PILLARS OF LIGHT AND FIRE: THE COMPLETE SERIES, page 7
“Holy shit, it lives!” the redhead barked as he shoved a fistful of Cheerios into his mouth. Six people sat around the large common table. Piles of food sat in boxes, containers, bowls, utensils, plates, cans, tinfoil, platters, jars, bottles, and cups. The red-haired man wore a dark blue T-shirt that had a large eagle-like emblem on the left breast. Indiana rubbed her eyes. Two black men sat next to each other, wearing olive drab shirts and dog tags. There was a muscled Indian woman eating noodles in a black sports bra. Kai sat next to the red-haired loudmouth. Lastly, there was a tall man with an amused expression under a boonie hat.
The red-haired man spoke first. “You’re Indiana Beckham, aren’t you? I thought Mac was blowing smoke up my ass.” He wiped a greasy hand on his shirt and then shook her hand. It was callused, and the fingers were short, thick, and covered with fine red hair that went up his forearms like he was an ape. “Ed Tiwaz.”
“I don’t care who you are, but if you don’t give me some food, I will end you,” Indiana said, grabbing his plate of lasagna.
Ed laughed. “Feisty! Reminds me of Kai in the morning.”
Kai gave Ed the evil eye. “Everything reminds you of Kai in the morning.”
Indiana choked down the slab of pasta, tomato, and cheese.
“Being out that long will make you hungry. That nutrient drip they give you is only enough to keep you alive. It’s like astronaut food. You hardly shit worth a damn. That’s gotta mess up your gastrointestinal system.” Ed handed her a glass of lemonade.
She motioned for a watermelon slice.
“Slow down or you’ll make yourself sick,” Kai warned as the Indian woman passed the watermelon.
Indiana slammed the cup down and belched. Her thirst and hunger abated slightly. “Who’re you guys?”
Kai frowned. “These are the Delta Series candidates.”
“I thought there were more of you.” Indiana took huge bites of the juicy watermelon. She hooked a chair with her foot and sat.
“This is everyone,” Kai replied.
“She means everyone that was Conditioned and passed the first test battery,” Ed said.
“Just now?”
“You’ve been out a long time. These folks have been through the whole process already.”
Indiana shrugged as she licked her fingers. “And there are what? Five of you?”
“Five of the thirty-eight that went into the god pods,” Kai said.
“And the rest? Did they go home?” She grabbed a loaf of bread.
Kai nodded. “Most were returned to their original commands or sent on with follow-on orders.”
“Oh.” Her fingers paused, half in the bag, other hand reaching for mustard and a tasty-looking platter of shrimp. She made a shrimp and mustard on wheat.
Ed went for a cup of coffee and saw the gleam in Indiana’s eye. He got up and poured her one. “As the beautiful and charismatic ginger, I’ll do the introductions. That’s Sergeant Lamar Jones and right next to him is his cousin Corporal Percy Jones. Marines. Not bright, but they will kill anything you ask them to. Twice just to make sure.”
The two men nodded their heads and said, “Ma’am,” in unison.
“That weightlifting slab of meat is Captain Priya Ellen Noire. She’s an Air Force pilot. She’s just a test pilot under a really long business-sized job title. She’s a vice president of doing shit and lifting pickups. She prefers Ellen.”
“Yes, I do.” The woman flexed her impressive bicep.
“She’s got bigger arms than me,” Lamar quipped.
“I gotta lotta things bigger than you,” Ellen replied.
“Want some aloe for that burn?” Percy added.
Lamar flashed an impressed grin.
“I know Kai.” Indiana accepted the coffee Ed offered. It was scalding and black. In other words, perfect.
“You know Kai. All that’s left is that giant oak sitting next to you. Major Samson Brastius, Special Forces, Fourth Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. Alpha Company. He carries lots of big knives, just like the movies, don’t you, Sam?”
“Only a couple, mate,” the tall man said. His voice was mild, but the accent was unmistakable.
Ed raised his cup. “The rest . . . Well, they served.” Everyone but Indiana followed suit.
Indiana chewed the last piece of apple. “All military?”
“Yes,” Ellen said, cradling her cup of tea.
Indiana turned to Ed. “What do you do?”
“Navy SEAL, like Mac. Bastard didn’t tell me he was off doing something cool. I thought he was going to some cushy-ass desk job after he got shot.”
“Shot? Where?” Indiana was surprised.
“Twice in the abdomen. Kak-kak, as they say.” Ed pantomimed pistol shots.
“She means geographically,” Lamar clarified.
Ed winked. “Somewhere hot and sandy. That was over a year ago. He got better.”
“When is he getting back? I want to get some of those rings!” Ellen showed off her plain, neat nails. She had delicate hands. Good reflexes, too, Indiana guessed.
“Oh yeah. I want to go Luke Skywalker on some stormtroopers!” Lamar said.
Ed held up Kai’s ringed fingers. “Kai got a set!” Kai yanked her arm away and gave him a withering look.
Indiana noticed the paler color. Were they metal? “Those don’t look like Caliburn rings.”
“They’re called Ondomaica rings,” Kai replied.
“Do they work?”
“Find out today.”
“I want diamonds!” Ed batted his eyelashes.
“They need to be made of diamond. You break things,” Kai said.
“It’s called ‘stress-testing,’” Ed said, using finger quotes.
“It’s also called ‘redheaded wrecking ball,’” Kai said, turning to Indiana. “Ed grew up on the same army base as us. He once drove a neighbor’s dirt bike into a tree.” Kai chuckled, turning back to Ed. “You torqued that bike up good. Jeff never forgave you for that.”
Ed laughed. “I bent the fork on that something fierce. Still didn’t keep his brother John-Boy from blowing it up!”
“Blowing it up?” Ellen asked.
“Oh God, I have to tell you this story. This, as all navy chiefs say, is a no-shitter.”
“A no-shitter?” Indiana asked.
“True story,” Percy said, grinning.
“John-Boy isn’t the brightest lightbulb on the Christmas tree, if you catch my drift,” Ed began.
Indiana, sensing a long story, got up and walked to her room.
“Join us on a run in a few hours?” Kai fell in step with her.
“I don’t think I can walk, much less run.”
“It’s only two thirty. Might be a good idea to get some shut-eye.”
“I just woke up! We got all afternoon,” Indiana said.
“Two thirty a.m.”
Indiana rubbed the base of her neck, feeling the nubs of the injection points. “How long was I out?”
“Two weeks for you. Twelve days since Delta Series went under.”
“Do I have to?” Indiana leaned against the wall near her room to rub her distended stomach and sip her coffee. She burped and felt instantly better.
Kai shook her head. “Not required. It’s three hours from now. But you’ll be out of shape from such long a lapse. Maybe you can give training in the afternoon?”
“Me?” Indiana scoffed, then remembered she had talked Kai into believing she could teach.
“Your brother’s been giving lessons while you’ve been under. So you won’t be the only coach.”
“Hector’s here? Where?” Indiana asked, suddenly alert.
“He’s sleeping in the conjoined compartment. We let him know you were out of the pod last night. He had a rough time of it when he found out.”
Indiana ran and tugged on the door handle of the room next to hers, spilling the hot coffee on her hand. The door was locked. She banged on the metal. It clanged with dull thuds and now her other hand hurt.
“Hold on.” Kai grabbed her wrist. She pushed a button next to the door. A muffled chirp sounded twice. Indiana handed Kai the cup. The door opened. Hector rubbed his eyes. Indiana hugged him tight, feeling every inch the kid sister. Hector staggered, then hugged her in return.
“Indy, you dumb lucky bitch.” He clutched her hair. Kai left with the coffee, sensing a family moment.
“Heck. When did you get here?” Indiana let go after a minute. He wore boxers that read “nice” in the light, but glowed “naughty” in the shadow of his compartment.
“Last week. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Indiana looked around his dorm. He’d packed up his room from her Chicago loft and brought it all here.
His hazel eyes glinted. “I saw what Arthur could do. I still think you threw everything away.”
“Too late now,” she chuckled.
“True. I guess it won’t change much.” He sat down at his desk.
“What do you think?” She followed him in.
“Of this place?” He smiled, his cheeks dimpling.
“Of everything.”
“Be glad to leave, to tell the truth.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said.
“Didn’t think so. I begged the colonel to let me stay and train the candidates here. I thought I could also get some endorsements back.”
“I don’t give a damn about that.”
“You’re not going to be in the Olympics anymore, are you? Even if you went back, I’m sure they’d figure out that this Conditioning is some sort of PED and ban you permanently. This is the end of your career.”
Indiana had goose bumps. “Let’s see where it goes.”
“Indiana, this is a military operation. Where do you think it will go? Weapons. You could become a WMD—weapon of mass destruction.”
“I have to see. No arguments.”
“No arguments. I’ll follow you anywhere, squirt. You know that.”
“I know.”
“Just promise you won’t do something stupid, like die.”
She stuck out her tongue. “I already tried that.”
“Pinky swear?”
“Lame,” she protested, but still pinky swore.
“Boy, Colonel Marks was pissed, but nothing he could do about it at that point. You were already in the god pod and dosed up.”
“Colonel Marks?”
“The project director.”
“Oh,” Indiana tried to remember if someone had mentioned him, but could not place the name.
“How was it?”
Indiana rubbed her neck. “Hard to say. I still don’t know if it actually worked or not.”
Hector nodded and yawned through the back of his hand. “I gotta get some sleep, squirt. Those bastards have me up at five thirty to run with them.”
“They’re just pissed you’re coaching them.”
He rubbed his chin. “Trying to. Quick learners though. Not great, but more serious about it than everyone else I’ve coached, present company excluded. Maybe there’s someone here that can beat you.” He saw Indiana’s look of disdain. “Probably not. Well, I’m gonna be here if you need me.”
“Thanks for coming,” she said, the sincerity thick in her throat. She gave him a hug and shut the door behind her. She returned to her room, suddenly tired. She rubbed her stomach again. She went through a stretching routine, then went to bed.
6
Opportunity of a Lifetime
LONDON, UK—
“Preliminary data looks promising but inconclusive.” Dr. Ogier Dane peered at the green scrawl of data on his terminal screen.
The young man who sat across from him was as still as a statue. He wore a crisp white shirt, a black suit cut to fit his built frame, and a black silk tie. His shoulder-length brown hair was swept back from his face. Owen LaFayette asked, “Nothing that would point out symptomatic causes?”
Ogier took off his glasses and chewed on one of the arms. “We ran the usual battery of tests, Owen. We could run some specialized ones.” Ogier put his glasses back on and looked for small ticks of data that might point to something of import. Everything was completely normal about Owen—nearly perfect, in fact.
“What about the boy?” Owen stared off into space, and his hand touched the double Windsor knot of his tie.
“He has the same sequencing nuances. I’ll have to run your code through sequencing to be sure.”
Owen’s eyebrows went up. “I thought you already sequenced my DNA.”
“Last decade, Owen. If you think there’s something wrong about you, we can analyze that code instead of sequencing another sample. It will be identical anyway. If there are any red flags, we can compare them to Leto’s code after it’s been sequenced.”
Owen stood up and handed Ogier a silver vial from his jacket. “How long will it take?”
Dr. Dane accepted the vial and rubbed his eyes after a moment. “A month on the inside. Two on the outside. Gene sequencing takes time, even with the big data centers we utilize. I’ll make it a priority if you think it’s important.”
Owen tugged on his shirt cuffs. “Dr. Dane, I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think it was important.”
“You’ve been around your mother too much.” Ogier frowned.
“All the time.” Owen gave a halfhearted smile. Dane was struck by how much the boy looked like his real mother at that moment.
“I’m concerned about the symptoms you’re reporting—”
“And I’m concerned you’ll make it a bigger deal than what it really is. I don’t want her to know until I know.” Owen pulled out his phone and checked it. “She’s on her way in, by the way.”
“Did she text you?”
Owen laughed, “She never carries a mobile.”
The door opened and a blond, older woman entered. She was dressed in a dark suit that held up her petite frame. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun. “Ogier, you look puzzled.” She pronounced his name with a light French accent—“Oh-jeeay.”
Indeed Ogier was perplexed by Owen’s knowledge of her arrival. Could he have a touch of his mother in him? He wondered, and then realized that it probably did not work that way and he was just using some technology to detect her presence. He nodded at this simple deduction.
Muire Ann LaFayette appraised her son with shrewd green eyes. “Your cousin is waiting for you. Can you take him back to Auntie? The doctor and I need to talk.”
Owen slid his phone back into his jacket and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. He gave Ogier a nod and shut the door behind him.
Dr. Dane stood, dwarfing the petite woman. He kissed her on both cheeks. “Muire, dear.”
“Ogier,” she said with warmth.
“Would you like some tea? Coffee? Brandy?”
“I shan’t stay long.”
“I wondered when you’d drop by. It’s not often I get called upon to act in my abnormal capacity as a physician these days. Things are always busy in the research department—”
“How’s Prime?” Muire Ann interrupted.
“Owen? Perfect specimen. I was wondering about these tests. It’s been a while since you’ve asked me to do genetics work. We tested him thoroughly when he was a babe.”
“Particular discoveries have come to light.”
“In his genetic code?” Dr. Dane was disturbed. Did she know something?
“It’s nothing to do with my sister. Actually, I’ve come to offer you a job.”
“I already have a job working for LaFayette Corp. I do quite well.”
“I have something better, Ogier.” She let that hang in the air a moment. “The work requires a critical piece of technology. Would you be interested?”
“Can I refuse?”
“No.”
“You’re asking me a question you don’t want to be told no to?”
Muire Ann smiled one of those rare devilish smiles. “It was rhetorical. You will have to work with someone you may find distasteful.”
“That crackpot Myrrdin?” he growled.
Muire Ann shook her head. “He’s quite brilliant, though. We both know that.” She looked around his office. Ebony was the best way to describe it. Ogier thought of it as the antithesis of the clean rooms and laboratories he visited continually. He liked it dark and smelling of leather. The only thing of real color in the room was a wall-sized computer screen that showed electron microscope photography—extreme close-ups of a fly’s eye or the inner topography of an iris. It was his visual preoccupation at the moment.
“He once dismantled my entire research department. I believe that was what led to your . . . retirement.” He said the last word with hesitation. Muire Ann LaFayette was a forceful woman, and ousting her as chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors had been no mean feat. Her niece had handled it expertly. “How is your ‘retirement’ treating you?”
“Retirement’s not my thing. I have something that just might resolve that error in judgment.”
Ogier had struck a nerve that remained raw despite the distance of a few years. He shied away from it for now. Muire Ann angry was not too different from the Muire Ann that stood in his office, except when she was angry it meant people were treated badly. He’d worked for her for many years and understood that “badly” meant more than a simple firing and blacklisting from the industry. Anyone unlucky enough to actually anger her had a limited life span in most respects. He made himself a coffee at his espresso machine.
“This work requires experts at metallurgy, nanotechnology, and quantum mechanics,” she said after the din of the machine’s work expired.
“That doesn’t sound like one person.” He picked up his espresso and sat down on his leather couch. She sat down next to him and drew up her legs. For a woman in her late fifties, she was still striking. She had a pixie face lined by age and the severity of her work. Once upon a time, he’d been told that her father, Sturm, was made of granite. Ogier had met the man, and if that were so, his daughter was made of diamond. Then there was her niece . . . When he met Muire Ann’s piercing gaze, Ogier knew he was already on the losing end of whatever she’d propose before negotiations began.
