Hamish X Goes to Providence Rhode Island (22 page)

Hamish X stopped and fell silent. The Sergeant was thinking. After what seemed like an eternity, he spoke. “Men, lower your weapons. Stand down.”

The mercenaries relaxed. They lowered their weapons and placed them on the stone in front of them. At that instant, Harik and his Bedouins burst through the door behind Hamish X. Hamish X held up a hand.

“They have surrendered. The fight is over.”

The Bedouins cheered. Harik directed a number of them to gather up the mercenaries' weapons and herd the captives away.

“Well done, Hamish X.” Harik clasped the boy's shoulder and grinned. Then a puzzled expression came over his sharp features. “What in the name of Allah is that?”

“Oh, it's a raccoon.” Hamish X laughed, holding George up before him. “Harik, meet George.”

“Hello,” said George politely.

“By the Prophet! It talks!”

“I'm not an it,” George said. “I'm an artificial intelligence. And the name is George.”

“Quite so.” Harik laughed. “Quite so!” The face of the Bedouin grew serious. He pointed at the Sergeant. “You! Where are our families? Speak!”

“They're all in the tower,” the mercenary said. Hamish X set George down on the ground and turned to the tower. At the base of the high finger of stone, where it joined the wall, there was a simple door. Hamish X walked over to it and lifted the latch. The door was locked.

“The key, please.”

The Sergeant fished a ring of keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Hamish X, who caught them easily. He tried two keys before finding the right one. The heavy steel key turned in the lock and the door swung open. Inside, he found a simple room. Bunk beds lined the walls. The room was full of fearful women and children. They had heard the commotion outside and assumed the worst.
Harik stepped into the room behind Hamish X and one woman cried out, running into the man's arms. She hugged him fiercely and tears ran down her cheeks. Harik held her close and spoke to her in a soothing voice. He turned and looked at Hamish X with tears in his own eyes. “My wife, Jali.”

Hamish X cast his eyes about the room, but all the occupants were Bedouin. There was no sign of the Professor.

“Harik,” Hamish X said, pulling out the photograph of the Professor. “Ask if anyone has seen this man.”

Harik took the photo and held it out to his wife. Wiping her eyes, she looked at the image and nodded. She spoke in Arabic and pointed at the stairs that ran up to the next level.

“He is above,” Harik interpreted. “She says he is not well. He contracted some kind of illness and was set apart from the others.”

Hamish X had no sooner heard this than he dashed up the stairs. He came up into another, smaller room. In this room there were only a few beds, all of them empty save one.

In the corner, by an open window, the Professor lay on a cot. Sweat glistened on his forehead and soaked the thin sheet covering him. A Bedouin woman sat beside the bed, staring in apprehension at Hamish X. Only her eyes were visible above her veil, and they were full of fear.

Hamish X held out his hands, palms upward, and bowed. “I don't want to hurt you.” He gestured for the woman to go down the stairs. She seemed to understand, getting off her stool and hurrying past him with a soft swish of her robes. Hamish X waited until she was gone before moving to the bedside and looking down at the man who had been the object of his long search. He had found the Professor. His quest was at an end. At last, he would know who and what he was.

Chapter 22

Professor Magnus Ballantyne-Stewart was a shadow of the man Hamish X recalled from his recovered memories. He had been thin, but now he was practically emaciated. The sickness that gripped him had melted away his flesh. His skin was waxy and grey beneath a shine of sweat, and his eyes were sunken. His chest rose and fell beneath the sheet, the rattle of his breath loud in the empty room. His skinny arms lay atop the sheet at his sides.

A pitcher of water sat on a table beside the bed. In a basin lay a damp cloth. Hamish X poured some water into the basin and dipped the cloth into it. Wringing it out, he laid the cloth on the man's head. The Professor moaned and stirred, mumbling unintelligibly. Looking down on the frail, sickly man, Hamish X didn't know what he felt. When he first recalled the ordeal he had undergone in the laboratories of the ODA and the Professor's part in them, he had been enraged. He had wanted to take revenge on the man who facilitated his torture and mutilation. Ballantyne-Stewart should have done something to stop the Grey Agents! Instead, he stood by, let his fear rule his decisions, and allowed the ODA to use his genius for their evil ends.

Yes, Hamish X had felt rage. Now, looking down at the pathetic creature in the bed, that rage was gone. He felt nothing but pity for the sick man, another person broken by the evil Grey Agents. He just wanted answers.

“Professor Ballantyne-Stewart,” Hamish X said clearly, gently shaking the man's shoulder. The skin was hot to the touch, feverish. “Professor, can you hear me?”

The dark eyelids fluttered and opened. Pale blue eyes blinked and tried to focus. “Who?” he said, his voice a papery whisper. “Who are you?”

“You don't remember me?”

“Can't see,” the Professor croaked. “Glasses.”

Hamish X looked on the table and saw a pair of thick spectacles behind the basin. He opened them and placed them on the bridge of the man's nose. The Professor blinked owlishly, his eyes magnified by the thick lenses. He stared at Hamish X and his mouth trembled. “It's you!” he said softly.

“Yes.” Hamish X nodded and sat down in the stool by the Professor's bed. “I've come a long way to talk to you.”

The Professor lay very still looking at Hamish X for a long time. Then, at last, he said, “You have questions.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I will try to answer …” The Professor began to cough violently. Hamish X found a glass and filled it with water. Putting his arm around the man's shoulders, Hamish X raised him up so that he could drink. The coughing subsided. Hamish X laid the sick man back down.

“Thank you,” the Professor said. “I've contracted some kind of fever. I don't think I have long, actually. You've arrived just in time, I think.”

“We'll get you out of here, get you care.”

The Professor waved a feeble hand. “I won't be leaving here, but thank you for your concern. Heaven knows I deserve no mercy, especially from you.”

“Everyone deserves a little mercy, Professor.”

The Professor shook his head. “I've done very bad things. I thought I didn't have a choice but … I've done very bad things to you. I am sorry for that. Can you forgive me?”

Hamish X was quiet for a moment. “Yes. I forgive you. But I have questions …”

“I will try to answer them.”

Now, faced with the possibility of knowing who and what he was, Hamish X found he couldn't decide what he wanted to ask first.

“Why me?”

“You were deemed a good candidate. The ODA had certain criteria: intelligence, physical ability, et cetera. They watched you and they waited for their opportunity.”

“They stole me from my parents?”

“No, not exactly. They waited until you were … There's no way to say this delicately. They orchestrated your death.”

Hamish X was shocked. “I died.”

“After years of searching, poring over medical records, seeking the perfect genetic specimen, they chose you.”

Hamish X was silent, watching the man's face. This was the story he'd been waiting to hear. Now, he found he was afraid of what he might learn. Of all the battles and all the adventures he had lived through, nothing had prepared him for the truth.

The Professor continued. “They arranged for you to have an accident. I don't know what it was … I hadn't started working for them yet and they wouldn't tell me later.”

“I drowned,” Hamish X whispered. He remembered the waves crashing over him, the grip of the undertow. “I drowned in the sea.”

“That is consistent with my own observations.” The Professor coughed, a racking, shuddering spasm gripping his whole body. Hamish X held the old man's hand as the attack subsided. When he had sufficiently recovered, the old man continued. “They arranged your death. Your body was never recovered. That's because they took it for themselves.

“So, you suffered physical death and they revived you using their scientific skills. They have methods far in advance of our own. It's what drew me into their web in the first place.

“Perhaps I should tell you a little about my story. It will answer many of your questions and help you frame the important ones, hmm?”

Hamish X nodded.

“Fine. I was a genetic researcher. Specifically, I was trying to develop methods of cloning that would produce offspring that were identical to the parent organisms in every way. There had been one insurmountable problem
up to this point: the offspring tended to age and die at an accelerated rate. I wanted to change that. You see, I had a personal interest in the problem. I had a daughter. Sylvie was her name. My daughter was dying.

“She was diagnosed with a blood disorder. Nothing could be done. No cure could be found. I was one of the leading genetic biologists in the world, but I couldn't help her …”

The Professor lapsed into another coughing fit. Hamish X held the man's head and helped him drink more water. When he had recovered, the Professor continued.

“That's when the ODA contacted me. They were very interested in my work. They said they could help my daughter. They said they would fund special research if I would, in return, help them with some of theirs. I was at my wits' end. Of course, I accepted. It seemed too good to be true, and it was.”

The bitterness was plain on the Professor's face as he spoke. “They put me to work on a project that was concerned with augmenting human tissue with genetic and cybernetic implants. In essence, they were creating you.”

The Professor's bony hand gripped Hamish X's arm. He looked into the boy's eyes. “They made me do those things to you. I didn't want to hurt you, but they threatened me. They said they would let my daughter die if I didn't help them. So, I …,” he faltered, tears welling up. “I did as they instructed. But … but she died anyway. They didn't even try to save her. They never meant to. Too late, I realized they were using me … I threatened to leave the project, to tell the world what they were up to, but by then it was too late. I was a prisoner. I was forced to continue against my will.”

“Sounds like typical ODA tactics.” Hamish X nodded. He gave the man another sip of water. “So they forced you to do those things to me. I accept that. I understand. But I need to know why.”

“Why? Ha.” The Professor shook his head ruefully. “Even I don't understand it all. What do you already know?”

“I am some kind of superconductor. I have a very dense nervous system and increased strength,” Hamish X said. “I can do things, things I don't ever remember learning. I … I'm not completely human.”

“Yes.” The Professor nodded weakly. “You are designed to be a conduit of enormous energy and huge amounts of information. They took your basic human body structure and grafted more nerves and muscle fibres onto it. But that is all of lesser importance. What they really needed was your brain.”

“My brain?”

“Yes. The human brain is the most complex computing device in the universe, capable of sorting through billions of bits of information in a matter of seconds. Quite amazing, really. Your brain is especially well developed.”

“I guess I should be flattered, but I'm not. Why do they need my brain? Surely they have a vastly complex computer already. They call it Mother.” Hamish X shivered as he recalled the irresistible voice of the ODA's artificial intelligence. Even now, when he was free of its lure, he remembered with longing the compelling voice.

“Mother is a very complex machine, but it has limitations. The ODA realized early on that they would need to mate their artificial intelligence with a human one, forming a giant dual processor, if you will.”

“But I don't understand,” Hamish X said. “Why send me out on all these adventures? Why allow me to fight and
defeat their own allies like Cheesebeard and the others? I don't see why they would do that.”

“Ah, I know! It doesn't seem to make any sense,” the Professor agreed, his eyes bright. “But in the end, they had to do it. You see, they had to train your brain to use all the augmentations they had made. They had to expand the mind they had given you. They tried to do it by artificial means, in the lab, running programs, but it didn't work. The only thing that improves the human mind is experience. So they decided to let you out, observe you. Set you against opponents who were truly intent on defeating you. That way, you would learn and expand your mental capacity. Only then would you be ready for your true purpose.”