by Blake Banner
I pointed at the last one. “And this one? What’s his name? Or was it a woman?”
“He was very hard to get hold of. We had to pull strings. He was a prime subject. He had no family left, no fixed address, no friends…”
“You mean a homeless guy, easy prey for parasites.”
She gave a small shrug. “I guess you could say that. He was unlucky enough to be at somebody’s house when there was a home invasion. He got shot. If we hadn’t got him, he would have died.”
“That…” I pointed at it and realized my hand was shaking. “That is being alive?”
She frowned. “Organically, he is alive. Who are you to judge the quality of his life? You…” She gestured at me and gave a small, contemptuous laugh. “You who are consumed and twisted by hatred, you who try to solve every problem by killing and torturing people, you who exist in continuous suffering and turmoil. You are going to judge the quality of his life?”
I shook my head, not sure how to answer her, knowing only that she was wrong but not knowing why. “How can you call that life?”
She gave a small, patient sigh. “Every morning he has a cup of coffee and a couple of croissants. While he is having his breakfast, he does the cryptic crossword. Today he had roast lamb for lunch. He never suffers anxiety, fear, loneliness; and his mind is ever active, exploring, studying. He never kills anybody, and he never hurts anybody. How about you, Mr. Walker? What have you done today?”
I frowned and narrowed my eyes. “Are you seriously advocating that as a way of life? He may think he had coffee and croissants, but they were illusions. They were not real! His life, what you call his life, is not real! OK, so you need a body to suffer, to feel anxiety, distress, fear. But you also need a body, and those emotions, in order to feel honor, compassion, empathy, love!”
She snorted. “Was it that honor, compassion, empathy and love that led you to kill twelve men in the last twenty-four hours?”
“No.”
She smiled. “Lacklan, your friend is out there suffering. He is in considerable pain. Soon he will be in agony, and it is only going to get worse. Release him. Release us all, Lacklan. The war is over. Come in, we’ll bring him down, have something to eat, a drink. Talk to us, we will answer all your questions.”
I stared at her a long time. “I killed Ben,” I said finally.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“He was my brother.”
“Your half-brother.”
“They keep telling me he’s alive.”
“Come inside, we’ll explain everything.”
“Is Ben alive?”
“Come inside…”
“Go, tell Omicron I will come inside if he answers that question. I need to know. What I do next depends on the answer to that question. I am prepared to let my friend die. I am prepared to take my own life and destroy this lab…” I saw her go pale. “But I need to know, is Ben alive? If he is, that changes things…”
She took a deep breath. “All right, Lacklan. I’ll go and ask him, and I’ll bring you the answer. Then you come inside, but please, please, don’t do anything that will hurt these minds. They are a treasure and you have no right to destroy them. Let’s please step back from the abyss, and stop destroying lives.”
I gave a small nod, like I agreed. “This is your project, right?”
“Yes.”
“You must be brilliant. What are you, twenty-six, seven?”
“I’m twenty-eight. I have an IQ of one seventy.”
“You knew Ben?”
“Lacklan, I knew Ben. We were close. All he wanted, all I want, is to save lives, save the best of humanity.”
“What’s your name?”
“Calypso.”
“Go, talk to Omicron. I’ll wait for you.” As she turned to go, I looked at the floor and sighed. “Calypso?”
“Yes…?”
“Please, let my friend down, answer my question about Ben, and I will come in.”
She looked at me for a long moment, searching my face. I let her see my exhaustion, my confusion, the sickness I felt at the endless death and suffering I had caused—was causing still. Finally, she nodded and left.
I followed her shadow through the huge hangar and from the window, I watched her step out into the yard. She called a couple of guards and spoke to them, and as she made her way to the villa, they took Njal down and dragged him away, after her, toward the house. Then I turned and looked around me at the cold, clinical horror they had created. You didn’t need to be a cyborg to exist without human emotions. Humans were more than capable of that.
I looked deep into the shadows and wondered how many more of these independent, un-networked computers they had set up around the world. There was still Omega IV and Omega V in Africa, and China.
But Omicron, Jim had said, Omicron was the key to their resurgence. Without Omicron, they would be finished.
It took her just fifteen minutes and she came back across the yard, with her long shadow stretching out before her across the dust. She looked just like somebody’s daughter, like the girl next door, in her jeans and her sweatshirt and her boots: pretty, young, nice, sweet-tempered, smart.
She stepped through the door and smiled at me.
“You saw that your friend was taken down.”
“Have you killed him?”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Not everybody is as obsessed with killing as you are, Lacklan! The whole purpose of our organization is to stop the killing and the suffering. Omicron said come inside, and he will tell you about Ben.”
“So you are Omega?”
“I told you, I am associated with Omega. I am not a member of the cabal. I have no letter.”
“Is he OK?”
“He is fine. He’s very strong. He’s sitting at the table, eating roast chicken and drinking beer.”
“Why won’t you use his name?”
She frowned, shifted slightly and her face went into shadow with the light from the spot outside leaning across her chest and belly. “What?”
“You keep calling him my friend. Why won’t you call him by his name?”
She gave a little snort of a laugh through her nose, shrugged, gave her head a little shake. “I don’t know his name.”
I nodded. “Oh.”
I raised the Maxim and shot her in the head.
If she knew my name and not Njal’s, that let Jim off the hook as their informer. That was all I’d wanted to know.
I walked across the spot-lit yard, with my shadow stretching out behind me. The four guards watched me with incurious eyes, just doing their job, questioning nothing. I came around the villa and climbed onto the porch. Two guards stood there, flanking the door. They pointed their weapons at me. One of them frowned.
“Donde esta Calypso?”
“In the lab.” I jerked my head toward the prefab. “Checking everything is OK.”
“Manos arriba!”
He gestured I should put my hands up. I did and they frisked me and found nothing. Then they grabbed my arms and shoved me through the door. Inside, they dragged me across a large, terracotta entrance hall, through tall, double doors and into a dining room.
There I saw a long table. At the head was General Ochoa, Omicron. Behind him was a window, in front of him was a large balloon glass of cognac. On his left was Zapata, Xi, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, and next to him was Gonzalez, Nu, governor of the free and sovereign state of Sinaloa. They too had glasses of cognac in front of them. Opposite them, on Ochoa’s right, was Njal, eating hungrily and watching me with curious eyes. In front of him he had a stein of beer, half empty.
The general said, “Where is Calypso?”
“She’s in the lab. She wants to make sure I haven’t damaged anything. She said she wanted her team over there.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You said you had I don’t know how many pounds of C4 and you were going to destroy the lab. I know you had an automatic weapon…”
I looked at him like
he was stupid. “Yeah, I didn’t think it was smart to walk into a house full of armed men carrying C4 and a Heckler and Koch. They’re in the lab, with Calypso. I handed everything over to her.”
He turned to one of the guards and rattled something in Spanish. I gathered he was telling them to get the team and go over to the lab, to make sure everything was OK. Then he turned to me as the soldiers left the room. “Sit. Are you hungry? You see we have not hurt you or your friend. We just want this to end, Lacklan.”
“Yeah. I’m hungry. I want what he has.” I jerked my head at Njal. “Calypso tried to sell me the same line. So did Ben, before you. But frankly, the only thing I am interested in right now is whether Ben is alive or not. My father was Gamma. Ben was his son, my brother. I eventually discovered he was also Alpha. I killed him. I shot him in the heart and I watched him die. Why do I keep getting messages claiming to be from him? Why do you keep trying to sell me the line that he is still alive?”
General Ochoa leaned his forearms on the table and rumbled a deep sigh. He stared into his glass and finally said, “Alpha is dead, Omega is finished. You…” He gestured at me with his open palm. “You are the destroyer. But death must be followed by rebirth and regeneration. Ah-Puch, the Mayan god of death and regeneration, takes our lives and then gives them back to us. It is the eternal cycle of creation and destruction.”
I sighed. “Is there a god in your universal pantheon for plain speaking? It is not a complicated question. Try to give me a plain answer. Is Ben dead or alive?”
He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Ben, your brother, Alpha, is alive.”
NINETEEN
Raised voices came to me, along with the tramping of feet, people in the hallway. The front door opened, people filed out, then the door closed again. Moments later, through the window behind Omicron’s head, I saw the nerds, accompanied by a handful of soldiers, hurry past, headed for the lab. A moment after that, a pretty, young maid came in with a tray. On it there was a plate of roast chicken with French fries and fried vegetables. There was also a stein of beer. She placed it in front of me and withdrew.
In my head, I was counting footsteps. I turned to Njal and raised my stein.
“The length of my life and the day of my death were fated by the Norn long ago.”
He smiled and raised his glass too. “I ask only to live like a hero, and die well.”
It was about thirty paces from the back of the villa to the entrance to the lab. I put the stein to my lips and took a long pull, counting twelve, thirteen, fourteen. I put down the stein and stared down at the chicken. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…
I looked at General Ochoa, then picked up my knife and fork. “You must think I am real stupid, really gullible, to believe that you can take a man who’s been shot twice in the heart and fix him so that today he is still alive. I am not that stupid, Ochoa.”
I cut into the chicken. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. I stuffed the chicken in my mouth. Give them a few seconds to get inside. Chew. Wipe my mouth. Drop my arm and press.
Nineteen pounds of C4 makes one hell of a detonation. Four pounds will destroy a bus. Ten pounds can destroy a house. Nineteen pounds, placed with skill, tore through the lab, ripped open the computer bank, incinerated the team of scientists and the soldiers, and brought down the prefab in a pile of smoldering, splintered rubble. It shook the house and shattered the glass in the window, making people shout and scream and scramble to their feet. I didn’t see it, not then, but I heard it. I was expecting it and even so, it stunned me. But Ochoa, Zapata and Gonzalez were not expecting it. Ochoa slumped forward, covering his head, then jumped to his feet. Zapata covered his head with his arms and Gonzalez staggered from his chair and fell to the floor.
I got to my feet and moved around the table to where Gonzalez was lying in a heap in the fetal position. I had the knife I’d been using for the chicken in my hand, but I didn’t bother with it. I’d planned to cut his throat, but instead I stamped with my heel on the back of his neck and snapped his vertebrae. His legs jerked a few times and he lay still. By that time I was standing behind Zapata.
Across the other side of the table, Ochoa had charged Njal and they were wrestling while the general screamed for his men. Out in the hall, there was chaos and confusion, with shouts and running feet. I knew we had bare seconds. I grabbed Zapata’s hair and yanked his head back as I rammed the knife in through his carotid artery and out through his windpipe. His body jerked and spasmed as he tried to stand and his arms flailed. I wrenched the knife out and a geyser of blood erupted from the big, gaping wound, spraying the walls and the ceiling.
I threw him to the floor and jumped on the table, going after Ochoa. He and Njal were locked in a clinch. Ochoa was going for a take down in the hope his men were about to arrive. His hopes were not unfounded. The door burst open and four men rushed in, pointing their rifles and shouting. I made a split second decision. I knew they wouldn’t shoot Njal for fear of hitting their general. I flipped the knife, grabbed the blade and hurled it. It slammed home into the nearest soldier’s eye. He screamed and fell back and I jumped at the guy behind him.
There was a burst of fire that went wide and hit the ceiling. I grabbed the barrel of his rifle in my left hand and levered it away from me as I kicked him hard in the nuts. As he doubled up, I arced the barrel high over my head, brought it down facing the door and snatched at the trigger, spraying the doorway with lead. One soldier went down. The other fled, screaming for support. My guy was still holding onto his rifle, clutching at his balls with his left hand. Ten points for tenacity, but it wasn’t going to save his life. I kicked him in the head, wrenched the weapon free and blew his brains out.
Njal and Ochoa were on the floor, struggling to get an arm lock on each other. I took two long strides and kicked Ochoa in the ribs, grabbed the scruff of his neck and dragged him to his feet. I snapped at Njal, “Weapons!” and he scrambled, collecting up handguns and rifles from the dead soldiers. I smashed my fist into Ochoa’s kidneys. His knees buckled. I shouldered the assault rifle and Njal read my mind and threw me a Glock. I snapped, “Cover the window. We’re going out the door,” and shoved the general ahead of me toward the hallway. I rammed the handgun into the small of his back and snarled, “Tell them to stand down. I want their weapons on the ground. One twitch I don’t like and I blow a hole in your gut. You won’t die quick, you son of a bitch, but it will hurt. I promise you that!”
He raised his voice. He was short of breath. He was in pain.
“Tiren las armas. Hagan lo que dice. Tiren las armas!”
I knew enough Spanish to get the gist. He was telling them to drop their weapons and do as I said. We stepped into the hallway. There was half a dozen soldiers there. Their weapons were on the floor and they looked mad. I bellowed at them, “Fuera! Fuera de aquí!”
They moved toward the door and backed out into the night. Njal collected up a few more guns and we stepped out after them. He was behind me, walking backward, keeping his weapon trained on the soldiers. I pressed the Glock hard into Ochoa’s back. “You let me live, I’ll do you the same favor. But you do exactly what I say. We’re going for the Land Rover. We leave here in the truck and I’ll let you out when we’re clear. But right now you do exactly as I say or you and your men die. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
“Tell your men to get in the barracks.”
He gave the order. They tried to argue, but he yelled at them and they filed away, around the other side of the villa, toward their quarters. We moved around the near side and I saw the lab for the first time. The roof had caved in and the walls had crumbled. Thick smoke was rising from the mess, like there was a fire burning inside. There were dead soldiers scattered outside in the dirt, some dismembered and smoldering.
There was a crowd working to clear the mess and get inside, to look for survivors. Obviously they hadn’t heard the shooting from the house. Now there was an exchange of shouts with their colleag
ues on their way to the barracks, and the guys working on the ruin turned to stare at us, still struggling to comprehend what had happened.
I shoved the barrel into Ochoa’s back again. “Tell them! Tell them to join their pals in the barracks, and give you the key.”
He was getting worried about where this was going. He had good reason. Flames started to lick up from the prefab, small at first but growing fast. I snarled, “Do it.”
“Vayan,” he said. “Enciérrense. Denme a mi la llave.” There was a moment’s hesitation and uncertainty. Then he shouted, “Vayan! Me va a matar si desobedecen!”
Go, he’ll kill me if you disobey. That worked. They backed away toward the barracks. There were about fifteen of them. They filed inside, and the last one gave the general the key and closed the door. It wouldn’t hold them long. They would break the windows and get out. But it would slow them down at least.
“Lock it!”
I shoved him up to the door. He fitted the key and turned it twice, speaking as he did it. “You are crazy. They will alert the authorities. You will never leave the country.”
“Keep talking like that, General, and you won’t see the dawn. If they follow, you die. Tell them!”
He shouted to them and I dragged him stumbling toward the Land Rover. As we went, Njal muttered, “He is right. We let them live, we don’t leave the country.”
Ochoa erupted, “You are a fool, Lacklan! We were willing to send you home. What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t like people who remove other people’s brains. Now shut up!” We had reached the Land Rover. I pulled open the back door and growled, “Get in! Lie on the floor on your face. Njal, get in with him. If he moves, kill him.”
Ochoa moved to climb in, then turned suddenly, smashed his shoulder into Njal’s chest and ran screaming for the barracks, shouting, “Ahora! Ahora! Ahora!”
