The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2) (8 page)

Like most of the substances and technologies Doctor Pedemont employed to perfect his orphan creations, the produce was not known to
official
science. Although the scientific community was aware of Arizona cotton farmer David Hudson’s accidental discovery of ORME back in 1975, they had been denied the opportunity to test the latest strains. Indeed, they never knew of their existence.

Pure White Gold Powder, the rarest and most effective strain, had been completely withheld from mainstream scientists and from the public at large. That way, elite groups like the Omega Agency could use it in total secrecy to profit from its unquestionable benefits and to further their own agendas.

Prepared by extracting and isolating elements from sea water and volcanic soil, then vortexing them with magnets, the substance had been shown to assist in a variety of diverse fields including agriculture, engineering and aeronautics. However, it was the superconductor’s effects on humans that Doctor Pedemont and his Omega superiors were focused on.

The agency had hired physicists, chemists and biologists to conduct laboratory experiments and design a version of ORME specifically for the orphans. They used various technologies to monitor the effectiveness of the powder, including dark-field microscopy of the blood and EEG tests on the brain.

ORME’s biological results were outstanding. As well as balancing both hemispheres of the brain,
the product had also been proven to activate so-called
Junk DNA
, and the orphans’ regular consumption of it allowed them to move, fight and think as efficiently and effectively as almost any adult. Regular, carefully controlled contests between the orphans and Omega’s veteran field operatives demonstrated this fact beyond any doubt. Contests ranging from math and speed-reading tests to chess and martial arts tournaments saw the orphans always pushing their elders to their limits, often holding their own and sometimes even winning.  

As he watched his manufactured orphans consume their prescribed allocations of the substance, Doctor Pedemont pondered its scientific make-up. Besides gold, he knew it contained a number of other metals including rhodium, iridium, copper and platinum which, like the gold portion, all existed in their non-metallic states.

Dispensing a phial to the last of the orphans, the doctor then handed another to Kentbridge who promptly emptied its contents under his tongue. As the biological effects were known to be similar for everyday people like him, Kentbridge thought it couldn’t hurt. He’d been consuming it for over a decade – ever since Doctor Pedemont had assured him it would correct most of his damaged DNA and keep his body in shape. White Gold also had anti-aging benefits, something Kentbridge figured he would need in future if he was to keep up with the orphans.

As the doctor and Nurse Hilda departed and Professor Lidcombe wound up his lecture, Kentbridge glanced at his watch. “Thank you, professor.” Turning to the orphans, he said, “Let’s do an isolation session, people.”

The orphans filed out of the partitioned lecture area and headed for twenty three flotation tanks lined up on the far side of the basement. Without a shred of self-consciousness, each orphan stripped off their clothes and climbed naked into their individual tanks.

The last sight Nine saw before he lay down in his tank was Seventeen scowling at him. Her blue eyes locked with his, ever-accusing. He quickly closed the lid so he didn’t have to look at her severe face one second longer.

13
 

Floating in the warm salt water of the dark, soundless flotation tank, Nine let his mind go blank. The purpose of these sensory deprivation sessions was to allow the orphans to reach the deepest levels of their minds. The solitary flotation experience put them into very relaxed states, stimulating the all-important alpha and theta brainwaves. This enabled them to subconsciously speed-learn various subjects.

Soft strains of Baroque music interrupted the silence inside Nine’s tank. It played over speakers located at each end of the tank. Nine and his fellow orphans didn’t know it, but this specific style of classical music had been played to them since they were in the womb.

According to their music teacher, the mind became like a sponge when listening to the symphonies of Mozart and other Baroque composers. Nine, however, suspected there were subliminal messages embedded in the music. Sometimes he thought he caught whispers of Naylor’s voice underneath the music and worried he was being brainwashed.

A holographic video feed was suddenly beamed into Nine’s tank. Floating on his back, he had no choice but to look at the images – images that undoubtedly suited Omega’s agenda.

On this occasion, the images comprised authentic footage of various killing techniques being used for real by operatives of Mossad, the CIA, the KGB and other elite agencies. As the life-like holographic images incorporated sophisticated laser technology in 3D, it seemed to Nine he was actually witnessing the gory killings for real.

Unlike Seventeen and a few of the other orphans, Nine never enjoyed viewing such images. They made him feel sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else. Helen immediately came to mind. Her beauty dispelled the ugly images of a few seconds earlier. Compared to the people Nine was forced to mix with every day, she was an angel. Of that he was certain.

More than anything in the world, he wanted to find Helen and attempt to win her heart. To do that he would need to escape the orphanage and that, as Kentbridge had always said, was impossible.

Once again he thought about the microchip implanted in his forearm. It emitted a signal every second of the day, so even if he did manage to escape, Omega’s state-of-the-art satellite network would trace his whereabouts immediately. Then he remembered Kentbridge’s catch phrase:
For every problem, there’s always a solution
. 

Falling back on his Omega training, Nine allowed his subconscious mind to take over. He drifted into a trance-like state so he could
intuit
the answer to his problem.

Nine soon found himself thinking about White Gold. He knew Doctor Pedemont always kept a jar of the powder in his office on the orphanage’s third floor.

The ninth orphan snapped out of his self-imposed trance and opened his eyes. He wondered why of all things ORME, or White Gold, had entered his mind. Doing his best to ignore the holographic images of murder still being beamed into his tank, Nine mentally reviewed everything he knew about the substance.

He recalled a classified military document Omega had allowed the orphans to read. It had mentioned experiments the US military had conducted using ORME. Apparently, the military had discovered an unexpected but useful side-effect of White Gold: when smothered on vehicles and planes, they became invisible to radar and satellite technologies, and all transmission devices failed to emit signals effectively.

Although Nine already had the equivalent of a doctorate-level understanding of chemistry, biology and physics, the substance was off the charts and seemed to defy logical laws of science. Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements were in the realm of quantum physics, hyperdimensional theory and some would say the Twilight Zone. He didn’t fully understand it, and neither did the Omega scientists still testing it.

Nine didn’t care about the exact nature of the powder though. His only interest in White Gold was that it had been observed to exhibit a cloak of invisibility and signals in its presence were corrupted. The military’s report had stated more testing needed to be done, but if the initial experiments were accurate then the substance made
anything
undetectable to radar. It certainly did not constitute complete evidence, but Nine suddenly felt hopeful that ORME would provide him with a way out of Omega’s maze.

If he could coat the skin of his forearm in White Gold, he knew he had a chance at getting off-radar, literally. The substance would in theory interfere with the signal broadcast from his implanted microchip, just as it had in the military vehicles and planes. Effectively it would make him invisible to Omega’s vast satellite network.

He was confident he could
borrow
some of the powder from Doctor Pedemont’s office. After all, he had successfully borrowed the doctor’s binoculars when he spied on Helen from the tree house.

As the audacious escape plan crystallized in his mind, Nine found he relaxed all of a sudden. He floated without tension in the warm, saline water. Not even the brutal holographic images of operatives killing just inches from his face troubled him now. 

For the first time in his in his life, he felt like he was evolving into an individual. It was a healthy, rebellious energy surging up within – the exact opposite to the group consciousness or hive mentality he had experienced since birth.

An individual was something he was never meant to become. Indeed, it was something he could never
become, unless he somehow did the impossible and permanently severed his ties with Omega and the orphanage.
Now I’m gonna attempt the impossible
. He closed his eyes.
I’ll use the skills they taught me and the White Gold they used to nurture me. 

Nine laughed aloud. It seemed fitting he would be employing everything Omega had given him to escape their clutches.

#

Baroque music continued to play through the basement’s speakers later that afternoon as the orphans resumed their studies on couches in a library located slap bang in the middle of the basement. Book shelves took the place of partitions, and each shelf contained scores of books on all manner of subjects.

Today, a hundred selected books had been placed on a coffee table in front of the orphans. Each orphan had to speed-read every single book. It usually took them only an hour or so to complete such a session. The sound of fluttering pages could be heard throughout the basement as they flipped the pages at a page per second or faster.

The advanced reading technique that allowed them to mentally process books at this accelerated rate was known as mind photography. It was a method that employed peripheral vision and photographic memory to pick up entire pages at a time. As they did for most practices in the orphanage, the children performed mind photography in uncommon brainwaves for regular wakeful consciousness. In this case it was predominantly gamma waves, and it allowed them to tap into the genius of their subconscious minds.

Nine finished reading
The Catcher in the Rye
and put it back on the tabletop. As he reached for the next book, he looked up and saw Seventeen was reading
The Art of War
. He couldn’t help thinking that was very appropriate as he picked up Alexander Dumas’
The Count of Monte Cristo
. The classic novel’s plot, which his mind processed super fast, also seemed very appropriate to him as it involved themes of love lost, confinement and injustice.

As he continued to flip through its pages, he began to fantasize about escaping the Pedemont Orphanage once and for all and finding Helen, his first and only true love.

14

Doctor Pedemont didn’t give Nine a second glance as he stepped out of his third floor office and hurried toward the nearest stairwell. If the doctor had studied his ninth-born creation closely, he may have noticed the tension in the boy’s face and wondered why he was loitering on this floor.

Although Doctor Pedemont was under orders to keep his office door locked in his absence, he’d long since neglected to do that. And Nine had long been aware of this – ever since he’d started borrowing the doctor’s binoculars to spy on Helen.

As soon as the doctor disappeared downstairs and Nine was satisfied no-one else was around, he slipped into the vacated office. He immediately placed a towel over the security camera, before it could capture his image. Next, he moved toward what he had come for: the near-full jar of White Gold Powder he knew was always there. Retrieving it, he quickly unscrewed the lid and poured some of the powder into a small flour bag he’d uplifted earlier from the kitchen. He returned the jar to its original place, on a bookcase shelf.

Checking to make sure the corridor was clear, Nine removed the towel from the security camera, then left the office and headed for his quarters two levels below. A glance outside confirmed the blizzard that had been forecast had arrived with a vengeance. Rain and snow lashed the orphanage’s windows. Nine felt relieved the forecasters were right for once.

It had been a fairly mild Chicago winter until now, but the late February blizzard was a sign there would be no early spring this year. In fact, the city’s temperatures had just plummeted to record lows. That suited Nine just fine for what he was planning.

#

Cavell wagged his tail a little sadly as if sensing a goodbye. The Japanese Spitz temporarily blocked Nine’s path to the orphanage’s front door. The boy quickly patted his beloved dog behind the ear, then gently moved him out of the way.

Nine opened the front door and braced himself as he prepared to step outside into the raging blizzard. Snow and hail were being driven ahead of a gale force wind that tore at the hooded windbreaker he wore over his winter jogging gear. The orphan had to hold the hood tight to keep it in place and to protect his face. He was thankful he’d thought to wear his balaclava which would give him extra protection against the biting cold.

It was Sunday and all but five of the orphans had been given the day off. None except Nine planned to venture outside given the near white-out conditions.

Nine had been confident the appalling weather would ensure he’d be alone once he stepped outside. So it was with some consternation he saw Kentbridge appear in front of him as if from nowhere. The agent had just finished clearing windblown obstacles from the front yard. The thick cashmere coat he wore was saturated and snow flakes sat on his shoulders like dandruff.

Kentbridge was as surprised as Nine to find someone else outside on such a day. He looked the boy up and down. “Where are you off to in this storm?” He had to shout to make himself heard above the howling wind.