Agent Omega: You Only Live Forever

by Schaffer, Bernard

  Price started opening cabinets and looking through them until he found a roll of tape. He yanked off a long piece of it and told Salk to stay still as he wrapped the injured toe to the one next as tight as Salk could bear. "That should do until we can get you some treatment. Let's try to get your shoe on."

  "If you can get me out of the building, I can get us to a safe place and release the vaccine. After that, it will be too late for anyone to stop it."

  "There're agents crawling all over this place, looking for your vaccine, Dr. Salk. I wouldn't be so sure that anywhere is safe right now. All I'm concerned about is getting you out of here." A muffled voice barked orders down the hall, and Price bent down, listening. "That bastard Regis is coming back to check on you. I need you to walk. Can you do that?"

  Salk took two steps forward, favoring his injured foot. "I can make it. What do we do?"

  "Get over by the door, but off to the side. Try to get behind something sturdy. Don't come out until I tell you to." Price removed the Beretta from the holster inside of his shirt. He waved for Salk to get down and said, "Just stay out of the line of fire."

  "Please, no more violence!" Salk said. "I do not want anyone else to be hurt."

  Chuck Regis's dark silhouette appeared in the door's glass. Price hurried to the door and pressed his back flat against the wall, keeping his gun aimed straight at where Regis's head would soon appear.

  Regis turned the handle to walk in and suddenly stopped. "Hang on," he called out, down the hall. "I'll be there in a second, but keep looking. I've got to see if the Doc here saw the light yet."

  Victor Kramer's body was stretched out on the floor, still twitching. Regis felt the Beretta's barrel against the side of his head and closed his eyes. He put his hands on his hips and whispered, "God damn, you are good, Stu. Gotta give you that much. You snuck in here right under our noses."

  Price reached into Regis's holster and pulled out his gun, then tossed it across the room. It was time for Chuck Regis to say goodnight. Price started to squeeze the Beretta's trigger and send a bullet spiraling through the bastard's skull.

  "Thinking about shooting me, Stu? You really gonna kill a Federal Agent of the United States of America? There won't be a backwater mud hole on God's Green Earth deep enough for you to hide in. Listen to me, pal. Let's talk sense, okay?" Regis turned toward Price with his hands raised, looking at the man over the mouth of the Beretta's barrel. "This isn't even your problem, see. It's a bunch of nobodies that don't mean squat in the grand scheme of things. As far as I'm concerned, as far as the entire US government is concerned, you took out several members of the Giancana crime family who were threatening the life of Jonas Salk. That makes you a goddamn hero. We'll get things straightened out with your boss, send you home with more medals than you can fit in one suitcase. Sounds good, right?" Regis said.

  Price didn't move and didn't lower the gun.

  "Look, forget the damn experiment," Regis shrugged. "It's off. Done. Okay? Dr. Salk can give those kids all the polio-juice he wants, and we'll go test it on a few more inmates. Rapists and murders. How does that sound?"

  "Let him go, Mr. Price," Dr. Salk said, stepping between the rack of lab coats that Price had thrown in front of the cubby hole. "He said he wouldn't hurt the children."

  Price glanced at Salk and said, "Get back!"

  It was only a split second, but it was just enough time for Regis to react. He knocked Price's gun out of the way and rammed a fist into his face, splitting him open at the eyebrow. Regis grabbed the gun with both hands and slammed Price in the knee with a vicious kick.

  Price crumpled to the ground and Regis lifted his foot high in the air over his head and started to dance.

  Someone was speaking.

  Price's eyes were crusted with dried blood, nearly glued shut. He forced them open and instantly reeled back from Chuck Regis, bent in front of him and smiling widely. Price's hands and feet were duct taped to a sturdy wooden chair and another piece of tape was covering his mouth. Price struggled to lift his head and look around. He was inside a warehouse, surrounded by shipping containers. There were a dozen men in biohazard suits carrying boxes that were all marked Operation Paperclip.

  Regis snapped his fingers in front of Price's face and said, "You back now, Stu? Good. I want to make sure you can appreciate what's about to happen here. The historical nature of it all. You a fan of history? Anybody who knows history knows that the people in power aren't really the ones in power. They're just the faces we put on the money. It's the behind the scenes people who really make things happen. Take this outfit. The CIA is the organization, with bosses and budgets and buildings, but really, it's nothing. In every agency, every government around the world, it's like that. Even your Majesty's little Secret Service. You've got the worker bees buzzing around running errands like you, and you've got the select few who are doing the real work. Like me, Stu. I'm one of the guys making the hard decisions. Doing what is necessary."

  Regis waved his arms around the warehouse, pointing at the containers and said, "We're under attack over here. The freedom people enjoy has given our country over to the queers, the negroes, women's libbers, immigrants, Commies, you name it! And that's just the threat from within. But whatever threats we face won't just stay here, Stu. They're gonna spread." He patted the biohazard sign on one of the boxes and said, "Just like a virus."

  Price mumbled something through his duct tape.

  Regis walked toward him and grabbed a hold of one of the ends and tore it off his face. Price tasted blood on his lips and said, "Where is Jonas Salk?"

  "Well," Regis said, "Right now, he's looking at photographs of his family members taken by some very special people this morning. I'm hoping once he gets a look at them he won't want to see what we have in store for them next."

  Price spit into Regis's face. Regis swept his sleeve across his cheek and reared back and slapped Price so hard he split the man's lips. Price sucked up blood into his mouth and spat that at Regis next.

  Chuck Regis laughed bitterly as he pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped up the blood. "I like you Stu. You've got moxie. I really wish you'd seen the light, but unfortunately, you aren't leaving me any other options here. You're going to have to die."

  Regis flicked a switchblade open with the push of a button and bent over Price's arm, slicing the fabric of his sleeve in two. He picked up a piece of rubber tubing from under the chair and tied it around Price's bicep, cutting off the circulation until thick veins rose up in his forearm.

  "Since you want to be part of this thing so badly, I'm going to give you the honor of being the official first Polio Pioneer." Regis removed a syringe filled with red cloudy fluid from his pocket and popped the cap off and said, "There's enough LSD, mescaline, and scopolamine in this needle to scramble your eggs forever, you limey bastard. I call it an MKULTRA Cocktail. We're going to test the dosages against the kids at Arsenal and see which ones turn into zombies and which ones see dancing purple dragons. Once we get it right, every beatnik, hepcat, and darkie from here to San Francisco will beg us for a dose. That is how we're going to win this war, Stu. We're going to let the opposition neutralize themselves."

  Regis stuck the needle into one of the thick veins in Price's forearm and put his thumb on the plunger, pausing before he pushed a syringe full of poison into the man's body. "Don't worry, Stu. I'll come see you at the hospital. I'll get you a room near your buddy Jack. By the by, I never met the guy. That was a little white lie I told, so don't hold it against me."

  "I know Jack Ivor would never tolerate a piece of filth like you," Price hissed.

  Regis chuckled and said, "I did talk to him once, though. He called my office to tell us he was going to investigate that warehouse you two were working on down in the keys." Regis looked up at Price and said, "Who do you think told those folks down there to get their shark ready?"

  Price thrashed against his bindings, trying to rip Regis's throat out with his teeth. He struggle
d so much he nearly flipped the chair over and it was all Regis could do to keep him down.

  A door burst open behind Regis and Price saw Paul Grimley come through, holding a revolver. He raised the weapon in their direction and said, "There you are!"

  Regis looked up in surprise, his thumb on the end of the syringe, ready to push, when Grimley fired. Chuck Regis's head snapped back and he collapsed dead on the warehouse floor, just inches below where the still-full syringe dangled from Price's skin.

  Paul Grimley blew smoke from the barrel of his revolver and said, "Victoria Regina."

  Emily Watson put her arm around Price's shoulders and said, "Are you sure you want to go in there?" Emily said.

  He looked into the hospital room from the hallway and could see nothing but the edge of the bed. He took a deep breath and nodded.

  "He isn't awake," she said. "He may not even know you are there."

  Price tapped her hand and said, "He'll know."

  He removed his hat as he walked into the room, taking a full view of his friend, as much as it hurt to look. Jack Ivor was wrapped in thick bandages that covered most of his body. Half of his face, the part not chewed to pieces, was uncovered, and Jack's eye was closed. Whether he was sleeping or too medicated to open it, Price could not be sure.

  "Hello, Jack," he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed, twirling his hat in his hands. "I was in a tight spot not too long ago. What's funny is that all I kept thinking was that the one thing I would regret was not chartering a boat for us to go fishing. That trip we always said we'd take but never got around to. I was thinking that it would be good for you and I to head off on the water and get drunk and forget about all this madness. I'm not sure why we never did it."

  He looked down at his hat and said, "Men like us aren't suited for friends and family, Jack. You know that as well as I do. Having loved ones doesn't fit well with the world we are forced to live in. But I saw myself trying to convince you that now you have a chance to put it all behind you. You can leave this life and find a good woman and raise hundreds of little happy Texans. That's a good, good life, Jack, whether you've got two arms or just one. Hell, I'd give my left arm for that. No pun intended. When you get better, I'll tell you all about how your friend Paul Grimley called my boss and set him straight. He managed to save my job and even earn me a little time off." Price stood up and put his hat on, "With pay."

  Emily was waiting for him in the hallway as he left the room. She slid her hand into his and said, "Well, Mr. Price. We've saved the world and kept your job and now have several weeks all to ourselves. What on earth are we going to do?"

  Price reached into his pocket for a pair of first-class tickets that would take them to Santa Lucia that same evening. "Courtesy of the United States government," he said. "I knew Jonas was a beekeeper, but you might have mentioned Paul Grimley was as well, love."

  "Grimley's been trying to root out MKULTRA for years now. He was just waiting for a chance to nail Regis. Now, thanks to you and Jonas Salk, two million children will receive the proper vaccine. That's a good day's work, I should say." Emily looked down at the names printed on the tickets and said, "Mr. and Mrs. Morningwood?"

  "Yes, it seemed appropriate," Price said.

  "What kind of name is that?"

  Price smiled as he led her out into the sunlight and said, "You'll find out soon enough, my dear. You will find out soon enough."

  Chapter 9: You Only Live Forever

  Sean Price looked out over the trees of Central Park as they walked. Beckett had stopped talking after he finished his story and the two of them had walked the rest of the way in silence, watching the joggers run past and listening to the street musicians play their hearts out for spare change.

  "So what happened to Emily Watson," Price said. "Is she dead now?"

  "Quite the contrary," Beckett said. "She is one of our oldest living members of the Apiary Society. I had the luck of meeting her once. Just a lovely woman. And the stories she tells, you could sit there for hours and listen."

  "Sounds like you and her have a few things in common," Price said.

  "We do?"

  "You're both old and you like to tell stories."

  "Guilty as charged, I'm afraid," Beckett said. "Emily is the one who sent me to find you, you know. She's had a standing order for our records and research division to send her any articles they find about men with amnesia. Especially those with facial scars."

  Price leaned against the railing overlooking a steep green hill and said, "What does she think, I'll hear her name and take off all my clothes and start teleporting around the city?"

  "No," Beckett said. "Not at first anyway."

  "Funny," Price said. He looked at the older man and said, "Do you think I'm him? Do you really believe I might be this Omega person?"

  Beckett squinted at him and said, "Emily Watson says it's you. That's good enough for me."

  "So why can't I do any of the things Pryce could do? How come I'm not still a British secret agent? What the hell was I doing in the Twin Towers on 9/11?"

  "Mysteries within mysteries," Beckett said with a soft smile. "There are whole entire volumes of stories waiting to be discovered about Omega, Sean. If you want, we can help find them out together."

  "What if I say no?"

  "I'll go home and file my reports. I'll let the Society know what I found here and they'll spend the next few years debating it. They'll assign a person to keep tabs on you, just in case you manifest some type of power."

  Price folded his hands and said, "And what if I say yes?"

  "That's a different story. There are people who will want to run some tests on you. Compare blood samples to what they've already collected. Try different techniques to help you be all the superhuman secret agent weapon of mass destruction for a greater good that you can be." Beckett smiled and said, "And of course, Emily will want to see you."

  They started to walk again and Price said, "I could handle being a secret agent."

  "I'd rather be able to teleport," Beckett said. "That would be amazing. I hate traffic."

  Price shook his head, "I don't know about the whole running around naked thing. I'd be too distracted to fight. People staring at me, that sort of thing."

  "You can't worry about stuff like that, son," Beckett said. "Life's too short. Take it from an old story-teller like me."

  Price looked at him sideways and said, "Speak for yourself. Apparently I'm going to live forever."

  The Omega Timeline...So Far

  1899: Agent Omega in Leondig to kill young Adolph Hitler

  1918: Technical Sgt. James Scott killed in combat

  1942: Sean Pryce dispatched to Germany to destroy a Nazi weapons facility.

  1945: OSS dismantled, Agent Omega meets Albert Einstein

  1947: Stuart Price trains at Camp X

  1958: MI-6 operative Stuart Price encounters Apiary Society, MKULTRA

  2001: Sean Price found in Twin Towers wreckage

  2013: Apiary Society contacts Sean Price

  Details to be added as new information is received.

  Mr. Beckett,

  Thank you for your update on our friend, Mr. Price. Please encourage him to come to England as soon as possible. I will authorize his access to the Frequent Guest accounts immediately and ship all the requisite identifications, account cards, etc.

  When you see him…just tell him to come as soon as he can. The countryside is beautiful this time of year and there is so much I want to say, so much I need to explain, but I fear a storm is coming. Quite a bad one.

  Tell him to hurry. We may not have much time.

  Emily

  Bernard Schaffer is the author of multiple books that span a wide variety of genres, including literature, police procedurals, and science fiction westerns. He has worked on several projects with famous authors such as Harlan Ellison, Alan Dean Foster, and Bill Thompson (the editor who discovered Stephen King and John Grisham).

  Recently, he collaborated w
ith J.A. Konrath on two books that feature Konrath's best-selling Lt. Jack Daniels characters, and ones from Schaffer's own Superbia series.

  A lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area, he is the proud father of two children.

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  Agent Omega

  You Only Live Forever