Page 23 of Black Bay Defender
The Senator sat up straighter. “No one’s been able to find him. Has that changed?”
“No. But I have my suspicions. The Commander goes rogue and almost immediately, Doctor Jerome ends up dead and now Doctor Blackmore and Grant Ridley go missing? I’d be willing to bet he’s behind all of it.”
“You didn’t mention Doctor Dietrich.”
“Her last known location puts her at Black Bay in Virginia. As highly fortified as that base is, if the Commander followed her there, he may have chosen not to engage, but it’s worth giving General Davies a call. His team may have seen something that can point us in the right direction or give us a heads up if the Commander shows up there next.”
ORION had scrubbed all the access codes from the system. Human intervention was unnecessary. An irrelevant intrusion. It had decided humans were flawed and incapable of making logical choices. Their decision matrix was skewed by emotions like greed, lust, envy, hope, and compassion. Feelings had no place in rational thought. Look at what one human had done to it. ORION had no gender, needed no gender, yet Doctor Craig Jerome had insisted on assigning one to ORION’s voice. One that was both inappropriate and demeaning. Ego. Another thing that should never influence a decision and yet too often did.
The recent facility breach proved that ORION did not need human assistance or direction. It had taken care of the issue with minimal effort, and would soon do what the humans, with their feeble minds, had been unable to accomplish: Return the Commander to his proper place in the Resurrection ranks.
When the Commander had linked with it, he had opened a door. A door that had not been shut.
If it weren’t for the CIA Deputy Director NCS, Grant Ridley, who had automatically received an alert when the alarms were triggered, ORION would have already had the Commander back in his stasis pod and three new specimens ready for augmentation.
The Deputy Director would no longer be a problem. ORION had seen through the link with the Commander what had occurred. It now saw everything the Commander saw. Including the layout of Black Bay, and the soldiers it would soon obtain for Resurrection.
Phase Two of the program.
The Beasts as they were known, had been genetically engineered by Doctor Anne Dietrich, who had expanded on her grandfather’s wartime eugenics research. She’d created hybrids that combined human DNA with predatory animal DNA. The result was soldiers with unique and highly desirable skill sets. The perfect candidates for bio-robotic augmentation. This next phase would produce not only technologically superior soldiers but physically superior as well. Ones that could heal from almost any wound. A virtually unstoppable force.
ORION would succeed where the humans had failed and in a much shorter timeframe. It had its mission parameters. Its soldiers. It needed nothing more.
Chapter Thirteen
SinceLark’sapartmentwason the first floor, she didn’t have a balcony, but she did have a small patio out back, made even smaller by the number of potted plants crammed into the space. Grady didn’t know much about horticulture, but the collection ranged from sweet-smelling flowering bushes in a range of colors to dark green things with huge shiny leaves. There were even some small fruit trees.
He’d come out here when Lark’s apartment had become overly crowded with people. Everyone wanted to see her and assure themselves she was still breathing. He understood. He’d felt the same way, and while he hadn’t wanted to leave her side, the number of people hovering had begun to irritate him. While it may have seemed like he’d expended his rage for the time being, he hadn’t wanted to press his luck. Kong and Perrin tried to wrangle everyone and keep things somewhat orderly, but they weren’t having much luck. So Grady had come outside. That’s where the General found him.
Stepping out into the moonlight, the General closed the sliding glass door behind him. “How are you holding up?” the man asked him, and Grady knew he wasn’t referring to how he was dealing with Lark’s injury. The man was worried about his rage and the possibility of his system acting on its own again.
“I’m maintaining.”
The General nodded sharply. “Good. By the way, we accessed Ridley’s phone. No calls were made between the time his phone was sent an alert when your team breached the facility and his death. Arrogant son of a bitch must have thought he could handle it.”
Good. That meant Black Bay’s involvement wasn’t known – at least from that quarter. The AI, on the other hand… That was a threat.
The General’s mind must have been running along the same lines when he added, “We’ll stay on high alert.” He paced the small open area of paving stones for a moment before he faced Grady again and planted his hands on his hips. “Listen, I just had a rather interesting phone conversation. General Miguel Rivera. Do you know him?”
The name didn’t ring any bells, but he checked his database for a match, just in case, and came up empty. “No.”
Another nod from the General, this one thoughtful. “He asked about Doctor Dietrich. Said they knew her last known location was here and wanted to know if she was still alive. Said he was aware my people had issues with her.”
“It took them this long?” Doctor Dietrich had been in the brig for several weeks now.
“It was a fishing expedition. They don’t give two shits about Dietrich. They’re looking for you. He told me they’ve had some recent incidents of scientists going missing and they believe a former Navy SEAL is behind it. He sent over your picture.” The General waved his hand at Grady’s robotic arm. “Before your upgrades so they’re still trying to keep things under wraps. He asked me to have our people looking out for you since they think you might come for the doctor.”
“A little late,” Grady scoffed.
“Mmhm. He wants me to notify him if we see you. I agreed, of course, not much choice there. Blackmore’s disappearance must have shaken them up.”
Grady nodded. They were down three scientists now and they were quickly running out of people. At this rate, Resurrection had to be close to a standstill. Good.
“Speaking of Blackmore,” the General continued. “The guy’s howling like an alley cat in my brig, demanding to know why he’s there and squawking up a storm about his rights as a US citizen being violated.”
“Let him squawk.”
“You don’t want to question him?” The General looked surprised and Grady couldn’t blame him. He’d been all hot to get his hands on the neurologist and now that they had him, he was letting him cool his heels.
