The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2) (29 page)

“At least they’re free.”

“You call that free?” He nodded toward a business executive biting his nails as he waited for someone. “They’re all prisoners of their own limited realities. Their own limited understanding of the way our world really works.” Kentbridge looked fondly at Nine. “We’re not like, nor are we ever going to be like, other people. We know too much about the world and how it operates to ever be understood by any of them.”

Nine considered this as they allowed themselves to be swept along by Chicagoans hurrying to get to wherever it was they were going.

Kentbridge looked at Nine calculatedly. “Did that pretty Greek girl understand you?”

The orphan remained silent, but he knew what Kentbridge was getting at. Helen hadn’t understood him at all, and that was primarily because he was so different.

Kentbridge pressed on. “Presumably you tried to open up to her. Did she get you?”

Still Nine didn’t answer. His wounds remained too raw to talk about it.

“You mistakenly thought the world out there is perfect. It’s natural to idealize what we don’t have. The grass is always greener and all that.”

Nine reluctantly had to agree. As much as he hated to admit it, the world beyond Omega had defeated him, and in the end a part of him had actually yearned to return to the orphanage – even if it was prison-like and full of other orphans as angry and disillusioned as him.

They came to an unoccupied bench and sat down to watch the passing crowds for a moment. Gone was the earlier tension that had existed between the pair.

Kentbridge reopened the conversation. “I know you cannot fully comprehend now, but you and the other orphans will play a big part in this resistance movement in years to come. I’ve been hard on you, but please believe me when I say I have your best interests at heart.” He patted Nine on the back. “One day, when you’re in the firing line in some hostile foreign country, you’ll thank me for pushing you so hard.”

Nine gave no indication he agreed or disagreed, but Kentbridge was satisfied he’d got through to his student. The special agent stood up. “Anyway, these have all been good lessons. You now know the world is messed up and nobody is really free.”

They headed for the nearby car park where Kentbridge had parked his Chrysler. As they walked, Kentbridge reviewed what he’d told Nine about his mother. He was aware it was more than Naylor would ever want any orphan to know, and it was certainly against the strict rules drawn up for the Pedemont Project. Any breach of those rules would be a sack-able offence, or worse.

Kentbridge turned to Nine. “Don’t tell the others that you have a real name or that you know about your mother. They’ll get jealous.”

“Especially Seventeen.”

“Hell, she’d be jealous if I gave you an ice-cream!” 

Nine couldn’t help but laugh. Soon, they were both laughing.

53

The sun hitting Nine’s face almost made him feel at peace with the world. He could imagine he was on some tropical island. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He was lying on the carpeted floor of the orphanage’s main library, close to a window, enjoying the sun’s rays as they briefly shone into the building.

It was now mid-spring and the days were getting warmer.

Nine wasn’t alone. He was in the company of some of the other orphans. A few were reading, others playing cards or chatting, while the rest, like him, were lying in the sun. They were all waiting for lunch, which was being prepared for them by two of the female orphans, Six and Twenty, in the nearby kitchen. The mouthwatering aroma of Spaghetti Bolognese wafted into the library. Unlike the basement library, this one contained only mainstream books so as not to alarm the outsiders who visited the orphanage from time to time.

Before lunch and dinner was one of the few times each day the orphans got any time to themselves. That was, if they weren’t roistered to cook for the others.

This had been the established routine for almost as long as they could remember. As a result, all the orphans had become proficient cooks in their own right. Even so, the wags among them – Ten in particular – never overlooked an opportunity to poke fun at their fellow orphans’ culinary skills. As the youngest orphan, Twenty Three in particular had been the butt of many a gastronomic joke. Fortunately for him, he’d developed a thick skin over the years and was now giving as good as he got.

The downtime, although brief, was enjoyed by all. It was one of the few times they got a break from their exhausting studies. If there was one thing their Omega masters were expert at, it was pushing the orphans to their limits. And none was more expert at that than Kentbridge. He knew his charges’ weak points and went out of his way to exploit them.

Nine looked up through the window at the clouds as they fleetingly covered the sun. There was something about clouds that calmed his mind. He was brought out of his daydream when a rubber band, fired at speed, struck his head. It stung. Nine turned to see who the culprit was. Sure enough it was his best friend Ten, the resident joker.

Surprise, surprise
.

The mischievous orphan was sniggering, and was clearly amused by his juvenile act.

Nine had often wondered how Ten could find so much humor in the worst of circumstances. In fact, he’d once asked him that exact question, to which Ten had replied, “You gotta laugh or you cry.”
How true
. Nine smiled back at the cheeky orphan.

If we cry then our Omega masters have won.

Nine picked up the rubber band and aimed it at Seven, the African-American boy, who had fallen asleep nearby and was beginning to snore. He fired it, striking the victim’s cheek.

Seven awoke with a pig-like snort, causing everyone in the library to laugh. Furious, he looked around for the culprit. His eyes eventually rested on Ten who was pretending to be asleep. Ten didn’t fool Seven because he was shaking with laughter.

Risking a peek, Ten opened his eyes and saw Seven staring directly at him. “It wasn’t me, Seven,” he said through tears of laughter. Feeling guilty for no reason other than he usually was the guilty party, he jumped to his feet and bolted from the library.

Seven chased after him. “I’ll kill you, Ten!” the boy shouted to the amusement of the others.

“Go get him, Seven!” someone shouted.

The sound of Cavell barking outside the ground floor window reached Nine as Seven pursued the innocent Ten outside and chased him round and round the orphanage. An excited Cavell joined in.

Nine stretched out on the carpet again as the sun broke through the clouds. He was determined to recharge his batteries and enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face. Just as he was dozing off, the lunch gong sounded. Six and Twenty were ready to serve lunch.

#

While his orphans ate lunch three floors below, Kentbridge poured over files in his office. The files were the result of a computer program Omega’s IT people had developed. It graded the orphans, taking into account their test results throughout the year and, more importantly, their individual strengths and weaknesses.

The special agent didn’t need a computer program to rate his orphans. He knew them better than they knew themselves, and could recall their strengths and weaknesses without a second’s hesitation. Regardless, Naylor expected him to use the program and furnish him with regular reports, so he did exactly that, providing monthly reports on the performance of the orphans collectively and individually.

Biased though he was, Kentbridge knew the results were stunning. The orphans were performing at a higher level than even he had dared. Certainly, the Omega directors were impressed – including the demanding Naylor – and the consensus was the orphans were worth every cent of the millions of dollars that had gone into their development.

In a little under six years the orphans would be unleashed and sent on assignments around the globe, and Kentbridge couldn’t wait for that.

Meanwhile, there were monthly reports to provide, and that’s what Kentbridge was currently grappling with. As he pored over his latest report, he saw that Nine remained top of the class as always. While other orphans may have beaten the boy in certain tests, Nine almost always achieved the best results over all, proving his all-round consistency month in, month out.

Close behind, and always challenging for the number one position, was Seventeen. She was the best of all the orphans, Nine included, in a number of activities – marksmanship, interrogation techniques and mathematics in particular – but rarely challenged Nine for the overall top ranking. Although the orphans never got to see the rankings, Kentbridge knew that Seventeen was aware of Nine’s superiority. Not that she’d ever admit it, even to herself.

The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. He picked it up. “Kentbridge.” The caller was his wife, Rachel. He could tell immediately she was crying. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I can’t keep doing this, Tommy,” Rachel sobbed.

“What happened?”

“There’s no change,” Rachel said. “I’ve been prodded with more needles and had more things shoved up me!” She was shouting now.

“Try to stay calm.”

“It’s all been for nothing!” she cried. “I’m so tired, Tommy.”

Kentbridge knew exactly what Rachel was talking about. She hadn’t been able to conceive naturally and so they were going through an IVF fertility plan to induce a pregnancy. So far, it had been one failure after another and Rachel was nearing the end of her tether. “What did the doctor say?” he asked gently.

“I can’t go through all this now,” she sobbed. “He wrote it all down for us. The bottom line is yet another process has failed.”

Kentbridge could sympathize. Rachel had been undergoing IVF treatment for the past few months, but it seemed like forever. Each stage of the process was more harrowing than the last. His heart went out to her. “Honey, I don’t know what to say.”

As he tried to comfort his wife, he glanced at a live feed on his laptop. It was coming from the orphanage’s dining room courtesy of a surveillance camera installed in the room’s ceiling. The orphans were eating around a large, rectangular dining table. Kentbridge did a quick headcount to confirm all twenty three were present.

“All I feel is blackness, Tommy,” Rachel whimpered.

“I’m coming home now. Try not to worry. I’ll be there soon.” Kentbridge hung up and began to gather his paperwork. He intended to finish his monthly report at home.

54

In the dining room, Six and Twenty looked on with undisguised pride as their fellow orphans tucked into the Spaghetti Bolognese they’d prepared. The consensus was the meal was first class. Even Ten refrained from indulging in his usual ribbing.

Nine sat alone at one end of the long table, a little apart from the others. It felt surreal to be back in the orphanage, eating at the same table he’d consumed literally thousands of meals at. His head was still spinning from all the information Kentbridge had recently revealed to him. He was now confused as to exactly what Omega was and what it stood for. Previously, he thought he had the organization figured out, but now it seemed much more complex.

As he curled another mouthful of spaghetti around his fork, Nine thought of Helen back in California. His feelings for the girl he’d been willing to risk everything for were something of a revelation for him. Not for the first time since returning to Chicago, he was surprised he now felt nothing at all for Helen. It embarrassed him to think he’d been prepared to give up everything, even his life, for some girl who didn’t even care for him.

I’ll never make that mistake again
.

Nine focused on his meal and made short work of it. When he looked up from his now empty plate, he saw he was under scrutiny. His fellow orphans seemed intrigued by the boy who had challenged their Omega masters. Three male orphans were staring at him. One, Thirteen and Twenty Two had made no secret of their desire to find out what Nine had gotten up to during his unauthorized escapades. They were always pestering him to tell them more.

“Tell us something else about your adventures,” Thirteen insisted.

Nine realized every eye around the table was now on him. He’d already told them almost everything that had happened to him during his all-too-brief escape from the orphanage, but his fellows had made it clear they didn’t mind hearing the same stories again. It was as if they wanted to vicariously experience some of what he had gone through.

Knowing they would keep hounding him until he revealed every last detail, Nine relented. “There was this cop on a motorcycle who pulled me over. I waited until he was distracted, then gave him the slip. I hid in an underground car park until he gave up and left.”

“Sounds like a scene from a movie,” Thirteen, the Polynesian boy, said excitedly.

Seventeen retorted, “More like a scene from Nine’s over-active imagination.”

“What?” Nine asked.

Seventeen ignored Nine. “How can we verify any of his tall stories. He can tell us anything and we have no way of knowing if it really happened.”

“Why would I lie?” Nine asked.

“To cover your embarrassment. You disrespected our masters and had given up on being an operative. All because of the girl next door. You were like some pathetic pussy!”

Nine hated Seventeen at that moment.
Sarcastic bitch
. And he hated the way condescending words just seemed to roll effortlessly off her tongue.

Determined to ignore her, Nine downed the drink he and the other orphans had been provided to go with the meal. The taste of the all too familiar cocktail was another stark reminder that he really was back in the orphanage. Known as
Mother’s Nectar
, the drink had been formulated by Doctor Pedemont to compensate for the fact that the orphans were never breastfed. Its primary ingredient was virgin coconut oil – nature’s only abundant source of the highly-nutritional lauric acid besides a mother’s breast milk. Like White Gold Powder, the orphans had consumed Mother’s Nectar their entire lives.