by James Morcan
It felt surreal to Nine to be saying goodbye to the orphanage once and for all, especially as this day had come around so quickly. It didn’t seem that long ago he was desperately trying to escape from the place he’d always considered a dump. So much had happened in his short life it felt as though time had sped up and even though he was still only eighteen, he felt closer to eighty at times.
Finally, he climbed out of the Audi and strolled over to join Kentbridge.
The special agent greeted him with a warm smile. “Glad you could make it, Sebastian.”
“Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
The two shook hands and then turned their attention to the demolition crews’ preparations.
Anyone casually observing the pair as they leaned against the Chrysler could be excused for thinking them father and son. Of similar height and appearance, each exuded strength and confidence, and they seemed totally at ease in each other’s company.
Both men remained silent for a full minute as the huge wrecking ball began its ominous arc through the air, each swing carrying it closer to the orphanage’s top floor. The ball’s first contact with the building’s timbered exterior was an anti-climax: it hardly touched the timber, and the only sound it made was a barely audible clink.
As the ball resumed its arc through the air, both men found they were holding their breath in anticipation of what was coming. Finally, the wrecking ball smashed into the orphanage, sending splintered timber flying in all directions and leaving a gaping hole in the side of the building.
“And so it begins,” Kentbridge said. “Just think. Nobody outside of Omega is aware of the incredible things twenty four orphans achieved inside that humble old building--”
“Wait a minute,” Nine interjected. “You mean twenty three orphans, right?”
Kentbridge shook his head. “You were never meant to know this, but I was Number Zero. You see, I was orphaned when I was two. My folks both died in a car crash.”
Surprised, Nine attempted to connect this news with the man he knew so well. He would have never have guessed Kentbridge understood what it was like for a child not to have the support of parents. He’d always pictured his mentor growing up in a tightly-knit family in a stereotypical American household.
“Even if I say so myself,” Kentbridge continued, “Naylor deemed me to be the perfect operative. He decided I was to be the prototype for you guys.”
Nine had been rendered speechless. He watched the wrecking ball as it carried on with its relentless destruction of the orphanage while Kentbridge continued to open up to him.
“Naylor had this theory I was a superior operative because I was an orphan with no family distractions. I was his inspiration for creating the Pedemont Project, so he officially registered me in the program as Zero.”
Nine still couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He tore his eyes away from what was left of the orphanage and looked at Kentbridge in a whole new light. “Why did Naylor choose the number zero?”
“Zero comes before the number one, yet in a way it doesn’t exist. And I came before you and all of your fellow orphans, yet I don’t exist on your genetic frequency. So even though none of you have my genes, you all kind of derived from me as I taught you everything I knew.”
Kentbridge grew distracted as a loud screeching noise came from the crane across the street. Its motor misfired a couple of times and then shut down altogether. The two Omegans looked on as the crane operator began tinkering with the motor in an attempt to restart it.
Although Nine watched the operator, his thoughts were elsewhere. He was trying to come to grips with what he’d just learned. He looked back at his mentor, willing him to keep talking.
Kentbridge didn’t take the bait. He considered he’d already told his protégé enough about himself for the moment. Changing the subject, he said, “You know, this was the last orphanage in America.”
“I didn’t know that.” Nine was tempted to remind Kentbridge that Pedemont wasn’t a real orphanage, or even a legitimate one.
“Funny, at first I hated that building and being in charge of you kids. I always wanted to remain an operative in the field, like you are now. But standing here today, I know I’m going to miss the family atmosphere we had in there.” He nodded toward the remains of the orphanage. “I wish that could’ve gone on forever.”
Kentbridge paused as he thought of his wife and the failed IVF program he’d put her through – and himself through for that matter. Now in their forties, he and Rachel had given up trying for children of their own. The events surrounding the Guyana mission had brought home to him that the orphans were effectively his kids, even if they didn’t carry his genes.
The crane fired back into life and the wrecking ball resumed its deadly arc through the air. Both Omegans watched as the ball smashed into the building’s lower floors.
Kentbridge continued, “I sense I’ll look back on my time in there with you guys as the best years of my life.”
“Personally, I’m glad it’s being demolished,” Nine said harshly. “All the memories I have of that place, and all the propaganda you instilled in us, should be buried forever.”
Surprised, Kentbridge looked at his protégé enquiringly.
“Remember that time after you tracked me down in California, you brought me back here and explained Omega’s grand design?”
Kentbridge nodded.
“Do you recall what you told me?”
“Not clearly, no.”
“You said regular citizens were all prisoners of their own limited realities. Their own limited understanding of the way our world really works.”
Kentbridge nodded. He vaguely recalled saying something like that.
“And you know what? At the time, you actually convinced me. But now I know better.” Nine thought about some of the people he’d met outside the orphanage’s walls. Real people like Helen and her father, Ace and the homeless of Los Angeles, residents of Chicago, women he’d bedded in recent years. “Common people understand more than you give them credit for. They live for what really matters. Love, family, community. While we sacrifice all those things in the name of some supposed greater good.”
Nine went silent for a few seconds as two pedestrians walked past. He continued as soon as they were out of earshot.
“All those years ago, you portrayed Omega as…What did you call it? The resistance? Now I realize that’s not the case. On the contrary, it’s part of the same fascist element which overthrew the Government of the day back around the time of Kennedy’s assassination.”
Kentbridge went to speak, but Nine talked right over him.
“If an organization is covert and run by the elite, then it can never be for the people, even if that was the original intention. The New World Order is about the strong dominating the weak. Disguised as peaceful globalization or unification, it’s a smokescreen used by the greedy to gain control of the weak and the vulnerable, be they people or nations.”
“You are not understanding how complex--”
“I don’t understand,” Nine interjected. “Damn right I don’t. I don’t understand why Helen needed to be killed when I told you I’d already bought her silence!”
“Helen’s dead?” a genuinely surprised Kentbridge asked. Responding to Nine’s accusing glare, he said, “You know Naylor doesn’t involve me in many decisions. He obviously decided of his own volition she must be terminated--”
“For the greater good,” Nine said, finishing Kentbridge’s sentence for him.
“In the case of the Greek girl, you got a citizen involved in Omega’s business.”
Nine had no answer for that.
“You don’t get it,” Kentbridge added. “I always warned you there’d be casualties along the way.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t get it, Zero.” Nine spoke with more authority than he’d ever spoken to his mentor before. “We are both just pawns. Our only use is to expand Omega’s sphere of influence and wealth, no m
atter what the cost or body count.”
“Well, what are ya gonna do, Sebastian?” Kentbridge made it sound like he was asking a rhetorical question. “Omega is your life. Outside of this organization, you don’t exist.”
As much as he hated to admit it, Nine knew his mentor was right.
“Like I told you years ago, it’s your destiny to be an operative. Unless you kill yourself, you can never escape from Omega. So you gotta accept that and find a way to live with it.”
The conversation between the two petered out. It was as though they’d said all there was to be said. They returned their attention to the wrecking ball, which was now nearing the end of its use on this particular job. All that remained of the orphanage was a brick chimney and a pile of debris.
Glancing at Kentbridge, Nine thought his mentor’s eyes were misting over at the sight of his beloved orphanage having been reduced to rubble. He’d never seen the man’s sentimental side. He wondered if it was because Kentbridge knew he could teach him nothing more, and that the master sensed the pupil was about to leave him behind. The thought also occurred, fleetingly, that Kentbridge possibly viewed him as the son he never had.
A son who is now leaving the nest.
Nine had to admit that a small part of him was saddened by the sight of the pile of rubble that had once been his home. He and Kentbridge watched in silence as the wrecking ball smashed into the brick chimney – the demolition crew’s last remaining obstacle. Seconds later, as the dust cleared, they could see it, too, was now just rubble.
Their eyes were drawn to the old sycamore tree near the boundary fence at the far end of the now empty section. The tree house Kentbridge had built amongst its upper branches was still intact. Like a remnant of some bygone era, it was all that remained.
Epilogue
Over the next thirteen years, a lot happened within the Omega Agency, and rapid progress was made toward establishing Andrew Naylor’s long-held dream of a New World Order. Prospering from the ongoing financial injections of the British Monarchy, the agency undertook numerous operations around the globe, most of which returned large dividends. All this was at the expense of the Nexus Foundation, which waned in power and gradually faded into insignificance.
However, from Nine’s perspective little had changed: he still considered himself a slave to his masters.
If the other orphans shared Nine’s dissatisfaction, they never confided that to him. Even Ten put on a brave face, throwing himself into his work no matter where it took him or how unsavory it may be.
Old rivalries between individual orphans persisted – especially between Nine and Seventeen. To his disgust, she’d become the superstar among Omega’s elite operatives. Credited with having saved the agency from insolvency, she was sent on the most important missions in the relentless drive to further its agenda for global supremacy.
To Seventeen’s delight, after the Guyana mission Nine was no longer viewed as the Pedemont Project’s boy wonder. Judged by Naylor to have botched his first real assignment, Nine was rarely the first choice operative for important missions. More often than not, he was employed in a supporting role, providing assistance for other operatives. Sometimes these included his fellow orphans.
Still, Nine fared better than one or two of his fellows. While only in their twenty first year, the female twins Five and Six had both been captured when on assignment together in the Ukraine. The twins were tortured to within an inch of their lives and required numerous surgeries over the next two years to make a fully recovery. And Fourteen, the young Nordic man, had been held hostage for six months in Somalia. He’d been shot during the attempted abduction of a government official in Mogadishu. Numero Uno, the Native American orphan, had also been shot, but survived as well, albeit with a permanent limp. Such were the dangers Omega’s operatives faced daily.
Tommy Kentbridge’s close involvement with all the orphans continued. Now that their training was over and they’d long since graduated, he controlled their movements in the field, delegating assignments and handling all briefings and debriefings. Kentbridge’s new role had seen him and Rachel relocate to southern Illinois as Naylor had needed him to work closely with himself at HQ.
Marcia Wilson’s stocks at the CIA had continued to rise and she was now well positioned to make a play for the directorship of that agency – to the delight of Naylor and his fellow Omega directors.
Doctor Andrews had also relocated to Omega’s HQ. Reporting only to Naylor, he worked at resurrecting the original grandiosity of Pedemont Project. It took him several years of constant trial and error in Omega’s laboratories, but eventually clones for each of the first batch of orphans were created. Such was the cloak of secrecy that surrounded the second batch, not even Kentbridge knew of their existence.
Meanwhile, Nine’s dissatisfaction with his lot had increased with each passing year. It came to a head on his twenty seventh birthday while on assignment in Cape Town. He’d been providing backup for a veteran Omega operative. During a few celebratory drinks on completion of the mission, the older operative became drunk – and conveniently talkative – and Nine was able to pump him for information on the history of the Pedemont Project. What he learned shocked him.
The veteran told Nine that, contrary to the official story, his mother, Annette Hannar, hadn’t died of a drug overdose. Rather, she’d been terminated on Naylor’s orders as he considered her a security threat. And furthermore, Kentbridge was involved, although the veteran couldn’t elaborate on exactly how involved he was.
As Nine listened, it struck him that the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death sounded eerily similar to the agency’s handling of Helen Katsarakis. The rage he already felt toward Naylor increased tenfold as he digested the fact that the ruthless Omega director was responsible for the death of his mother as well. And the revelation that Kentbridge was also somehow involved added to his fury.
From that moment on, Nine resolved to attempt another escape from the agency. He knew that would be a lot easier said than done. As well as being able to track its orphan-operatives night and day, no matter where they were, Omega kept them busy. One mission followed another with scarcely a break in between – so determined was the agency to get a return on its investment in its orphans. And most of the missions were life and death, many of them in foreign lands hostile to America.
So, Nine could never find the time to formulate a way out. As a result, he felt like he was in a maze he couldn’t escape. Worse, he felt like he was constantly treading the thin red line between sanity and insanity. He hadn’t been able to shake his recurring headaches either. The doctor advised him they were a stress-related, but Nine had already worked that much out for himself. He’d learned to live with them.
To distract himself from his misery, Nine had developed an insatiable appetite for women. Lying in the arms of a beautiful woman, he found he could forget about his suffering – if only for a little while. However, the pain of his real existence always returned.
The ninth orphan decided he’d rather die than continue to live as a slave of the Omega Agency. He was finally prepared to risk all.
His chance came early in 2011 while on assignment in the Philippines. There, he hatched a plan to make a daring bid for freedom…
THE END