Omega Series Box Set 3: Books 8-10

by Blake Banner

“Of course not.”

  “Of course not. So what’s the answer? Are they labs or not?”

  She closed her eyes and hesitated. “Yes, you know full well that they are.”

  “Are they still functional?”

  She stared at me for a full fifteen seconds.

  Finally, I said, “I am going to take that as a yes, but I have noted that you were unwilling to be honest about it.” I laid my hand on the box. “And that might have repercussions when the time comes to decide who gets the box.”

  Her face flushed with anger. She took a deep, unsteady breath and said, “The labs are still operational. We haven’t used them since the place closed down, but theoretically, we could continue the research into the NPP if we had the right funding.”

  I smiled and nodded. “That was what I was wondering about. This isn’t just about getting a big pay off, is it? It’s about getting a contract to continue that research.”

  She thrust her hands between her knees in that characteristic gesture of hers, looked down and said, “Is that so surprising?”

  “Not at all.” I shook my head. “You turn up for work one day and you find that overnight, the plug has been pulled on the research you’ve been doing; research that could change the world, transform the way people live.” She glanced at me under her eyebrows. I ignored her and went on. “No explanation is given, no warning, no reasons, nothing. And, to make matters worse, all the computers you’ve been using to store your data have been shut down. Your world-changing project is dead in the water. But what you want, more than anything in the world, is to continue that vital work, which will not only change the world, but will also put you at the forefront of your field. What to do?”

  I paused and waved a finger at her. “You’d heard that the Russian Mafia had ties to Putin. Maybe you even knew that the Shulaya clan had ties to the Russian government. You hoped that if you played your cards right, you might get access to the Kremlin through Gregor. But that wasn’t just naïve, it was plain stupid. I’m guessing the first thing he asked you was what the NPP was, and you spun him some bullshit story like the one you spun me. Gregor might be all kinds of things, but he is not stupid, and he realized that what you had was a hundred times more valuable than you were making it out to be. He understood right away that you were using him to get to the Kremlin. You’d tell them what you had, but not him. Once you made your connection at the Kremlin, he’d be out in the cold. If you were saying it was a way of interfacing with computers, which is cutting edge modern technology, then it had to be something even more radical than that.”

  Her brows twitched into a frown. “I already told you, that’s what it is.”

  “And I already told you, that’s bullshit.” I gave a small laugh and shook my head. “The technology you described, Emily, I happen to know that that kind of technology is not radical anymore. There has been research going on into that kind of interface for a long time. I have been personally responsible for destroying a lot of it. No, what you described just wasn’t radical enough to be stirring up the kind of interest you were getting from Gregor and the Company.”

  Her next question surprised me. “Who are you…?”

  I smiled. “The last person on the planet you should have asked for help. What happened? Did you end up telling Gregor what the NPP really was?”

  “Jerry did. He said it was the only way. Another one of his brilliant ideas.”

  “And Gregor told you the way it was going to be. He would pay you enough so that you would be able to retire in style, and he would then take the NPP and sell it to the Kremlin.”

  She nodded.

  “So you decided you had to kill him, or, more accurately, have him killed.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s where I came in.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your plan from the very start was that I would make the drop, Jerry would spark a firefight and I would kill Gregor. Then, either I would be killed in the exchange—that would be the best option—or I could be bought off afterwards, perhaps with a little seduction from you.” She drew breath to say something, but I plowed on. “What really blows my mind is that you actually thought Gregor would be present at the exchange.”

  “That was the deal. I would be there in person if he was.”

  “And your first reaction was to get somebody else to go in your place. It didn’t occur to your criminal mastermind that he might do the same.”

  “Jerry was convinced he would go…”

  “Jerry is dead.”

  “You don’t need to remind me of that.”

  “Apparently, I do. This has been a catalogue of stupid decisions and stupid actions that hasn’t ended in total catastrophe because one of those stupid decisions actually played out in your favor, if you only had sufficient intelligence to recognize it.”

  “You’ve made your point, Lacklan. I am stupid. You can stop insulting me now.”

  I glanced at the Colonel. He hadn’t said anything for a while and now he was staring at the floor like he was trying to burn a hole in it.

  I pulled my Camels from my pocket and took my time lighting one with my old Zippo. I inhaled deep and blew out the smoke through my nose. Between their heads, I could see the row of black windows at the front of the hall. I was watching a bright light approach and slow as it reached the gate. After a moment, it turned in and moved slowly toward the building. I shifted my eyes to Emily.

  “So what is it, Emily? What is the NPP?”

  “It’s a prototype. I told you.”

  “You told me it was a device for interfacing your brain with computer software. But we both know that kind of technology already exists.”

  “What there is is mainly theoretical or very basic.”

  “A prototype is little more than that. Stop bullshitting me. To command the kind of prices this thing is commanding, and the kind of interest it’s getting, it has to be a lot more than that.” I shook my head. “Every time you bullshit me, this box slips further away from you. This is the end of the line, Emily. You tell me, or you lose the box.”

  The Colonel turned to look at her and said, “Tell him, Emily.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “If I tell you, will you end this nonsense and let me take the box. It is my device. I created it, for God’s sake!”

  “What is it?”

  She opened her eyes and raised an eyebrow at me. Her tone was a little patronizing. “It’s an NPP. You know everything else, I’m surprised you don’t know what that is.”

  I spread my hands. “You going to tell me?”

  “It’s a nano-particle processor.”

  “And what is that?”

  She gave a small laugh. “The holy grail, the philosopher’s stone, the key to creation…”

  “Cut it out, Emily…”

  As I said it, I saw Gregor’s huge form appear at the top of the stairs, holding a briefcase. He saw us and moved on massive legs across the room, vanished from view as Emily and the Colonel had, and then reappeared vast in the doorway. The Colonel turned and saw him, then jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair. Emily gave a little scream and turned to stare at me.

  “Lacklan! What is this?”

  “Come in, Gregor. Grab a chair and join us.”

  He pointed at the box on the desk. When he spoke, I noticed he’d had provisional false front teeth installed. “This is it?”

  “Yes.” I raised the Smith & Wesson and showed it to him. “And at the moment, possession is nine tenths of the law. Bessie here is the other tenth. Are we clear? Sit down.”

  Gregor grunted and moved across the office to sit in a chair that looked far too small for him. The Colonel picked up his chair and sat down, too.

  “What do you think you’re playing at, Lacklan?”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Russian roulette?” I turned to Gregor. “Emily was just explaining to me what an NPP is. We had got to the philosopher’s stone and the key to the universe. I was starting to fall asl
eep at that point. You want to start again, Emily, without the manure?”

  Gregor said, “Is not manure.”

  “A nano-particle processor was, until recently, little more than a theoretical proposition, almost a thought experiment. What would happen if… Some people had looked into it on a theoretical level and had been manipulating and tuning nano-particles using optical field interactions for some time, mainly for use in electronics and photonics. They had achieved scalable, direct, and optically modulated nano-particle patterns of comparatively high precision using pulsed nanosecond lasers. But we are talking about structures so small you need a microscope to see them.”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying that around the world, labs had made instruments that could program electrons and other particles to align themselves in certain shapes. That was awesome! It was incredible, because it meant we were learning how to shape the building blocks of reality. But we were doing it on such a small scale, it make practically no difference. The applications were very few and very small.”

  She reached out her hand and pointed at the box, and I saw her hand was trembling.

  “What I have created there is a tool that, given a little more research and development, can build a wall, can make bricks, can turn lead into gold, because it can change the structure of atoms and molecules. It is the prototype of an actual, real nano-particle programmer. It programs electrons, protons, atoms and it brings them together to create matter! Have you any conception of what that means?”

  I sank back in the chair and went cold from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. Gregor spoke suddenly.

  “This is like Industrial Revolution times one billion. It revolutionize the world. No poverty. Nobody ever have to work. Unlimited energy, food, water. Fix ozone, fix global warming. Is potential unlimited.” He stared at me a moment and then added, “But is necessary Communist government. You have competition with this thing and it comes the end of the world. Only one government can have this thing.”

  There was a ghastly, twisted truth to what he was saying. I looked back at Emily. “How true is this?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a little sensational, but that is the basic theory. It has never been tested on anything bigger than a grain of sand. But the theory is that it brings together particles and programs them into atoms. It’s a very simple theory.”

  “And that little tablet does all of that?”

  “Not exactly. That’s like the CPU. It needs a bigger computer to work through. We were at the testing stage. That’s what the labs are for downstairs. But then they shut us down.”

  “How close were you to the nightmare Gregor described?”

  “I don’t know, years. A few years. We were about to start making complex inanimate objects—almost like using a 3D printer, only it’s more like a hologram. You program the holographic image and then the hologram takes on a solid form. It’s hard to describe. I guess in three to five years we could start giving it practical applications, given the right funding and the right political support.”

  Gregor made noises in Russian that could only have been obscenities. “If this thing is in hands of United States, you know what will happen. Military application, licensing to mega-corporations, military industrial complex, Pentagon, exploitation, it will be disaster. People like Bush, Clinton, Trump using to control the world. You cannot allow!”

  I burst out laughing. “This from the head of the Shulaya clan, who had me chained to a steel pipe while his thugs beat me senseless. I like your style, Gregor.”

  “Come! Enough bullshit. I have the transfer ready, and the contract. We make exchange now.”

  Emily was on her feet, and the Colonel beside her.

  “Lacklan, you can’t! You said I could take it if I leveled with you and told you the truth!”

  And the Colonel was shouting, too: “You can’t be serious! You can’t sell a thing like this to a foreign government! Have you any idea what that would mean!”

  I said, quietly, “Sit down, both of you.”

  They both sat. I looked at Emily. “You’re right, I said that. And straight away, you started lying and trying to hide the truth from me.” I turned to Gregor. “And as for you, the price we agreed was based on something very different.” I gave a small, un-amused laugh. “You’re asking me to sell you the next Industrial Revolution for a string of beads. That ain’t going to happen.” I pointed at the box on the desk. “What you guys are talking about is worth not millions, not even hundreds of millions. It’s worth billions—more than that. This thing will change the world. It will change the way we manufacture, the way we live. It will change everything, and whoever controls it will be master of the world.”

  I looked at each of them in turn. I could see Emily’s chest rising and falling. Her eyes were bright. I wondered what she was going to do. The Colonel also was tense, watching me like a cat watching a mouse with an AK-47.

  Gregor said, “What do you want? Anything you want, I can arrange. I can make you a prince. We had agreement. You must honor that agreement.”

  I studied him a moment. “How much are you authorized to transfer right now?”

  “Twenty-five million dollars.”

  “Make it thirty.”

  “You give me the box.”

  “The box stays where it is until you make the transfer.”

  “I don’t trust you. You all making tricks together.”

  “Tell me something, Gregor. If I change my mind, and hand the box over to Emily, what happens next? How many men have you got surrounding the building?”

  “Seven.”

  I nodded. It had been predictable. I slid the box along the desk. “Make the transfer, Gregor.”

  He opened his attaché case and started typing. Emily was shaking her head. “You can’t do this, Lacklan! This is my life’s work! I’d have got the Nobel Prize. You can’t let this animal take it!”

  He stood and put the laptop in front of me. He tapped the enter key and I watched twenty-five million dollars transfer into my account in Belize.

  I pointed at the box. “There it is. Pandora’s box. If I were you, I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He pulled a Desert Eagle from under his arm and pointed it at me, then at Emily and the Colonel. “No more tricks. I have bought. Is mine. You leave me alone. I leave you alone. You have your money. Now this is mine.”

  I laughed out loud. “Aren’t you even going to check it’s in there? Don’t you even want to see what it is you just bought?”

  A spasm of alarm constricted his face. He fumbled and dropped the case, then opened the box. Emily stood. I said, “Is that it, Emily?”

  She peered in and Gregor immediately backed away. She turned and scowled at me with an expression of utter loathing. Gregor snapped the box closed, grabbed his case and ran on big, lumbering legs. I watched him reach the elevators and then turn and rush down the stairs.

  I stood and opened the window. A chill breeze crept in. Emily began to speak. I raised my finger to my lips. After a moment, I heard shouted voices, then a volley of car doors slamming and the hum of an engine as Gregor and what was left of his Russian army receded toward the gate.

  Nineteen

  Emily was on her feet, screaming at me. The Colonel had also stood up. He looked pale and was shaking his head, muttering support for what Emily was saying. While all this was going on, I pulled out my phone, ignoring them both, and dialed a number on my speed dial. A second later, there was a massive detonation that rattled the glass in the windows and reverberated through the floors and the walls.

  Then there was total silence, but through the windows at the front of the building, I could now see the wavering, orange light of flames from a large fire. Emily and Harry both turned and stared. Then the Colonel slowly sank into his chair. Emily looked back at me, struggling to understand what had just happened, blinking furiously. Her mouth was workin
g but nothing was coming out of it. I put my phone on the desk. Her blinking slowed and she drew a breath.

  “What did you do?”

  “I put a pound and a half of C4 into the box, painted with black lacquer. It looked pretty much like the NPP. I warned him not to take it. I also warned him to come alone. If I hadn’t given him the box, he and his men would have tried to kill us.”

  Suddenly her eyes were wide, her mouth smiling. She rushed forward. “Then, the programmer is still all right? You haven’t destroyed it?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “But Gregor is dead?”

  “It seems likely, doesn’t it?”

  She turned to the Colonel, grabbed his hands and dropped on her knees. “Then we’re OK, Daddy! It’s what we wanted all along…”

  Her voice trailed off and the Colonel shifted his eyes to look at me. I raised an eyebrow. “It’s OK, Colonel. I’d figured it out already. Just tell me something. Were you a member, or just a friend?”

  Emily whispered an apology and leaned forward with her head on his lap. He stroked her hair for a bit. “It’s OK, baby.” To me, he said, “I was never rich enough or, I guess, smart enough to be a member. Your dad was a good friend to me. He sponsored me, put in a good word, but I never made it past ‘Friend’. I didn’t resent it. I was never in their league, and they did help. I made a lot of money with their help.” He smiled. “Hell! This research center, they could have put it almost anywhere, but they put it here, on my land, and I can tell you that that deal was worth a pretty packet. Your dad always looked after me. He was a good man. I know you had your problems, but he was a good man, Lacklan. Loyal.”

  “Was this your idea?”

  He shrugged. “When Emily and Jerry came to me and told me what’d happened… Well, your dad was gone, and Ben had disappeared, there was nobody left to go to for advice. And the management of QPS had all changed. They were all French and German now. I didn’t know any of them as friends. Not like your dad. So I didn’t know what to do. And while I was still thinking about it, the management just all upped and vanished. Not a word, not a trace.”