CONSPIRACY DESIGN - Read & Review Chapter - Book 4 in the Modules Series

Conspiracy Design by Almondie Shampine

book 4 in The Modules Series

 

Get the Entire Six-Book Modules Series for FREE Wed, July 4th, Thur, July 5th, Fri, July 6th, 2018

We endured just another silent trip to the airport. He refused to tell me where we were going. I refused to give him the benefit of asking him.

Then when he had me seated on the plane, he kissed me . . . goodbye? I watched him walk away, watched him leave, saying nothing, expecting him to return, because he’d made it clear he wouldn’t be leaving my side, right?

But then the plane began moving, and he hadn’t come back. “Wait!” I cried, unbuckling my seat belt and beginning to stand. A man in a black suit and tie was instantly there. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said.

“Who are you?” I asked snottily.

He just smiled at me, then buckled himself in right next to me, without ever answering my question.

When the plane landed at a Texas airport, I hauled butt toward the exit, but last minute swung inside the bathroom compartment, waiting for everyone else to exit. When the footsteps stopped, I peeked out of the compartment, and began fast-walking in the opposite direction, toward the back of the plane.

“Going somewhere?” another guy with a black suit and tie stepped into my pathway in the aisle. I turned to find the other one behind me.

“It would make your guys’ job a lot easier if you just give me a little bit of information and tell me what you want.” I said.

They said nothing, escorting me out of the plane, then keeping close to both my sides as we walked. They led me to a black vehicle, same as Headquarters’ vehicles.

“Get in,” was all I was told. The door opened and there were two more inside.

“Not until I know where I’m going and what all of this is about,” I said, and positioned myself in a defensive stance. The guy cocked his gun and pointed it at my head, “I’m not going to tell you twice.”

“Fine, as long as you know I have no problem killing strangers, which is what you are until you tell me who you are, so you might want to rethink your secrecy.”

I plopped down in the seat, and the guy holding the gun maneuvered in next to me, so that I was sandwiched between two guys carrying guns.

“Better buckle up. Wouldn’t want there to be any . . . accidents,” he chuckled cruelly.

“Oh, there will be. Just you wait. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t even dare to blink,” I threatened.

The windows were black. I had no idea where they were taking me.

An hour into the trip, I told them I had to go to the bathroom.

“You just went on the plane.”

“I was only pretending to go on the plane, but now I really have to go.”

“No stops, that’s our orders.”

“And who do you take your orders from?” I asked.

The only response was another chuckle.

The destination landed me in a completely secured dusty barracks. No signs, addresses, or anything to tell me where I was.

“Electric fences. No one gets in and no one gets out without authorization. Try to pull some funny business, you’ll be shot. Welcome to your new home, little girl. By the looks of you, you won’t make it a week.”

“Longer than you’ll be making it,” I said.

And when he opened his mouth to chuckle again, I slammed my fist into it and grabbed for his gun. By the time the others got around to trying to grab me, I had it pressed against his forehead. “Boom,” I whispered, dangerously.

“Too bad you don’t know how to use it, witch.” And in one quick movement, he had my wrist, and I felt the snap before the gun dropped out of my hand.

“Better figure out what you’re messing with before you mess with it,” he said, kicking dust into my face, before laughing.

They got into the vehicle and drove away, leaving me on my knees craning my broken hand.

“How am I supposed to work with this?” I heard a disgruntled voice behind me. I looked up at the looming creature in military uniform staring down at me in disgust.

“I think my hand’s broken,” I said, trying to stave the tears.

“You’re lucky that’s all that’s broken what you just pulled. Shooting you would have saved us all a bunch of work. Get up, follow me. On the double. Told him this was a mistake.”

“Told who?”

He brought me into a dark room, reminding me of the interrogation room I’d been taken to previously when tortured for information on the formula. He had me sit while he paced the room.

I didn’t know which pain was worse. My broken wrist or how badly I needed to go to the bathroom.

“I am Commander Lewis. You will address me as Sir, Yes Sir.”

I stared at him. With a sweep of his foot, the chair was

dislodged, and I fell on the cement floor, landing on my wrist. I

yelled out in pain.

“What do you address me as?”

“Sir, Yes Sir,” I gritted my teeth.

“I will call you whatever the hell I feel like calling you, but you will always address me as Sir, Yes Sir, after everything I say.”

I began picking myself up off the floor, and stood on wobbly legs. He kicked the back of my knee and I fell again. “Sir, Yes Sir!” I hollered.

“For however long this takes, I own you, got that?”

“Sir, Yes Sir!”

“But I am going to warn you that your being here is a huge inconvenience, and as long as you inconvenience me and my operations and my men, I am going to make your life miserable.”

“Sir, Yes Sir.”

“In fact, when I’m done with you, I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”

I stayed kneeled on the ground. “Sir, Yes Sir.”

He stepped on my hand, crushing it into the cement until I had tears burning in my eyelids. I moaned aloud, as I felt the bones grinding against each other, and to my absolute horror, I felt a puddle of warmth between my legs. I’d peed myself.

He gripped the back of my head and shoved it toward the puddle. “You disgust me!”

“Sir. Yes. Sir,” and I don’t think I’ve ever sounded as dangerous as I did then. A hundred scenarios played out in my head in the matter of seconds, preferably him on his back, soaking in my pee, eyes wide and full of fear.

“For that, you’ll be spending the rest of your evening cleaning this entire room with a toothbrush, but we’ve got other matters to take care of first.”

He lifted me by the back of my shirt. There was so much pain in my hand that I was seeing black swirling dots in my vision. We walked toward another building.

He shoved me in an open room.

Shockingly cold water sprayed harshly on me, and I screamed.

“Remove your filthy clothes, female.”

I looked at him in horror, and the three other guys stationed there. “Can I have some privacy, please?” my teeth chattered.

They laughed at me. “Seems you don’t take too well to orders. That’ll change real fast.”

Two of them moved toward me and began helping themselves to literally ripping off my clothes.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it myself,” I said.

But they were having too much fun. As soon as I was completely exposed and vulnerable, they turned the water directly on me, knocking me down against the wall, while I tried to cover my face from the feel of the ice. The only thing I was grateful for was that they couldn’t see me crying.

When I was blue and trembling so hard I could barely walk, they led me into another room, and before I could even lift my head, I saw my hair land on the floor, cut. When I heard the sound of the buzzers, I began to fight, murmuring “No’s”, and “Pleases”, until I was laid out on my back on the floor, restrained by my hands, my legs, and someone’s hands on my throat, while the buzzer harshly went over my skull.

Then my chest was being bandaged so tight, I could hardly breathe, and I stood there, limp and lifeless, while they dressed me. A hat was shoved on my head.

“Stand up straight,” was yelled.

“Sir, yes sir,” I murmured, but my body was jello, my strength completely depleted, so they forced me and held me into a straightened position and turned me toward a mirror.

“Take a good look at yourself, because this is who you are now. The only thing we can’t give you are the parts, so you best keep your pants on at all times.”

I didn’t recognize the pale blue, slumped weakling with the large fearful eyes in the mirror. I only noticed the boy that was staring back at me with a wrist that was hanging unnaturally, looking like a claw.

“Get him over to the med department to get that wrapped up with some pain medication.”

Him.

I dozed in and out of sleep while a male nurse worked on my hand and gave me temporary reprieve from the pain. I was handed bread to eat, a glass of water to drink, then escorted back to the interrogation room where a bucket of bleach water and a toothbrush sat on the floor, next to my drying puddle.

Awkwardly, I began the work with my left hand, as it had been my right wrist that had been broken.

Time passed, I didn’t know how long, as I focused on my methodical breathing and the scrape scrape scrape of the toothbrush. Pain began returning to my wrist, and the room was like an inferno.

Sweat dripped off every part of me, making me itch in all the places that were bandaged that I couldn’t get to. I needed to go to the bathroom again. I was parched and needed water badly, but no one came.

I began shivering cold in my sweat, and I eventually curled up on the floor, wrapping my arms around me and pressing my legs up to my chest. My dreams were chaotic.

I felt delusional, and I kept fogging the lines between sleep and awake, so when the door finally opened and I felt pain in my side, I looked up at the Officer and believed I was still dreaming. Just a crazy nightmare. Any moment the Commander would be kissing me awake, with coffee and breakfast waiting for me.

I felt pain in my side again, and realized that he was kicking me. I tried to sit up, but dizziness led me to begin dry-heaving.

“You’re an idiot,” I heard. “Obviously didn’t learn your lesson from making a mess in here yesterday. Now you’ll have to do it again. Get up!”

“Sir, Yes, Sir.”

I wavered on my feet and squinted through blurred eyes at him.

“May I go to the bathroom, sir?” I cringed.

He took his sweet time answering, and I almost believed I’d be denied that, but finally he assented, and took me to what appeared to be a private bathroom.

“Thank you,” I said in great relief and gratitude.

It was short-lived, as I was faced with a urinal and no toilet paper.

Then he walked in and began talking to me like I wasn’t trying to go to the bathroom. “This is an all-male facility. Females do not belong this side of the line. I do not know what you did to get yourself here, but I can assume you’re going to be regretting it, if you’re not already. You would have had an easier time of it going to prison. At least you may have had a chance at surviving there.

“Here, you’re not going to make it, female. That’s a promise, because I’m not going to babysit you. You get yourself into a situation, you’re on your own, so it’s in your best interests you keep your identity secret and protect it like your life, because it will be your life if your gender gets out. You’re a month behind the others. Most recruits start on time. You’ll be working double. This isn’t the type of military operation where no man gets left behind. If you fall behind, you will get left behind.”

“Sir, yes sir.”

Then he smacked my bottom. Before I even had my pants

buckled, he pulled out in front of me and began peeing in the urinal. I turned with flushed face.

He laughed, patronizing, “You act like you’ve never seen one of these before. How old are you, anyway?”

“Almost 18, sir.”

“Yeah, you’re chopped liver. In a way, it’s too bad. I could think of better purposes for you. Perhaps, when things get too tough for you, I’ll offer you a deal.”

I said nothing.

I followed him toward a line of big, thick, tall men in uniform, standing straight and rigid. There had to be fifty of them, and they seemed quite amused by the look of me.

“Our newest recruit, Kadon. Don’t let him hold you up. He’s got a lot to learn. I’m sure you’ll all take care to show this skinny little bastard the ropes.”

“Sir, Yes, Sir.” And they all seemed extremely enthusiastic with that order, too enthusiastic. I took my place, the last of the line, beside a massive, probably 6’6” guy.

“You know the drill. Let’s get to it.”

“Sir, Yes, Sir,” they yelled, and his elbow came up and hit me harshly in the nose, which immediately began bleeding.

The Officer just looked at me, disgusted, and shook his head.

While we ran, I stayed quite a bit behind on purpose, to avoid trips, kicks, hits, and elbows.

A mile into it, I was completely cramped. By two miles, I was

wheezing and falling more and more behind, but I wasn’t even allowed that, because the Officer stayed behind me and kicked me in the rear to keep me running away from his foot.

Then there were the crunches, and the push-ups that I had to do on my elbows, because of my wrist, then the pull-up bars.

“You’re required 25 pull-ups. You don’t get off the bar until you’ve done them. Sweet hanging,” one of the guys said, while looking at my wrist. “Do you know what happens to the hanging guy?”

I shook my head.

“You’ll find out.”

I was boosted up, and I grabbed the bar with my left hand, while babying my right. With all my strength, I could not pull my chin above that bar, not even for one pull-up. I wanted to cry. I began kicking my feet, trying to bolster myself up. They were all laughing. My hand slipped and I fell the eight feet to the ground, landing painfully on my knee, just as quickly to be lifted back up.

“I think he needs some incentive,” someone yelled.

“Well we got plenty of that to dish out.” And suddenly I was struck in the back. By what, I couldn’t see, but it was sharp and hot and stung when it hit me.

Yelling, I pulled myself up with my left hand.

“24 more to go, you little twit.”

And I was hit again. My hand slipped and I fell again. Again, I

was forced to grab the bar. This time I grabbed it with my right, and I

cried out in pain, as I felt bone mash against bone.

Two.

There were tears free-flowing down my face when I got to five. A numbness began to set in where the brain stopped being able to process the pain.

Ten.

They had surrounded me now, and all of them were taking hits at me.

“You wishing you never signed up here? You want your Mommy now, little boy?”

“Go back home where you belong. You got nothing. You can’t make it here.”

Their taunting continued. 15.

The Officer just stood there, arms crossed, a smile on his face. He wasn’t going to stop them.

“Cry mercy. Give up. We’ll send you home with a blankie and a binkie.”

17. I was screaming out loud. I didn’t care. Screaming for all I was worth.

“He needs more incentive.”

“Depants him. Let’s whip him bare skin. That’ll get him moving.”

I waited for the Officer to stop them.

He’d already told me to protect my gender with my life. They

came toward me, two of them grabbing at my waist, and the Officer

said nothing.

I gripped the bar, kicked my two feet in front of me hard, knocking the one guy down, then flipped forward on the bar and slammed the other guy in the chest with my feet. Using the swinging momentum, I swung up to the top of the bar, and stood crouched on it, while the others closed in. I jumped overtop their heads, landing in a crouch, and side-swept three of them. The others’ hesitation was just enough, placing me in the position of being able to round-house their sorry butts, and finally I kicked the back of the knee of the massive male that had elbowed me in the nose earlier. I wrapped my arm around his throat.

“Done!” I screamed.

Only then did the Officer hold up his hand. He nodded at me. I let the guy go, and faced the Officer, straight and rigid, and saluted him, “Sir. Yes. Sir.” I hollered, and began to sprint, this time, in front.

“You’re gonna pay for that. Tonight,” I heard behind me.

I didn’t find trouble. Trouble always just found me.

That’s why I was as happy as strawberry jam to be spending that evening with bleach and a toothbrush, again.

I smiled brightly at the Officer the following morning when he walked in to a pristine clean, Clorox-smelling room, with a new yellow puddle on the floor.

Click on this link to get the entire Modules Series for Free July 4th, 5th, 6th, 2018. Or go to www.amazon.com/author/almondieshampine

The Reform - Book 1 

The Modules - Book 2

Intelligent Design - Book 3

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The Modules - Read & Review Chapter - Book 2 in the Modules Series

The Modules by Almondie Shampine

book 2 in The Modules Series

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Did you miss book 1, The Reform, Free Read. Click here.https://authoralmondieshampine.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-reform-read-relax-book-1-in-modules.html

After that incident, I began taking three outings a week, one hour a piece, 7 ½ minutes to get there, 7 ½ minutes to get back, and a 45-minute lesson in self-defense and butt-whooping. For so long I’d been so focused on the adults being the enemy that I hadn’t realized that people my age could be even worse. No one knew what happened to those girls and guys, and I, personally, didn’t care. We were advised that cameras were now installed in all restrooms in the public area of the restroom.

On top of all my other names, I became known as the girl who took out nine people with my fists in the girl’s bathroom. Sometimes it was nine and other times it was 15. My hopes of being able to make a single friend during my time in the Modules were completely crushed after that. The lunch room would practically clear out when I arrived, so I began taking my food to go. I worked on my dissertation day and night, which gave me free clearance into the lab. Since I was experimenting on myself, it was literally day and night, as even as I slept, I kept a tape recorder running to monitor myself, both on and off the mind enhancers.

I was fast accumulating all this knowledge into my conscious that had previously been locked into my sub-conscious and only accessed through the mind enhancement drugs. It excited me. It sickened me. It amazed me. It scared me.

Everything they had implanted in my sub-conscious brain when I was 13, 14 years old when I’d had no awareness.

I ran out of my karate class one day when I was facing an opponent to perform the moves we’d been instructed, and I began doing all these moves I’d no recollection of ever having learned.

But how well-rounded was I? I went to a restaurant, one day, and knew every single ingredient and exactly how they’d prepared it. The piano in the auditorium drew me toward it, and I played Tchaikovsky like I’d been doing it my entire life. I tested my computer skills and hacked into the government system and learned the H school stood for Health and Home, as well as the address the Commander had already provided me.

It was during one of my Clinicals when our supervising Doctor went into cardiac arrest and I laid him out and performed open heart surgery, on the spot, and everyone looked at me like I truly was some kind of freak, when I locked myself in my room for three days with meds I’d stolen to try to shut my brain down. I wound up having a bad reaction and getting my stomach pumped. Something you never want to experience.

They believed it a suicide attempt and wanted to get me into an inpatient rehabilitation center, the place my Dad had gone and never come back from the same, and this caused me to react badly.

“I swear, I was only trying to shut my brain down. It’s the mind enhancers,” I told my Psych. “They give me insomnia. If you don’t believe me, use your truth serum.”

Well that did it. No one was supposed to know about that, and I realized my mistake after I said it, due to being in a pure-reactive state.

The President of the school was brought in and the Psych spoke to him as though I wasn’t sitting right there with ears.

“We believe she may be experiencing a psychotic episode. She keeps rambling on and on about how she couldn’t get her brain to shutup, so she kept taking sedatives to try to make her brain stop, how she performed open heart surgery and can play Tchaikovsky and knows black belt karate, and now she is showing paranoid tendencies in accusing us of using truth serum.”

I could not believe this was the little mouse of a man Psychologist that I had trusted. “I wasn’t accusing you of using truth serum. I told you to use it so you can know I’m telling the truth. That’s what they use in movies.” I was trying to sound calm and reasoning, but it was difficult because they had me restrained to the bed, and being restrained to the bed reminded me too much of being restrained to the bathroom floor, and restrained during my total body paralysis my first day here, and I was nearly throwing up my panic, because of how much there was.

The President gave a nod of his head, and the MD took out a needle. I let out one heck of a blood-curdling scream, and then just as the President was leaving, I yelled, “I found out the formula. The formula for the mind enhancers so that people can remember what they learned even when they’re not on it. I figured it out and I’ve been testing it on myself. It was for my dissertation.”

The MD stopped coming toward me. The Psych stopped rubbing his hands. The President of the School stopped walking out the door, then slowly turned.

“Does it work?” he asked.

“Yes, but it has an adverse effect with the type of sedatives I took.”

“What did you take?”

“Some over the counter drug I got.” I sure as heck wasn’t going to admit I’d taken it from the lab.

“You should have had staff monitoring you. Real trained professionals.”

“And let them get their hands on my formula? Peshaw!”

“Where is it?” he said, and his eyes looked greedy.

“Let me loose and I’ll get it.”

He provided the signal.

“Sir, I really think that she needs to be evaluated in an inpatient facility for a few days,” my Psych-I-will-never-like-again said. He threw me to the dogs the moment I mentioned the serum. I’d had to hear his anxious twittering about losing his job like a mouse caught in a trap.

“You idiot, we are an inpatient facility. She lives here and we’re a fully-trained and operating medical facility.”

The voice was also telling me the President’s motive to take the credit for himself in developing the formula that they’d spent years trying to find.

I took him to the mail room.

“What’s it doing in here?” he said tensely.

“I was sending it to the Denver office for them to fully test it, before I finished my dissertation.

“Why? We could have tested it here?” he said, hardly able to contain his anger.

“Was I mistaken? I thought Denver, being the main headquarters, was where it had to get approval first prior to testing?”

He addressed the mail clerk. “We’re looking for a –.”

“Manila envelope.”

“About –.”

“This thick,” I held my hands an inch apart

“That’s addressed to the headquarters in Denver.”

“Colorado?” the mail clerk said.

The President growled, “Move out of the way, I’ll find it myself.” He wasn’t a happy man, and what he said and shown on the outside was only two percent of everything he had to say on the inside, believe me. He had a potty mind.

“Is there anything more you need from me, sir?” I called to him.

He grumbled and cursed, so I helped myself out, and went immediately to the phone.

“This is Garrett.”

“Hello, Garrett. It’s Cat.” Finally I’d gotten my chance to say that.

“Cat? How did you get my personal cell – never mind. I don’t even know why I bother asking. You in trouble?”

“Now what makes you think I’d be in trouble? Maybe I just called to say hi.”

“Because I know you,” but his voice was good-natured.

“I’ve got something here for you that the President of the School is trying very, very hard to get his hands on.”

“What is it?”

“Anyone ever tell you that you don’t provide confidential information over the phone? When can you be here?”

“Do I have a time limit?”

“I have a feeling that if you wait too long, the President will have me in an interrogation room to try to get this information.”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can. This better be good, because I’m going to have to call off a very important meeting.”

“I’m not good enough?” I said with a pout.

“You’re much more than that. You’re my greatest weakness.”

“I’m not leaving the facility, so don’t let them tell you I’m on an outing. I’ve never seen the President this way before.”

“Are you in danger, Cat?”

“I’m not sure,” I said seriously.

“You still got the ring I gave you?”

“Yea, why, you want me to punch them with it?”

He chuckled, “No, there’s a little button on the underside of the ring. If anything happens or you find yourself in danger, press that button. Only press it if there’s a problem.” Then he hung up the phone before I could say anything.

I went to my room and found the ring in the back of my underwear drawer. I looked on the underside and, sure enough, there was a button.

I sat on the bed cross-legged for a couple hours, reminding myself time and time again that he told me not to press it unless something happened.

I pressed it. Oops.

The purple gem of the ring opened up and I saw the reflection of my face in a camera lens.

I nearly peed myself when I heard, “Something happening?” in his voice, coming through the ring.

“It was an accident,” was all I could think to say. I pressed the button as quickly as I could while he was in the midst of cursing at me, and it became just a simple purple gem again.

A knock came at the door. Assuming it was the Commanding Officer, I opened it wide, to find, instead, the President (Principal) of the school, and a couple other people standing in the background acting like they were there for a purpose other than being the President’s bodyguard or worse.

“Sir, so what’d you think?” I asked.

“About what?”

“The dissertation?”

“It wasn’t there. Denver hasn’t received it yet, so they’ll be shipping it back as soon as they receive it, but what I need to know is if you have another copy?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, acting disappointed.

“How can you not have another copy? Is it on your notebook?”

“No, I didn’t type it yet. It’s all handwritten. As I told you previously, I wasn’t going to finalize it until after it had been tested on a control group other than myself.”

This didn’t seem to make him too happy. “Well, if you’ve been using it on yourself, you’ve had plenty opportunity to mix it yourself, so just write down the formula and we’ll go from there.”

“It’s a very complex formula. I do not have it memorized.”

He exploded, “So you’re saying you sent your one and only copy of the formula to Denver and didn’t have brains enough to hold onto a copy, in case it never got there?”

I remained silent and dropped my head, like I was humbled, and pressed the button on my ring, until he demanded I answer him.

“The dissertation isn’t due until August 1^st, so as far as I’m aware, I’m not required to turn in anything until that date. It’s not finalized. I need the proper permissions first. Without the proper testing, it’s nothing more than a theory. If there’s an issue with that, take it up with the handbook.”

“Speaking of the handbook, I’m pretty sure we have a strict policy enforcing that, without a prescription, students are not to use any type of medication from the lab. Am I to assume correctly that you’ve been mixing this in the lab? Jerry,” he called out to one of the guys in the hall pretending to study the paint. “What’s the repercussion for that per the handbook?”

“Transfer and/or termination.”

“You better pick your brain apart for that formula and give it to me by 1300 hours, and I will possibly consider your transgressions forgiven,” he said.

“Well I certainly never imagined God would look like you. That’s disappointing. How about this one? You will not get that formula until I am graduated and certified, and if you even consider transferring or terminating me, you will never see that formula.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No more than you are me.”

“You listen to me, little girl. I have ways of getting exactly what I want, and I want that formula, whether you’re prepared to give it to me or not.”

“There is no formula. I told you that in order to protect myself from being shot up with another needle and transferred to a suicide ward.”

He spit and sputtered, and his face bulged like a zit about to explode. “I’ve got a much better place for you than an institution, and you’ll stay there as long as it takes to get the information I want.”

He beckoned for the three Guards to grab me, while answering his ringing cellphone. “Sir . . . yes sir . . . an hour? . . . No, no inconvenience at all . . . Who? . . . Absolutely, I’ll arrange her schedule for a meeting if I can track her down. . . . Sorry, sir, I meant when, when I track her down . . . May I ask . . .”

He stared at his phone like he wanted to smash it, then slowly eased it to his pocket.

“We’ll have to pick this up at a later date. The Commanding Officer of High Intelligence will be here in an hour and he wants a meeting with you,” he said as though you was referring to a bunch of maggots.

“That’s excellent news. He must have gotten the formula and now wants to come here and personally congratulate me. I’d say it’s been nice knowing you, but my parents taught me never to lie. Please close and lock the door behind you. I wouldn’t want anyone going through my stuff when I’m gone, but then again, I suppose that’s what the cameras are there for,” I said happily.

He suddenly straightened and began looking around the room.

I hung out in HR until I got the call to report to 1302. I practically skipped there, carrying the dissertation I’d hidden in the lab.

The secretary had my coffee all ready for me.

“Yay, you got large cups.”

“Well, the coffee guzzlers of today aren’t like the coffee sippers of yesterday.”

“That’s for sure,” I said, taking a couple swallows of the freshly brewed coffee. She just shook her head, smiling at me. “Is he ready for me?”

“Go right in.”

The door hardly closed and I wasn’t even seated when I said, “So did you fire him?” with a huge smile.

“Catina Salsbury. Need I remind you of the suit?”

“Sorry, did you fire him, Sir?”

He sat back and chuckled, “I don’t think it is a good thing that you are knowing my soft side too often, as you come to expect it, thereby eliminating your fear of me.”

“I was never afraid of you before, sir.”

“Look at you, your eyes are absolutely swirling with mischief. It turns your eyes a darker shade of blue.”

“You heard and saw what happened, right?”

“I did, but it really wasn’t necessary to provoke him. Any other person would have been quaking in their shoes when confronted with such a situation, and shut their mouth.”

“Then let’s be happy I’m not any other person. I don’t quake.”

“Careful, Catina, there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance and you’re bordering on arrogance. Need I remind you of your moments of panic and hysteria that make you human, just like everyone else, and not immune to fear?”

“I’m pretty sure those are not the times I’m being considered human, and more often the times that somebody is trying to tell me I’m having a psychotic episode. I don’t even fall for it anymore, the line’s been used so often. I know I’m right when someone starts referring to my having psychosis because it’s their own paranoia that they’ll be losing their job.”

“That’s an interesting theory. Does that mean when you feel like you’re being watched and someone starts bringing up schizophrenic symptoms, this makes you believe even moreso that you’re being watched?”

“Yes, because the normal response would be for people to reassure me I’m not being watched. In the absence of their reassurance is their confirmation.”

“That’s a bit black and white thinking. What you’re saying is if no one complimented you, then they’re confirming that they don’t have anything to compliment you on, or if no one says they love you, then they’re confirming that they hate you.”

“No, I’m speaking accusations only. So, for example, if I accused you of hating me, and you didn’t deny hating me or you didn’t reassure me that you didn’t hate me, rather told me something entirely off topic, then you’d be confirming my accusation, because it is natural for someone to deny false accusations.”

“It’s natural for people to want to deny accusations, in general, whether true or false. It’s a matter of pride that determines whether they will deny it or not. Using your same example, you accuse me of hating you, you’ve rifled my pride, so I’d be more likely to tell you you’re being ridiculous or acting crazy than to lower my pride and give you the compliment or reassurance you’re seeking.”

“So you brought us completely off topic from my original question to avoid having to answer it,” I said.

His eyes glinted. “That’s because I shouldn’t have to tell you that’s confidential information.”

“So is what I have here sticking out of my arm pit?”

“I’m not playing your little game, Catina.”

“Call me Cat.”

“I call you Cat, you want me to call you Catina. I call you Catina, you want me to call you Cat. You’re exhausting.”

“Then why did you give me a ring that provides me direct contact to you? I see only one ring on your hands, so unless you’ve given out a bunch of cellular rings, ha ha, get it, cellular rings? That must mean I’m not all that exhausting.”

“You’re letting this get to your head, and that concerns me. You’re usually a very level-headed person, if not, too serious, at times.”

That changed me. Back to my former self that came after the former self.

“I’ll maintain level-headed as soon as people stop trying to stick needles in me, send me to psychiatric institutions, harass me for a formula that belongs to me, and when that harassment doesn’t work, threaten that I will be terminated or transferred if I do not provide it, then implicate some kind of interrogation techniques to force me to provide it.”

“Would you have preferred me to cower and shake and give in and give him what he wanted out of fear of the consequences? And as far as your stupid ring and your inappropriate involvement in my life, I don’t need either one. I can protect and take care of myself and I don’t need you or anyone else to do so. I make my own way.” I threw the ring at him. “If you’re not going to take care of him, then I will. Good day, sir.”

“He’s being forced to resign. I didn’t mean to upset you. Cat can come back out and play. I was being insensitive and wasn’t thinking how upsetting all of this has been to you. Why don’t we get out of here for a bit, relax, and you can show me what you’ve been meaning to show me?”

“For all the trouble it has caused, I think I will just burn it, and forget I ever wanted to help the system that is caving in just on the basis that I might have something. There’s nothing in this world that isn’t corrupt, and there’s no telling who can or cannot be trusted. I’d rather play it safe and trust no one. And don’t you dare start talking about my symptoms, because I’ve seen and heard enough the past 24 hours to prove it. I’m getting out of here and I’m going where the tests tell me to go, and I will make it so that I don’t work beneath anyone. You stay away from me.”

“Cat, I jumped when you said jump, boarded an emergency flight that took four hours, took care of a situation, all over confidential information that you wanted to provide me. I’d like to assume you felt you could trust me with it. You come in here, full of mischief, over a serious matter, when I am in uniform and it is my responsibility to ensure that mischief is only directed in the right and appropriate places. I can’t believe I’m explaining myself to you. Sit down!” he yelled.

“No.” I opened the door. “And don’t call me that. My name is Catina.”

“Catina Salsbury, by order of your Commanding Officer and your superior, you get back in here this instant.”

I smiled at the receptionist who was standing with paled features. “He’d make a wonderful father, don’t you think? Coffee was great. Much appreciated.”

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