The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2)

by James Morcan

  Biased though he was, Kentbridge knew the results were stunning. The orphans were performing at a higher level than even he had dared. Certainly, the Omega directors were impressed – including the demanding Naylor – and the consensus was the orphans were worth every cent of the millions of dollars that had gone into their development.

  In a little under six years the orphans would be unleashed and sent on assignments around the globe, and Kentbridge couldn’t wait for that.

  Meanwhile, there were monthly reports to provide, and that’s what Kentbridge was currently grappling with. As he pored over his latest report, he saw that Nine remained top of the class as always. While other orphans may have beaten the boy in certain tests, Nine almost always achieved the best results over all, proving his all-round consistency month in, month out.

  Close behind, and always challenging for the number one position, was Seventeen. She was the best of all the orphans, Nine included, in a number of activities – marksmanship, interrogation techniques and mathematics in particular – but rarely challenged Nine for the overall top ranking. Although the orphans never got to see the rankings, Kentbridge knew that Seventeen was aware of Nine’s superiority. Not that she’d ever admit it, even to herself.

  The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. He picked it up. “Kentbridge.” The caller was his wife, Rachel. He could tell immediately she was crying. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “I can’t keep doing this, Tommy,” Rachel sobbed.

  “What happened?”

  “There’s no change,” Rachel said. “I’ve been prodded with more needles and had more things shoved up me!” She was shouting now.

  “Try to stay calm.”

  “It’s all been for nothing!” she cried. “I’m so tired, Tommy.”

  Kentbridge knew exactly what Rachel was talking about. She hadn’t been able to conceive naturally and so they were going through an IVF fertility plan to induce a pregnancy. So far, it had been one failure after another and Rachel was nearing the end of her tether. “What did the doctor say?” he asked gently.

  “I can’t go through all this now,” she sobbed. “He wrote it all down for us. The bottom line is yet another process has failed.”

  Kentbridge could sympathize. Rachel had been undergoing IVF treatment for the past few months, but it seemed like forever. Each stage of the process was more harrowing than the last. His heart went out to her. “Honey, I don’t know what to say.”

  As he tried to comfort his wife, he glanced at a live feed on his laptop. It was coming from the orphanage’s dining room courtesy of a surveillance camera installed in the room’s ceiling. The orphans were eating around a large, rectangular dining table. Kentbridge did a quick headcount to confirm all twenty three were present.

  “All I feel is blackness, Tommy,” Rachel whimpered.

  “I’m coming home now. Try not to worry. I’ll be there soon.” Kentbridge hung up and began to gather his paperwork. He intended to finish his monthly report at home.

  54

  In the dining room, Six and Twenty looked on with undisguised pride as their fellow orphans tucked into the Spaghetti Bolognese they’d prepared. The consensus was the meal was first class. Even Ten refrained from indulging in his usual ribbing.

  Nine sat alone at one end of the long table, a little apart from the others. It felt surreal to be back in the orphanage, eating at the same table he’d consumed literally thousands of meals at. His head was still spinning from all the information Kentbridge had recently revealed to him. He was now confused as to exactly what Omega was and what it stood for. Previously, he thought he had the organization figured out, but now it seemed much more complex.

  As he curled another mouthful of spaghetti around his fork, Nine thought of Helen back in California. His feelings for the girl he’d been willing to risk everything for were something of a revelation for him. Not for the first time since returning to Chicago, he was surprised he now felt nothing at all for Helen. It embarrassed him to think he’d been prepared to give up everything, even his life, for some girl who didn’t even care for him.

  I’ll never make that mistake again.

  Nine focused on his meal and made short work of it. When he looked up from his now empty plate, he saw he was under scrutiny. His fellow orphans seemed intrigued by the boy who had challenged their Omega masters. Three male orphans were staring at him. One, Thirteen and Twenty Two had made no secret of their desire to find out what Nine had gotten up to during his unauthorized escapades. They were always pestering him to tell them more.

  “Tell us something else about your adventures,” Thirteen insisted.

  Nine realized every eye around the table was now on him. He’d already told them almost everything that had happened to him during his all-too-brief escape from the orphanage, but his fellows had made it clear they didn’t mind hearing the same stories again. It was as if they wanted to vicariously experience some of what he had gone through.

  Knowing they would keep hounding him until he revealed every last detail, Nine relented. “There was this cop on a motorcycle who pulled me over. I waited until he was distracted, then gave him the slip. I hid in an underground car park until he gave up and left.”

  “Sounds like a scene from a movie,” Thirteen, the Polynesian boy, said excitedly.

  Seventeen retorted, “More like a scene from Nine’s over-active imagination.”

  “What?” Nine asked.

  Seventeen ignored Nine. “How can we verify any of his tall stories. He can tell us anything and we have no way of knowing if it really happened.”

  “Why would I lie?” Nine asked.

  “To cover your embarrassment. You disrespected our masters and had given up on being an operative. All because of the girl next door. You were like some pathetic pussy!”

  Nine hated Seventeen at that moment. Sarcastic bitch. And he hated the way condescending words just seemed to roll effortlessly off her tongue.

  Determined to ignore her, Nine downed the drink he and the other orphans had been provided to go with the meal. The taste of the all too familiar cocktail was another stark reminder that he really was back in the orphanage. Known as Mother’s Nectar, the drink had been formulated by Doctor Pedemont to compensate for the fact that the orphans were never breastfed. Its primary ingredient was virgin coconut oil – nature’s only abundant source of the highly-nutritional lauric acid besides a mother’s breast milk. Like White Gold Powder, the orphans had consumed Mother’s Nectar their entire lives.

  “And in the end,” Seventeen continued, “this Greek girl found you to be a creep and wanted nothing to do with you.”

  Nine wondered how she had found all that out. Little did he know she had eavesdropped on a conversation between Doctor Andrews and Nurse Hilda. They’d been discussing Nine’s capture – something the doctor would have been reprimanded for if Kentbridge had known.

  Seventeen smiled sadistically, realizing she had found a way to hurt Nine. “I hear Tommy had to rescue you from Miss Greece, and from yourself.”

  Nine finally lost his temper. “Are you capable of feeling anything but jealousy?”

  “Jealous? Of you?” Seventeen scoffed. “As if!”

  “You spend every second competing, Seventeen. Always trying to be the best--”

  “I am the best.”

  “Listen to yourself, you crazy bitch. You don’t even realize this hovel is nothing!” He looked around pointedly at the dining room’s humble décor and furnishings, which were typical of the entire orphanage. “It’s not even part of the real world. We may as well be laboratory mice, or worse. It’s like we’re dead in here.”

  “I heard your little Juliet even helped set you up to be captured.” Seventeen clicked her tongue. “God, that must’ve been so humiliating for you, Romeo.”

  Realizing he’d never be able to get through to her, Nine grabbed his empty plate and stood up as he prepared to leave. “If you’re so happy being an Omegan, why don’t you go and l
ive at HQ so you can kiss Naylor’s ass every day.” Nine pointed at Seventeen’s half-full glass of Mother’s Nectar, then added, “And maybe he’ll provide you with his own nectar!”

  The others laughed. Furious, Seventeen stood up in front of Nine, blocking his exit. Nine looked into her cold blue eyes and realized she was ready for a fight.

  “Let’s settle this in the gym now,” Seventeen said.

  Refusing to engage, Nine tried to walk around her, but she moved to prevent him.

  “You chicken or something?” Seventeen baited him.

  “I already kicked your ass in the gym before I went to California--”

  “That was then. During your absence, Tommy taught us new fighting techniques.”

  Nine rolled his eyes. This only angered Seventeen more. She moved closer to Nine, trying to provoke him to make the first move.

  “Just leave him be, Seventeen,” Twenty Three piped up.

  Seventeen spun around to face the youngest orphan. “Shut the hell up, idiot.”

  “Bite me,” Twenty Three shot back.

  More laughter.

  Seventeen turned around too late to prevent Nine from leaving the room. She hurried after him, but pulled up when she saw Kentbridge at the foot of the stairs with a Government child welfare officer who had arrived unannounced to deliver forms. Such visitors were reasonably common and all of the orphanage’s staff, as well as all the orphans themselves, had been trained in how to handle and appease them.

  Kentbridge, who was on his way home to comfort his wife, stopped briefly to converse with the officer. In his capacity as head of the orphanage, he’d long since mastered the art of diplomacy when it came to dealing with bureaucrats. As he was already laden down with files, he gestured for Nine to take the forms from the officer before walking out the front door and leaving the orphan to entertain the visitor.

  While Nine exchanged pleasantries with the visitor, he could sense Seventeen’s eyes on him.

  Seventeen fantasized about tormenting her fellow orphan.

  I’ll get you one day, prick. When you least expect it, I’ll inflict so much pain you’ll wish you were dead.

  55

  “For every problem, there is always a solution!” Ten shouted Kentbridge’s catch phrase to the other orphans.

  Impersonating Kentbridge, the orphanage’s resident joker strutted around the orphanage basement in front of his appreciative audience. He had the head of the Pedemont Project down to a tee – soldierly demeanor, formal posture and all.

  Even Nine found himself chuckling. He glanced at Seventeen who rarely laughed. She wasn’t laughing yet, but there was the hint of a smile on her face.

  The orphans were filling in time until Kentbridge arrived for their next lesson. They’d just finished listening to a military history seminar delivered by their long-time teacher, Professor Charles Lidcombe. The subject matter had been two military initiatives of recent decades: Operation Just Cause, the US invasion of Panama in the late Eighties, and Operation Eagle Claw, the disastrous Special Forces mission to free fifty three hostages from the American Embassy in Iran nearly ten years earlier.

  While the subject matter was interesting, Professor Lidcombe’s delivery had been fairly dry as usual and the orphans were about ready for some light relief. Ten’s antics provided just that before Kentbridge arrived for the last scheduled lesson of the morning.

  Continuing with his impersonation of the special agent, Ten said, “The first rule of survival is to make use of your surroundings.” To demonstrate, he picked up a magazine and flung it at the head of Four, an older, brown-haired boy.

  Four just managed to evade the magazine as it hurtled past him.

  “Well done, Four.” Ten nodded to the alert orphan. “Lesson learned.”

  The other orphans laughed and applauded Ten’s impersonation, willing him to continue. They quieted for a moment when Doctor Andrews entered the basement through a side door some fifty paces distant. The bespectacled doctor paid the orphans no attention as he went about preparing their doses of White Gold. The orphans turned their attention back to Ten who resumed his impersonation.

  “Remember, it is your genetic destiny to become the ultimate operatives, capable of assassinating any enemy!”

  A moment later, Nurse Hilda entered the basement via the same side door the doctor had used. She was in the company of another staffer. The orphans were shocked to see the staffer was Doctor Andrews, or his identical twin at least. He, too, was holding a tray of White Gold phials.

  The confused orphans looked back at the earlier arrival whom they’d believed to be the doctor. He was now walking toward them. As he drew close, the nearest orphans gasped. They’d recognized the man who was now only ten paces from them. It was Kentbridge disguised as Doctor Andrews.

  Removing his spectacles, a heavily made-up Kentbridge walked directly up to Ten. The comedic orphan didn’t know where to look. Gone was the confidence and swagger of a few moments earlier. Knowing the man he’d been impersonating – his mentor and master – had virtually witnessed the entire impersonation made him wish he could find a hole to crawl into.

  Kentbridge suddenly smiled. “I gotta admit that was a pretty good parody, Ten. That skill will be handy once you’re an operative and need to become other people.”

  Ten was relieved not to be disciplined. He and his fellows were impressed that Kentbridge didn’t take himself too seriously. It was a side of him they hadn’t seen before.

  As the special agent prepared to address the orphans, Nurse Hilda and the real Doctor Andrews circulated among them, dispensing the phials of White Gold. The orphans automatically placed the powder under their tongues almost without thinking.

  Kentbridge unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a small black kit strapped to his chest. The kit was held in place by Velcro. He ripped the kit off his chest, unzipped it and tipped its contents onto a tabletop in front of his young audience. Its contents comprised a variety of cosmetics, facial prosthetics, contact lenses and other disguise-aids. The cosmetics were stored in tiny tubes and dispensers, and the other disguise-aids included glasses, a hand mirror, false teeth and a moustache.

  “This little black kit will allow you to be chameleons and change guises while on the run,” Kentbridge announced. “But first you need to learn the fine art of makeup.”

  As if on cue, an adult operative entered. She was a tall woman who had an incongruous appearance. Her face was doll-like and her persona uber feminine, yet her body was totally ripped with imposing muscles like a male bodybuilder.

  “Meet Samantha,” Kentbridge said.

  The unusual looking operative acknowledged the orphans with a faint smile.

  “Samantha is one of our best operatives,” Kentbridge continued. “She’s a master of disguise and will teach you some of the tricks of her trade.” He nodded to the operative.

  Samantha immediately pointed to Eleven, the beautiful brunette girl. She had been nicknamed the Beauty Orphan because of the abundance of attractive genes she’d inherited when Doctor Pedemont had engineered her birth. Her features matched the modern ideals of beauty and she appeared to have the makings of a future Miss Universe.

  Eleven stepped forward and allowed Samantha to sit her down before a full-length mirror Kentbridge had wheeled out from behind a screen. Then, using the cosmetics and other makeup aids on the tabletop, the operative proceeded to demonstrate how they could quickly and effectively be used to change the Beauty Orphan’s appearance.

  At first the changes were subtle. “Note how even the slightest addition of eyeliner or eye shadow changes her look,” Samantha said as she applied a dark eye shadow to her young model, ageing her some nine or ten years.

  The changes became more dramatic. Soon, Eleven was unrecognizable.

  As Samantha worked her magic, quickly changing her model’s appearance time and again with the clever use of the aids at her disposal, the orphans looked on in wonder. Nine in particular was fascinated.

 
Not so impressed was Seventeen. She resented that the Beauty Orphan had become the center of attention. Her feelings of jealousy weren’t solely reserved for Nine: she was jealous of anyone who outshone her. And right now, Eleven was outshining everyone.

  Samantha had turned her model into a sexy twentysomething debutant complete with a fake suntan, creative hairstyle and false eyelashes. If Eleven didn’t have the attention of every male orphan before, she did now.

  Everyone present applauded the work of art before them. Everyone except Seventeen. She was inwardly fuming.

  Samantha turned to her audience. “It’s your turn now,” she said to them all.

  Kentbridge dispensed makeup kits to the other orphans and looked on as Samantha instructed them in the art of disguise. Initially, most of the results were ordinary, some downright hilarious.

  “Mastering the art of disguise will take many years of training,” Kentbridge warned as he walked among his young charges. “But eventually you will all learn how to become human chameleons.” He stopped behind Nine who was demonstrating a natural aptitude for the task at hand. “The art of disguise will allow you to effectively become invisible as you carry out assignments.”

  Aware his mentor was assessing his handiwork, Nine focused on his own reflection in the mirror before him. The face that stared back at him was almost unrecognizable. Through clever use of makeup, hair gel, false stubble and tinted spectacles, he had taken on the look of a sleazy playboy in his early twenties.

  Samantha noticed Kentbridge’s interest in Nine and walked over to assist the orphan. She was impressed by Nine’s efforts. “Here, let me,” she said, fixing up the flaws in Nine’s make-up techniques before adding eye bags below the orphan’s eyes. “There, that’s aged you another two or three years.”

  Kentbridge and Samantha weren’t the only ones observing Nine. Nearby, Seventeen was annoyed to see that Nine’s disguise was clearly the best of all the orphans. The more she dwelt on Nine’s success, the more her efforts to create a believable disguise for herself backfired.