Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising (21 page)

Lee tensed
up and pulled away from her as the doors shut, but Enira ignored him and clung
to his arm. When they were alone behind the closed doors, she let go of him and
the sweet smile dropped from her face.

“Lee, listen
to me. The club is not safe for open conversation anymore. We are all being
watched. I can’t go into detail, but I was forced to make a deal with a major
at TRU. I would advise you not to bring the young sergeant here anymore. The
last thing you need right now is the government connecting you with Camden’s
troubles. Keep your usual schedule here, but do it discreetly. Do you
understand?”

The elevator
arrived at the main level and Lee bustled out. He looked at the distraught
Enira standing anxiously, waiting for him to respond.

“I
understand,” he said and walked out of the building.

Enira rode
back up in the elevator, replacing her anxious expression with her relaxed and
usual smile. It had been difficult to keep up appearances since Mace sent her
home with a small surveillance team who had bugged her club. But as long as she
complied, he would keep the secret of her affair with Camden from her husband,
General Pike. She hated that her club was no longer the elite safe haven for
her brilliant clientele, but her back was against a wall. Besides, it was Mace
who had come up with the explanation for General Pike of why she was missing
for two days. He could never find out that she was picked up on the suspicion of
having knowledge of a government theft in her lover’s building. No, Mace’s
story of her taking a spa retreat that she was sure she’d mentioned to him
previously, was much better.

For the next
couple days before and after work, Bearden stood in an
alleyway,
across from the address Lee gave him, watching for Ari’s wife to leave her
building. He had seen her once in the morning and she was with her children. He
could not bring himself to jump out at this woman and cut her. But on his
fourth day of stalking, the day he would be working for Lee, he saw her again.

     
It’s
now or never,
he thought. Bearden pretended to stumble out of the alleyway
as she passed by. He bumped into her and then…slice.

In the
sub-basement of the weaponry unit, the robotic and computer engineers were
putting two humanoid biomachines through a series of tests. Two of the
scientists who worked with the structural development of the biomer were also
present to observe the behavior of the units. In addition, five armed soldiers
stood by to play out combat scenarios and to protect the scientists and
engineers from weapon malfunction. So far, the biomachines, who had been named
Gene and Dawn, were responsive to simulated battle. Their shooting was accurate
ninety-eight percent of the time and they followed remote commands just as they
were programmed to do. Things were going so well, that Phase One of the mass
integration had been given the go ahead from General Pike that morning.
 
The entire engineering team was busy
activating and designating units. All of the biomachines were confined to
individual stone pods, in case of a programming malfunction, until they could
be taken for testing. An extra security measure put in place by Mace Magner,
who was overseeing the process. In fact, he had become sort of a fixture in
this part of the building since his last chat with Bearden. He wanted to learn
just how instinctive these biomachines were. He visited the training
sub-basement at least three times a day waiting for Gene and Dawn to show some
sort of interaction again, but there was none. They acted like the puppets they
were designed to be. But Mace still felt uneasy every time he went in there.

Mace left
the mass integration mid afternoon to check on the Gene and Dawn’s combat
training, but when the doors of the lift opened to the sub-basement, he heard
screaming and gunfire. He drew his weapon and ran towards the commotion. The
first thing he saw was Gene and Dawn standing shoulder to shoulder with their weapons
lifted. Their movement was synchronized. Then, he saw a soldier lying on the
floor in a pool of blood. The others were standing in a group behind the units.
The soldiers were shouting orders at the handlers who were frantically punching
commands into their system remotes. Taking a couple of seconds to process the
scene, Mace realized he was charging at these biomachines with his gun drawn.
He froze and dropped his weapon but it was too late. As programmed, Gene and
Dawn responded, but with perfect synchronization. Their shoulders squared
toward Mace and their weapon aim shifted. Mace ran sideways, jumped over a
stone half-wall and hit the floor as projectiles followed his movement. Another
second and he would have been toast. He lay quietly so he would not be
recognized as a threat and a moment later, the firing stopped. He peeked
through a hole in the wall, recently created, thanks to the biomachines, and
saw the units separate from each other and lower their weapons. They were
responding to their handlers again. Mace pulled his phone out and called for
medical. The soldiers threw chains around the biomachines and hooked them to
opposite sides of the room, then ran to see about their fallen comrade. He was
dead, of course. The biomachines had accurately shot to kill. And now, they
looked like harmless stone statues strapped to a wall.

Mace walked
over to the head computer engineer, Luke, who he had spoken with at the
integration ceremony, and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

“You’re
coming with me to explain this to General Pike!” Mace said, half dragging the
shocked programmer behind him. On his way back to the lift, he picked up his
phone to reach Bearden.

“Hello,
Sergeant Leitner here,” he answered.

“This is
Major Magner. I need you to meet me outside of General Pike’s office
immediately.”

Bearden
looked at his watch. He was on his way to Tripple Laboratories for his weekly
afternoon shift.

“Sir, I am
not on the premises this afternoon.”

“I need you
to get yourself here now. Whatever you are doing can wait an hour.”

Bearden
looked at his watch again and made a sour face. Lee was not going to be happy.
Especially since he was expecting a piece of Ari’s wife from him today.

“Sergeant?”

“I’m on my
way,” Bearden said.

Twenty
minutes later, outside of General Pike’s office, Bearden met Major Magner and
the computer engineer, Luke.

“Afternoon,
Leitner,” Mace said.

“Major.”
Bearden saluted. “What’s this all about, sir?”

“I need you
to tell General Pike about the biomer…instincts.”

“Instincts?”
Luke chimed in. “What instincts? No one said anything about…”

“Shut up,
Luke,” Mace said. “You’re here as a witness and to explain why your controls
stopped working on those things today.”

“What
things?” Bearden asked.

“Aughh! Just
shut up the both of you!” Mace ordered. “We’ll talk inside, after the General
is finished with his current meeting.”

Bearden
plopped down in a chair in the hall to wait, when the door opened to the
general’s office and Sergeant Quinn came out.

“Quinn?”
Bearden seemed surprised to see him.

“Uh, oh hey,
Leitner. How’s it going?”

“Not sure.
You?”

“Fine…Well,
I’ll see ya,” Quinn said and scuffled off.

“That was
weird,” Bearden said to himself.

“Major.”
General Pike called from inside his office.

The three
men walked in and saluted.

“At ease,
Soldiers,” the general said. “What’s the emergency?”

Bearden
stood in shock as Mace and Luke recounted the out of control weapon and the
murdered soldier. The general didn’t seem to be too surprised. Mace then turned
to Bearden.

“Tell the
general about the instincts.”

“Well, the
biomer
is
a living organism…” Bearden
started.

“You don’t
think I know all about this??” The General cut him off. “There’s always a
certain risk in the weaponry unit and that soldier will be honored for his
service. What happened down there today was just a
glitch.
It’s a programming error!” the general shouted. Luke squirmed at his words and
said,

“I’m sorry
to disagree sir, but the programming is foolproof. I’ve run all the tests.”

“I’ve read
the reports,” the general answered back, “and I’m telling you there is an error
in the programming and all I want to hear from you is that you and your team
will fix it!”

“How can you
be sure about that? We absolutely cannot lose control of these weapons,” Mace
said.

The General
seemed to drift into thought for a moment.

“Let’s take
an extra precaution,” General Pike said in a subdued voice. “Have the
biomachines tested individually. They can meet on the battlefield, where it
won’t matter.”

“Yes, sir,”
Mace replied. Luke and Bearden exchanged worried looks. They were thinking the
same thing.
What will stop them from
turning on us if we can’t command them?

“So,
Sergeant…Leitner is it? Congratulations. It seems that Major Magner has just
promoted you to a new clearance level. I’ll have the paperwork drawn up for you
to sign. Just wait in the hall.”

“Yes, sir,” Bearden said and saluted.

“Dismissed,
Soldier. You too, Luke,” the general said. “Major, you stay. I’d like a word
alone.”

“What the
hell do you think you’re doing?” Pike said when he was alone with Mace,
“Bringing those two in here like that. Now, I know I owe you for the personal
favor you did me locating my wife when she went missing for those two days, but
I will not be taken advantage of.”

“Yes, sir. I
just need to be sure that these weapons are not going to turn against us
because we can’t fight them. At least not without great casualty.”

“Don’t worry
about that, Major. As soon as Phase One testing is complete, they will be
dropped in Tyrine with their controllers. In two months.”

Mace’s mouth
turned up into a nasty smile.

“That’s four
months ahead of schedule.”

“Yes, it
is,” General
Pike
replied. “So you take care of things
down there and if testing goes smoothly, I’ll see to it that there is a
promotion to Lt. Colonel in your near future. Now go and deal with the
situation.”

“Yes, sir!”
Mace said.

Outside the
office, Bearden began to put the pieces together in his head of a bigger
picture involving the biomer. It was his fault that soldier died today. If he
hadn’t pushed so hard to find the catalyst...

“Leitner.
Come in here,” General Pike called as Mace exited his office.

He set an
electronic document on his desk for Bearden to read and fingerprint, accepting
his new clearance and swearing him to secrecy.

Bearden set
off to Tripple Laboratories and found exactly what he expected, a frazzled Lee
and a self-righteous, disapproving Dana. He also found that half of the main
lab had been blocked from his view by portable room dividers. This fueled his
curiosity and he considered bargaining for information with a piece of his
newly acquired intelligence, but decided against it. Once in Lee’s office, he
pulled his collected sample out of his pocket and put it on the table.

“That is not
enough!” Lee was extra edgy today, probably because of Bearden’s tardiness.

“I know,
sir, but it was difficult enough to get this,” Bearden replied standing his
ground.

“Well, this
day is becoming more and more inconvenient,”
Lee
said
examining the sample container that contained a small piece of skin from Ari’s
widow.

“Is there
even any blood on this sample?” Lee asked holding the sample up to the light.

“I figured
you could at least get started with this,” Bearden said.

“I suppose I
have no choice until you try again,” Lee mumbled.

“Dr.
Tripple, I won’t be trying again. I don’t think assaulting that poor woman is
right,” Bearden said, expecting Lee to banish him from his lab.

Instead, Lee
sat down and scratched his head.

“Sounds like
something Camden would say. Perhaps you are right, Sergeant, I can work with this.
You did good work, boy,” Lee said.

This made
Bearden laugh out loud a little maniacally.

“Do you have
anything for Colonel Ganesh today?” Bearden asked.

“Not today.
But I would like copies of all of
your
notes on the Myris material and your catalyst.”

Bearden was
not even surprised that Lee knew about that.
Of course
, he thought,
I was
right about the biomer being the stolen material that Ganesh had risked
everything to get here.

 
It all made perfect sense now and here
he was helping these men conspire against their own government. But, Bearden’s
ego was bigger than his conscience and a slight chill of excitement came over
him because the one and only Lee Tripple, creepy as he was, wanted to reference
his notes. Besides, what he had heard in the general’s office today disturbed
him almost more than what he was doing for Lee.

“It will be
difficult to take the notes out of the lab, because our communications are
closely monitored, but I’ll think of something,” Bearden said.

“Follow me,”
Lee said.

Down the
hallway, near the lounge area, where Dana called home, was a storage room
filled with electronic devices, computer chips, and medical supplies. Lee
rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a memory chip.

“This one is
special,” He said. “It is undetectable to a network and leaves no trace. It was
acquired by Camden during one of his government contracts. He had always meant
to reproduce and enhance the technology, but never got to it.”

“Wow. That
is incredible,” Bearden said. “Is there anything the two of you can’t do?”

“No, I don’t
think so,” Lee answered as though the question had not been rhetorical.

“Can I see
your work with the biomer?” Bearden asked.

“Yes. It is
only fair…as soon as I have your notes, that is.”

Lee realized
a second later that he’d just made a mistake. Bearden wasn’t supposed to know
about the biomer in his lab.

“Sergeant,
how did you know about the biomer?” he asked and closed the door to the
storeroom, locking the both of them in. Bearden’s eyes shifted uncomfortably
around the room. Lee picked up an old instrument with a sharp edge.

“I just
figured it out. I mean, why else would you want my notes? And it just explains
everything…Camden Riles being locked up, Colonel Ganesh needing a liaison, Dana
being hurt and voluntarily imprisoned. And I
gotta
say, after today, I get it. I know why the Colonel did what he did.” Bearden
breathed out real hard and Lee considered what he had said.

“After
today, you say?”

Bearden
gulped.

“Dr.
Tripple, I really want you to trust me, but I cannot breach my government
clearance…just like I won’t breach yours.”

“Very well.
Hold out your arm,” Lee said.

Bearden
obeyed and Lee scraped the first few layers of skin off of the top of his arm.
He turned the instrument side to side examining his sample with deep interest.

“See, now I
will know your genetic weaknesses. If you do breach my clearance, I will do a
lot worse than your military.”

“I believe
that, sir,” Bearden said using his sleeve to stop the blood.

Lee opened
the door and hurried down the hall, shutting himself in another room in the
building. Processing Bearden’s cells no doubt.

Lee had
surprised Bearden today. Not with his threats, that was expected, but with his
new level of trust for him.