Dark Omega

CHAPTER 44 - A GAME OF SHADOWS

"Coffee?" Kwame said and shook his scruffy old thermos at Balack.

"Mind if I do." The older man held out his cup. "The stuff from the machine is hideous."

Kwame began pouring the dark liquid into the waiting cup. "I know. That's like the third machine the techs have installed down here. Each one as bad the others."

"Thanks." Balack cradled the full cup with both hands, savoring the fragrance. "It's not the machine, you know. It's the beans," he said in his sage-voice. "They don't grow them right up there." He pointed a metal finger at the roof and the massive orbital greenhouses in orbit around New Venice.

"And the beans in the cafeteria are not from around here?" Kwame said, pretending not to have heard Balack rant about coffee a hundred times before.

"Nope. They are imported. Both the guests and the librarians know their coffee." He sipped the coffee. "They won't drink...damn!" he exclaimed as drops of coffee spilled onto his black uniform jacket. "It's too hot. I burned my lip. And now there is coffee all over."

Kwame smiled at Balack. "You want me to blow it for you? Or are you going to sue me?"

They both chuckled. Kwame handed Balack a piece of moist tissue.

"I'm such a klutz sometimes." The older man started wiping the front of his jacket.

"That you are, chief. Old oafs frequently are. It's a statistical fact. Good thing we guards wear black, or you'd have coffee stains all over."

Balack ignored Kwame and finished wiping his uniform, and then balled up the tissue and threw it at Kwame's face. The younger man snatched it out of the air, spun around, and tossed it right into the bin.

"Score!" Kwame shouted and put his arms into the air, fists balled.

"They have Imogen," Balack said, his voice suddenly all business.

There was a brief pause as Kwame put down his arms and turned to look at his boss. He looked confused. Mouth half-open, eyes that couldn't wholly focus. "Imogen? Your wife? I don't understand."

"Foreign agents. They have gotten to my wife. They are pretty much holding her hostage."

Again it took Kwame several seconds to process the information. The kid just wasn't that bright; he had trouble with the new and the unexpected. "What about security?"

"I haven't told then. They can't do anything."

"Why not?"

"I think they are Dragon Order agents, Kwame."

"Oh." The answer came without hesitation this time. Even Kwame's mind was able to connect the dots when the Order was involved.

"They're not on his team," Balack said and pointed at one of the monitors where Marcus could be seen interfacing with the Maiden. "Another faction or something within the Order."

"They have factions?"

"This is where I'd normally pretend to know something about the inner working of the Ordo Draconis, but to be honest: until they showed up in my living room, I had no idea. Guess they're just humans, after all."

"This is bad. Isn't it?"

"It is," Balack confirmed. "Thus far, they've only made me spy a little. They gave me a device that I connected to the security system."

"How come I didn't...so that's the reason you told me to leave early?"

"Yes."

"How did you get it in here? And why didn't it set off any alarms?" The crypt personnel was rigorously screened every time they came to work, and any tampering with the closed-circuit security systems would immediately set off all kinds of alarms.