“You’re just full of surprises.”
She wiped her hand on the small napkin. When she looked back at him, something had changed. Chris’s eyes had become fierce, his smile dangerous. “Y-you don’t have any issues with that?”
He didn’t look different, but he felt different. A wave of static charge ran down her chest and settled in her nether regions. Kate squirmed on the stool, overcome by sudden arousal. The perfectly sculpted ridge of his jaw seemed to move in slow motion. His lips shifted to form words she recognized as little more than blurred sound. Her breathing deepened and slowed. She broke out in a light sweat. Warmth spread between her legs.
Chris gathered her hand from the table, stroking his fingers across the back. “I find people with gifts fascinating.”
“Fascinating,” she whispered. Some part of her mind looked at her traitorous body and screamed. She found herself only able to close her eyes and open her mouth as he leaned in.
His scent flooded her senses as they kissed. Before she thought about what she did, her arms wrapped around him and their tongues crossed like sabers in a duel. She didn’t care that the table had fallen over, spilling their leftover wasabi sauce into a green swath, or that the entire room watched her. Chris permeated her soul, and she wanted him right now. Kate moaned as he held the back of her head, pulling her tight into another kiss.
Her eyes shot wide open as a squirt of foul-tasting liquid ran down her throat. Chris shifted her so that she coughed and gagged into his chest, muffling the sound. The chemical didn’t take long to act, and the room blurred. She tried to speak, but managed only an unintelligible whimper into his coat. She struggled, but couldn’t summon the strength or coordination to get away from his powerful arms.
“Shh, be calm.” He patted her back, sliding his lips to her ear to whisper. “I’m sorry about the pheromones; we didn’t want anyone to get hurt… Especially you.”
Kate looked up at the twisting smear of color; some of it ceiling lights, some Chris. “Wa…”
The whorl of color coalesced into a face; a droplet of clear liquid fell from his canine teeth.
“She’s had a bit too much to drink,” said Chris to a person she couldn’t perceive. “I’ll get her home.”
reams of marathon sex ended with the realization of consciousness. Such nocturnal fantasies were hardly new to her, though never had they been so persistent. One or two brief, steamy scenes would interleave with nightmares of running through the woods or random other images. Tonight’s X-rated dream had been a relentless parade of partners: Esteban, Officer Ahmed, Wilma, Paul and Leo (at the same time), and even El Tío himself. Kate shuddered. At first, she thought she was sore from all the dreamed intercourse, but the discomfort permeated everywhere.
She frowned. “Sorry about the pheromones…”
Chris, if that was even his real name, had attacked her with synthetic pheromones. Their lingering effect left her horny and aching, and tainted her dreams. The last, and most realistic, scene involved Aurora, a warm beach, and scented oils. Of course, she had still not known a man for real; everything that happened in her dream came from her imagination of what it would feel like.
Kate didn’t open her eyes right away, afraid of how much worse she would feel. She lay still for some minutes, taking note of the presence of hard, unforgiving metal beneath her body. A small foam pillow gave her a little comfort. She stretched, rigid and shuddering for a few seconds. Cloth covered her, long sleeves and pant legs. Her toes were cold; someone had stolen her socks.
A strip of ice circled her neck. The oddity of it attracted her hand to a metal collar: one inch tall, a half inch thick, rounded edges, and quite snug. Gripped by the sudden terror of being some gang lord’s sex toy, she shot upright and screamed. The expected snag of a leash did not occur, and she half fell, half stumbled to her feet in a blinding white room permeated with the smell of cleaning solution.
Kate yelped at the freezing metal floor, her gaze alternating between walls made of three-foot square white tiles and the bright orange jumpsuit she found herself wearing. The same heat-resistant material her bracelet had been made of covered the cube-shaped space. Aside from the plain metal shelf serving as a bed and one exposed toilet in the corner, the room was featureless. She squinted at the ceiling where the milky tiles glowed from lights on the other side powerful enough to illuminate the room through them.
She grabbed at the collar, frantic to make some sense of it. The metal was smooth all the way around, without a loop for a chain or anything resembling a keyhole, seam, or button. She tried to slip a finger between it and her throat, but it rested too snug to do without choking herself. With a feeble fingertip grip, she pulled and twisted in a lame attempt to break it. Other than being uncomfortably snug and cold, it seemed not do anything at all.
Damn large for a tracker.
The walls offered no indication of anywhere that opened like a door. Someone had to be watching her. She felt like a lab rat all over again. Morning needs made her stare at the toilet. Again, she searched the walls, spotting no obvious cameras. She distrusted the tiny gaps between tiles. Pinpoint cameras had to be everywhere. She flattened the jumpsuit across her stomach with nervous rubbing while trying to get over the fear that someone would watch her pee. Eventually, she glared at the walls and trudged to the bowl. Her suit had one zipper from throat to crotch. With a resigned sigh, she unzipped the suit and let it slide to the floor.
At least they let me keep my underwear. She scowled, trying to cover herself as much as possible while sitting. Who are these people? Is this what zoo animals feel like?
Time blurred to an agonizing standstill. She paced, picking and pounding at the wall for a while before sitting on the pillow. Knocking came from everywhere, making her jump.
“Mind if I come in?” asked a man’s voice.
“Let me out of here!” Kate leapt to her feet.
Agent Perrin faded into view at the center of the cell. Despite the years, he didn’t look much different from the face burned into her memory. The sight of him dredged up childish fear, reducing her to a shivering ball on the bed, pressed into the tiles at her back.
He glanced down at his shiny, black shoes. “I don’t mean to frighten you, Kate. All we ever wanted was to help. I’m glad to see you’re alive, in one piece, and back home.”
“This isn’t my home.” The weight of an old nightmare faded. She lowered her feet to the floor, uncurling from her fetal cringe. “I don’t belong to you.”
Perrin offered a condescending smile. “Before you hurt yourself, take note of the device on your neck.”
Kate gripped it at her throat, all the color drained from her cheeks. “It’s a bomb?”
He looked genuine in his alarm. “Oh, no. I know you don’t believe me, but hurting you is the last thing we want. It’s a neural-stunner. Have you ever seen the stun rods the police carry?”
“No.” I don’t usually associate with cops. “Why should I believe a damn word you say? You fuckers tried to kill me when I was a kid.”
“Incorrect.” Hologram-Perrin approached. “A genetics research firm working for us tried to kill you.”
“Laughlin-Reed Innovation,” she growled. “Get it off me. I can’t breathe.”
“In time. We have to come to trust you first. For now, know that it is able to detect an attempt to use your gift. Should you try to call upon any psionic abilities, it will scramble most of the activity in your brain for a moment. I assure you it’s harmless, but I’ve heard it’s rather painful.”
She let her fingers slip off the metal, staring speechless at him.
“Division 0 uses psi-inhibitors. Those devices interfere with psionic power by distracting the wearer on a subconscious level. We find them unnecessarily cruel. All that random sensory input can drive a person insane in a day or two.”
Kate pulled her feet up, heels on the edge of the metal shelf, and hugged her legs. “So you’re going to keep me locked up longer than that I g
uess.”
Agent Perrin’s intangible hand brushed at her hair. “I’d rather you thought of it as protective custody. You’re not a prisoner.”
“Could’a fuckin’ fooled me.” She frowned at the orange suit.
“Presently you are ‘liberty-challenged,’ but we hope to change that.”
Kate picked at her eye with her middle finger.
“Cute.”
A faint whirr from the left seemed thunderous in the silence. One wall tile opened upward like a hatch, allowing a floating tray to enter from a shaft too narrow for a person to crawl into. The sight of it made her feel even more trapped. It glided over to her bearing a plate of eggs, bacon, and something failing at being potatoes. Despite her situation, the irresistible smell beckoned.
“I’m sure there will be a period of adjustment. We don’t want to harm you, Kate. We want to hire you.”
She scarfed down the food, unwilling to pause long enough to say a word.
“C-Branch, if you’re wondering. Military intelligence. We run the world. You are too valuable to play in the kiddie pool with Division 0. However, we do have some concerns.”
“Concerns?” Kate mumbled around a full mouth, swallowed, and glared. “You don’t seem too concerned about what I think of all this.”
Agent Perrin chuckled. “We are worried about you. Around forty people died when you went rogue. At that age, it had to be traumatic from a psychological standpoint.”
“Went rogue?” Her mouth hung open. “I was a fucking child, not a goddamned agent! They were going to kill me. What was I supposed to do, just float there and die like a good little science project?”
“You were never in danger, Kate. The kill button required authorization from my superiors. Ramesh could not have killed you without our okay.”
“I’m not seven anymore, Perrin. You’ll need better bullshit than that to convince me.” She gave up on trying to spear bacon with a plastic fork and grabbed it. “I got numb to it. Ramesh I wanted to kill… everyone else, I dunno. All I wanted to do was get away. My brain translated ‘get away from me’ into ‘burn shit.’”
“You feel no remorse for killing all those people?” Perrin raised an eyebrow.
She chewed for a moment, staring at him. “At the time? No. I didn’t know any better. Yeah, I’ve had a few bad dreams, but I’m over it.”
“Your work for the Syndicate indicates you’ve become rather blasé about killing.”
“Every one of those people had their arms up to the elbows in the underworld.”
Perrin tilted his head. “That does make it easier, doesn’t it? To think of them as deserving of death?”
Kate slouched, staring at the little bits of egg remaining. “Gotta do something, don’t I? What choice did I have? I am what you people made me. That’s what you want now, isn’t it? Wrap me up in a nice sexy dress and send me places to kill people.”
“It’s not all about killing. It’s about protecting our country. All that’s a bit of a ways off. We have to know you are… well.” Perrin tapped his head before twisting left, as if talking to someone out of reach of the camera creating his holographic presence. “We are quite curious about your recent adjustment. How is it that you are no longer―?”
“A walking pariah?” She finished off the food. The tray hovered back to the hole from whence it came. “I dunno. It just… stopped one day. Maybe I grew out of it.”
Agent Perrin smiled. “You’ll need some training on subterfuge.”
Althea’s face came to mind. The girl’s wide, innocent stare almost brought Kate to tears. “I can’t. Trust me when I say C-Branch couldn’t make use of the why, no matter what you threaten.”
“Well, perhaps you’ll come around someday.”
“And what would you do? Try to mass-produce more people like me?”
He sighed. “No, Kate. You were the result of a lucky circumstance. They’ve been trying to recreate what they did with you since you ran away.”
Tears leapt from her eyes without permission. She covered her mouth with one hand. “How many children?”
“You’re working it up to be worse than it was.” He gestured at someone off camera. “There were sixteen others. Only three came out psionic, and none had your level of ability. What is it your new friends call themselves? Awakened?”
Kate gasped. “You know about them?”
He flashed a shocked face. “Which part of military intelligence didn’t you grasp? Do you honestly think you’d have survived on your own without a little help from the shadows?”
“Actually, yes.” Kate folded her arms. “If you were really following me, and you’re not pumping sunshine up my ass now about ‘caring,’ why did you leave me out there all alone?”
“Can you handle the honest answer?”
Her smirk went flat. “You couldn’t use me for anything.”
“More or less. I took some liberties with the project budget. Initially, they wanted to make sure you were not a threat to the population or ran your mouth to the NewsNet. I was trying to keep you safe.”
“Gee, thanks, Dad.”
“I need to meet with some people. We’ll be back in a few hours to conduct a proper interview.” He started to walk away, but looked back. “Christopher wanted to apologize for the deception. Based on your background, the doctors think the pheromones may have hit you quite hard. If you’re feeling the need to take certain matters into your own hands, I’ll make sure the cameras are off.”
Kate flushed crimson, flinging herself sideways on the bed with her back to the room. “Go to Hell.”
soft pneumatic squeak broke the silence. Kate couldn’t tell how much time had passed. The tray had come and gone again, bearing a turkey, bacon, and tomato sandwich. Despite her current situation, she found herself eating in tiny nibbles to over-taste everything. The texture of the slightly-toasted bread, the contrast of cold tomato, warm turkey, and crunchy bacon. As long as she’d taken to finish it, it had to be vat-grown meat with hydroponic veggies. OmniSoy would’ve melted back to goop before she was halfway done.
She figured it an hour or so past noon, but the featureless, boring cell offered no clues as to the passage of time or even the hour of the day. Berating herself over being stupid and leaving Querq got her no closer to escaping, so she gave up. Officer Ahmed mentioned something about Division 0 being able to protect her from C-Branch. She wondered if he’d find out they had kidnapped her.
“Kate?” A deep voice flooded the cell.
This guy sounds huge. She shifted onto her back, rolling her head to the right. Sure enough, a large man stood in a space that had become a doorway. He had the build of an augmented special forces soldier; his clingy black shirt accented every ridge and valley of a figure inflated by implanted muscles. Camouflage pants stretched at the thigh, but hung loose the rest of the way to his boots. Behind him, a pair of too-pale-to-be-alive men in sand brown coats and sunglasses waited.
“Can I guess what they sent you here for?”
He frowned. “You have a dirty mind. I’m to escort you to a conference room.”
She grumbled and got up. A squeal came out of her as her bare feet hit the icy floor. Once the shock of it faded, she trudged to the door. Another wiseass remark stalled when she found herself eye-level to his pectorals. The metal band tightened around her throat, reminding her she couldn’t use her abilities. A tremble manifested in her hands. Is this what it feels like to be normal? Helpless? Afraid of giant men?
Eyes downcast, she turned her back and put her hands behind her. “So what do they call you?”
“Agent Jones.” He rested a hand on her shoulder and guided her into the hallway. “Kate, you’re not a prisoner. We merely need to take some precautions until we know you’re on board with the program.”
“Jones? Not your real name, huh?” She continued shaking, struggling to process the foreign sense of being vulnerable.
“I can’t say.” He flashed a mischievous grin. “The two men beh
ind me are synthetics. Unless you can outrun a car, there’s no need for restraints. Again, you’re not a prisoner.”
Kate glanced at her cell. “Yeah… Maybe if you keep saying that, being locked up in a white cube with this fucking thing on my neck will feel just like home.” She tried to rub some warmth into her arms. Guess it’s better than being naked in a tank of slime. At least I can pace in circles.
The huge hand felt like a ten-ton weight on her shoulder as he steered her through a left turn into another hallway to an elevator. She backed into the wall with the three men between her and the door.
“C-can I at least get socks or something? It’s f-freezing in here.”
“As soon as they trust you won’t use them to harm yourself,” said the big man.
“With socks? Are you serious?”
The pallid man on the left had no emotion in his face as he spoke. “They could be used to fashion an improvised gravity-assisted strangulation device.”
Jones smiled. “He means they’re worried you’ll hang yourself.”
“They clamp a brain-smasher around my neck and they’re worried about socks?” Kate growled. “What happened to that whole ‘not a prisoner’ thing?”
“It will pass. You seem sane enough to me.” Agent Jones smiled.
The elevator opened and her escort guided her down a short grey-carpeted corridor to a windowless room. Perrin and a middle-aged woman in a white coat sat at a table. Kate took an immediate dislike to the scientist, glaring as Jones prodded her around to a chair facing them.
“Thank you, Jones,” said Perrin.
“I’ll be right outside if you need, sir.”
Kate sat and scuffed her feet back and forth across the carpet to warm and de-numb them. Agent Perrin gestured at a tray of brownies, cupcakes, and cookies.
“Coffee?”
“Sure,” she muttered past a mouthful of double-fudge chocolate chip.
“This is Doctor Mlodzik.” Perrin indicated the woman at his right.
The woman offered a slight bow. Short, curled hair touched by the beginnings of grey gave her a look older than her skin seemed. Kate made a sour face at the hand hovering over the table, the same shade of light brown as her cookie.
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