by M. V. Kallai
“Interesting,” the general said, stroking his beard and looking very deep in thought. “So if biomachines built from different raw sources are side by side, they may work within the parameters of their programming and not synchronize and kill at random.”
“That’s just my theory,” Camden said. General Pike was quiet for a moment while he made some notes.
“Now, professor, moving on to a more pleasant topic; what is the status of our ‘simplified space travel’ project?” General Pike asked. Camden unfolded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“Still in the theoretical stage. I need Rhys Krell if you have any desire to see us move to a possible working model. I made that quite clear to Colonel Ganesh,” Camden said.
The general looked hard at Camden, trying to gauge if he was being set up, like bringing Rhys Krell here would be a trick, or if he was serious about needing that loony. Camden remained resolved.
“I will arrange it so he is brought here Monday morning. You will have two weeks to get what you need out of him, then he is going back.”
“It may take longer than that. I mean, it may be two weeks before I even get a lucid meeting with him,” Camden stated. General Pike shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“General, are you afraid of Rhys Krell?” Camden was smiling as he asked.
“What? No, of course not. I just don’t typically house mentally unstable psychopaths in my unit. It poses a threat for all. Not to mention that taking him out of lockup will surely get out to the press,” Pike said.
Camden just nodded, but did not buy it. He knew that the general had no problem with keeping prisoners here, no matter their mental state…and that he lied to the press on a weekly basis. There was something about Rhys Krell that seemed to hit a personal note with the General.
“Well, I guess I can only work with what you give me,” Camden said, not pressing the issue. “Is that all?”
“For now,” General Pike said. “You can go.”
As Camden was leaving, the general’s door opened and in walked Mace Magner. Camden rolled his eyes as he walked past him without greeting him. Mace gave him a smirk as he approached the general’s desk. Officer Aldretti, who was waiting outside the office for Camden, looked perturbed, like Mace had upset him before he came in.
“What happened?” Camden asked Aldretti once they were in the elevator. “You were in a perfectly pleasant mood when I went in the office. Now you look like someone kicked you in the stomach.”
“No one kicked me. And if they did, it would be none of your business,” Aldretti retorted.
“Okay, fine,” Camden said holding his hands up as if to surrender.
Camden had stopped torturing Aldretti with his words a few weeks ago. He felt it was pointless and in poor taste to poke at such a beaten down man who had no chance of keeping up with his wit. It was an indication that since his incarceration, Camden had more or less returned to his old self. His emotional state had evened out and he rarely lost his temper anymore. When he did, his anger was usually directed at Ganesh, who refused to fight back. Camden longed to go home, to have some privacy, but his nearly impossible work here fascinated him enough to occupy his mind most of the days. And now that the general was giving him a little freedom, he felt a flicker of happiness for the first time since his arrival. After a few minutes of silence, Camden turned to look at Aldretti as they walked to the new ‘Experimental Space Flight’ wing.
“You know, for someone who continually overlooks your talents and barks orders at you without paying you an ounce of respect, Mace sure does get to you. I think you have misplaced hero worship for that man,” Camden said.
“Well, I don’t care what you think, Professor.” Aldretti dragged out the word ‘professor’ to sound condescending. Camden chuckled.
“Just a thought,” he said.
Mace sat across from General Pike, looking both frustrated and satisfied at the same time.
“What is it Mace?” the general asked.
“The programmer is trying to negotiate! Can you believe that?” Mace said.
“So?” The general replied, “What does he want?”
“A coffee pot, now, and who knows what else he’ll want later,” Mace said.
“Do you mean to tell me that you burst into my office just now about something this petty?” The general was now on his feet. “Get the kid whatever he wants and don’t bother me with this nonsense!”
“It’s not protocol for prisoners to make requests,” Mace argued.
“He has done nothing wrong, Mace. We just robbed him of his entire life and all he wants is coffee!” General Pike yelled.
“I’m not a concierge service. Who knows what he’ll want next,” Mace grumbled.
“I don’t care. As long as it isn’t communication,” the general said, seeing Mace’s pride being challenged.
“Mace, that kid has the smarts to outwit the two of us combined on his computer. We are forced to trust him with very sensitive programming and I picked him for his mild manner, just as much as his brains and experience.”
“I understand, sir,” Mace said and dropped his head slightly.
“I don’t think you do, Mace. Because if you did, you would be in that room kissing that boy’s ass instead of standing here looking like I just took away your favorite toy! Now go, and don’t bother me with this insignificant shit anymore.” The general sat down and dropped his eyes away from Mace and onto some papers on his desk. Reluctantly, Mace left to procure a coffee pot…and some coffee.
Chapter Forty-Five
Dividing
On Sunday night at 9:00, Bearden showed up at Tripple Laboratories again…unscheduled, for the third time in a week. Dana was glad to see him, if for no other reason than he was someone other than Lee that she could talk to. Lee didn’t seem to pay much mind to the extra time he was putting in, they’d had a productive week and three pairs of hands were better than two. Efficiency outweighed prearranged schedules. Dana, however, wondered if he was avoiding something, like being home alone after work. He looked tired and seemed worried about something. Previously, when she’d asked him why he was there on Friday night, Bearden’s second unscheduled shift, he had just smiled and joked that he missed her too much to stay away. Dana would have tried to drag a real answer out of him, had they been alone, but while working side by side with Lee, conversation was kept to a minimum so as not to break his concentration. Surprisingly, multi-tasking happened to not be one of Lee’s many talents.
Before Bearden arrived, Lee and Dana had successfully transferred two of the embryos into their new biomer womb environment. They were still alive, but it would take some observation time to determine if they could truly adapt. They would transfer two more tonight, the weakest ones, and wait a day before continuing. Of the thirty-five embryo bearing tubes at the start of the experiment, amazingly, thirty-three were still active in the project. Dana took special pride in that success. She had pretty much taken over the lab’s busy work while Lee devoted a large portion of his time to finding a genetic weakness in the biomer. So, when Bearden walked in again tonight, Lee mumbled something to himself that sounded like ‘Yes, good. Better productivity this way.’ and left them alone to do the final two transfers, locking himself up in Lab E.
“Good night, Lee,” Dana said to him after he was halfway down the hall. She looked a little deflated knowing she would probably not see him again until tomorrow. And then later, when Bearden left, her night would be completely lonely and probably sleepless.
“Wow. I can’t believe this is working,” Bearden said, admiring the biomer womb environments. The cells had been spread thin enough that they were almost transparent, so even though they couldn’t see features on the embryos in their new environment, they could see movement and recognize distress.
“I know. This stuff is amazing,” Dana replied. “I hope you’re planning to stay a while because these transfers are tricky, and delicate.”
“If you need me, I can stay…at least un
til Lee comes back.”
“Oh, he won’t. He assumes that you are here for the duration. And that’s your own fault for showing up like this,” Dana said with a laugh.
“I will need to sleep sometime tonight,” Bearden said. “It was another rough week at work. And I had to work through the weekend.”
“Why rough? What’s going on with you? Why are you so tired and what are you doing here?”
“Whoa. Is this an interrogation? Can’t you just be glad that I’m here to help?”
“You’d think so, huh. But seriously Bear, what’s going on with you?”
“I can’t really say, Dana, that’s classified. But I have been working almost twice as much as usual.”
“Then why come here? Shouldn’t you be home in bed?”
“You’d think so, huh,” he said and winked at her.
“Hmmm,” she said and looked at him with suspicion.
“I know, I know, you don’t trust me, but if you remember, I did want your job. Can’t it be enough that I am just intrigued to be here?”
“I guess so,” Dana said, not feeling any less suspicious. “So, then, we should get to work. I’ll walk you through the process before we start.”
“Can’t wait,” Bearden said and the two of them turned their focus to the project.
A few miles away, Camden Riles was trying to enjoy his last night of supervised freedom at his home. He had spent most of his first weekend away from the TRU Building with Ari’s wife and children. It was a sad reunion that ended with Camden insisting that she take a generous financial gift from him so her family would be taken care of. Now he was sitting on his balcony in the fresh night air with a drink and a smoke while soft piano music played from his outdoor speakers. He closed his eyes and thought about Ari and his grieving family. Then, without meaning to, his mind drifted to thoughts of his Rosa. He could almost see her face and hear her warm laugh in night breeze. He took a deep drag from his pipe and allowed himself another moment of pain before he opened his eyes and shook his head, like he could somehow shake the painful memories out. Twenty minutes later, he put himself to bed, wondering what his meeting with Rhys Krell would be like the next day.
Back at the TRU Building, General Pike, Major Magner, and Luke the programmer were diligently escorting their selected biomachines to the wing of the building designated for their secret stash. Luke was awake and alert, having been allowed to sleep a little during the day so long as he kept up with his programming duties. The general and the major, however, were exhausted and overly grumpy. They had resorted to grabbing short naps whenever they had a free moment, which was not working out well for either of them. Luke had to deal with the brunt of their irritable behavior, but being resourceful, Luke told them that if they spoke at any time while he was handling the biomachines, he would lose his focus and his control. He couldn’t believe that it actually worked.
Luke had also made a few more requests of Major Magner who was only willing to oblige him with a scowl on his face. This didn’t bother Luke as he had worked under the Major for a long time and had never once found him to be pleasant. It was just his way. The one thing Luke didn’t understand about his ‘special job’ was why he had to stay at the unit and not have communication, even written, with his family or friends. He understood that what he was doing was classified, but what harm was a letter or two?
Luke had no idea the world thought he was dead and that he was fated not to return to his normal life after this assignment. So, he worked hard and tried not to be too demanding with his personal requests. He felt bad, though, about leaving Charisa at such a critical time in their work, so he decided to send her a message through his computer code to let her know he was at least still working on the self-destruct programming function. He assumed she would still be syncing his work with hers everyday, even if he had been cut off from the network. Luke thought that if he did this, maybe Charisa wouldn’t hold a grudge when he went back to his normal work.
At 3:00 in the morning, in Tripple Laboratories, Dana and Bearden smiled at each other with tired faces. Four embryos were alive and stable in brand new biomer wombs and the rest were still alive in their tubes. They had not heard a peep from Lee since he’d left them early that evening…as Dana had predicted, and they were ready to call it a night.
“Want some tea before you go?” Dana asked Bearden.
“Sure, it’ll probably help me sleep better.”
“Why are you having trouble sleeping?” Dana asked, pressing the issue she had dropped earlier.
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind. Work has been crazy since they gave me top clearance,” Bearden blurted out as they walked into the kitchen area.
“Hmmm,” Dana said, “So that’s explains it.” She put a kettle on the stove, then went around the corner to the bath and locker area to wash her face.
“That explains what?” Bearden asked and followed her. He leaned against the wall and watched as she pulled her hair back and splashed cold water on her face.
“Why you want to spend your free time here with me,” she replied. “You feel isolated from your team now that you know more than they do. You know I can relate. I am the queen of isolation.”
Bearden hadn’t thought about it like that before, but it made sense, at least it did to his overly tired brain. Dana dried her face, then grabbed a clean towel and tossed it to Bearden.
“Here, it’ll make you feel better,” she said and walked back out to the kitchen.
“Thanks. I’ll just be a minute.”
Ten minutes later Bearden walked out of the bathroom barefoot, with wet hair and wearing just his undershirt and pants. Dana looked up from her teacup with a bit of a surprised look on her face.
“You showered,” she said, trying to focus on his face and not his chest and arms.
“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Tea?” she asked and started to get up.
“I’ll get it,” he replied.
Dana opened up her notebook and started reviewing what they had done that evening, to see if she could make tomorrow’s transfers go any smoother. They’d hit a couple of rough patches tonight where the embryos went into momentary distress. She wanted to prevent that from happening again if she could. Bearden had plopped down in Dana’s favorite green chair in the corner. He put his feet up on the small ottoman in front of it and was asleep after only a sip of his tea. Dana, seeing him in such a vulnerable position and obviously distressed, decided to be kind. She walked over to the surgical rooms in the lab and found a clean blanket, which she brought back and laid over Bearden, who was starting to drool. She couldn’t help laughing at this but tried to be quiet. Dana then killed the lights in the kitchen and took her notebook and tea with her to Camden’s office and closed the door.
Chapter Forty-Six
Conspiracy
Mace was right about Charisa. It had been almost a week and she had not spoken a word to anyone about Luke. People walking by her office often heard sobs and nose blowing through the door. She was working extra long hours to try to make up for the loss of her partner and had managed to make enough signal amplifiers for about half of the Phase One biomachine controls. She hoped they would solve the defiant behavior, demonstrated by the biomachines, long enough for her to take on Luke’s project of creating a self-destruct feature in the Phase Three and above weapons.
Meanwhile, a careful operation had been arranged for the Phase Two biomachines. A programmer would activate the unit, then a handler would take over, guiding it to the newly built tunnel leading to the outer facility that had been hastily constructed under Colonel Cline’s guidance. It was a primitive structure, just a large pit surrounded by giant stone walls around the ground level perimeter. Once a biomachine was a quarter of the way through the tunnel and completely out of sight, the next one would be activated. It was an isolated assembly line all the way to their individual stone stalls. Soldiers armed with smaller biomer guns were placed at each turn to ensure that the
weapons kept a certain distance from one another, and more soldiers waited by the stalls to apply the restraints and clear the handler to return for another unit. The walk back through the tunnel was nerve-wracking for the handlers as they would pass at least three biomachines head on in their parade to be locked up. And even though the biomachines had never acted alone in an attack, the handlers did not trust them, and feared the work they had to do.
Mace Magner, who had since been present for every activation, was scarcely seen during this process and it raised suspicion with the entire team. Colonels Talper and Cline, however, were a constant presence in the process and even though they ranked higher than Major Magner, they did not instill the same level of urgency and fear into the soldiers and handlers. Still, the biomachines were being activated and secured at an impeccable rate and while the team wondered about Major Magner, no one missed his fowl attitude.
In his office, Mace Magner woke up from a quick nap at his desk when his phone rang.
“ello?” he answered.
“Mace, check on the programmer, Luke’s partner. Rumor has it, she hasn’t turned in anything productive since last week…when you dealt with her.”
Click. Mace sat up and stretched his arms over his head.
“So now, Pike is keeping up with the gossip on the training floor…great,” he said to himself. Little did he know, Charisa had been extremely productive in spite of losing Luke, just not with her ‘official’ assignment. She was doing everything in her power to prevent further death on her watch.
Mace took the elevator down to the atrium and passed through the secure doors to the weaponry unit. The blinds were drawn on the windows of Charisa and Luke’s office. Charisa had put a sign on the door that said ‘available only for emergencies’. Mace let out a short guffaw and reached for the doorknob. It was locked. Mace leaned his head against the door and in a singsong voice said,