The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2) by James Morcan, Lance Morcan Page A

recently.
    Vestiges of former congregation members lay strewn about. These included a moldy bible and a painting of the Virgin Mary. The painting had been desecrated: Mary now sported a moustache reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s. An organ stood forlornly in one corner of the room, its foot pedals and many of its keys missing.
    Satisfied he had the place to himself, Nine approached the mangled organ and sat down on what he assumed was once the organist’s stool. He removed his windbreaker to reveal he was wearing a small backpack beneath it.
    The orphan knew time was of the essence. While it was important to put distance between himself and the orphanage, it was even more important to kill the signal that was being transmitted night and day from the microchip in his forearm. For no matter how far he traveled from the orphanage that damned microchip forever linked him to his Omega masters.
    Nine tore open his backpack and lifted out a sweatband and the bag of White Gold Powder he’d brought with him. He pulled the sweatband up over his forearm so it stopped about two inches below his elbow. It now covered the area of skin beneath which he knew the microchip was embedded. Nine then inserted the bag of White Gold beneath the sweatband so it ended up pressed tight against his skin and wrapped around the entire circumference of his arm. He checked the sweatband to make sure it would hold the bag in place.
    Invisible at last!
    Nine expected his location would no longer be visible on Omega’s satellite network. That was if the military experiments with White Gold had been accurate. If they had been, one thing was for sure: when Kentbridge, or any Omegan, next checked the computer monitor whose flashing red dots revealed the orphans’ whereabouts, they’d see twenty two dots instead of the usual twenty three. The alarm would be raised immediately and the agency’s best operatives would be on the rogue orphan’s trail.
    Struggling to contain the fear that was welling up inside him, Nine hastily donned his backpack, threw his windbreaker on and prepared to leave. He stopped dead when he heard a floorboard creak behind him. Then he heard the familiar click of a pistol’s safety being flicked off. He even thought he recognized the sound of Kentbridge’s breathing pattern.
    How did you find me so quickly, Tommy?
     

 
    15
    Surprised, Nine realized the game was up. Damn! He raised his hands in surrender and slowly turned around, not knowing an even bigger surprise awaited him.
    That ain’t Tommy!
    Whoever it was, it wasn’t Kentbridge. In the near darkness, Nine could just make out a shadowy figure in the far corner of the room. It was that of a thin, wiry male, shorter than Kentbridge. His breathing, louder now, came in short asthma-like rasps.
    Hands still raised, Nine noticed the faint outline of an open doorway behind the male figure. The man had obviously been hiding in an adjoining room. Nine cursed himself for neglecting to make doubly sure he had the old church to himself.
    The man shuffled forward, gun in hand, to reveal a gaunt, disheveled looking Latino of about twenty five. Distinctive tattoos on the hand that held the gun told Nine he was a gang member. The initials ALKN flagged that he belonged to the Latin Kings street gang, or the Almighty Latin King Nation as its members called themselves. Nine immediately bestowed the name Alkn on the mystery man.
    Judging by Alkn’s wretched condition – hollow cheeks, missing teeth, wild eyes and all – Nine adjudged he was a junkie. The man was shaking violently, and clearly wasn’t enjoying the bitter cold. Although his gun hand trembled, the weapon he held remained trained on Nine. The boy recognized it as a Glock 17, a semi-automatic pistol popular with military and law enforcement agencies and, it seemed, with Chicago street gangs.
    Alkn stepped forward and waved the pistol under Nine’s nose. “Give me the gear, kid.” There was a trace of desperation in his