Escape: Omega Book 1 (Omega: Earth's Hero) (6 page)

Chapter 7

“Four Army Rangers dead. Twenty-seven civilians dead, twenty-five wounded. Omega could have taken each and every one of those terrorists out without a single unnecessary life lost. Do you care to explain his actions? Oh, and I almost forgot,” Hendricks said. The vein in his forehead bulged and spit flew from his mouth as he shouted. “He also disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer, an order given during a mission, and jumped out of a window, dropping a man twenty stories while playing on the landing skid of a Blackhawk like monkey bars!”

Dr. Sally North stared back at the general. In her two-year assignment to the base, she’d witnessed the general’s displeasure before, but never at this magnitude.

Dr. Sally North was a certified genius in every sense of the word. She graduated high school at thirteen, earned her first master’s degree in biochemistry at eighteen, followed by a doctorate of quantum physics at twenty-one. By the ripe old age of twenty-six, she’d earned additional degrees in computer programming, theoretical mathematics, and nuclear mechanics. Besides those accolades, she was also one of the nation’s leading experts in nanotechnology and the art of DNA manipulation.

Unfortunately, while she was at Phantom Base she wasn’t allowed to publish her research in any of the scientific journals, wasn’t allowed to interact with former colleagues, and was allowed only limited contact with her friends and family, and Hendricks’ henchmen closely monitored even that. The job, however, did not come without benefits. Since she’d finished school, the biotech firm Exeter had employed Sally. She’d remained at the corporate headquarters as part of the laboratory staff for a year, and then she’d been reassigned to work with the Department of Defense here at the unknown base in Nevada. Since then, her annual salary had reached beyond what she’d ever thought possible. She was making close to what many top-level execs at Fortune 500 companies brought home. Besides that, she was also granted an eight-hundred-square-foot apartment--complete with living area, bedroom, lavatory, and small kitchenette--at no cost whatsoever to her. Not a large space by any stretch of the imagination. It was all she needed or wanted.

The most rewarding aspect of the position, however, was the ability to work at the cutting edge of science, on projects that stretched the imagination and were probably considered nothing less than science fiction by everyone outside of Phantom Base.

Did that mean she would take his abuse with a smile and a thank you, just for the opportunity she’d worked hard her whole life for?

But she was no humble introvert. She stood her ground, and job be damned, she was not about to accept responsibility for something that was not her fault.

“Omega was following orders. His programming was upheld to the letter.”

“His programming called for the death of my men, of Rangers?”

“Yes, sir. In a program you authorized in 2007, Omega was instructed to complete his mission with the safety of civilians being paramount. In retrospect, he did just that. I’ve watched the video and—”

“Video? You want the families of those Rangers to watch their loved ones killed like cattle, while the ultimate weapon waited in the wings?” Both were to referring to Broken Mind Software’s own surveillance video that had given them competent images of the massacre and the First Lady’s subsequent rescue.

They were in the General Hendricks’s office, which was immediately adjacent to the command center, three floors above Sally’s laboratory. She did not feel comfortable around the man, and even less within the confines of his inner realm. Regardless of his rank, regardless of the authority that he held at this base, Sally was not a military officer. She had signed both a non-disclosure agreement and a certified letter of good intent, but neither required her to take crap off a man that had become so angry because of something he himself had done years ago.

“Sir,” Sally offered respectively. “If you would like diagnostics run that are more in-depth than the maintenance we did when Omega returned from New York, or you would like his programming altered, revised, or even so far as having him suspended until the time we’re able to reboot him, then that is your prerogative. I will work diligently in whichever course you choose. But Omega operated just as he should’ve. The First Lady and her brother, not to mention Captain Black, owe their lives to him.”

Lieutenant General Hendricks said nothing for a moment. After taking a sip of water from a glass tumbler on his desk, he stood and turned to face a world map on the wall. Since the majority of the complex was subterranean, windows were virtually nonexistent. Some of the base’s residents had gone so far as installed video monitors on their walls that displayed random landscapes.

When the general finally turned to face her, he had calmed considerably. “I think… the best course of action would be to conduct regular maintenance for now, have a look over the programming, and take out, or insert, a code that would force our billion-dollar piece of machinery to obey orders. Do you think you might be able to handle that, Dr. North?”

“Yes, sir,” she said through gritted teeth. “If I may be excused, I have pressing matters to attend to.”

“Of course, doctor,” General Hendricks said in his newly calmed voice. 

“I’ll be in the lab if you have any further need of me.” 

“I don’t think it will come to that.”

Chapter 8

The lift deposited Sally at a wide, sterile hallway lit with bright fluorescent lighting. It was late, and the technicians and lab staff had retired to their quarters for the evening.

Sally moved to her favored workstation near the center of the lab. A long worktable sat situated next to the large, rectangular monitor that allowed them to observe Omega.

Through the thick, reinforced wall of the lab was a truly amazing display of underground engineering. A vertical tunnel ran up for twenty feet and down for one hundred. Thirty feet in diameter, the cube that held Omega was only 12’ x 18’, just double the space given an inmate in a correctional facility. Despite the size of Omega’s chamber, it was a state-of-the-art unit. Constructed of experimental steel alloys and wired with fiber optic strands connecting the advanced computer gadgetry, the cost of the small box was many times over what a mansion in the most posh suburb would run. Suspended on a hydraulic post running from the base of the tunnel, the chamber could instantly be lowered, and a strong steel plate extended to seal off the opening. There was no entrance from the lab to the cube. The only entrance was on the opposite side of the cube, heavily guarded at all times. Sally wasn’t sure such a precautionary action would ever be needed, but it was there nonetheless.

The small cell had no windows, no openings whatsoever except for the door, which was six inches of pure steel and the entry points for the circuitry, oxygen, and water and septic systems. If the United States of America apprehended Adolf Hitler himself in the present day, Sally often supposed they’d place him in such a place.

Omega was no Hitler. Not at all. She didn’t understand the need for such stringent security. She wasn’t so foolish as to think no measures were warranted, but the extreme processes seemed just that: extreme. In all her years on the project, she could not recall Omega so much as raising his voice in anger. Mild mannered and inquisitive, intelligent and humble, he was almost meek in his demeanor. To Sally, it was really quite sad. Then again, Omega had never known any different.

While this was the first true operation in which Omega had been deployed, training missions numbering in the hundreds had been run, and it was a mandatory practice to test him after every episode. In Sally’s opinion, the soldier was still years away from being a reliable combat tool; there were just too many unknowns. Nonetheless, while here in the lab, her word was gospel. She didn’t have anywhere close to the authority needed for her opinion to matter. Busy at her task, she didn’t even tell her assistant goodnight, as was her usual custom. Instead, she focused on the instrument reading displayed on a workstation. While he was inside his cell, sophisticated monitoring equipment fed her Omega’s information and, though recorded in quadruple, she felt better seeing it for herself firsthand.

Omega slept, but fitfully. His engineered physiology was different from an average adult male of his approximate age, weight, and build. Nonetheless, Sally knew it quite well. Obsessive in her experiments and compulsive to the point of frenzy at the smallest details, she lost herself for hours on end, tapping away at a keyboard, reading graphs, charts, and spreadsheets.

Tonight was no exception. Omega had been more active than usual while sleeping, though he did sleep. Sally, on the other hand, had been less active than her subject of observation, yet her mind was calculating equations, formulating possible reasons why this finely tuned specimen had disobeyed direct orders. There were many mysteries out here in the desert. Many she knew and many she didn’t.

Phantom Base had been the last place she thought she would ever work. At ground level, it appeared little more than a compound used for combat training and perhaps storage. For miles around the complex, the property was riddled with state-of-the-art motion detectors and early warning devices. To maintain secrecy, it had been decided that the airspace above Phantom Base would not be restricted, but advanced radar detected and analyzed all aircraft coming within a fifty mile radius. With the Nellis Air Force Base barely a stone’s throw away, at least in fighter jet terms, this was a busy and demanding necessity to which junior personnel were usually assigned. But why the secrecy? Superior weaponry was often manufactured in the heart of many populated areas where the inhabitants either never knew or never cared. That had been Sally’s first thought when she’d been briefed after accepting the job but before learning what exactly it was that she would be working on.

And when she’d learned, she’d thought the entire world, besides her that was, had suddenly become insane.

Sally knew what she believed to be all the details of the “supposed” Roswell crash and where the genetic startup material came from simply because General Hendricks had told her. As project leader, he said, she was not only privy to the highest of classified documents as they related to the project, but dependent on the understanding that she was responsible for the greatest single experiment in the history of man.

Dr. North gave one last look at Omega’s sleeping form, let loose a very unabashed yawn, and stood from her station. At the door of the lab, she couldn’t help herself. She turned. “Good night, O. Sweet dreams.” There was, of course, no way could he hear her. Despite her scientific leanings, she wanted to think he did… and wished her the same.

The walk back to her quarters was brief. Too brief. Walking was one of the things she missed most about the outside world. Often during her college years--when she was troubled, confused, or just plain stumped--the young genius would head outdoors, walk the campus, walk the town, walk until her legs ached. The simple, primitive act of walking soothed her, allowed her mind to make connections it would never otherwise make.

Such treks were prohibited here. The only times Sally was allowed to see the outside world was on the quick whisks in and out of the compound, accompanied by half a dozen soldiers on approved excursions, and even those were few and far between. Sally thought she might like the desert, if she ever got the chance to experience it beyond a few rushed minutes. Raised in a moderate climate, the harshness of the hot climate intrigued her, as most things unknown to her usually did, hence her life’s profession.

Inside Phantom Base, there were places she could walk, she supposed. It was hard to find solitude outside of your own apartment, however. Furthermore, she had to remind herself, she was watched inside there as well. She knew some of the limitations on her privacy before she’d signed the proverbial line, but some shocked her. Video cameras everywhere, Internet usage monitored and restricted to approved sites. Social networks and email completely banned. The only thing a computer was good for in this place was work, and that, despite outside appearances, did not fill sally North with overwhelming joy. It was beyond foolish to think the human mind did not need distraction. It was ludicrous to assume that professional men and women needed to be sequestered to this degree just to carry out their research and development.

The death of the innocent men and women, as well as the soldiers, weighed heavily on her. While not responsible—she was no soldier after all—the lack of liability did nothing to diminish the pain and sorrow she felt. Sally North, for all her life, strove to be in control of everything. She took up the sciences as a young girl in an attempt to put order to chaos. If she’d made any progress was uncertain, but she liked to think she had. The murders she’d witnessed was something beyond her control, were beyond anyone’s. That she did not like, appreciate, or respect.

She’d felt the churn of her stomach, the chills on her skin as she’d watched the monitor display the feed from the soldier’s helmet cam. Not for a second did it feel like a movie, a drama on television, and when the soldier that shared his sight with her and the others aboard the Blackhawk fell, a little bit of Sally had died along with him.

How much worse would it have been without Omega there? While there was no denying her contribution to the project, Omega was the one that saved those people, and he should be hailed as a hero, not a villain as Hendricks saw him. So much about the world of war and politics remained a mystery to Sally. Unlike almost everything else, it was a mystery she did not care to explore.

Letting herself into her small, sparse quarters, Sally let out a small breath of relief. While watched around the clock and almost everything in the apartment belonged to good ole Uncle Sam, it was her place when she inhabited it. It was good to be home.

She let her lab coat fall from her shoulders to the floor. Stepping lazily to the kitchenette, she pulled a bottle of wine from a rack. Liquor was frowned on officially, but it had been said even General Hendricks himself turned a blind eye to moderate consumption.

The dark merlot filled a plastic cup and she sipped it slowly as she made her way to the bathroom. Sitting the cup on the sink counter, she undressed slowly. Already the wine was easing her mind, loosening her muscles. She downed the entire cup before stepping into the shower. The water fell hot as it sluiced down her naked form. As the merlot and water began to calm her, she imagined what troubles tomorrow would bring.

Though an outstandingly creative scientist and a free thinker, even she could not begin to conceive the future’s woes.    

It started with a phone call. Hendricks was exhausted. He needed sleep. That hadn’t been in the cards. Instead, he took a little helicopter ride. With his tie loosened but his uniform still on, he stepped from the chopper and a group of men that he did not relish seeing greeted him.

While Adaven was his main concern, he was also responsible for this little side project, more a warehouse than any type of operating base. While he made his regularly scheduled tours of the installation, he spent no more time here than he felt necessary. Hendricks would be hard pressed to explain why, at least to anyone but himself. But of course, he knew. Oh, yes, he knew. The place and the things within it made him more than just a bit uncomfortable.

Since his promotion to commander of Phantom Base, there had never been the need to arrive suddenly, in a rush. Tonight, that changed.

“Sorry to have bothered you, general. We thought you’d want to know immediately.”

“That’s fine. Give me a full report.” The mousy scientist, Stanhousen, that had elected himself head of the welcoming committee seemed to have the same hair stylist as Albert Einstein… which is to say is looked like he’d stuck his finger in an electrical socket. Short, just over five feet, with incredibly thick spectacles, and a rumpled lab coat, he was the clichéd scientist. While he knew Sally North to be a brilliant mind and well-suited for her position, men like Stanhousen made Hendricks a little more comfortable, as if looking the part was as important as the appropriate skill set.