Authors: Tes Hilaire
“I’m surprised the government hasn’t ordered up more of them,” Teigan said.
“There was a little problem,” Whitesman replied. “It seems there were parts of the procedure Viadal never fully documented. Only
he
could produce the desired result.”
“And Viadal wouldn’t do it again?” Teigan didn’t believe that. Everything he’d ever heard about the scientist suggested he considered himself on par with God.
“Not exactly. Viadal couldn’t
.
The government, not realizing they didn’t have all the cards in the deck, executed him in 2077.”
Teigan lifted an eyebrow. “That would make it hard. Do I dare ask why?”
“Because we discovered he’d been selling his services to other governments as well. We had ten super-soldiers. Across the globe there were another two dozen. Viadal was caught, tried by secret panel, convicted and executed. With his death, his secret died as well. But because of the mess Viadal made when he sold his services, our super-soldiers have not only been performing their regular duties, but also dispensing with the hostile governments’ super soldiers.”
Something extraordinary indeed. Teigan sighed and folded his arms. “Brother against brother.”
“In a way.” Whitesman tilted his head to the side as he considered his next words. “Regardless. This is all background. What’s important is that not only did we lose a man last night, but four other governments have lost soldiers recently, and nobody is owning up to it.”
“It could be a cover up,” Teigan suggested.
“Maybe.” Whitesman’s face wore a pinched expression. “But their governments all deny the kills, and in the past they have always been eager to claim them.”
“Then what are you thinking?”
Whitesman pulled a photo up onto the wall screen. The modular imaging popped the photo out, floating with life-like reality into the room. The subject was a young man in the prime of his life: A standard, military-issue buzz over an evenly featured face. Teigan would’ve thought him pretty except for the hard-planed cheekbones and distant look in his gray eyes. The hologram didn’t extend below the chest, but the soldier’s well-toned muscles topping the broad shoulders were visible.
Whitesman brought up another set of images on the screen. These weren’t so pretty.
“Noah Gordon, 07302074e13498ssa, his tracer registered the stoppage of his heart at 17:23 last night, a team of Black-ops found him like this in his cabin. He was on his mandatory weekend leave. They get one a month, as recommended.”
“How… humane.” Teigan locked his eyes on the image of the dead soldier whose head was skewed awkwardly on his neck.
Whitesman either didn’t notice the sarcasm or ignored it. “Even they need down time.”
Teigan rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to put his distaste on the back burner. What had been done to those men, what they were, what they had been used for, was not his concern. But why Whitesman was telling them all this would be.
“What does the code number mean?” John asked.
“Date of birth, embryonic number, sound, stable, active,” Whitesman answered.
“Thirteen-thousand, four-hundred and ninety-eight.” John snapped his gum. “And you only got 10 out of that?”
Whitesman shrugged. “Like I said, the success rate was marginal at best. Most never created viable offspring and of those that did, many weren’t sound or stable.”
Teigan wondered what it meant to be unsound or unstable. Mentally imbalanced? Deformed? Handicapped? Or maybe just plain average. That wouldn’t suit the military’s purpose either. What had been done to all the unsuccessful experiments? His hands tightened to fists within his pockets.
Whitesman scowled. “And for the record, I wasn’t part of this. This was strictly military. Not until they were already in training was Agency headquarters notified of who and what they were. I was asked to come on as a liaison between the branches.”
“But you’ve used them,” Teigan stated flatly, “like you would the newest offensive technology, as if they were a goddamn weapon and not human.”
“Yes. We have,” Whitesman replied, surprising Teigan with his honesty. “They are what they are. It would be far more inhumane to toss them into society and expect them to deal.”
“What about the ones who didn’t fit your parameters?”
“Not my parameters.” Whitesman voice was threateningly low.
Tegian didn’t back down, but continued to stare at him.
Whitesman sniffled, wrinkling his nose as if he had an itch. “The normal ones were adopted, either by the surrogate mother or through a private agency. Twenty-three infants, those whose physical deformities were beyond medical repair, were euthanized. The subjects who showed mental instability were placed in a proper institution.” He hesitated. “And we have three of the ten who were originally chosen for the program but were discharged or resigned at some point in time.”
“You have three of those, um, them out there?” John eyes grew wild.
“Yes.” Whitesman swung his attention to the tech. “With very, very careful monitoring. If they step a toe out of line...” He left the threat hanging.
“Maybe one of them got sick of being under the microscope,” John suggested.
“No,” Whitesman replied definitively, then hesitated. “I don’t know…maybe. It’s as likely a possibility as any other.” Whitesman’s brow creased. “That’s the crux of it. We just don’t know. But we have to consider that we might have a couple traitors in our midst.”
“A couple?” Teigan asked.
“They’re chipped. We routinely monitor them, even when they’re off duty. Same goes for the in-actives. No
one
V-10 has been unaccounted for during all five deaths. Either it’s a hostile covert op or we have a conspiracy amongst our own boys. We just don’t know.”
“So you’re bringing us in to find out which?” Teigan wasn’t liking the sound of this. Spying on your own men, regardless of justification, always left a bitter taste in his mouth—even more so than covering some horny politician’s ass. Even more than being lied to.
“I’m afraid so. It’s a dangerous assignment. Bad enough if another hostile government is responsible, but if it’s our own men, then chances are they’re going to go after you. And chances are you won’t see it coming.”
Nope, not liking this at all. “Do the V-10 know we’ll be investigating them?”
“No, but they might deduce as much.” Whitesman tapped the desk in agitation. “For this undercover op they know you’re going to be working with them, looking for connections, evidence, anything that would reveal a lead to our killer.”
Undercover op. A big, red warning light went off in Teigan’s head.
“John is being brought in as background technical support and coordination.” Whitesman waved a hand toward the Head of Systems Research. “He’ll be your behind-the-scenes guy.”
“And what am I?” Teigan asked, a sense of premonition running down his spine.
“What are you?” Whitesman’s hard eyes roamed over the picture of the dead soldier, and then settled on Teigan once more. “Why, you’re the bait.”
Chapter Two
July 30
th
2104: 1352 EST
Teigan stood outside the squat, one-level row house, studying the utilitarian gray exterior. The house didn’t give him any insight into the man living inside: his brother—a brother he hadn’t even known existed until two hours ago. Half-brother, he corrected himself on the much needed level of disassociation.
Whitesman’s revelation had left him off center and unsettled. He didn’t know whether to be angry that he’d never been told he had a brother, outraged that his father could have ever been a part of such an atrocity, or disgusted that he was related to one of…them. Were they human? Could someone genetically culled ever be normal?
Teigan supposed of all of the V-10, Garret might be the closest. When given the choice, Garret had opted out. He’d gotten an honest-to-god blue collar job. Bought a cookie cutter house in a middle class, completely forgettable suburb, and now roamed the streets with only the occasional check-in. Which, of course, was the real conundrum here: Garret’s whereabouts were in question for two of the murders.
Teigan ground a stone into the cracked walkway as he rehearsed his introduction:
“Hi, bro. Good to meet you. It’s going to be great working together. Give us a chance to get to know each other. Oh, and by the way, I’m also supposed to find out if you’ve gone off the deep end and are going around breaking your Viadal brothers’ necks.”
Yeah, that’d go over well. This assignment was sucking more and more at every turn.
He stood there another few seconds, a slight breeze ruffling the perfectly cut grass before John came alongside him and slapped him on the back. “You going to stand there all day?”
Teigan grunted and fell into step beside the tech. He didn’t quite understand John’s assignment here. John wasn’t exactly used to coordinating background support for an op. He was normally back at base providing research and working on new technologies. Of course, John’s ability to hack into systems, even the most well-hidden and secure, would be a bonus if Garret was conspiring with someone else for these killings.
And then there was the other reason: Whitesman knew that despite Teigan’s misgivings, he was going to give this brother of his a real chance at being family. But family and government assignments mixed like oil and water, hence John, a neutral third party, a babysitter. Definitely sucking.
They climbed the steps toward the solid metal door, the coded panel glared red—locked. John stepped forward, but the door opened before he could hit the buzzer.
Teigan’s shoes stuck to the cement like gum on hot pavement. It was as if he were looking in a mirror. On second glance, subtle differences began to appear. At 6’ 3” the ex-V-10 was a good inch taller and had about fifteen pounds of muscle on Teigan. But that didn’t show unless you knew to look. No, the biggest visible difference between the two of them was that Garret’s hair was cropped into a shorter military buzz—which meant Teigan was going to have to buzz his dark locks, too. Sucking, sucking, sucking. Teigan also noted, with rising irritation, that his half-brother had a few less wrinkles. Beyond sucking, this assignment blowed.
“Agent Evans, Agent Polchev?”
As if it isn’t obvious.
Teigan nodded an affirmative.
“I’ve been told to cooperate fully,” Garret said and stepped back so they could enter, his face impassive. No hi, how are ya, so good to finally meet you…Yeah. Well he could play at indifference too and did by stepping into the house without acknowledging the elephant either.
The interior was nothing special. A small living room with a brown couch and two serviceable chairs framing the wall screen. To the right was a kitchen and dining area and straight ahead a long hall with four doors off it. Except for the ugly couch, which looked to be secondhand, everything in the place blended in with the stark white, black and metallic gray decor. Bachelor pad—boring bachelor pad.
From the rear of the house a shuffling arose. Teigan’s jerked his head back to the hall in question.
“Carthridge and Morris are converting the study to be your command center,” Garret explained. “Last door on the right.”
Shit. Garret’s voice even sounded like his. “Thanks.”
“I’m going to stay out of your way. After you’re set up, I’m assuming you’ll want to give me a more detailed briefing than what Whitesman told me over the com.”
Teigan inclined his head. “Works for me.”
“Good.” Garret moved off into the kitchen and started filing dishes through the sanitizer. There was something decidedly strange about seeing a six-foot-three, 220 pound super soldier doing menial labor, but he guessed someone had to do them, and it wasn’t going to be Uncle Sam.
“That’s just too weird,” John said as they moved on down the hall.
“A V-10 doing dishes?”
“Him. You.” John snapped his gum. “Tell the truth, if I didn’t know, I’d have a hard time guessing which one of you had daddy shooting his wad into mommy and which one the test tube.”
Teigan dug his nails into the palm of his hands. His father, and whatever the hell he’d been thinking when he’d volunteered his sperm for the experiments, was not something he wanted to discuss, especially with John.
John popped a bubble, opened his mouth as if he was going to say more, but they came to Garret’s home office. Teigan pushed open the door and stepped in, effectively cutting off conversation. Carthridge had set up the receiver and was scrunching his powerfully muscled body to get behind the desk and plug in the last connections to wall jacks that would hook them into the hard-line. Morris, leaner than either Garret or Carthridge, but still out of place in the small office, was gathering a bunch of wireless transmitters.
“Agent Evans, Polchev.” Morris nodded in greeting as he eased around them toward the door. “With your permission, I’ll go outside and start setting up the perimeter.”
“That’s fine,” Teigan said. Simultaneously Carthridge said, “Wait up a moment.”
Morris hesitated, looking from Teigan to Carthridge. Carthridge jerked his head toward the door and Morris’s curly blonde head disappeared around the corner.