The Omega Device (The Ha-Shan Chronicles Book 1) (30 page)

“I see your point. I can at least believe the
possibility
they might help, but you have to convince me they're going to.”

“I can't do that, not yet. Reese…” She shook her head, shifted gears. “Omega doesn't value life. We've seen that. It's obvious to everyone, that
no matter their aims
, they're comfortable with using
and
killing people.”

“So it's probably obvious to Reese, who's only concerned with surviving.” He hesitated, “So she's been
looking
for an out?”

Maggie shrugged, “She's not entirely stable, but she's not stupid either. They've
all
been roped in by something. If Reese's hope overrides what they have, we shouldn't worry. I wish there were more Russell, but that's all I've got.”

He was ashamed to have ever questioned her judgment. When it came down to it, there was never a doubt she'd make dangerous decisions if given the chance. Unfortunately, she
still
wasn't wrong. Reese's questionable loyalty forced an unknown they could never fully plan for, but it was too late to change things. They'd begun to make their bed, now they had to finish to lie in it.

“Just keep working on Reese. We'll need her. Either Thorne will fall in line or we'll leave him.”

“And West?”

The man was a serious threat they all felt certain would betray them. They could only hope to escape with the data before he returned. If a confrontation arose, they would have to rely on Reese. Her knowledge and expertise would be invaluable, and if she sided against them, their chances of escape were nonexistent.

“Just keep focused on Reese,” he reiterated. “She's the key.”

Maggie nodded with droopy eyes, “I'll do what I can.”

He led her inside, laid beside her until she drifted into sleep. When he was certain she was out, he rose to watch the time. He gave Thorne and Reese three full hours, then woke them. The group settled back to work scanning the final Chinese volumes while Thorne wrote the Cuneiform program.

Russell finished a book, leaned beside Thorne to examine his work as he pointed to a screen, explained through intermittent yawns, “We use dictionaries to cross-reference the characters with established definitions. From there the program spits out a few translations based on them. We decide which is clearest and most relevant, then toss-out the others.” He shifted his weight in his chair to bounce something off Russell, “Problem is, Cuneiform's read right to left, so the program has to be adjusted to read it properly. With ideographic data like this its important to get the order right—it's the difference between blowing your mother, and your mother exhaled.”

Russell snorted, “Okay, so you have to revise the code.”

“Yes.” He sipped coffee. “I can do it easy, but inputting the changes is useless 'til we can identify the Cuneiform.”

“Why?”

Thorne pointed to a second screen to his left, at the top of the stack, “Here's a translation program I'm running. This won't help us understand the passages in the book, but it
may
help with a few characters. This dialect's so old only every few characters can be deciphered.”

“So we're missing parts?” He asked, lost in the screens.

“Right. That's where we hit the road block—your mother is now just your, and some unspecific reference to a thing. Until we figure out the other symbols, a full translation's impossible. To run one requires definitions of half or more characters since each symbol relies on the next for coherency. Now, we can infer
some
things once enough of a passage is established, but I can't write a program to do
that
until we have enough of the missing symbols.”

“So you're saying—”

“We'd be getting character translations, not contextual ones.”

“And we require the latter to understand the book,” he said, following again.

“Yep. That's the shits.”

Thorne leaned back to sip his coffee. Russell straightened, caught on something Maggie'd said.

Reese stepped up beside them, “So, what? We're screwed?”

“Looks like it, babe.”

“Maybe not,” Russell said. They looked to him for an explanation. “Maggie's convinced this dialect of Cuneiform's the first language humans used.”

“Yeah, that's the problem,” Thorne replied. “The basic idea of language is that a single word or character represents an idea. A sentence is a string of ideas to form a coherent thought. Same with programming. I write a sequence of ideas into a command or a full thought. Result; computer does what I tell it. In context, each idea's placed in a coherent space that influences the thought. For example, I write a command to add five and five. To create a coherent, cohesive thought, I have to know that two fives need to be
added
. If I say five and five
add
, you aren't sure what I mean or if that's my full thought. Where each idea's placed is more important than what idea's placed.”

Reese followed, “And since Cuneiform “thoughts” change based on idea placement, not knowing the missing characters makes them impossible to decipher.”

“Right.” Thorne continued with small gestures, “Without knowing where ideas break, or how, there's no way to decipher passages with a program. The computer can't spit out the few dozen possible ways of saying “add five and five.”

Russell's thoughts homed nearer to what Maggie had said, hoping it would spark Thorne's genius, “Okay, but Maggie seemed to think that the succeeding languages—like Old Chinese—were simply
dialects
of the Cuneiform.”

Reese looked at him skeptically, hands on her hips, “Like southern and northern Chinese?”

“Exactly, and because they're ideographic each character's the same at a basic level. Like… if I drew an A in English, and you drew one in Arabic, it would look different but the concept remains the same; A.”

“That's a really lovely thought,” Thorne said sarcastically. “A really lovely, insightful, and amusing thought—and fucking totally unhelpful.”

Reese caught on to Russell's idea, “Unless the Chinese translations can be partially substituted for the missing characters.”

Thorne froze, his body stunned as his mind ramped into overdrive. Russell saw the shift, “Can you do it?”

“Yeah… actually, I can,” he said, surprised by his own ability. “Give me a few hours, but start scanning the book.”

“Reese?” Russell asked, lifting the Cuneiform book from the desk.

“I'm not touching that damn thing,” Reese replied, her hands up. “Who knows what kind of bullshit will go down if I rip a page.”

He shrugged, opened the book as Reese closed her eyes to catch sleep until she was needed. Russell's hands shook. The scanner hovered over the first of the character lines. Either from exhaustion or hunger, his body was rebelling.

He fought it with a powerful determination; the faster he scanned, the faster Thorne could translate, and the better their chances of escape.

As the hours wore on, the characters became a blur through watery, tired eyes. With Maggie and the others now fully awake, he felt safe enough to sleep. He passed the book to Maggie without a word, stumbled to a cot.

Her face contorted with confusion. She shook it off, and sat down to scan the last page of the book with a glance to Russell. A moment later she'd finished.

Reese headed outside. Maggie followed into the Lhasa afternoon. Distant warehouse workers roused a cacophony that pervaded through the cold air, entwined with the whistling wind.

Maggie spoke as they stepped through the door, “We're done. I need to know
for sure
that you're willing to help.”

Reese's eye twitched. Her vision darted from Maggie to the warehouses, “It's up to that weasel Thorne.”

Maggie's brow furrowed at her evasion, caught a subtlety beneath it, “You doubt him?”

She flicked ash, exhaled a plume of smoke toward a distant warehouse, “Thorne's full of shit.” Maggie's brow intensified. Reese  flicked hard at the butt-end of her cigarette, stretched her neck forward. “
Look,
he knows tech, I'll give him
that
, but he wants to be a rebel. He thinks being a smart-ass will get him out of anything.”

Maggie scanned the warehouses ahead, continued as cover, “He's a pain in the ass. Big deal.”

“Yeah.” Reese pulled at her shirt in the corner of Maggie's vision. “You saw what West can do.”

“So, he won't finish the translation?” Maggie asked, watching a group of people in black jumpsuits moving about a line of warehouses.

Reese gestured further right with her head, “No, he will, he'll just wait until West gets back.”

Maggie followed Reese's movements, caught sight of a second group of men in jumpsuits further down the line. They stood near a forklift, their blue suits clearly discernible from the others' black. In a blink, Maggie understood; West's surveillance had arrived.

Maggie gave a slight nod to acknowledge the difference. A lingering doubt forced from her mind, “I have to know this isn't some kind of game, Reese.”

She tensed an eye, her tone flat, “If it was, you'd be dead by now.”

Maggie examined her carefully. Reese's eye twitched once more. Her focus darted sideways.

Maggie inquired further, “Something wrong, Reese?”

She extinguished her cigarette, lit another to look ahead. It was clear she wasn't sure the extent of the surveillance. “Pull the
knot
out of your panties, I'm
fine.
My
issues
aren't yours, and
we
can't
fix them
with a couple conversations.”

“No. We can't,” Maggie replied, staring out at the landscape.

The ramshackle, sheet-metal buildings ahead were oddly abandoned despite the few men outside. Given the noisy equipment banging and beeping in the district beyond, it was a wonder she'd missed the obvious patrols.

It was foolish to believe their problems hadn't been growing, but Maggie'd been banking on West being too drugged to watch them. Thus, she nearly made a fatal mistake; it was Omega's government contacts they should've been worried about. She suddenly doubted West would ever return. He had likely given orders to storm the warehouse as soon as it was confirmed Thorne had finished.

Reese stomped out her last cigarette, Maggie made a split-second decision. She turned back for the door. With a subtle nod she motioned Reese inside, “
When
do you think he'll be done?”

Reese stepped in, “It'll take at least the rest of the
night.
”

Maggie followed her in, scanned the inner-warehouse as they made there way through it. She saw no cameras or bugs, but the innards were massive. Stacks of boxes covered most vantage points. They couldn't risking speaking openly. She returned to the room, grabbed a notebook from beside Thorne, then pulled a twirling pen from his hand. He shrugged, returned to work. She motioned Reese to the bathroom, put her finger to her lips, and began to scrawl on the paper.

Audio?

Not sure.

Need a way out.

Reese replied with a sloppy script:
Front door's all. Need to convince Thorne.
 

“
How?”
Maggie mouthed.

Reese pointed to herself then scrawled back,
When?
 

Maggie thought; their best chance was moving as fast as possible, putting as much distance between them and West before he discovered their treachery.

“Now,”
Maggie mouthed.

Reese nodded, left the bathroom. Maggie looked herself over in the mirror for a moment, exhausted and lost at what to do. She stared into her baggy, purple eyes with a sad sigh, reset her pony-tail. Reese stepped beside Thorne, tapped him on the shoulder.

“What?” He asked aloud.

West's watching us. You want out? Come with or die here when he finds out we're gone.

He eyed her scrawl, shot her a wild look, then swallowed hard. Reese re-appeared in the mirror behind Maggie, handed over the page with a fresh paragraph on it.

Thorne's in. Need somewhere to go. GPS locator. Need to move fast for aid before West shuts us down. I have coordinates for transport. Clock's ticking.

Maggie read it, handed over the GPS from her vest. Reese tapped the screen, stepped beside Maggie to show their current location. She zoomed out with a pair of fingers, swept sideways a few miles east. Reese's pen scratched as Maggie tried to make out the time-lapse between the two locations. Reese shoved the notebook into her vision. Maggie frowned.

Need to keep recon from reporting back. Has to be quick, quiet, and clean.

Maggie mouthed, “
How?”
 

Reese retrieved the pad, scribbled two words;
Kill. Stealth.
 

Maggie shook her head, with a harsh whisper, “
I can't do that.
”

Reese replied on the notepad,
No choice. Stay quiet.
 

How are we supposed to get that close?

Thorne will cut power after dusk.

Can he?

Reese nodded, wrote a final sentence;
Need Russell's trust.
 

26.

Alleviation

October 7
th
 

8:10 PM

Lhasa Warehouse district

Russell awoke to Maggie sitting beside him. She placed her finger to her lips and passed him a piece of paper.

Need you to trust them. West has surveillance. Need to take it out. Thorne's going to cut power. Reese will lead. Deal with them quick and quiet.

He rubbed sleep from his eyes and the words took shape. He mouthed a reply, “
When?”
 

She flashed five fingers. He nodded; if either of their comrades were to prove trustworthy, it was now or never.

He eased off the cot, sore and tired while Reese peered over Thorne's shoulder and his fingers beat against his keyboard. Maggie lifted her rifle from a corner of the room, offered it to Reese. She shook her head, reached for her a knife at her leg.

Maggie sighed, frustrated, and acknowledged with a nod. Reese rounded for the bathroom, beckoned her along. Russell followed. She lifted a sheet-metal panel in the wall to reveal a dozen rifles and pistols, slid a hand in for several, short cylinders. She screwed one into Maggie's rifle-barrel, then handed over one for her pistol.