Revised 6/5/2024
By R. John Quisenberry
In a hidden room deep in the office building, an argument was going on between a glowering Senior Acolyte and Cervince. “What do you mean we have an applicant? We are not even listed anywhere as a business!!! Explain to me how a person comes in ‘off the street’ to a business that is not listed and is in a dead office park in the middle of nowhere?”
“I don’t know Senior Acolyte! We must hire him though. He knows where we are. If he leaves now, it will bring unwanted attention,” he said as he gazed despairingly at the grey walls.
“We can dodge attention. We can evacuate the entire area in less than three hours once the experiment is done. Send him on his way. If he tells anyone and it causes trouble, we can blow up the office park and all evidence, then start at another site.”
“Sir, this is our last test phase. Our orders are to do the experiment at all costs, but the project is already in motion. In one-hundred and forty-four hours, the dispersal will happen. The chaos should start in the following months.”
“If we have to, I guess we have to. But why should we include this person? Couldn’t we just eliminate him and be done with it?”
“Two reasons, he would provide the function of a control group in the experiment, and he is already contaminated. Besides, we have yet to have a subject that does not suffer permanent changes to both body and mind. He will either be an enraged beast, or a useless lump that will do anything ordered to.”
“WHAT?! How could he be contaminated? He just came into the building a few minutes ago!” He glared at his subordinate exasperatedly.
“We suspect that a small breach may have happened. One of our shipments was sent to a grocery store by mistake. One bottle was broken before it could be accounted for. We were told it was broken in the stock room. We burned down the store after we altered the memories of the staff. Something could have been sold that had been exposed.”
” I want a full study of the potential exposure when we are done here! We should never have used their infrastructure to move our materials. This could have been avoided if we had not tried so hard to hide our operation.” Glaring a dismissal at the underling, he could not help feeling like this could come back to haunt their efforts. He fidgeted with the remote for the comms system within his black robes while wondering how high he should pass this information.
This is a chapter that I feel really puts you in the perspective of these characters. It definitely feels like an aside but I love how natural the conversation is here. Excited to see the ramifications of the spillage.