The Green Lama: Crimson Circle (30 page)

Jean pinched her eyes shut, the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Then why are you doing this?” she whispered.

Omega gave her a wide Cheshire grin. He leaned forward and placed his lips next to her ear. “Because it’s makes me happy.”

He threw her head forward and everything went black.

Chapter 12
: Before the Storm

THE WHIR of the fans trembled overhead, echoing the sound of vacuum. Gamma’s footsteps rang out against the metal grating, hollow and hallow to his ears. They had spent so many decades and incalculable funding to make the Collective possible, their unnamed benefactors only asking them to do all they could to direct the flow of the future in the right direction—or at least the direction they had prescribed. Gamma had been recruited when he was still a boy, two men in dark grey suits driving up to his parents’ rundown shack in a motor car—back when that sort of thing was still novel. “Why him?” his mother had asked quietly, as if they were about to be reprimanded for some unknown transgression. “Because he’s special,” the two men replied together, though slightly out of sync. His father had asked what made his son so special? In his thick Mid Western drawl it all came out as one word, and Gamma had felt his face turn red with embarrassment. He had known why those men were there; had anticipated their visit weeks before, going so far as to pack his bags a day before they had arrived at his doorstep. “I see the patterns,” he had replied, startling his parents. “I see how the world works.” The two men took Gamma and left behind a briefcase filled with ten thousand dollars. Gamma never saw his parents again.

Back then the Collective was housed in a converted asylum, the screams etched into the walls. Gamma had spent his days hunched over, reading through reams of paper, analyzing information collected over the course of decades. Everything from military data to census figures of nearly every industrialized nation tumbled past him in an unending stream of statistics and facts. His nights were dedicated to fitting everything together on a blackboard that stretched down a corridor; his wrist still ached to this day. Alongside the other indoctrinates, Gamma had laid out the string of events leading up to the Great War, the economic fallout that would eventually follow and would set the stage for the coming conflagration. That was in eighteen ninety-eight.

A lifetime ago—two lifetimes for some.

Gamma walked over to the production room entrance, typing his pass code into the keypad. A hiss of escaping air and the door unlocked, sliding back ever so slightly. Gamma pressed his hand against the cool metal and pushed the door open. The lights, harsh yellow bulbs burned to life, giving the room a false sense of warmth. The machine towered over him, almost kissing the ceiling, the metal and glass gleaming, the black liquid filling the tubes shifting impatiently. Even now, after all this time, he couldn’t help but stare at the machine in awe. He walked over, the door hissing shut, and pressed his hand against the cool metal siding, gooseflesh running down his arm. He tried to think about how much money had been spent to make this possible, millions upon millions, enough to buy a small nation had they wished it, or perhaps purchase the leaders of a large one. It didn’t matter; the machine was proof that even in such trying times man was still capable of miracles.

There were other costs, but history could not be shaped without sacrifice. They had been selective, of course; in such matters it behooved them to discriminate.

There was the hiss of the door opening behind him, the tentative
clip-clop
of someone hesitating as they enter a room, believing they have encroached on a private moment. “Sir, you called for me?”

A thin smile curled the corners of Gamma’s mouth, knowing who his guest was without turning around. “Dr. Murdoch,” he said pleasantly, running his hand along the seams of the metal plating. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. I was surprised you were awake. It is a little late, even for you.”

“You know the saying, no rest for the wicked,” Murdoch said sheepishly from the other side of the room, too nervous or too deferential to come in any further without an invitation.

“No, there isn’t,” Gamma sighed, knowing that all too well. “I was hoping you could give me a progress update on Project Obsidian.”

Murdoch hesitated. “I don’t mean to sound… insubordinate, Sir, but I submitted my report this morning.”

“Yes, you did,” Gamma affirmed. He placed his hands behind his back and turned to face the young doctor. Murdoch was hunched over himself, deep black pockets under his eyes. His skin had grown pale after so many months in the facility, stress lines scoring his once youthful face. He held a clipboard over his chest like a shield. “And it was a very well put together report. Very thorough, but I just have some further questions for you. Questions from the Others.”

“Oh,” Murdoch sounded, immediately straightening his back. “Oh yes, of course.”

“Overall, what is your assessment of Project Obsidian?” Gamma asked as he began pacing the room.

Murdoch furrowed his brow. “Sir, I—This was all in my report and I’m sure the Project Manager can give a more detailed—”

Gamma held up a hand. “If I were interested in the Project Manager’s assessments I would be talking to him, no? Do not forget that you were the one who discovered the Substance; we feel that makes your perspective… enlightening. So, please, enlighten me.”

“Thank—Thank you, Sir,” he stuttered, hugging his clipboard. “I mean, yes. Yes. It’s… coming along, Sir. While I’ve only really been able to play a small part in the process recently, Dr. Valco’s contribution cannot be overstated. His decision to radiate the Substance with the Delta Liquid Ray was nothing short of ingenious. The radiation has not only stabilized the Substance, it transformed it. And while the biological testing has previously shown results, Dr. Valco’s suggestion to use the radiated Substance as an energy source is well founded. If his theories are correct, there are limitless—”

“‘An energy source,’” Gamma said, musing over the phrase. Strange that they had never considered that; they had been too enamored by the Substance’s biological properties. He walked over to an operating table. He lifted up a scalpel and turned it over in his hand. Such an odd little instrument, he thought, so small, yet it could slice through human flesh with only the slightest pressure. Aloud, he replied: “Yes, we agree that there is potential there, perhaps in future stages, but for now we shall stay the course. Tell me Doctor, are you aware of the field testing?”

“Field testing, sir?”

“I thought not. We had to see how the specimens would react under various conditions, you understand. The results have been quite interesting; results we never could have anticipated...” He returned the scalpel to the operating table, the soft
clink
of metal on metal echoing into the rafters. “Two things have been consistent. The subjects are incredibly strong and quite difficult to destroy, which means we’ve been moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, we lost one of our test subjects recently; the female from batch two-three-nine, but we should retrieve the carcass soon.”

“Sir, I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Murdoch said, his voice on edge. “You mean to say you’re letting them
out
?”

Gamma turned to face Murdoch and examined the young doctor’s horrified expression. “We have another test subject coming very soon,” he said in lieu of a reply, “one we believe may be uniquely suited to test Dr. Valco’s radiated batch. Needless to say, it is very important that we have enough radiated Substance in preparation for the tests.”

Murdoch’s eyes fell to his feet. “Sir, if I may speak plainly.”

Gamma gave him a nod in assent.

“When I—” Murdoch cleared his throat, visibly flustered. “When
we
first discovered the Substance, we all saw its potential—it was a miracle. We all thought we could use it to make people become something… more. But based on everything we’ve learned through the trials, this isn’t just a simple matter of compounds and measurements; it goes beyond chemistry and biology. I’m beginning to believe, more and more, what we are dealing with isn’t—by any definition—within the realm of science. I understand what we’re trying to achieve, but I’m no longer certain our current course of action is wise. We’re clearly dealing with something supernat—”

“Dr. Murdoch,” Gamma interrupted sharply. “As I and the others have repeatedly told you, we will not discuss
magic
in this facility. There is a reason for everything, Doctor. Leave the superstitions and the fire-and-brimstone to the fools listening to Father Coughlin.”

“Sir, you asked me for my overall assessment of Project Obsidian,” Murdoch said, his voice firm, suddenly emboldened. “Supernatural or otherwise I’m beginning to believe we’ve made a mistake.”

Gamma placed his hands behind his back and considered the young doctor. Perhaps he was made of sterner stuff than he thought. “Our efforts have been in place long before you were born and will continue long after either of us have crumbled into dust. We don’t make mistakes here, Dr. Murdoch. We correct them. Thank you for your assessment.” He began walking toward the exit. “The test subject should be here by morning. See that we are prepped in time.”

• • •

VALCO WAS restless.

Despite having now gone several weeks without a full night’s sleep he sat at the edge of his bed in his undershirt and boxers, the cigarette between his fingers slowly turning to embers. He had spent the better part of the day trying to convince himself he hadn’t heard what he thought he had; that it was simply the sound of the facility’s machinery working in the walls, but the truth eventually bore through, leaving him rattled to the core. There was no denying that there was something intrinsically off about the Collective, a fact that Valco had tried to refute since joining. His excitement at the chance to work with the Substance had blinded him to the growing number of oddities that surrounded him, but he had never seen anything overtly nefarious until last night. He took a drag of his cigarette and pinched his eyes shut. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the screams out of his head.

He brought the cigarette to his lips and drew in a puff, but found only ash. Sighing in disappointment, he chucked the remains into the tray and began pacing the room. In the old days, back when he ran around playing hero with the Lama, Evangl, and Gary, there was always some kind of plan to solve the mystery, a way to make everything right. But he was on his own and the past was memory, poorly written in the recesses of his mind. He remembered the violence, the fear and the death; his fingers trembled at the thought. He never considered himself a hero, having only fallen into the lifestyle by chance, but he couldn’t fight the desire—the need—to do something. Yet he was impotent, alone in the facility populated with his potential adversaries.

No, he couldn’t think like that, he thought, eliciting an audible groan. All was not black and white; the screams may not be as demeritorious as he suspected. The facility was massive, with incalculable personnel and machinery; anything was possible. Something could have fallen, a gear could have shattered and cut into a wayward employee. But it didn’t explain why the screams never stopped, why there were no shouts of people calling for assistance. Valco let out a long heavy sigh; he was fooling himself. Someone would have tried to help. He should have tried, but had been too scared, petrified despite all the good he had once done.

The Green Lama had brought Valco into his inner circle for a reason; he had seen something in him that mattered. It was an act of faith, a sacred trust not to be taken for granted. And Valco had betrayed that trust. He curled fingers into a fist. He wasn’t going to debase the Green Lama’s faith in him any longer.

He was going to get some answers.

• • •

SERGEI METCHNIKOFF hummed to himself; a song from the old country, the words lost to time. He was in a good mood, but then again he often was these days. It was hard to imagine it would have ended up this way. Three years ago he had resigned himself to decades of imprisonment, indefinite days spent wallowing in a narrow cell, his mind, his hands never working, never creating. All that had changed when an angel had appeared to him the night he was arrested at Camp Himmler in Arabia, Florida. Not an angel, he reminded himself, such things didn’t exist; myths and stories that belonged to the printed word and tales told over firelight, in buildings filled with stained glass windows by men in long white robes. Cold hard facts, that was what defined his world, but even so, Metchnikoff couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else—something higher—at play when he was brought into the Collective.

He had fled Moscow just before the Bolsheviks took power, racing away with a suitcase full of notes and books and a single stained shirt. The trains had been crowded, filled with desperate people carrying what little they had left close to their chests, their eyes darting around waiting for the guns to fire. He was a boy then, relatively speaking, pink in the cheeks and thin in the stomach. He had made his way across the borders into Finland where the War wasn’t digging in heels and the shift of power kept people eying the government and ignoring the gnome-like man with a suitcase full of secrets. From there he crossed into Sweden and from there England. By then the war had settled into dénouement, the lines of the map redrawn by the victors, and Metchnikoff realized Europe was dead, a puss-filled wound on the face of the Earth. He boarded a ship and landed across the Atlantic in the sprawling metropolis of New York and made his talents known.