The Orpheus Trilogy (Book 2): Orpheus: Homecoming

by Dan DeWitt

  Maybe even enough to give them a real weapon to fight this madness. He was tired of playing catch up while people died.

  "Is that right, Captain?" Ethan asked. He seemed to notice that Orpheus hadn't been paying attention, and bailed him out. "That the next checkpoint should be the last for the day?"

  He didn't bother checking his watch. He just wanted today to be over. "Yes, that's correct. If you have no contact within five minutes of your arrival, just return to base."

  Tim nodded. "Copy. Are you okay, boss? You look a little beat."

  "I didn't get much sleep last night." Not the complete explanation for why he was such a wreck, but not a lie, either. "I'm sure I'm not the only one having problems with regular sleep."

  "No, sir. Anything else?"

  "No."

  They exchanged salutes and then Orpheus was on his way back to the school.

  He wasted no time in going to the morgue to see Jen. If anyone wondered what he had in the trash bag, and he imagined that everyone he walked by did, they had the good sense to keep it to themselves.

  Jen was napping on the couch when he walked in. He placed the head on her desk and called her name. She woke up so forcefully that she almost rolled off of the couch. Orpheus covered the distance in time to steady her with a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks," she said, and wiped the sleep from her eyes.

  "It seems that you've developed a taste for naps."

  "Your fault." She yawned. "I never should've broken the seal. Now my body's all like, 'Hey, naps are goooood. We should do this all the time.'"

  "I'm glad, although I may need another push from you. You know, if you're up to it." He looked over on the desk, and Jen followed his gaze.

  "Is that the ... her?"

  "Yeah."

  "Cameron," she began, her voice soft. It confused Orpheus for a moment, although he couldn't understand why. Then it hit him: she'd never called him by his full first name before. "I'm sorry you had to do this. I'm sorry you're back here. I'm just sorry about all of it. But whatever I can do to help, I will do." She took a step forward and put her hand gently on his cheek. "Now you need to get some real sleep. You look like shit."

  "Where did that sweet young lady go, anyway?"

  "Unfortunately, she was killed by Martin Trager. Now she's cynical, but still hot shit. Go. There's nothing else for you to do today."

  "Yes, ma'am." He began to walk away.

  She called after him. "What was her name?"

  "Janine."

  "Janine. I'll treat her well."

  "I know you will."

  Despite himself, he walked away from her with a smile on his face.

  She gets it.

  He went to his office and just sat there until the patrols returned. He made the salient points in the briefing and handed it off to Tim. When that was done, he headed back to his office and prepared for bed.

  It was 5:30 pm.

  He'd just gotten his left boot off when his phone rang. "Well, that fucking figures." He looked at the caller ID. Thompson. He wanted to ignore it, but he'd sent the guy on an assignment, and needed to know if anything had turned up. "Orpheus."

  "Hey, it's me. I'm glad you're back. I found him. His place, anyway."

  That news perked Orpheus right up. "Really? Where?" Orpheus fumbled for a pen. He was surprised because his theory about Vincent having a place on the island was half-assed at best.

  "I'm not telling."

  Orpheus pulled the phone away from his face and looked at it as if it had answers. He put it back to his ear. "Excuse me?"

  Thompson apparently recognized the tone. "Whoa, whoa, slow down. I'm not going to tell you because you have to take me. I'm going to show you. You get what you want, I get to document it in case something awesome happens. I think that's fair." Thompson stopped talking, but when Orpheus didn't start, Thompson resumed. "Don't you think?"

  Orpheus had been pretty sure that Thompson would pull something like this as soon as he'd tasked him with finding Vincent's place.

  "Fine. If we find something sensitive or of strategic value, you sit on it until I tell you otherwise."

  "I can live with that."

  "How far is it?"

  "A couple of miles. It's actually in an area that your guys have already cleared, but that's all you get."

  "Meet me out front at 0800."

  "We'll see you then."

  O

  Thompson had fallen asleep at his desk. He awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs. He raised his head from his arms and saw a plate of breakfast in front of his face.

  "Rise and shine, Scoop," Hedley said. "Chow down. We have to be downstairs in ten minutes." Hedley tossed his partner a plastic fork. Thompson grabbed it and dove in, attempting to express his gratitude in between bites.

  He finished his breakfast, changed his clothes, and brushed his teeth in under five minutes. When someone did what he did for a living, you had to be able to go fast. Normally, that was because news had just broken. This time, he'd just overslept.

  "Man, that was good shit. I'm ready."

  Hedley grabbed his video equipment and opened the door. "After you."

  They made it to the front gate with two minutes to spare. Orpheus was already out there, of course, but he hadn't noticed them yet. "Get that shot," he said to his cameraman. To an untrained eye, it would look like Orpheus was just standing at the fence, drinking a coffee. But with the proper framing, and the sun rising just over his shoulder, people would see a genuine all-American hero formulating yet another plan to save the world today.

  Hedley dropped to his knee and shot for less than a minute. He got back to his feet and said, "That's a damn good shot. He should have a cape." He wound it back for Thompson.

  "Man, I almost feel sorry for the poor, helpless viewer. A couple of 'em might get pregnant just by watching this."

  Hedley's watch alarm beeped. 8:00 sharp.

  Orpheus turned around at that exact moment, clearly looking for them. He seemed almost disappointed that they were on time. He walked up to Thompson and stood uncomfortably close to him. "You'd better not be screwing around, capisce?"

  "Easy, big fella. I'm always going to treat you square. I told you that. I just want my story."

  Orpheus clapped him on the shoulder, jovial. "Good to hear. Lead the way. My lieutenants will follow us."

  "Wait," Thompson said. "don't they have to the run the show while you're gone?"

  "I gave everyone a day off for R&R. This is a pretty stressful gig."

  "Did Ralston approve of this?" Hedley interjected.

  Orpheus narrowed his eyes and gave him a sideways glance. "He doesn't have to."

  Hedley was insistent. "Are you sure it's a good idea to bring them in on this?"

  Now Orpheus turned to the cameraman. "It's a better idea than him bringing you in, which I thought would've been understood." Thompson shifted side to side, clearly uncomfortable. "Now that's the last fucking question before I leave you behind."

  "All right, all right. Just concerned, is all."

  "Noted. Let's go."

  The seven of them climbed into their respective vehicles and headed out.

  Orpheus drove while Thompson gave him directions. Hedley sat in the back seat and seemed to be lost in his phone.

  "How did you find his place?"

  "It wasn't a cakewalk. I kept coming up empty on him, the only hit I got was his place on the mainland. I remember that you told me who he was contracting for, Charon whatever it was. As it turns out, they have places all over the island. They were footing the bill for a lot of residences, which seems kind of odd to me. Does that make sense?"

  Orpheus lied, thinking of the seemingly endless supply of Scythe agents. "Not really."

  "I couldn't narrow it down the high-tech way, so I went a little more traditional."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning he hired a guy to break in to the doc's place on the mainland and look around for info on the island place," Hedley said.

>   "My guy found a packet that listed the address."

  "Hmm. Broken laws aside, that was pretty smart."

  Orpheus checked his rearview mirror and verified that the other car was still with them. He took a few more turns at Thompson's direction. He drove down a long dirt driveway and parked in front of a modest split-level ranch. Orpheus looked at the picket fence and couldn't help but laugh.

  "What's so funny?" Hedley asked.

  "You had to know the guy. I expected something with lion statues or a moat."

  Orpheus got out of the car and was joined by the others. Fish was incredulous. "Dr. Death lived here?"

  Orpheus backhanded him lightly in the shoulder. "That's exactly what I said!"

  Tim asked Thompson, "Are you sure this is the place?"

  Thompson confirmed that the number on his paper matched the one on the mailbox. "This is the address that I got, yeah. But now I'm doubting myself."

  No, you're probably right. It's just ... never mind." Orpheus split them and they circled around the house, checking for zombies.

  Fish approached the small shed. Tim aimed his sidearm at the door to cover his friend. Fish flung it open and said, "Oh, my God."

  Rachel asked, "What?" and everyone turned toward the shed, concerned.

  "This is a really nice snowblower."

  Ethan rolled his eyes. "Clown."

  They made sure to check every place that could possibly hide a zombie, but there was nothing in the yard, or anywhere around that they could see.

  Ethan said, "Wow, we were practically on top of this place the other day."

  "Nice job clearing it out," Orpheus said. "Tim, Fish, come with me. We'll clear the place, then we can search it."

  "Search it for what?"

  "Anything we can find."

  Thompson and Hedley joined them. Tim said, "Back up."

  The reporter looked at Orpheus. "That was the deal."

  "I know the deal. Just stay behind us, and don't go anywhere we haven't inspected yet."

  Rachel and Ethan stayed outside to provide security. The fence would make that a lot easier.

  Inside, they cleared the house in short order without incident. The second-worst part was the feel of the camera on him the whole time. The worst was being subjected to Thompson's running commentary. Orpheus wanted to tell him to shut up, but he was afraid that Thompson would ask him to clear the whole house again to "maintain the integrity of the shot" or other nonsense. A deal was a deal.

  Tim held his thumb up to signal all clear.

  "Okay," Orpheus said. "Let's get some light in here and toss this place." He pulled the other two in from outside to assist with the search, as they really had nothing to do outside, anyway.

  They searched the house from top to bottom over the span of a few hours. The search was so far proving to be fruitless.

  "Okay, grab any computers, disks, notebooks ... anything that looks like it might possibly hide something useful."

  "I saw a small portable safe in the study. It's locked, but maybe we can crack it back at the base."

  "Might as well, Fish. Shit, this just feels like colossal waste of time."

  "You had to pursue it, boss," Tim said.

  "Let's just round everyone up and get back. Lena can take a look at the tech, but I doubt there's any good news for Jen." He looked at the group and found everyone but the cameraman. "Where's Hedley?"

  Thompson said, "Bathroom, last I knew."

  "Just load up whatever you have. I'll be right there."

  Orpheus got two steps before Hedley rounded the corner into the living room. "Here I am. Turned out I had to go number two."

  O

  When Jen had worked for Dr. Vincent, she had always been a little disgusted by his penchant for treating the bodies on his table as things. He never used their names, referred to them as "the subject," ordered them to be disposed of as if they were leftovers. It seemed cold, robotic, merciless. She knew that's what the doctor was. She saw some of the same qualities in Trager sometimes, but it seemed to be more of a shield for him, something to insulate him from all of the horrors that he had seen. Anytime she caught herself equating Trager with Vincent, she reminded herself that Trager had lost more than anyone she had ever known. He had to watch hundreds of patients slip away due to lack of proper medical care, and she knew that it ate at him. He was an asshole, but an asshole in self-defense.

  Right now, while she was digging into this poor girl's head, she wished more than anything that she could emulate those qualities that she once thought so reprehensible. She regretted asking the girl's name, because it made the desecration so much more difficult. She had never understood why people named cows that were intended for slaughter, either.

  She tried to work around the ear, but it just kept getting in the way, so she sliced it off. Now she cut out a square inch of flesh, only a few layers deep. She found nothing. She repeated the process several more times, until she hit paydirt. The light hit it just right, and the glint was impossible to miss.

  "Oh, oh, oh," was all she could say. It was, fortunately, significantly larger than she feared it might be, although still tiny enough to be misplaced easily. She'd taken precautions this time. The severed head was in a deep plastic container, so if she did end up dropping the chip, she could at least track it down again. The way her hands were shaking, that was a real possibility.

  She grabbed the forceps and gently squeezed the chip. She gave it a tug and it popped free. Lena laid it in a petri dish and covered it. She practically collapsed in her chair and just stared at the chip for a minute. It wasn't the flat square that she assumed it would be. It was tubular. It looked like something from the 1950's, if the technology of the time had allowed chips to be this small. It couldn't be a tracking chip, which is what she had initially thought it would be.

  It seemed much more sinister, somehow.

  She grabbed a paper cup from the dispenser on the water cooler and poured herself a cup. She drained it like a shot, then another, and a third. She crumpled up the cup and dropped it in the trash, where it joined dozens just like it, and she went back to work.

  Her first step was to take several high-resolution photos of the chip. She wasn't going to touch it until she knew exactly what it was and maybe, if she was really lucky, what it did. She got some good shots and uploaded them to her laptop. She found the most promising of the bunch and blew it up.

  The shape was reminiscent of a grain of rice, only much smaller. It was made of a clear plastic material. She didn't know precisely what material, but she could rule out anything that was biodegradable. It had been in Janine's ("the subject's") flesh for a year now and was still intact, although the majority of that was when her body was, for lack of a better term, deceased. To bolster her case, the chip had been in a living being, Falcone, for several months at a minimum. There was no way he received the implant while he was on the island.

  The chip was segmented into two smaller sections. Each one of those seemed to contain a miniscule amount of liquid, one clear, one brownish. Each one of the mini-capsules had a micro antenna attached to it. So it was a receiver of some type, as well.

  "Okay, now it's getting weird."

  As far as she was concerned, the weirder, the better. She had two dead people in her morgue (one dead, one undead, to be precise), and they had matching incisions. She also had a funky microchip that gave her every reason to believe that it had been in both of them.

  What else did they have in common?

  They were both Patient Zero, only at different times. She had no doubt that if they could have gotten to the woman in the movie theater they would have found the same chip.

  The outbreak was no accident.

  It was organized.

  And that terrified her more than anything she'd seen so far.

  She hoped that the key was somewhere at Dr. Vincent's place, and that Cameron could find it. If he did, it would be all on her to figure it out.

  Who am I kidding? I
t's all on me either way.

  She enlarged a photo that showed a different angle of the chip and studied it. After a while, she was nearly cross-eyed from staring at it for too long. Microchip technology wasn't exactly her forte, but she knew someone who might either have a better grasp of it or know someone who would. She printed up the best photos she had and headed upstairs.

  O

  It's all on me, Lena thought as she went through the haul from Dr. Vincent's place.

  The few thumb drives didn't yield anything. They'd either never been used or they'd been completely erased. If she really wanted to, she could probably figure out which, but it would be a waste of time and wouldn't make a difference.

  She rested her head in one hand and looked at the laptop. If she had a gun to her head, she'd bet that the laptop was most likely to hold something that she could use. On the other hand, it would take forever to go through it. If she did find anything intriguing, it would no doubt be protected. Vincent wasn't the most trusting person she'd ever met, and for good reason. The thing was certainly password protected at the very least, and that could take her hours to crack.

  She decided to eliminate as many things as possible before launching in on that. She doubted she'd get lucky, but at least she could feel like she was moving forward a little bit at a time.

  Small victories, that's how she got through stuff like this.

  She reviewed a few data CDs, and was surprised by what she'd found on there.

  Music.

  Not just any music, MP3s that had been clearly ripped from a pirate site. And, she hated to admit this, his taste wasn't half bad. She recognized a few of the indie artists.

  Well, no one is just one thing. Even ghouls like him.

  She put the CDs aside. She already considered them her property, because finders keepers.

  There were a few spiral bound notebooks. There was nothing peculiar about any of them that she could tell. It looked like he would just take notes or make lists in the notebook that was closest to him. She could identify with that, as well. Phone rings, you need to take a message, grab the nearest notepad and pen and flip to a random page. She put those aside, as well.