"What is it, Agent Murphy?" Colonel Griffin sighed as his reverie was interrupted by Megan walking into his office unannounced. Really, was it too much to expect the woman to knock on his door? He was the freaking head of the Office of Advance Technology. Female agents grew jaded just as quickly as the men, he thought moodily.

"Review meeting for Omega-Delphi, sir," Megan said brightly.

"So it is," Griffin nodded grudgingly, "Let's give Dr.West a couple of minutes."

Griffin wondered if the bad guys had endless review meetings too. Atleast Megan's attire was flawless, he noted approvingly as she took her seat, not a strand of her red hair was out of place. When Jonathan arrived several minutes later he seemed subdued and Megan missed his usual brilliant smile.

"Update on the South Caucasus incident, Dr.West?" Griffin gave a nod.

"Right," Jonathan linked his laptop to the wall projector, bringing up an aerial shot of mountainous terrain harshly backlit by two coalescing mushroom clouds, "As you know, two weeks ago, the State Department borrowed our Nuclear Emergency Support Team for an extraction mission into the South Caucasus Republic. The local regime was supposed to hand over a prisoner with sensitive intel on GORGON. In exchange for nuclear capable drones from the Gibbs Consortium. But the deal blew up - literally - before the transfer could take place. NEST personnel have successfully recovered the prisoner with the intel on site."

"I take it we didn't trust the regime to give us the full picture?" Griffin asked dryly, "We needed the prisoner to vouch for the intel?"

"Exactly," Jonathan nodded, "Given that this incident has exposed their decade-long collaboration with GORGON, our suspicion was justified. It seems the SCR regime has been selectively breeding child prodigies to use a few as drone pilots and supply the rest to GORGON ."

"So Sibylline can crack open their skulls and consume their brains?" Griffin asked thoughtfully.

"Yes," Jonathan winced, "Assuming she wants to transcend into a weak super-intelligence, absorbing the smartest minds is one possible path. The recombinant technology to target the right genes was most likely supplied by Sibylline herself."

"Can't she get all the guinea pigs she wants within GORGON territory?" Griffin frowned, "Why risk going beyond?"

"She has already used up all suitable subjects within her own territory," Jonathan's voice was flat, the display changed to a video loop of a little girl pouting at the camera with the name Mariam stitched on her shirt, "Our resident geneticist tells me that Sibylline is looking for a rare gene cocktail. This is footage from inside the base shortly before the nuclear incident. That child was a product of selective breeding with intelligence estimated in the 99th percentile for her age group. Note the odd spasms in her limbs. She's suffering from early onset torsion dystonia. A crippling genetic condition historically seen in the Ashkenazi Jewish population where child prodigies were prevelant at the turn of the 20th century."

"You mean whatever's making these kids super smart also cripples their nervous system?" Griffin looked like he tasted something unpleasant, "And Sibylline was breeding them specifically for it. So she could harvest them with minimum lead time, I suppose."

"The same gene cluster is implicated," Jonathan nodded sadly, "Their increased intelligence comes at a terrible cost. We are beginning to understand the components of Sybilline's omniscience. An ensemble of child prodigies among others. I fear I must revise the threat analysis on GORGON, again."

"I'm surprised the State Department isn't milking this on the diplomatic front," Megan wondered, "The evidence..."

"... is mostly vaporized," Jonathan finished wearily, "The hospital building at Kazbuk gestating the child prodigies was vaporized in GORGON's double cross. It seems Sibylline didn't appreciate the SCR making deals with the State Department. The child you see in the footage had been recruited to carry out the attack."

"But why would this... prodigy blow up her own residence before taking out the prisoner?" Griffin looked puzzled, "Did she have trouble controlling the missile?"

"She didn't know where the prisoner was being held," Jonathan explained, "She had three missiles and was systematically destroying the other buildings on base. Patient Zero thwarted her plan by remotely diverting one of the missiles."

"Wait... what the heck does Patient Zero have to do with this mess?" Griffin spluttered.

"You will recall, sir, that we were steering Patient Zero into an internship at the Zero Sum Institute," Megan interjected, "Given Zero Sum's leverage in international affairs, it's an ideal spot for Patient Zero's actions to start messing with Sibylline's omniscience. Since his own hypothetical powers - whatever they may be - originate from outside our universe... anyway, his physics teacher who is an OAT asset was able to arrange an interview with Julia Thorton ahead of schedule. Following the bullying incident at Cardiff High, Patient Zero..."

"Bullying incident?" Griffin seemed lost.

"Patient Zero seems to have been the brunt of a particularly nasty bullying incident involving drugs in the chemistry lab..." Megan began.

Griffin growled, "Why wasn't I informed of this sooner, Agent Murphy?"

"Well, sir, you emphatically said you didn't want me pestering you with every little..." Megan looked faintly embarrassed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Dammit, Murphy," Griffin threw up his hands, "that boy represents a shit ton of tax payer dollars poured into the Brookhaven supercollider grant. Money for which we have nothing to show, unless we can use Patient Zero to bring down GORGON."

"I've expanded the survellience net in Cardiff High to blanket the entire school, sir," Megan assured him, "Next time we'll step in if Sean... Patient Zero appears to be in real danger."

"See that you do," Griffin jabbed a finger, "Not sure I like the idea of that Thornton woman getting her claws into the boy. She's too well connected in Washington and has her own agenda."

"A minor risk, sir," Megan nodded, "But Julia Thornton's goals are roughly aligned with our own, at least where GORGON is concerned."

"Maybe," Griffin grunted, "Now about that new intel..."

"The prisoner rescued is a US permanent resident," Jonathan clicked through his presentation, "whose father, a neuroscientist by the name of Leonidas, was commissioned by the SCR regime to develop mind-reading MRI technology for covert survellience..."

Griffin made a rude noise. Jonathan continued, "...which isn't entirely far fetched. He apparently got the technology  working but only between subjects with near identical brain structures such as twins. A hard limitation that Leonidas was able to establish mathematically."

"So effectively useless," Griffin chuckled.

"The SCR regime takes a dim view of things like mathematical constraints," Jonathan nodded, "and Professor Leonidas found himself in a precarious spot politically. That's when he disappeared into GORGON territory."

"GORGON made him an offer?" Griffin raised a brow.

"Apparently," Jonathan frowned, "but Leonidas failed to keep his appointment which did not please Sibylline, as you can imagine. Turns out the good professor wasn't thrilled about GORGON interference in his country and instead defected to a resistance group fighting GORGON. He was hunted and eventually captured, but the recruitment video from the resistance - which hinted at tactics effective against GORGON - was stashed in his residence back home. Which explains why Sibylline was keen on destroying it."

"Resistance group?" Griffin stared, "How the heck do you resist an all-seeing hyper intelligence like Sibylline within her own domain? Even we couldn't do that. That's the whole point of funding Omega-Delphi."

"Someone found a way," Jonathan hesitated then pulled up a photo of a man in a labcoat, peering at the camera with a sickly smile that did not seem to belong on the lean gaunt face framed by thick glasses and close-cropped hair, "The group calls itself Krankenhaus-13. It's headed by a Dr. Johann Braun, a former rising star in experimental neuroscience at the University of Munich before he was fired for performing procedures not approved by the medical ethics board."

"Let me guess," Griffin said dryly, "GORGON made him an offer he couldn't pass up."

"Right," Jonathan clicked to bring up a video, "We know Sibylline has been exploring alternate paths to create geniuses for her consumption. Dr. Braun - now assigned OAT codename 'Cognito' - was tasked by Sibylline with creating such hyper intelligent fodder."

The video on the screen showed a large indoor swimming pool of the type found in a school or university. Armed guards patrolled in the background. Jonathan translated the caption on the screen as denoting a highschool in northern Poland. A squad of labcoated personnel surrounded by empty gurneys worked hastily on medical equipment mounted on trolleys. Ducts and cables snaked from the equipment and disappeared into the deep end of the pool where the camera zoomed in. Something large floated underwater backlit by pool lights, shaped like a giant sea urchin with enormous fleshy spines. Megan frowned and leaned toward the screen. What she'd taken to be 'spines' were actually limbs... human limbs terminating in feet and hands. The perspective flipped and Megan realized she was looking at people... students in school uniform all surgically fused together at the skull, faces covered by oxygen maks and what looked like VR goggles. Their torsos stuck out radially in all directions, swaying gently like seaweed. Megan turned away abruptly, fighting her rising gorge.

"What the heck... " Griffin exclaimed.

"Cognito has perfected a process for directly joining human brains in a ring topology," Jonathan sounded heartbroken, "The resulting... hybrid is not viable for more than a few minutes, but in that time is capable of functioning as a weak superintelligence devoid of intrinsic motivation."

"It can take orders," Griffin guessed.

"Cognito uses them to formulate superhuman strategies against Sibylline," Jonathan shuddered, "which would explain how Krankenhaus-13 was able to evade and fight GORGON for so long. That's his modus operandi. He targets a high school on the edges of GORGON territory and camps there until the students have been... processed. He needs brains that are almost fully developed but flexible enough for his purpose. "

"Why didn't Sibylline cosume these... hybrids like she planned?" Griffin demanded.

"Apparently she tried and almost died in the process," a ghost of a smile appeared on Jonathan's face, "The hybrid mind was too alien for her to assimilate. Cognito didn't take it well when Sibylline shut down his pet experiment."

"Well, that's a doozy," Griffin muttered at the monstrosity on the screen, "Not something you see everyday."

"Still doesn't explain why Sibylline didn't want this to get out," Megan avoided looking at the screen, "I mean, why woud she care?"

There was silence for almost a minute.

"It's speculation at this stage," Jonathan roused himself from his thoughts, "but Sibylline might fear that we will collaborate with Cognito in the Balkan Offensive. The US Army has bogged down in Serbia, and we still do not have air superiority needed to knock out her Doomsday supercollider. Coordinating with Krankenhaus-13 just might allow our Army Group to break the stalemate."

"Assisting rebel groups in enemy territory is practically US doctrine," Griffin nodded, "But you seem rather blasé about this Dr. West. I thought you were Mister Sensitive."

"Colonel," Jonathan drew himself up, "If you instruct OAT to make contact with Krankenhaus-13, I assure you I will turn in my ID badge and walk out of here. But I'm afraid it may be too late for that." He clicked through his laptop to pull up a file photo of a man in uniform. "Master-Sergeant Todd Bryson, ex-Air Force. Employed by Gibbs Consortium to market their drones. He was part of the sales delegation to the South Caucasus. Presumed to have died in the blast until the NEST team excavated a hardened bunker under the rubble at Kazbuk base. Basically a tiny spherical room at the bottom of a mine shaft. Bryson was found holed-up there alone."

"Alone?" Griffin raised a brow, "How did he know the location of the bunker, I wonder."

"Exactly," Jonathan agreed, "It was a cold-war era construct which could not have been opened without detailed knowledge of the old Soviet vault combinations. Not something a random veteran of the US Air Force is likely to know. He was working for another organization, someone who wanted to make contact with Krankenhaus-13. Another enemy of GORGON."

END OF CHAPTER