Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (10 page)

Diego narrowed his eyes on the Queen, watching her
closely. “So the fox sent you to me to tell you its location. And that doesn’t
strike you as odd?”

The Queen’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Either tell
me or don’t, but you can take up whatever concerns you have regarding the fox’s
behavior with him.”

“You want to go there today?”

“Now.” She sniffed the air with disgust. “This place
stinks like a cripple.”

Diego couldn’t help but note her beauty. He hated
looking at her face because it served as a constant reminder of his own
hideousness. Every scar and disfigurement burned in the presence of her
magnificence, and suddenly he hated Emerald with the heat of a blitzer.

Focus
, Trapper said.
Stop thinking about the girl who gave us the
scars.

Diego snarled and then remembered the Queen. He had
to give her information.

You don’t have
to give her anything! The fox probably didn’t even endorse this
.

But the idea of ignoring Trapper’s advice made Diego
grin inside.

“The extraction program …” He searched his memory
for everything he could tell her. “It was created side-by-side with the citizen
surveillance initiative: the fox’s brainchild. Round up as many anomalies as possible
by encouraging CAG citizens to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior. The
theory was to get on-the-ground, real-time feedback, and identify anomalies
faster than the NWG. The idea worked. People were willing to comply. They still
are. Identified individuals go to cells for triage, and those chosen for
extraction go to … the extraction site.”

“Get to the point, Diego. Where is it?”

“What was the first major catastrophe the fox
orchestrated to implicate the NWG in terrorist acts against the CAG?”

“The Mexico City bombing.”

Diego tapped what was left of his nose to tell her
she was right. “That wasn’t chosen randomly. The contract to rebuild the site
into a memorial was given to Murrolems Construction Group, a subsidiary of N
Corp. An underground facility exists there called the Extraction/Implantation
Project.”

The Queen snorted and rolled her eyes. “Sounds like
a dental clinic.”

“Every anomaly under the age of eighteen is sent
there for extraction and implantation.”

“And those eighteen and over?”

“Incinerators.”

The Queen’s lips formed a tight grin. Diego wished
he could read her better. Before another word was said, she stood up and paced
around the room, running her hand over the consoles and operating boards as she
moved. Diego watched her closely.

“What do they do there?” was her next question.

“I don’t know. It was never within my scope of
oversight.”

She laughed and paused, her hands gripped the edge
of one console, her face turned toward him. He still could not read her perfect
face. “If I go to this site today, will they let me in or does the fox need to
grant me access?”

“The fox will need to call ahead and let them know
you are coming,” Diego lied. The truth was that both Diego and the fox could
authorize visits to the site.

The Queen didn’t respond. “I’ll ask him to take care
of it.” Then she left, and Diego sat in his chair, stewing over what had just
taken place.

Someone is
impersonating the fox
, Trapper said.

“And the Queen …” Diego mused. “Something strange
about her too.”

She can blast
now. How did that happen?

“I have no idea.”

Perhaps it is
all connected. But what can you do? You are on an island
.

Diego had no answer for Trapper. It was wrong.
Wrong. All wrong! He paced the room, scratching at his head, rubbing the face
that Emerald had mangled years ago. “Why do people have to mess things up? Why
can’t I just be left alone?”

You mean why
can’t
we
be left alone?

“SHUT UP!” Diego had no one to go to for help. No
one who understood. For years it had been only he and the fox. When he needed
assistance, when rare bouts of loneliness hit him, or when he saw something
that worried him, he called the fox.

Sammy
, Trapper
suggested.
You need Sammy
.

Diego laughed. It was a garbled, hoarse thing that
reminded him of a toilet not flushing properly. He’d always liked its sound.
But the laugh died when something caught his eye. A bump. A protrusion where
there shouldn’t be. An aberration. He got down on his hands and knees and
crawled across the floor, staring at it. His eye twitched the closer he drew.

When he stopped crawling, his nose and eye were
nearly pressed up against the underside of his console where a small flat
device stuck magnetically to the metal. Instinctively, he reached out to grab
it, but his hand froze less than a centimeter away when Trapper yelled,
Don’t! You don’t know what it is.

“She planted it,” Diego told the pest.

Exactly. To spy
on us.

“To spy on me.”

If it has an
accelerometer, she’ll know you moved it.

Gently, slowly, carefully, and more gently, Diego
slid it until the magnet had nothing left to hold. It took him an hour to take
the device apart, but when he finished he knew exactly what the thing could do.

“She’ll know everything I do,” he told Trapper.
“Every call, every keystroke.”

The fox will,
too, if she’s working with him.

“The fox trusts me.” Diego licked his four lips with
a dry tongue. “This is your fault! Yours! You wouldn’t let me call him. You
made me hide the evidence. What if they found out about Sammy and the girl
and—”

Something has
happened. You need to contact Sammy. He’s the only way we can get out of this
mess.

Diego shook his head, but what if Trapper was right?
“I don’t even know how.”

You’re smart.
You’ll figure it out.

* * * * *

“Welcome to the Extraction/Implantation Project,” a pretty woman in
her early thirties said to the Queen as she met her at the door. She had
bleach-blonde hair and walked with short, tight steps. “I only learned of your
impending arrival ten minutes ago. My name is Judy. The Project Director has
asked me to show you around and answer all your questions. He said you are to
be given full access and security clearance.”

“Thank you,” said the Queen smugly. Her ability to
impersonate the fox gave her access to any door she wanted open. “I want to
know everything, so don’t stop talking unless I tell you to or interrupt you
with a question.”

They were in an underground world of pristine chrome
and glass. Ultra-security to get in and out. A place so perfectly quiet that it
was obvious something horribly imperfect was happening. A sickly thrill ran
down the Queen’s body, starting at the muscles on the back of her skull and
stopping at the very base of her spine.

How could the
fox have kept this place a secret from me?

Judy led the Queen to her office. A chrome door with
the words
Project Director –
Assistant
carved into the metal paneling with a laser. The door shut behind
them with a hiss. The office was not very homey. Spartan, modern furnishings
decorated it: a simple desk, three chairs, and a computer. No pictures, plants,
or personal items proudly displayed. Nothing to give the Queen any idea
regarding Judy’s interests, background, hobbies, or home life. Judy must have
noticed the Queen’s curiosity because she smiled plainly and said, “I’m married
to my work. I can assure you, we all are here. That’s why we were chosen.
Depressing, huh?”

She wore a lab coat, and underneath it a fitted gray
sweater and stylish khaki-colored pants. Her long blonde hair was pulled back,
a black barrette held it all in place. Her legs were crossed, right over left.
At least once every five minutes, the holo-screen on her com turned on and
displayed an alert, only to disappear seconds later. From what the Queen could
tell, Judy read and processed each message.

“The Project has been in existence for twelve years.
The same year the Safety Laws were passed by Congress. Budgetary earmarks to
the Safety Laws have kept the project well-funded ever since. All candidates
for the training come from Aegis interrogation units based independently in the
Thirteen cells. Over the last twelve years, our protocol has evolved. Each
subject endures two rigorous programs. If they fail the first, they do not
proceed to the second. We have a 75% failure rate in the first program, but
that’s quite an improvement from our earlier years. It used to be as high as
90%. Fortunately our success rate in the second program is 100%.”

“Tell me more about these programs.”

“I’ll show them to you. The first program is called
H.A.M.M.E.R. Habitual Acquiescence, Memory Modification, Education Reconstruction.
The name is self-explanatory. Success in this program is vital to the second.
All the subjects in H.A.M.M.E.R. are kept in the main facility.”

“Both programs are located here?” the Queen asked.
“The building doesn’t seem that large.”

“The second program is located much deeper
underground. They all want to reach the second level, I assure you. It’s one of
the first things we condition into them.”

“Which anomalies go through this training?”

“Eleven, Fourteen, and Fifteen. Not Thirteen.
Training for Thirteens and Aegis takes place in individual Thirteen cells. Once
an Eleven, Fourteen, or Fifteen completes H.A.M.M.E.R., he or she is sent to
S.H.I.E.L.D.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for: Skill Honing, Intelligence
Enhancement, Learning Development. Our aim is to create operative teams that
exceed what the Alpha program of the NWG has produced. I think we are on the
verge of success. We hope to do test deployments in real battle situations in
the next four to six weeks.”

“What happens to those who fail H.A.M.M.E.R.?”

Judy smiled and re-crossed her legs, her eyes
staring off to the side. “They are released from the program as efficiently as
possible. We have a release scheduled today. Possibly two.” Judy’s smile grew
and she wasted no time getting to her feet. “Let’s begin the tour.”

First Judy showed the Queen the offices of the
project directors, staff psychiatrists, nutritionists, and other laborers.
These offices were separated from the H.A.M.M.E.R. facility via a metal door
nearly a meter thick.

“This type of impenetrable reinforcement surrounds
the entire complex,” Judy noted proudly. “An amalgam of seven different metals.
It’s impossible for Anomaly Fourteens to even dent. A couple even had the
chance to try. It was … interesting.” She ran her fingers along the metal with
a lover’s touch. “The stories I could tell you …”

Once through the door, they came to a room with
Aegis guards watching a host of monitors. To their right stood a stack of
weapons, including the new mini-blitzers that the Queen had heard about. The
small surveillance room had four doors placed symmetrically around the room:
the one Judy had brought the Queen through, one directly ahead, and ones to the
left and right. The letters H.A.M.M.E.R. were scored into the floor with a
massive mallet emblazoned in the background.

“Cells to the right, testing rooms straight ahead,
and to the left … classrooms. Which would you like to see first? All are
fascinating, I assure you.”

The Queen chose the cells, knowing they would be the
most boring. She was wrong. Only half of the two hundred cells were occupied.
“How long does the H.A.M.M.E.R. program take to complete?” she asked Judy.

“It all depends on the candidate. Some have
completed it in less than a year, others take several. After the age of twenty-one,
the chance that a candidate will succeed drops precipitously. To conserve our
efforts on more worthy investments, we consider those candidates hopeless, and
we release them.”

“Efficiently,” the Queen added.

“Assuredly.”

The Queen observed a few dozen cells. All the ones
she peered into had occupants. They had metal walls, carpeted floors, beds
attached to the walls. Some had more luxuries and comforts, others were bare.

“We have full control over the rooms. Candidates who
behave badly see their privileges removed. The bed will lock into the wall so
they have to sleep on the carpet, which can retract into the floor. Sometimes
we soak the carpet in ammonia-scented water to make them miserable and cold.
The walls can expand or shrink to disorient them or make them feel
claustrophobic. Dozens of discomforts and rewards are at our disposal to modify
or encourage certain behaviors. All tailored to the individual. That’s why our
psych team is so important.”

“They keep the candidates from killing themselves?”

Judy smiled. “That rarely happens. Normally they
breakdown—and very rapidly, be assured.” She pointed down the hall to one
door in particular.