by James Morcan
Once the orphans were cloned, the intention was each original would teach their own replica selves everything they knew. Essentially, the orphans would act like older brothers and sisters to their own mirror selves.
“It’s a complex procedure, Bill,” Doctor Pedemont added, “and it will take a little more time to perfect.”
Sensing Sterling and the other founders weren’t totally satisfied, Naylor interjected. “The main thing is these kids here.” Naylor pointed to the orphans as if they were merchandise on a shop floor. “Once they’re adults we’ll have the finest team of operatives, spies, assassins or, indeed, all of the above, on the planet. Beyond that, any clones will simply be gravy for us.”
Still eavesdropping, Nine observed Naylor and the others spoke as if he and his fellow orphans weren’t even in the basement. Not for the first time that day, his thoughts turned to escaping from the orphanage. He thought of Helen momentarily and suddenly remembered she had left Riverdale. Nine quickly pushed her from his mind, for it was too painful otherwise.
“Your move,” his opponent said, bringing him back to the present.
Nine moved his Queen to within one move of checkmating his opponent, Eight, a pretty Asian girl. While Eight sought a solution to her latest dilemma, Nine looked around at the other orphans. He instinctively knew none of them shared his thoughts of breaking free from the Pedemont Project that so dominated every single aspect of their lives. Even though they were already trained killers and arguably the equal of most adult operatives in the field, they appeared totally accepting of their lot.
The ninth-born orphan switched his attention to the senior Omegans in the basement. Of the sixteen present, only Kentbridge and Marcia had been trained in combat, while Nine and his fellow orphans amounted to twenty three fighting machines. He knew if they had the will, they could easily overpower their masters and take control of the orphanage.
Slowly, Nine came to the realization that he alone had the desire for freedom and the balls to act on it. Only he had that spark of independence and he knew if he didn’t act on it quickly, he’d lose that spark and become as submissive as his fellow orphans.
It’s now or never.
He had no idea how he could do it alone. They’d been taught it was impossible to flee from the orphanage. Accept your fate, Kentbridge had always told them. Given the far-reaching tentacles of Omega and the microchip implants in each orphan, Kentbridge’s logic was hard to argue with.
Nine couldn’t accept the prospect of forever being a number. He had to attempt something. He’d rather die trying than remain an Omega slave.
12
The Omega founders seemed satisfied – for the moment at least. They indicated they’d seen and heard enough, and a relieved Naylor led them from the basement.
Behind them, Kentbridge busied himself organizing the orphans for their day’s lessons. “C’mon people. Move it. We have a full day’s work to cram into half a day.”
Nine and the other orphans seated themselves before a whiteboard in one of the basement’s partitioned-off lecture rooms. Kentbridge reappeared moments later in the company of one Professor Charles Lidcombe, an elderly, bearded gentleman whose field of expertise was history. As part of their classical education, he had been lecturing the orphans for the past seven years.
As with all outside tutors brought in to lecture the orphans from time to time, the professor understood he must never mention the orphanage, or what went on within its walls, to anyone. Not that he knew much about it or its orphans. Nevertheless, he was under no illusions what could happen to him if he so much as mentioned the orphanage to anyone. Naylor had made it clear he could have a very serious accident.
Without preamble, Professor Lidcombe launched into a lecture on the history of war and military strategies dating right back to Alexander the Great.
“Alexander never lost a battle despite often being at a numerical disadvantage,” the professor said. The orphans hung on his every word. Of all the lecturers recruited by Omega to instruct them in a multitude of subjects, Professor Lidcome was one of their favorites. Dry and humorless though he was, for Nine and many of the orphans he brought history alive.
The professor didn’t miss a beat as Doctor Pedemont and Nurse Hilda entered the lecture room carrying the familiar trays of phials. As unobtrusively as possible, the pair circulated among the orphans with practiced ease, dispensing the phials to each. And one by one the orphans ingested their afternoon dosage of White Gold Powder without hesitation.
So usual was this three-times-a-day routine that Professor Lidcome continued his lecture as if the doctor and nurse weren’t even in the room. Marker in hand, he sketched an intricate flanking technique Alexander used in some battles. “No other general in history can claim so many victories.”
As the White Gold dissolved under their tongues, not one of the orphans gave the substance a second thought. They’d been taking the powder all their lives and gave it no more consideration than they gave drinking water or breathing air.
Doctor Pedemont, however, remained fascinated by the extraordinary substance even though he had been working with it for over a decade. He knew it as ORME, or Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements, a complex concentrate of chemical elements. The non-scientific name White Gold Powder referred to the fact that when processed its appearance was reminiscent of cocaine powder, although it was many times more expensive than cocaine, and even gold for that matter.
Like most of the substances and technologies Doctor Pedemont employed to perfect his orphan creations, the produce was not known to official science. Although the scientific community was aware of Arizona cotton farmer David Hudson’s accidental discovery of ORME back in 1975, they had been denied the opportunity to test the latest strains. Indeed, they never knew of their existence.
Pure White Gold Powder, the rarest and most effective strain, had been completely withheld from mainstream scientists and from the public at large. That way, elite groups like the Omega Agency could use it in total secrecy to profit from its unquestionable benefits and to further their own agendas.
Prepared by extracting and isolating elements from sea water and volcanic soil, then vortexing them with magnets, the substance had been shown to assist in a variety of diverse fields including agriculture, engineering and aeronautics. However, it was the superconductor’s effects on humans that Doctor Pedemont and his Omega superiors were focused on.
The agency had hired physicists, chemists and biologists to conduct laboratory experiments and design a version of ORME specifically for the orphans. They used various technologies to monitor the effectiveness of the powder, including dark-field microscopy of the blood and EEG tests on the brain.
ORME’s biological results were outstanding. As well as balancing both hemispheres of the brain, the product had also been proven to activate so-called Junk DNA, and the orphans’ regular consumption of it allowed them to move, fight and think as efficiently and effectively as almost any adult. Regular, carefully controlled contests between the orphans and Omega’s veteran field operatives demonstrated this fact beyond any doubt. Contests ranging from math and speed-reading tests to chess and martial arts tournaments saw the orphans always pushing their elders to their limits, often holding their own and sometimes even winning.
As he watched his manufactured orphans consume their prescribed allocations of the substance, Doctor Pedemont pondered its scientific make-up. Besides gold, he knew it contained a number of other metals including rhodium, iridium, copper and platinum which, like the gold portion, all existed in their non-metallic states.
Dispensing a phial to the last of the orphans, the doctor then handed another to Kentbridge who promptly emptied its contents under his tongue. As the biological effects were known to be similar for everyday people like him, Kentbridge thought it couldn’t hurt. He’d been consuming it for over a decade – ever since Doctor Pedemont had assured him it would correct most of his damaged DNA and keep his body in shape. Wh
ite Gold also had anti-aging benefits, something Kentbridge figured he would need in future if he was to keep up with the orphans.
As the doctor and Nurse Hilda departed and Professor Lidcombe wound up his lecture, Kentbridge glanced at his watch. “Thank you, professor.” Turning to the orphans, he said, “Let’s do an isolation session, people.”
The orphans filed out of the partitioned lecture area and headed for twenty three flotation tanks lined up on the far side of the basement. Without a shred of self-consciousness, each orphan stripped off their clothes and climbed naked into their individual tanks.
The last sight Nine saw before he lay down in his tank was Seventeen scowling at him. Her blue eyes locked with his, ever-accusing. He quickly closed the lid so he didn’t have to look at her severe face one second longer.
13
Floating in the warm salt water of the dark, soundless flotation tank, Nine let his mind go blank. The purpose of these sensory deprivation sessions was to allow the orphans to reach the deepest levels of their minds. The solitary flotation experience put them into very relaxed states, stimulating the all-important alpha and theta brainwaves. This enabled them to subconsciously speed-learn various subjects.
Soft strains of Baroque music interrupted the silence inside Nine’s tank. It played over speakers located at each end of the tank. Nine and his fellow orphans didn’t know it, but this specific style of classical music had been played to them since they were in the womb.
According to their music teacher, the mind became like a sponge when listening to the symphonies of Mozart and other Baroque composers. Nine, however, suspected there were subliminal messages embedded in the music. Sometimes he thought he caught whispers of Naylor’s voice underneath the music and worried he was being brainwashed.
A holographic video feed was suddenly beamed into Nine’s tank. Floating on his back, he had no choice but to look at the images – images that undoubtedly suited Omega’s agenda.
On this occasion, the images comprised authentic footage of various killing techniques being used for real by operatives of Mossad, the CIA, the KGB and other elite agencies. As the life-like holographic images incorporated sophisticated laser technology in 3D, it seemed to Nine he was actually witnessing the gory killings for real.
Unlike Seventeen and a few of the other orphans, Nine never enjoyed viewing such images. They made him feel sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else. Helen immediately came to mind. Her beauty dispelled the ugly images of a few seconds earlier. Compared to the people Nine was forced to mix with every day, she was an angel. Of that he was certain.
More than anything in the world, he wanted to find Helen and attempt to win her heart. To do that he would need to escape the orphanage and that, as Kentbridge had always said, was impossible.
Once again he thought about the microchip implanted in his forearm. It emitted a signal every second of the day, so even if he did manage to escape, Omega’s state-of-the-art satellite network would trace his whereabouts immediately. Then he remembered Kentbridge’s catch phrase: For every problem, there’s always a solution.
Falling back on his Omega training, Nine allowed his subconscious mind to take over. He drifted into a trance-like state so he could intuit the answer to his problem.
Nine soon found himself thinking about White Gold. He knew Doctor Pedemont always kept a jar of the powder in his office on the orphanage’s third floor.
The ninth orphan snapped out of his self-imposed trance and opened his eyes. He wondered why of all things ORME, or White Gold, had entered his mind. Doing his best to ignore the holographic images of murder still being beamed into his tank, Nine mentally reviewed everything he knew about the substance.
He recalled a classified military document Omega had allowed the orphans to read. It had mentioned experiments the US military had conducted using ORME. Apparently, the military had discovered an unexpected but useful side-effect of White Gold: when smothered on vehicles and planes, they became invisible to radar and satellite technologies, and all transmission devices failed to emit signals effectively.
Although Nine already had the equivalent of a doctorate-level understanding of chemistry, biology and physics, the substance was off the charts and seemed to defy logical laws of science. Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements were in the realm of quantum physics, hyperdimensional theory and some would say the Twilight Zone. He didn’t fully understand it, and neither did the Omega scientists still testing it.
Nine didn’t care about the exact nature of the powder though. His only interest in White Gold was that it had been observed to exhibit a cloak of invisibility and signals in its presence were corrupted. The military’s report had stated more testing needed to be done, but if the initial experiments were accurate then the substance made anything undetectable to radar. It certainly did not constitute complete evidence, but Nine suddenly felt hopeful that ORME would provide him with a way out of Omega’s maze.
If he could coat the skin of his forearm in White Gold, he knew he had a chance at getting off-radar, literally. The substance would in theory interfere with the signal broadcast from his implanted microchip, just as it had in the military vehicles and planes. Effectively it would make him invisible to Omega’s vast satellite network.
He was confident he could borrow some of the powder from Doctor Pedemont’s office. After all, he had successfully borrowed the doctor’s binoculars when he spied on Helen from the tree house.
As the audacious escape plan crystallized in his mind, Nine found he relaxed all of a sudden. He floated without tension in the warm, saline water. Not even the brutal holographic images of operatives killing just inches from his face troubled him now.
For the first time in his in his life, he felt like he was evolving into an individual. It was a healthy, rebellious energy surging up within – the exact opposite to the group consciousness or hive mentality he had experienced since birth.
An individual was something he was never meant to become. Indeed, it was something he could never become, unless he somehow did the impossible and permanently severed his ties with Omega and the orphanage. Now I’m gonna attempt the impossible. He closed his eyes. I’ll use the skills they taught me and the White Gold they used to nurture me.
Nine laughed aloud. It seemed fitting he would be employing everything Omega had given him to escape their clutches.
#
Baroque music continued to play through the basement’s speakers later that afternoon as the orphans resumed their studies on couches in a library located slap bang in the middle of the basement. Book shelves took the place of partitions, and each shelf contained scores of books on all manner of subjects.
Today, a hundred selected books had been placed on a coffee table in front of the orphans. Each orphan had to speed-read every single book. It usually took them only an hour or so to complete such a session. The sound of fluttering pages could be heard throughout the basement as they flipped the pages at a page per second or faster.
The advanced reading technique that allowed them to mentally process books at this accelerated rate was known as mind photography. It was a method that employed peripheral vision and photographic memory to pick up entire pages at a time. As they did for most practices in the orphanage, the children performed mind photography in uncommon brainwaves for regular wakeful consciousness. In this case it was predominantly gamma waves, and it allowed them to tap into the genius of their subconscious minds.
Nine finished reading The Catcher in the Rye and put it back on the tabletop. As he reached for the next book, he looked up and saw Seventeen was reading The Art of War. He couldn’t help thinking that was very appropriate as he picked up Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. The classic novel’s plot, which his mind processed super fast, also seemed very appropriate to him as it involved themes of love lost, confinement and injustice.
As he continued to flip through its pages, he began to fantasize about esca
ping the Pedemont Orphanage once and for all and finding Helen, his first and only true love.
14
Doctor Pedemont didn’t give Nine a second glance as he stepped out of his third floor office and hurried toward the nearest stairwell. If the doctor had studied his ninth-born creation closely, he may have noticed the tension in the boy’s face and wondered why he was loitering on this floor.
Although Doctor Pedemont was under orders to keep his office door locked in his absence, he’d long since neglected to do that. And Nine had long been aware of this – ever since he’d started borrowing the doctor’s binoculars to spy on Helen.
As soon as the doctor disappeared downstairs and Nine was satisfied no-one else was around, he slipped into the vacated office. He immediately placed a towel over the security camera, before it could capture his image. Next, he moved toward what he had come for: the near-full jar of White Gold Powder he knew was always there. Retrieving it, he quickly unscrewed the lid and poured some of the powder into a small flour bag he’d uplifted earlier from the kitchen. He returned the jar to its original place, on a bookcase shelf.
Checking to make sure the corridor was clear, Nine removed the towel from the security camera, then left the office and headed for his quarters two levels below. A glance outside confirmed the blizzard that had been forecast had arrived with a vengeance. Rain and snow lashed the orphanage’s windows. Nine felt relieved the forecasters were right for once.
It had been a fairly mild Chicago winter until now, but the late February blizzard was a sign there would be no early spring this year. In fact, the city’s temperatures had just plummeted to record lows. That suited Nine just fine for what he was planning.
#
Cavell wagged his tail a little sadly as if sensing a goodbye. The Japanese Spitz temporarily blocked Nine’s path to the orphanage’s front door. The boy quickly patted his beloved dog behind the ear, then gently moved him out of the way.