The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2) (10 page)

“Wassup?” the Native American boy asked.

“Nine. He’s gone.”

“Yeah, Tommy told us he went for a training run.”

“Na, that’s just his cover story. He’s split from this joint.” Seventeen pointed to Nine’s bedside cabinet. “Look, his backpack is gone.” She then opened the cabinet’s bottom drawer where she knew Nine kept his wallet. There was no sign of it. “And he’s taken his wallet.” She looked skeptically at One. “Why would he take his wallet on a training run?”

Numero Uno shrugged. “In case he can’t be bothered running back and gets a cab?”

Seventeen ignored One’s attempt at humor and headed for the exit.

One figured she meant to alert Kentbridge. He knew there was no love lost between her and Nine. “Seventeen. Wait a minute.”

Seventeen stopped in mid-stride and turned back to Numero Uno. The pained look on her face confirmed she was intent on reporting Nine’s disappearance.

One casually strolled over to her. “I’m not convinced Nine has split, but let’s say he has.” He eyeballed his opposite and lowered his voice. “So what? We’d all like to get the hell outta this dump. If Nine gets away he may get the chance to blow the whistle on Omega and,” he looked around at their surroundings, “expose this place for what it really is.”

Seventeen shook her head. “We gotta look after ourselves. If we don’t tell Tommy now, he’ll find out we covered for his golden boy and he’ll punish every one of us.”

She headed for the exit again. This time, One blocked her path. An argument broke out. By now, several other orphans had come to investigate. As the arguing escalated, all the other orphans present converged on the pair.

“Who are you to play God?” One asked.

“Nine has zero chance of escaping,” Seventeen retorted. She pushed up the left sleeve of her cardigan and pointed to her exposed forearm. “His microchip will give away his location as soon as they know he’s missing. He’ll be caught within minutes.”

As the other orphans came up to speed, they unanimously sided with One. While they all felt varying degrees of jealousy toward the ninth-born orphan, they sympathized with his yearning for freedom. They, too, felt like prisoners and, if they were honest, most had thought about escaping the orphanage more than once. Not Seventeen, though. She knew her place – and it was right where she was, at the Pedemont Orphanage.

Unfortunately for Seventeen, she was outnumbered. Her fellow orphans stood between her and the exit. It was clear there was unanimous support for Nine’s escape attempt and, for the moment at least, she was going to have to fall in line.

“Do we have an understanding?” One asked her.

An indignant Seventeen refused to admit defeat. Instead, she sulked back to her bed to indulge her penchant for electronic music of the Soviet Union. Behind her back, One nodded to the others and motioned to them to disperse.

#

Nine had been running thirty minutes non-stop since escaping from the Latino gang members back at the church. The snow, which was denser still, combined with his exhaustion, had reduced his progress to a slow shuffle. He was running near-blind as the gale-force wind whipped stinging icicles into his eyes, and his extremities felt numb.

The orphan knew that if his Omega masters weren’t looking for him yet, they soon would be. Nine had no idea whether his plan to use the White Gold to block the transmission signal emitted from the microchip in his forearm was working. He was simply relying on the validity of reported military experiments.

The boy prayed his current location was now untraceable.
Guess I’ll find out soon enough
. Meanwhile, he knew he just needed to trust and hope for the best.

Nine’s end game was to get to California – to the coastal town of Santa Monica to be precise. For that was where he’d learned Helen and her father had relocated.

The clue to Helen’s whereabouts had come from the name
Katsarakis
, which Nine had observed on the side of her suitcase the last time he saw her. Assuming that was her surname, he’d called former neighbors of the Katsarakis’s from various public telephone booths around Riverdale. He’d phoned in the guise of a bank clerk, a local council worker, an apprentice locksmith and a junior telecommunications employee. Fortunately, his voice had recently broken and now sounded quite mature for his age. The neighbors had accepted he was who he said he was, and had told him what he wanted to know.

In the course of these calls, he’d learned Helen’s father, one Yanni Katsarakis, was a US Postal Service employee. A call to USPS headquarters in Washington D.C. revealed Yanni had been transferred to a post office in Santa Monica.

The orphan refocused on the present.
I need to get out of Illinois before I can even think about Helen or California
. He was heading north along the residential streets of the South Side. His immediate destination was downtown Chicago. He thought he’d be harder to find in the city. Out here, in the suburbs, he felt totally exposed.

17

Kentbridge sat before his computer in his third floor office at the orphanage, drafting his weekly report for Naylor. It was a task he never relished for it always reminded him how far removed he was from the world of the field operative – the same world that Naylor had recalled him from to mentor the agency’s precious orphans.

On this occasion, the report was causing him more angst than usual. Five minutes earlier, whilst walking unobserved past the orphans’ sleeping quarters, he’d witnessed One and the other orphans berating Seventeen. About what, he hadn’t a clue. Normally he’d have investigated, but not today. He had recently promised himself he’d give the orphans more freedom to express themselves as young adults. For that’s what they were – physically and mentally at least, though maybe not emotionally.

While his paternal instinct had been to intervene when he saw his charges arguing, he’d thought better of it, preferring to let them sort it out like adults. Even so, it was playing on his mind. Finally, he banished it from his thoughts and refocused on his troublesome weekly report.

Elsewhere on the third floor, Doctor Pedemont sat before his computer writing his own weekly report for Naylor. His fingers raced all over the keyboard. Unlike Kentbridge, the doctor was in his element reporting on his week’s activities and, in his eyes at least, his stellar achievements.

Looking up from his keyboard, he noticed the jar of White Gold he kept on the bookshelf next to his desk was not quite as he’d left it. Although it was less than a quarter of an inch out of place, Doctor Pedemont spotted the anomaly immediately. Nobody else would have noticed it, but he suffered ataxophobia, a fear of disorder or untidiness. To him, a jar even slightly out of place stood out as though it had a neon sign attached to it.

Fortunately, in his highly specialized line of work, ataxophobia was something of a strength as orderliness and tidiness were prerequisites. 

The doctor then looked up at the security camera in the ceiling and noticed it was pointed in a different angle than usual, as if someone had bumped it.

#

Outside, the blizzard continued unabated. This provided a challenge for Nine who was now no longer on foot. He was traveling on a 250cc motorbike he’d stolen from a shopping mall parking lot earlier, and the snow and ice made riding treacherous even for experienced riders.

To some extent, Nine was having to learn how to ride on the run. Although he had practiced driving vehicles and riding motorcycles before, it had almost entirely been simulated in the virtual reality environment. And certainly he’d never been given any instructions on how to ride in such extreme conditions. However, like all the Pedemont children, he had brilliant motor-mechanical skills and was able to learn and adapt much quicker than the average citizen.

As the orphan negotiated South Michigan Avenue, keeping his speed to a crawl, he was near blinded by the snow that clung to the visor of his stolen helmet, and the front wheel of his bike skidded alarmingly on the icy road.
I must have a death wish.
No other motorcyclists were on the road.
What does that tell me?
Several unoccupied vehicles, including a bus, had clearly been abandoned after breaking down or stalling in the cold. They were in danger of being buried beneath the snow.

Not for the first time, Nine replayed in his mind what he was planning to do. His original plan, to catch a bus or train, or perhaps steal a car and flee the state, was now on hold as he suspected the blizzard would even grind all public transport to a halt, if it hadn’t already. Now, he planned to do the next best thing – to hunker down in the city until the blizzard cleared and he could make good his escape.

Traveling parallel to Lake Michigan, Nine glanced to his right and saw the barely visible outline of Soldier Field stadium. It was blanketed in white, like everything else was. Ahead, he could just make out the skyscrapers towering over the Loop – the city’s central business district.

Entering the southern end of Downtown Chicago, the motorbike’s front wheel skidded yet again, convincing Nine he needed to ditch the bike before he killed himself. He drove down the first alley he came to and pulled up behind an Irish bar. Checking to confirm he wasn’t being observed, he continued on foot toward the city center.

Nine glanced at his watch. It had now been ninety minutes since he’d left the orphanage. He reminded himself if he could get out of Chicago, and preferably out of Illinois, there was the potential to be free of Omega’s tentacles forever. And just as importantly, to locate and court Helen.

As he’d been trained to do on any assignment, Nine psyched himself up for what lay ahead.
Today’s the day you become a human being instead of a number.
He embraced these empowering thoughts.
First things first. Find a place to hole up until this blizzard clears
. He quickened his pace.

18

Kentbridge was finally making headway drafting his weekly report when his office door flew open and Doctor Pedemont burst in. He was clutching the jar of White Gold and breathing hard, having just run along a long corridor and almost collided with Nurse Hilda.

“What the hell?”

“Sorry, Tommy.” The doctor gasped. “But I think some White Gold was stolen.”

Doctor Pedemont explained his suspicions and mentioned the out-of-kilter video surveillance camera in his office.

“Was your office door locked?”

The guilty look on the doctor’s face gave Kentbridge his answer. The special agent leapt out of his chair and ran out of his office, followed by his flustered colleague.

#

Kentbridge and Doctor Pedemont looked on impatiently as an Omega IT employee, Dwayne, fast-forwarded the video tape they’d retrieved moments earlier from the surveillance camera in the doctor’s office. They were in a sealed computer room on the same floor as Kentbridge’s office. Nearby, two IT specialists sat working at their stations.

Minutes dragged by as the pair viewed footage of the doctor’s vacant office in fast motion on Dwayne’s computer screen. The screen suddenly turned black as if the lights had been turned off.

“Stop it there,” Kentbridge ordered.

Dwayne stopped the tape, wound it back and replayed it, this time in slow motion. As before, the screen turned black.

“Can you slow it down more?” Kentbridge asked.

“You bet,” Dwayne said. He replayed it in ultra-slow motion. This time, something resembling a towel or blanket could be seen inching up the screen until it covered the camera lenses completely. “Someone obviously covered the camera.”

“Obviously.” Kentbridge had a flashback to the orphans’ altercation he’d witnessed as he’d passed their quarters earlier. Without a word, he strode from the room. Behind him, Doctor Pedemont and Dwayne looked at each other, bemused.

Kentbridge’s mind was racing as he descended the stairs three at a time to the orphans’ quarters on the first floor. His gut told him something was amiss. Exactly what, he hadn’t a clue. He pulled up before reaching the orphans’ quarters and peered in through the open doorway. Everything seemed normal. The children hung out playing snooker, cards or watching television, as they’d been doing most of the day. Kentbridge noticed Seventeen looked like she was sulking.
But then she always looks sulky
. He quietly entered the room.

Thirteen, the Polynesian boy, was the first to notice the special agent. He looked his master in the eye before quickly returning his attention to the card game was playing.

Kentbridge scanned the faces of the rest of his charges.
They all look dead guilty
. He got straight to the point. “I know something’s up, people!” He glared at each and every one of them. “Now who’s going to tell me?”

None of the orphans spoke up. Recalling the earlier altercation he’d witnessed, Kentbridge turned to Seventeen. “What were you and the others arguing about earlier?”

Seventeen was surprised to learn that Kentbridge had seen the incident. She opened her mouth to respond. “I--”

“It was nothing,” One interjected. “Seventeen was just trying to out-do us as usual.”

Several other orphans nodded in agreement, but Kentbridge didn’t buy it. He did a quick headcount and realized one orphan was missing.

Nine’s missing!

He remembered the boy had left for a training run.
Hell, that was nearly two hours ago
. He scowled at the children. “Where’s Nine?” His tone and the expression on his face left them in no doubt he was angry and in no mood to be lied to.

The orphans looked at him as if to say
game over
. Still no-one spoke.

Kentbridge knew Nine’s absence could only mean one of two things: either he’d had a mishap or he’d absconded. Praying it wasn’t the latter, he hastily pulled a small handheld computer from his jacket pocket. He always carried it on him. Flicking on a switch, it immediately booted up. Its home page, a digital map of Chicago, appeared on its miniature monitor. It always had twenty three flashing red dots on it, confirming receipt of the signals transmitted from the microchips inside each orphan.