Career Opportunities, Part One free porn video

Career Opportunities, Part One By Valerie Hope Joseph Hargreaves dropped the last of his music CDs into the nondescript brown box on the desk that had been the center of his universe for the last three years. The office - only a week ago it had been full of bustling people, ringing phones, shuffling papers and conversations - was empty and hollow-looking, like some high-tech ghost town. Here and there, some remnant of someone's job hung forlornly: a Far Side cartoon still tacked to the wall of a cubicle, a sheaf of papers which had fallen between a desk and a wall still wedged there. Joe lifted the box and tried to keep a bleak expression off of his face as he threaded through the custodial crew, which was cleaning away the last of his company's existence. He tried not to notice the maintenance worker who was taking down the bas-relief chrome logo, which had hung over the receptionist's desk for so long. The molded metal letters were dropped in a box at the worker's feet once taken down, and all that remained on the wall of the once-proud name of Endotech was just "ECH." Which was just how Joe felt - ech. He tried not to look through the glass windows into the lab, where his partners and other scientists had worked those long, grueling hours. Where the spotless machinery and glassware had been there were just long, empty tables now. Joe sighed, dropped his security badge and keycard on the empty receptionist's desk and walked away from his failed business. *** They'd fallen so short of what they'd set out to accomplish - Stephen Randolph and Hale Gregory had wanted to shake the world, to not have room on their mantels for the awards and accolades their research would have brought them. Instead they had a car full of junk, accumulated in their lab over the course of three years. The important things - the results of their research and their patents - were stored in a safety deposit box, waiting for the hordes of lawyers to divvy up among the investors. The rest were the notes, bullshit corporate documents and other detritus of their stay at Endotech. It was a fairly lackluster collection to show for all their hard work. "So much for that," Hale said, wiping the sweat from his pudgy face as he dropped the last box into the open hatchback of his Subaru. "This sucks ass." "I hear you," Steve replied, playing idly with a yo-yo he'd found in a desk drawer. "What the hell do we do now?" "Go home, get our resumes together and file for unemployment," Hale said, slamming the hatchback in frustration. "So much for that Nobel." "There will be other research jobs," Steve said. "Not where we had free rein and virtually unlimited funding," Hale shot back, a little too hotly. "Face it, Steve. We're through. Might as well go back to the university and beg for scraps from the endowment like before." "Piss on that," Steve said, climbing into the driver's seat. "I'm not going back to being some lowly post-doc. There has to be something we can do." Hale slumped towards the passenger side of the car. "Of course there is," he muttered. "We can starve." *** It had been very hard to keep the brave face on and not let the pain show. Corey Taylor had kept the smiles genuine and the handshakes firm as he'd dismissed his loyal workforce one by one, referring as many as he could to other companies and decent placement agencies in the hopes that they wouldn't be out of work too long. But it had been difficult to try to stay helpful and strong when he wanted to be sick inside. Even though he couldn't have formed the company without Steve, Hale, Joe and the others, as Chief Executive Officer he still considered Endotech his own company. And now it was gone, only existing on paper in some lawyer's briefcase. "You going to make it, Corey?" asked a very forlorn Hollis Wainwright from the window of his BMW Z3 roadster. "I dunno, Hollis," Corey answered honestly. "I'm seriously considering going out and getting righteously drunk right now." "I thought about that," Hollis said. "But I doubt I could afford it." The joke was feeble, and Corey didn't laugh. Hollis, the financial officer for the company, had sunk every penny he had into Endotech from the very beginning. Corey was only out of a job. Hollis was ruined. The CEO put a friendly hand on his CFO's shoulder. "Who said you were buying?" Corey said with a half-smile. "Hop in, then," Hollis said. "We can drown our troubles together." "Misery loves company," Corey said, moving around to climb in the other side of the sporty little car. A car, which would no doubt be in the Greensheet by the end of the week with a pricetag only a fraction of what Hollis paid for it. "It's not over yet," Corey said brightly. "We still have Project Hestia. I still think we can sell it and recoup some of our financial losses." "It'll take a while, but I think you're right," Hollis said. "The problem is what to do in the meantime." "It's not us I worry about," Corey said. "It's all the people I had to let go today. Did you know Marjorie Baker was pregnant, Hollis? Three weeks along, and I had to hand her walking papers. Same with Joe Whitcomb, who just sent a kid off to Princeton. It broke my heart." Hollis nodded. "At least we managed some decent severance." "But it doesn't take the place of a job with benefits," Corey said, inconsolable. "Snap out of it, Corey," Hollis told him, scratching his handlebar moustache which had begun to accumulate sweat in the day's heat. "It wasn't your fault. We never saw this coming, there was no way we could have prevented it." "Our business plan was solid," Corey said. "I thought we covered every angle." "We did," Hollis said. "But we can't compete with a billion-dollar pharmaceutical company when we haven't even gone public. People are going to trust the longer-lived company - period, end of sentence. That's just the way business works." "What steams me is that Hart-Pearson wasn't even in direct competition with us," Corey said. "We were breaking all this new ground, and all of a sudden they slap us with lawsuits right and left, saying we're stealing their work. As far as I know, they weren't even working on designer virus technology." "Hart-Pearson was working on everything," Hollis said. "And they don't publish what they have in the research pipeline." "It still smells dirty to me," Corey said. "They have an army of lawyers to tell you otherwise," Hollis said, gripping his friend's shoulder. "Just face it, kiddo. We've been had. We were David, they were Goliath, and we didn't bring our slingshot and we got stepped on. We'll know better next time." "I don't know if I can start over again," Corey said. "Sure you can," Hollis interrupted before Corey could start beating himself up again. "It's the American way. They knock it down, you build it back stronger. Chin up, Corey. You're still a young man with a very remarkable career. There is always a place for entrepreneurs like yourself. Especially for entrepreneurs who can get back on the horse once they get thrown off." "I don't care about my career," Corey said. "I care about the careers of all the other people that got sent home yesterday." "And that's what makes you such a great boss," Hollis said. "You're amazing, you know that?" Corey chuckled. "You lost the bulk of your personal assets in this business venture and you're telling me to cheer up." "Easy come, easy go," Hollis said, starting the engine. "Now, somebody mentioned something about getting hammered." "Lead the way," Corey said, settling back against the seat. *** "Subjects Taylor and Wainwright have stopped," the dark man said into his radio, watching the two men leave the car and walk towards the front of the club. "Entering the club now." The dark man waved off the approaching valet who was coming to offer to park his car, keeping the engine running and watching the former CEO and CFO of Endotech walk through the front door. "Confirmed," he said into the radio. "Subjects have entered the club." "Give me your location," the staticky voice on the other end of the line said. "The Perfect Ten Cabaret and Gentleman's Club," the dark man said. "642 East Rutherford Street. Do you want me to pursue?" The voice on the radio seemed reflective. "The Perfect Ten Cabaret," it repeated, obviously savoring the irony. "How fitting. No, don't pursue. Park nearby and maintain surveillance. We'll give them the chance to get some drinks in their stomachs and then make this happen." "Acknowledged," the dark man said. "Unit Three out." *** The light was excruciating and relentless, scouring his brain even through his eyelids. Corey Taylor made a choked, gurgling sound and tried to turn away from the light, to find a place of cool darkness, but there was none. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and regretted it instantly. "Come on, Corey. Sit up." The voice came from somewhere to his left. "What happened?" Corey mumbled, his throat raw and dry. "I don't know," the voice - Hollis' voice - rasped. "We were at the titty bar, that's the last thing I remember." Corey managed to half-sit, half-roll over. He felt like vomiting. "The drinks?" "Maybe." Corey forced his eyes the rest of the way open. They were lying on the polished tiles of a floor in a large, drafty room. Other shapes lay in heaps nearby - Corey's eyes focused slowly to distinguish them as Hale, Steve and Joe, still unconscious. Joe snored softly. The room was perhaps twenty feet to a side and unremarkable save for a row of darkened TV screens along one wall and five identical oblong wall sconces opposite. The room itself had no doors or windows and harsh fluorescent lights along the ceiling and floor. It contained five beds and five freestanding stalls which looked like showers. All of the men looked to have been beaten. Their clothes were gone, and all they wore were large, white diaper-like loincloths. Each of them had a pad of gauze taped over their left shoulder blades. Hollis rubbed his eyes and groaned. "Where are we?" he croaked weakly. "No idea. How are the others?" "They're breathing. Some of them look to have been beaten up pretty bad." Without warning, the lights dimmed a little and a section of the wall slid away. A tall, gawky man entered, wearing a scandalously expensive suit and carrying a briefcase. He was adjusting gold-rimmed glasses atop his beak of a nose. Two huge bruiser-types in similar suits accompanied him, looking menacing in their complete silence. "Mr. Taylor. Mr. Wainwright," he said in a polished voice as the wall-section swished silently back into place. "How are you feeling?" "Who the hell are you?" Hollis demanded. The man smiled an oily smile. "Roger Kelly, Mr. Wainwright. I'm Vice President of External Development for Hart-Pearson Pharmaceuticals." Corey narrowed his eyes. "You son of a bitch. It wasn't enough to drive us out of business. Now this. What the hell do you want?" Kelly didn't blink at Corey's hissing tone. "Very simple, Mr. Taylor. You were too smart for us, you allowed the patents in your researchers' names instead of the company. The settlement didn't allow us what we wanted." "Which is?" Hollis asked. "Project Hestia, of course. All your work into custom virus technology," Kelly said matter-of-factly. "What else would we want?" "That work belongs to us," Hollis said. "It's the only goddamn thing you left us." "Hestia is not for sale," Corey adjoined. Kelly laughed, a mirthless barking affair. "My dear Mr. Taylor, who said anything about buying it? No, no, something like Project Hestia would have far too big of a drain on our revenue stream, and certain of Hart-Pearson's executives have grown used to a certain amount of, shall we say, benefit from the company's revenue?" "Can't part with the cash, huh?" Hollis rumbled. "I knew you were crooked." "Indeed," Kelly said, adjusting his glasses again. "Which is why you gentlemen are going to give us Project Hestia, free and clear." "Or what? You'll kill us?" Corey hissed. "Not at all," Kelly said. "If we were to kill you, your research would go to the government, which we don't want at all. And people would start asking questions that my company might find distasteful to answer." "So we're just going to give you Hestia out of the goodness of our hearts," Stephen Randolph said, rolling over. He'd obviously been listening for quite a while, playing possum while the other men talked. "Mr. Randolph, welcome back," Kelly greeted. "No, you're going to give us Project Hestia because you want to." "Well, we don't want to," Corey snapped. "Not yet, anyway," Kelly said, his eyes glinting evilly. "But I give you my personal guarantee. Before you walk through that door, you're going to sign over Project Hestia's research to this company." He turned to go. "I would advise you all to get some sleep, gentlemen - the beds are quite comfortable. You're all going to have a very long night." "What the fuck did you do to us?" Steve demanded. "Oh, this and that," Kelly said. "Hart-Pearson is a very large company, you know. We develop pharmaceuticals for so many different areas. The Food and Drug Administration can hardly keep up with our development curve. We've had a devil of a time trying to get their approval to move some of our experimental medications into human trials." "You bastard," Hollis growled. "Oh, but Mr. Hollis - think of the benefit to mankind! It's all in the name of scientific advancement!" Kelly said, taking his musclemen in by eye and moving towards the door. "Good night, gentlemen. The time-release capsules we've implanted in your backs should be well on their way to effectiveness, so you should start feeling the effects very soon." The door slid open, but Kelly paused in the passageway before exiting. "And don't worry too much - these drugs worked fine on the rats and monkeys." The door slid shut and they were left alone. *** The passage of time was hard to measure in the room - their best guess was it had been about seven or eight hours since the others woke up and the real hell started. It had begun with sweating and discomfort - like there was something crawling just beneath their skins. Then the sweat turned rank, like the smell of wet, decaying garbage, and the sweat, which was oozing out of their pores, took on a greasy, heavy feeling. The weakness has come next - a cold, trembling feeling in the extremities and the panicky surety that it would take all their effort just to move. The five men collapsed into the beds, groaning, sweating a substance the consistency of bacon grease. It soaked the sheets and left them surrounded by the stench. Hale Gregory had been the first to succumb, the smell and the discomfort finally driving him to vomit noisily over the side of the bed. It fell onto the clean tiles with a wet splatter, which made the others nauseous. Hale grasped at the side of his bed, panting for breath and spitting the vile taste from his mouth. Wiping tears from his bloodshot eyes, he stared wordlessly at the ground for a while and then looked up bleakly. "Steve, have a look at this," he croaked. "You have got to be kidding," Steve said. "If I look at it, I'm going to do it myself." "What is it, Hale?" Joe managed to ask, swallowing hard to keep his gorge down. "There's far more material in that than I ate today or yesterday," he said, his biochemical and medical background coming to the fore. "It's got blood in it as well, and something that looks like - oh God." "What?" Steve asked, his nausea forgotten as he examined the mass on the floor. "This isn't anything I ate," Hale said. "It's pure biomass. Look at that - looks like liquefied fatty tissue, bone, muscle... what the hell?" "What did those bastards shoot us up with?" Steve asked. "Whatever it is, it's making our bodies shed mass." Hale did a quick examination of himself, pressing his stomach, armpits and beneath his chin. "All the waste-removal systems of the body are processing it: digestive, renal, lymphatic, even the sebaceous and sweat glands." Hollis ran a finger through the slick of greasy sweat on his forearm and held it up. "You mean this is... me?" "Parts of you, yes, I think," Hale said. "I'd need to analyze a sample to be sure, but it looks like our bodies are ridding themselves of fat, bone and muscle mass." "To what purpose?" Corey asked. "Could be anything," Hale said. "Maybe it's to cause atrophy of our bodies, make us invalid or defenseless. I wouldn't put anything past these people." "Will it kill us?" Joe asked in a small voice. Steve spoke up. "I doubt it. It's using our body's own systems to break down the tissues, so it's got to keep those systems intact to do its job. It's like trying to kill yourself by holding your breath. Eventually you'll pass out and start breathing again - it's technically impossible. But we'll definitely be weak and dehydrated for a while, and it's likely we're never going to be able to put up much of a fight until we can start metabolizing protein and restore ourselves naturally." "But why go to all this trouble?" Corey asked. "They've got us where they want us." "I guess we'll have to wait for Mr. Kelly to tell us that," Joe said. "What do we do in the meantime? Just ride it out?" "I don't see that we have any choice," Hollis answered. "I think I'm just going to try and get some sleep and wake up when this is all over." "That's the best thing for us now," Hale agreed. "Rest while you can. Whatever's happening to us is obviously very traumatic to our systems. Sleep will help us recover, give us some strength back so we can fight our way out of here." He was yawning as he said it. Aside from Hollis adding a substantial part of his biomass to the floor next to Hale's, they were all asleep within the hour. *** "God, what a stench." "It's to be expected. C'mon, c'mon, hurry up with those. I don't want to stay in here any longer than I have to." "Who the hell are these guys, anyway?" "Dunno, but Dr. Kelly says they've volunteered for some experimental drug trials. Poor bastards. Looks like they didn't know what they were signed up for." "Hell, they probably all had cancer of the asshole and were going to die anyway." Corey Taylor felt like a wrung-out rag, and it took him a while to realize that the voices he was hearing weren't a dream - there were two people in the room with him. He tried to call out, to ask for help, but his voice only came out as a prolonged, painful moan. Strong hands turned over his arm. Corey felt a pinch in the hollow of his elbow - a hypodermic injection. He tried to sit but could only weakly flail his arms. Another set of hands was putting something cold and hard behind his left ear. "Wha... who..." "Relax, buddy," once of the voices placated. "Easy. Don't fight. This'll make you feel better." "What's happening?" Corey managed in a weak, moaning whisper. "Just giving you a nice cocktail," the other voice said, "and cleaning you up a little bit. Go on back to sleep, now. Everything's fine." Corey grunted and relaxed a little. The hands began to wash him gently, using a wet cloth, waiting to talk until his breathing had slowed to a steady pace. "Poor sonofabitch," one of the voices commented quietly, thinking Corey was asleep. "He's just skin and bones. What is this, some weird kind of chemo? His body hair is falling out." "Nah," the other one replied. "Chemo would have all their hair falling out. This guy's got a head full of hair, and so do the others." A head full of hair? Corey thought. I had a receding hairline this morning, and Hollis Wainwright was bald as an egg last time I looked. "Did you see the Packers game yesterday?" one of the voices asked. "Just the first half," the other replied. "My wife decided that the second half would be better spent cleaning out the fucking gutters. I don't know why in the hell I ever got married." "Hell of a game, man, hell of a game. Won fifty bucks on it." Packers' game? Yesterday? Corey thought. Then yesterday was Sunday, and today must be Monday. My God! We were kidnapped on a Friday afternoon! We've been here three days already! What the hell are they doing to us? "God, I don't know if I can ever get this stink out of my nose," one of the voices grumped. "These guys have puked and shit all over the place. Hope Dr. Kelly doesn't expect us to clean all this mess up." "He can take that up with the union," the other said. "C'mon, we're almost done - just one guy left to go and then we can hit the showers." "Good, I'm starving. You want to go for Mexican tonight?" "I guess so. Where?" "There's this great little place I found not too long ago - Corriendo's Cantina. Lots of food, real good, pretty cheap. It's only a few blocks from here." "Is that the place on Sumter Drive?" "No, the other way. Down on Richards Avenue. You're thinking of El Alambre." This place is between Sumter and Richards. Out in the suburbs, then - probably Ericksson Avenue, or Trevor Circle. Corey thought. About ten miles outside the city. I think I know where we are. "C'mon, this guy's as clean as we're going to get him. You finished with that monitor?" "Almost... yeah. Good to go." "Let's get the hell out of here, then, before I puke," the other voice said. Corey heard the swish of the door and one of them mutter "poor bastards" one more time before the door closed behind them. He felt the thing behind his ear feebly - like a little hard plastic box, attached behind his ear with some kind of adhesive or tape. Measuring brain activity, maybe? Tracking? Corey was still wondering about it when sleep claimed him for its own. *** Joseph Hargreaves awoke slowly, not sure what was the reality and what was the dream. The stench, which assaulted his nostrils, was still there, but had been with him for so long that his body had simply accepted it as normal. A strange hissing sound was in his ears and his entire body hurt - not just ached, but actively hurt. He stifled a groan and levered his body up onto his elbows. "Good morning, sunshine," a dry, raspy voice croaked to him, off to his left. He turned his head slowly - vertigo was a problem - and his eyes focused slowly on the emaciated, spindly figure of Hollis Wainwright, the trademark handlebar moustache now just a few scruffy hairs across his top lip and his once- bald head now covered with a wispy tangle of ginger-colored hair. Hollis was covered with a sheen of greasy sweat. "What happened?" Joe asked. Hollis shrugged his rickety shoulders. "Who knows? Nobody even knows how long we were all out. Looks like we were on the rapid weight-loss program while we slept, though. Look at yourself." With an effort, Joe pulled the soaked-through sheet from his body and looked down. His muscles, once hard and firm from long hours at the gym, were atrophied and denuded. His ribs poked through his skin and he could clearly see the bones of his pelvis jutting skeletally against his hips. Once covered lightly with a fine coating of wiry black hair, his skin now shone depilated under its slick of oily sweat. Joe figured he couldn't have weighed in at more than 105 pounds soaking wet. "How do you feel, there, champ?" Hollis asked. "Weak as a kitten," Joe said. "And hungry." "Hungry is good," Hollis answered. "Hale and Steve say that return of appetite is the first sign of recovery. Maybe these bastards will come up with something for us to eat." "Hollis, what's that behind your ear?" Joe asked, pointing feebly. "We can't tell. We've all got 'em." Joe explored his own device gingerly while trying to take in his surroundings. The room had been scrubbed out while they slept, ostensibly when they'd been fitted with the little plastic boxes behind their ears. Hale and Steve were looking at the walls and the doorway, trying to find some way out. They looked very unsteady on their spindly legs, like baby fawns. From across the room, Joe could easily count the knobby protrusions of their vertebrae through the skin of their backs. Hollis was slumped in the bed, his oily sheets in a heap on the floor beside him, and the one shower stall in use must have been occupied by Corey. The wrist that stuck above the frosted glass door of the shower while the figure inside washed its armpits couldn't have been bigger than two or three inches in circumference. "What did they do to us?" Joe asked, swinging his legs out of bed. His feet dangled several inches from the floor and he gasped. "Well, looks like we lost nearly one hundred percent of our existing body fat," Hollis said. "Steve and Hale figure that we're due to develop some pretty major deficiency diseases soon unless we're fed and given vitamins. All of us look to have lost minimum one hundred pounds in fat and muscle mass, and our skeletons have shed mass enough to reduce us all anywhere from five to eight inches in height." "They shrunk us?" Joe asked, disbelievingly. "Looks like it," Hollis answered. "They say they're testing out new drugs on us as guinea pigs. Problem is, none of us can figure out what a drug like this would be used for in the market." "Some kind of weight loss pill?" "That puts the patient's life at risk? The FDA would never approve it." "So you think they've got something in mind for us all?" Joe asked. "Corey thinks so," Hollis said. "I'm not convinced of what, but I do know that they need us all alive." "And why is that?" Joe said. "Look at the group they've captured," Hollis explained. "Steve and Hale are the original researchers on Project Hestia - they still have their notes and most of the stuff in their heads. I was Chief Financial Officer. I have the location of the safety deposit box with the Hestia information in it and the key. You were the business manager. You have the access codes for the encrypted servers, with all the files on Hestia. And Corey was the CEO. He's the only one who can transfer all the research legally to Hart-Pearson." "This - all of this - is just an attempt to blackmail us out of a research project?" Joe asked. "There's probably more to it than that, but it's our best guess," Corey said, stepping out of the shower and wrapping a towel around his midsection. The towel almost wrapped around twice, he was so skeletal. "And it probably keeps us out of the picture long enough for Hart-Pearson to get any drugs developed from Hestia to market." "Do you have a plan?" Joe asked. "Not yet," Corey said. "But we're open to any and all suggestions." *** Perhaps the most uncomfortable circumstance of their incarceration, it turned out, was the lack of anything to do except worry and wonder. Even a deck of cards might have been the difference between agony and tolerability. The five men had argued and discussed and brainstormed as much as they could about their predicament and gotten nowhere. They'd slept as much as they could sleep and talked about everything they could think to talk about. So when the section of wall slid away once again to admit Kelly and the musclemen, it was almost a relief. There were five bruisers this time, one for each of the starving scarecrow men, and a pair of orderlies in scrubs. It didn't take much coercion to get the five prisoners into their beds and restrained. "I trust that the first round of treatment didn't leave you too uncomfortable," Dr. Kelly told them as the orderlies began preparing things on a wheeled cart. "We still have a lot of work to do, and I need you all in decent physical condition." "Look, Kelly, we know what you want," Hollis said. "Why don't you just ask us instead of all the injections and the rest of it?" Kelly laughed. "Oh, I don't need to ask. Project Hestia will be turned over to me and my associates soon enough. But I intend to have as much fun as I possibly can in the meantime." "You can't keep us here much longer," Corey said. "We have families and friends. If we're missing too long, someone is going to come looking for us." "You think?" Kelly said. He pulled a folded newspaper from his briefcase and threw it across Corey's lap with a knowing grin. Corey looked at the paper's headline and his eyes went wide as teacups. "This can't be real." The paper slipped from his nerveless fingers, scattering on the floor. The others could read the headline clearly: "Top Endotech Executives Form Suicide Pact When Business Fails." "They even have bodies that match your DNA samples," Kelly said. "Not a bad bit of engineering, actually - especially since you were kind enough to part with so much of your viable DNA material last night. So don't lecture me about how people will come looking for you. They're all arranging for your respective funerals as we speak." "You bastard!" Hollis roared, struggling feebly against the orderly and the tough that were holding him in the bed. They held him in place with almost no effort. "So sorry to disappoint you," Kelly said. "Just tell us what you want," Hale said, his voice hopeless and flat. Kelly's face began to mottle with anger. "What do I want? What do I want? I want a little justice, for one thing! A little evening of the scales!" "What in the hell are you talking about?" Corey demanded. "I worked for years on retrovirus construction," he hissed. "I dedicated my life to that work, lost my wife and all my friends in the pursuit. And you five come along and undercut everything! Hart-Pearson yanked my budget, my facilities, everything, and spent all their time trying to leverage you five out!" Hale chuckled. "Can we help it if you're not as good a scientist as we were?" Kelly's smile was chilling. "No," he said at length. "No, you couldn't help that. But your research, when added to my own, will salvage my reputation and career, and make me a pile of money in the process. And you won't be in any position to complain." "You'll have to kill us, then," Hollis countered, "since if any of us ever get out, all your work, and all of this, is going straight down the toilet." Kelly waved a hand dismissively. "I doubt it. You see, by the time I'm finished, you're not going to be very interested in medicine, biochemistry, finance, business or anything like it anymore." With a nod from Kelly, the orderly plunged the needle into Steve's thigh and depressed the plunger. Steve's body convulsed once, hard, and he fell limp, moaning softly. The orderly then began to fit Steve's limp legs with strange looking footwear, looking like a cross between snow-boots and some kind of futuristic armor. They were huge and clunky, looking incongruously robotic on the end of Steve's spindly legs and having enough room for his foot and probably another three like it to spare. It clicked onto Steve's leg just below the knee with a strange gaseous hiss. "No, not very interested at all," Kelly continued, watching the same happen to Joe from the other orderly. "Consider all of this a career opportunity, gentlemen." *** Whatever the drug was, it wasn't as potent as the first dose, which brought on the rapid loss of weight. The five men were awake quickly, and felt a little more energetic than before. The pain and muscle fatigue were all but gone. None of them were feeling particularly strong, but at least they weren't fighting the weights of their own bodies any more. A great deal had happened to them while they were out, they all discovered once the last of them was awake and they were all up and around. All the men had been fitted with the strange armored snow-boots, which swallowed up their skinny legs from just below the knee. The boots were unwieldy and heavy, forcing the men to walk with tiny little mincing steps and a great deal of windmilling arms. Their diapers had been replaced with a very snug-fitting plastic garment with a pouch on the back. They could plainly feel that they'd all been catheterized as well. And all of them now wore what looked like a clear vinyl shower cap, which was filled with some strange-looking greenish- white foam that bubbled and swirled beneath the caps. Hale was the last to arise, clumping over to the rest of the group, which was examining one another closely. Steve was taking a closer examination of the little black boxes which each of them had attached behind their ears. "It's some kind of a transmitter or receiver," he was saying. "I can't begin to guess at the electronics. But I do see that there is an implantation. Looks like some kind of electrodes passing into the skin, just in front of the mastoid process of the skull. "Hale, you're awake. Good," Steve said when he noticed his friend. "Come have a look at this and tell me what you think." Hale stumped closer to examine the unit installed behind Joe's ear. It was a little black plastic box, about the size of a postage stamp, with a few small stainless steel protrusions. On closer inspection, Hale could see behind the facing on the side closest to the skin a small circuit board and three small gold wires extending out of the unit and into the skin behind the ear. "What do you think?" Steve asked. Hale tapped his chin. "Placement of this thing suggests that the wires are used to stimulate the temporal lobe of the brain, which doesn't really make any sense. Short term memory, sound and smell distinguishing... why would they want to fuck with that? Besides, it's got redundant functions in the temporal lobe of the brain lateral to it, on the other side of the head." "What else could it be?" Joe asked. "It's possible that these access the cerebellum, under the brain and close to the brain stem," Hale postulated. "The cerebellum regulates movement, like balance and muscle coordination. I can't see why Kelly would want to mess with that, either." "What about the funny hats?" Joe asked. "No idea," Hale said. "Some kind of foam which needs to be kept in constant contact with the scalp. Doubt it could affect the brain, though." "And what about the nasal thing?" Hollis asked. "Nasal thing? What nasal thing?" Hale said. Steve smirked. "Try and pick your nose," he said. "Up yours," Hale shot back. "Seriously, Hale," Corey said. "Try it." With a look of utter confusion, Hale wormed his pinky finger into a nostril, trying hard not to feel like an idiot at the intent stares of his coworkers. But before he could push his finger in very deeply, he felt something hard and foreign, just beyond the nasal septum. "It's hard to tell without some kind of a light, but I think it's an implant kind of like the ones behind our ears," Steve said. "You can kinda get a sense of the shape of it if you feel around the bridge of your nose." It was about the same size and shape as the units behind the ears. "Not good," Hale determined. "Why not?" Hollis asked. "Well, figure the ones behind the ears are behind the ears because they're trying for some reason to access the temporal lobe or the cerebellum. Which would mean these things have to be mounted close to the region of the brain they're trying to affect - if these things are brain- related at all, that is, which we can't prove." "Okay, then, assume they are," Steve said. "Which would mean that the ones implanted in the sinus cavity are meant to access the anterior portion of the frontal lobe, or the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is incredibly complicated, but by and large it governs personality, behavior and emotion." "Some kind of control device?" Hollis asked, tapping his nose. "Doubtful," Steve said. "We've only just begun to research how the brain works. Unless Hart-Pearson, or Kelly himself, has had some kind of technological quantum leap forward, I doubt we could even externally communicate with the brain, much less control it. Ryan Laskey over at MIT messed with this stuff in the lab, about four years ago, and all he got for his trouble was a bunch of comatose Rhesus monkeys." "But then again, that was four years ago," Hale said. "Practically, anything could have happened between now and then. There have been a lot of advancements in stuff like behavioral therapy since then." "You're not making me feel any better," Corey said. "Sorry," Hale shrugged. "Just trying to be practical." The end of the sentence was cut off by a sharp signal and a dimming of the lights. The men tried to look all around the room at once, which only resulted in a great deal of clomping and lost balance. The five television screens at the end of the room lit up at once, all showing the same picture, the face of an attractive woman. "Good morning," she said in a soft voice. "From now on, I will be your contact. Anything you have to say, any questions you have, will be addressed to me. I will contact you every morning and every evening. Is that clear?" "Who are you?" Corey demanded. "Your contact," the woman repeated. "Will we be fed?" Hollis put in. "We haven't eaten in days." "You've been give the nutrients you need to survive," the woman replied, "and your stomachs aren't quite ready for food yet. A few more days." "What are they doing to us?" Hale asked. "The implants in the nose, behind the ear. The boots and the codpieces and the head coverings. What purpose do they serve?" The woman smiled a half-smile. "You have volunteered to test several experimental pharmaceutical and medical treatments," she said. "The caps are testing a new scalp treatment for male pattern baldness, which you were all experiencing. The 'codpieces,' as you put it, are simply for waste removal, a mere convenience for our staff. The boots are a drug delivery system. They've been injecting into your legs and feet since they were installed. They also transmit to the devices behind the ear, which re-train your cerebellum on how to maintain balance, gait and equilibrium. You will become more and more comfortable with your movement in time. We hope that this technology will allow paraplegics a chance to re-learn how to walk." "And the nasal devices?" Steve asked. "More implantation technology, hopefully for use with violent criminals. They're an early test of an electronic mood alterer. We've been using them to diminish panic and combativeness in you." "Interesting," Hale said. "Electronic stimulation of the prefrontal cortex?" "The impulses we can send can actually bypass the prefrontal cortex and affect the premotor and motor sections of the frontal lobe as well. These tests will help us conclude whether or not we can limit movement painlessly and non-violently, which would be a huge help in the prison systems. Imagine being able to press a button and temporarily paralyze a violent person, without contact or pain." "Why us?" Corey asked. "Because you volunteered, of course," she said. "We didn't volunteer!" Joe said loudly. "Dr. Kelly just told you that, but we didn't! We're being held here against our will. Lady, you have to help us! Call the police!" The woman gave Joe a stern look and he stopped talking in mid-sentence. "Would you like to say that again?" the woman asked. "No, ma'am," Joe said meekly. "I'm sorry. I won't raise my voice like that again." "Very well," the woman said. "If there are no other questions, then, I'll..." "Excuse me, ma'am," Corey said, a little panicked by Joe's sudden reversal. Joe Hargreaves was one of the most stubborn people he knew. "Can we get something in here to pass the time? Boredom is getting to be a real problem. A game of some kind, maybe, or a deck of cards?" The woman contemplated for a moment. "An excellent idea," she said. "I'll have some diversions sent down to you immediately. We'll also allow you access to television and you're going to be put on an exercise regimen today as well. Hopefully the time will pass for you all a lot quicker." "Thank you," Corey said as the screen went blank. "What the hell happened?" Hale said, turning to Joe. "I don't know," he said, feeling his nose gingerly with his fingertips. "I was mad as hell, hoping she would help us, and then the next thing I knew I felt so ashamed of myself for yelling at her like that, I couldn't live with myself. I thought I was going to cry, for Chrissakes." Hale's eyes were like saucers. "They're doing it," he breathed. "They're actually modifying our behavior with the implants." "So here's the real kicker," Corey asked. "Modifying it into what?"