“Here is a cube of some of Erick’s work that I was able to acquire through my own resources. The Darhel commissioning the research cannot do the tests themselves, but they… like to watch,” she said, something about her colorless tone expressing infinite distaste. “I do not have other hard evidence that your superiors would accept, but there is a way to get it, and something else. Since the material on that cube was in Darhel hands, it was possible to obtain a copy. The device specifications and modifications never leave the research facility. I have my memory, and I have partial views from cube recordings. I could construct a very convincing substitute from just that data, but I can build something much more effective with some additional information. I can construct a substitute that almost works. Not a working model, but a device almost all personnel will merely take for damaged or malfunctioning, not completely inert. What I need are the records from the Fleet Strike team that originally retrieved the device. It was recovered partially disassembled, and with some other devices — part of a museum display on a Tchpth planet.” Unlike most humans, she pronounced the name of the Galactic species perfectly, making it sound easy.
“Crabs have museums?”
“Yes. They have very good museums, although the ones with extensive Aldenata displays are typically closed to any species but their own. The other species were never meant to have this. Not until we were much farther along the Path.”
“Path? You say that as though it’s preordained or something.” Cally held up her hands, rejecting the idea.
“There are things you do not know. There are things you should not know.” Michelle held up her hand. “Do not ask for things you know I will not tell to even my sister and fellow O’Neal. I will not harm you or Clan O’Neal with too much of the wrong information. Your employers, the Bane Sidhe, have this policy also — not to harm their people with things they must not know. In this, at least, they are wise. You need to listen now so that I can tell you what you will need to know about the Fleet Strike mission that first obtained this device.”
“The biggest thing I need to know, first, is how your man inside can ensure our operative gets hired, how we can be assured that this isn’t a trap, and to what degree we can count on your man to keep our operative’s identity confidential if your guy gets burned.”
“As I said before, my ‘man’ is in personnel. To be specific, he occupies a key position in the personnel department. He can control which resumes get through the process. He can contrive bad references if the wrong applicant is chosen. Your person will be hired, assuming you can fabricate adequate background credentials and documentation. Scrutiny of your fabrications will be light, to say the least. A list of the positions most likely to come open, accompanied by detailed position requirements, are on the cube. My ‘man’ owes Clan O’Neal a third-level favor, through me, which is binding enough to satisfy the strictest concerns.” She looked at her sister’s raised eyebrows and sighed. “You may confirm the degree of obligation involved with the Indowy Aelool. Now, may I continue?”
The opening view of the cube showed a large, high-ceilinged room, split down the middle with a sturdy-looking dividing wall. Each room contained two chairs, at opposite ends of the room, with a man and a woman locked into each chair with steel restraints. The rooms looked quite clean around the edges, but the stains in the center of the room and by the chairs made Cally wince. The hardened assassin, being what she was, recognized instantly that the smears and trails across the floor were a mix of dried and fresh, streaming to a pair of central drains that appeared slightly… clogged.
She could hear mumbling in the background, but couldn’t quite make out the words. “Buckley, speech enhancement please.” As the thin tenor voice began to clarify into tinny but clear words, she said, “Raise the volume two notches.”
“…has no prior preparation. The subject on the right has been prepped through an increasingly intense series of directed tasks, from innocuous to unpleasant. Today’s demonstration shows the necessity, with the current prototypical configuration, of some prior access to the subject to precondition the acceptance of control, and the familiarity of the operator with the subject’s mind. Without prior access, control is limited by intensity of task and degree of preparation. Current research aims to refine our equations for computing probability of successful control for a given task by a specified subject. Yes, you have a question?” The tenor paused. The next voice was gibberish despite the Bane Sidhe’s top of the line speech enhancement software.
“We agree. Unfortunately, even extensive conditioning fails to preserve the active subject in an end-series trial like this one. We still have a lot of refinement and research before we can meet final specifications.” There was a pause. “Another use we hope to make of our research data is to separate minds into primary and, if possible, secondary classifications identifiable by externally observable characteristics, and genetic profiles. Our goal is to refine the software, in the final device, to modify initial output based on preassessed typing, where available. We believe that we will be able to substantially increase control probability and decrease the number of prep…” The voice drifted off as if the speaker had stepped farther away from the pickup. On the floor in the rooms, the shackles on the chairs snapped open, freeing the subjects to stand, move around, rub wrists. In each room, one subject sat frozen in the chair, despite the removal of physical shackles.
Then it got ugly. Hardened as she was to the bloodier side of life, she had to fight her rising gorge several times before the “experiment” ended. On the unconditioned side, the people were physically intact. Workers shot both with a trank gun before removing them. The indifferent treatment during the removal made it clear the tranks were solely for the workers’ safety. On the conditioned side, workers in gray coveralls and gloves came in wheeling an equally gray trash bin to clean up whatever remained.
When Cally left her room to walk to the gym, people got out of her way. One look at her face and coworkers disappeared through the first convenient door or side corridor — as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. The prior inhabitants abandoned the locker room seconds after she entered. The gym itself didn’t quite empty. The other users just discreetly moved to the far end of the large room, away from the mats and bar.
Two hours later, she stood in the shower letting the steaming water pound away the rest of the stress, We’re doing it. I don’t care about the damned politics, I don’t give a fuck about approval, we’re doing it. She sighed. But approval would be nice. Professional. If I plan to get Nathan on board, I have to be strictly professional.
Chapter Seven
“Nathan, here’s what I’ve got for you. I think it’ll make all the difference,” the silver-blonde assassin was wearing a forest green suit. She obviously dressed for success. As a priest, he wasn’t supposed to notice such things. He could appreciate the color and fit of the suit, and the obvious custom-tailoring of the blouse. He would have suspected her of living above her means if he hadn’t known the outfit had been a Christmas present from her grandparents several years ago. As an assassin and operative, Cally had studied and drilled on the value of proper costuming. The bare fact, he winced at his mental choice of words, is that I am not as immune to Cally O’Neal’s charms as I ought to be. But it’s not the job of a good priest to be immune to the temptations of the flesh, just to resist them. Sweet and lethally charming when she wants to be, isn’t she? He focused on the “lethal” part and began counting her kills in his head as a distraction.