneasy about this, he can’t settle the strange feeling in his stomach, much less the restlessness that is overwhelming him. I hate this feeling.