LITMIR.BIZ

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par, or in some cases excelled anything the government had, mainly because this organization could afford to pay for it—and had no need to justify to anyone where the money went.

      Two figures emerged from the elevator doors, walking with an unconscious unison of movement down the hallway, so much so that it was difficult to see who was mirroring whom. Both wore wool slacks, button-down shirts of lightly starched white cotton, and expensive shoes. An educated consumer might note that the younger man was more fashionably dressed, but the older man’s shoes were the more expensive, and better maintained.

      A female figure with a dark blue lab coat over her street clothes moved past them in the other direction, barely acknowledging them with a preoccupied nod.

      “Denise Vargha. One of our better people. She’s in charge of the seventh team.” The speaker—the younger man—was clearly aware that he wasn’t telling his companion anything that his superior didn’t already know, but felt the need to say something to fill the space.

      “Indeed.” The older man’s voice was modulated for extreme politeness, bordering on boredom, with just a hint of “don’t annoy me.” As director, he signed off on all of the forms for R&D; he knew all the players, down to the laboratory’s off-hour sanitation crew.

      The subordinate took the hint, and went back to silence for the rest of their walk, until they came to the end of the hallway and went through another set of security measures to gain entrance to the rooms beyond that doorway.

      “Director.” The human element of the security partition didn’t quite salute, but his spine did straighten noticeably. The guard nodded to the other man. “Doctor Hackins.”

      “You’ve made some improvements since I was here last,” the older man said, looking around at the cold-tiled walls and cement floor with drains set at two-foot intervals. This time, a hint of approval colored his words; a carefully calculated effect, negated by his adding, “No more fire starters?”

      “No, sir.” The reprimand stung, but Hackins—as manager of the project—had already taken responsibility for that incident; it was over and there was no need to apologize. Apologies were a weakness worse than the original mistake.

      The two men were passed through the security buffer and into the main lab, the reason for the entire building. Two more doors, each one a simple steel slab which could be opened only by a triple-checked thumbprint of a verified team member, or the director’s personal override.

      The room they were in now, after the second door, was capital-C clean; white walls, tiled floor, and stainless fixtures. A man in a white lab coat over his shirtsleeves was seated in front of a glass window, while the subject he was working with rested in an elongated, dentist-type chair on the other side. The chair might have been comfortable if it weren’t for the leads affixed to her scalp and pulse points, and the leather restraints around her ankles, wrists, and neck. She was a slender, freckle-faced blonde, who looked as though she should have been running through a meadow with Disney-style animals leaping at her heels, not tied down inside an underground laboratory.

      “Bethany. One of our more valued resources. I will admit to resisting putting her to this use; however, it does seem—”

      “Gareth. To the point.”

      “Ah. Yes.” Gareth Hackins didn’t do anything as clichéd as tug nervously at his collar, but had he been less well trained he would have wanted to. “This is the third team’s pet project, as was detailed in the yearly report.”

      He paused, and when there was no response, he continued as though given an enthusiastic go-ahead.

      “It is a variant of conditioning response we have been working on for the past few years. Ideally, we will create a reaction against using magic except under direct command. Specifically, our command. Past attempts to accomplish this have used more traditional brainwashing procedures, with variable results. The effects would not last long enough for the subject to remain useful, and most of the projects, as you saw in the report, had to be terminated. A waste, really. With this approach, we are using their own abilities to create a loop, so that the more they use their magic, the more they tie themselves to the structure we create, emotionally.”

      “And how is that coming along?”

      Hackins gave a faint, almost unobservable shrug. “Putting their magic under restraint is simple enough. They are already predisposed to take orders from the basic training all of our operatives go through. However, the next step has proven to be slightly more…problematic. Seven of the subjects have responded by shutting down all access to what is commonly referred to as ‘current,’ in effect lobotomizing themselves. One other—subject nine—accepts commands, but only of the most passive sort. Bethany, subject eight, seems to have the most potential to work on an active level. However, she has been resisting the final breakdown.”

      The director leaned in to look at the subject. “Touch her again.”

      The technician tapped a key, and the girl in the padded chair convulsed once, and then lay still. Her brown eyes were open wide, staring at the pale cream-tiled ceiling, and sweat trickled down the side of her face, dripping into her tangled hair and onto the padding of the couch.

      “Response?”

      “None.”

      “Move it up.”

      The tech used his thumb to slide the lever up, and then went to tap the key again. A slight hesitation, a glimpse backward at his boss, and he touched the key.

      “Fffffuck you,” the girl managed around her clenched jaw. Her gaze flickered off to the side, taking in the two newcomers, then went back to her direct tormenter.

      “Interesting,” Hackins said. “Most of them have broken by now. She’s, yes, most interesting. The higher level of Talent seems to indicate a higher level of stubbornness, as well.” He turned to the tech and checked the readouts the man was monitoring. “There’s been no push back along the leads?”

      “We had to replace the first two sets,” the tech replied, “but once she realized that we’d insulated the main boards, she stopped wasting her time. Bethy’s a smart one, she is.”

      “Yes. Very smart.” Hackins looked through the glass at the subject, thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

      “This insulation allows you to stop their magic?” the director asked the technician.

      “Sir. Not exactly, sir. It merely routes it through several layers, slowing it down with each turn. If she really wanted to do damage, she could, but we suspect that it would burn her out to generate that much energy.”

      “You suspect?” The man’s face went still, and the tech and Dr. Hackins both felt the temperature of the room drop significantly with his disapproval.

      “Despite our resources, there is still a great deal about these Talent that we do not understand,” Hackins said. “That is why the work is progressing more slowly than anticipated. A wrong step, a push too hard, and we burn them out before the desired result is accomplished. But if this new procedure works, we should be ready for the next level quite quickly.”

      “She will not balk at commands?”

      “She would be incapable of distinguishing between our wishes and her own,” Hackins assured him.

      “Excellent. On with your work, then. Gareth, you said that you had the remains of the other subjects on storage? I would like to see the results of the autopsies.”

      “Of course. This way, please.”

      The two men exited out the door at the other end of the control room, abandoning tech and subject without a backward glance.

      Left alone with his work, the tech’s shoulders sagged slightly in relief. He was very good at his job, but the ratio of failures in this project had been higher than anticipated, and the Boss was not a man you wanted to disappoint. Ever. Especially not when you were in his direct line of sight. The head of R&D was a fair man, nobody ever

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