StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The television flickered and chirped. The burly bartender reached over, gave it a tap, and the show came back on. The patrons of the bar were not so interested in the television as they were in drinks, others, or self. Mostly drinks - this wasn’t the kind of place you went to socialize, it was the kind of place you went to forget about others, and yourself...at least for a little while. Nevertheless, it was hard for those less inebriated not to glance up at the screen when the commercial came on, not because it was loud and flashy, but because it was such a common offer, and a part of their lives, that they were almost programmed to pay attention to it.

“...from Happy Human Labs, brings you, our beloved public, the next step in artificial companions! Now you can...”

The attention span of the various patrons drifted in and out as the jovial announcer continued his speech.

“...Happy Human Labs, that brought you the Guarantee-A-Date pheromones distributor, and other fine products like...”

Not everyone was so enamoured of the commercial. At least one quiet, drinking soul groaned out loud, longing for the end of commercials and a return to whatever had been playing before.

“...the greatest gift of all from our Patented Micro-Organisms Division, which will...”

The television fizzled once more and the picture lost clarity, prompting another smack from the bartender, who at this hour of the night had realized that he’d do more business fixing the TV than serving drinks to men too drunk to order.

In the farthest corner of the bar, at a round table, a few men spiritlessly played poker. The table was, like many other things in the bar besides the patrons, alive. From time to time a series of tentacles stroked out of the trunk of the table, clipped small crumbs and lapped quickly at tiny puddles of spilt beer from its woody top, and deposited them in a small mouth halfway down the stem. One of the gamblers, a short, ragged man whose clothing marked him as a techie of some sort, tossed down his hand and spat derisively into towards the corner. A long tentacle flicked out and caught the spittle in midair and brought it back to be swallowed, ironically preserving the ludicrously immaculate bar from the intended insult.

“Damn Happs. Think they own the whole fuckin’ country.”

One of his opponents, across the table, spurred to conversation by the remark, chipped in. “You mean the whole world. What they’s doin’, makin’ playtoy monsters for the rich and famous.” He kicked half-heartedly at the organic table, but it was far too thick to notice and besides, was insensitive to touch on its flank.

The first man nodded his head solemnly. “Ever since they caste-ed the techies, why, it’s been nothin’ but shit like the Happs and the Globes and the Indo-Pros makin’ more toys that they don’t know what to do wit’, so they sell em’ off to psychos and losers who need a cheaper fix than contraband.”

“Hey!” someone yelled from the bar, “we need it worse ‘n you do!”

Everyone in the bar who could follow the conversation grumbled or nodded or otherwise acknowledged the point. With the upwards climb of automated labour, humans had become cheap. It was more economical to build one computer and grow a dozen organic machines that would last longer, work harder, and consume less in entertainment and fuel than a hundred people. But corporations could never lose their contact with the human quotient, less they be reviled by their own customers. So to make everyone content, companies continued to hire humans as ‘tech personnel’ to care for the machines. In reality these low paid people did nothing at all, because the machines never broke. And no one built machines anymore because there were organic machines to do that, too. So those few who had real jobs were those in the only fields left that required the uniquely human quality; imagination. That is, marketers, advertisers, models, program designers, and of course, product testers. Everyone else got jobs as ‘techies’, because that was all there was left to do.

Oh, there was complaints and warning. Everyone saw the trend coming, the returns to serfdom. But it didn’t slow progress. In fact, more and more powerful products and faster, cheaper machines continued to be built, without end. Everyone could afford powerful computers and devices to improve health and the standard of living, because they were so commonplace.

The result of that was not social egalitarianism that philosophers and engineers said would come as the result of progress. And the reason for this was simple; the truly wealthy had very little left to spend their money on. In order to maintain a needed social separation between them and the common man, the wealthy began to prize that which was fabulously valuable in an age such as that - real estate, and the contrivances of wealth that had nothing to do with functionality. Arts and crafts were the sign of the truly well-to-do, and organic exotics so criminally powerful and unnatural that a cleric could be fed to the giant lumbering beasts that served as semi-intelligent, programmable, organic garbage trucks - just for mentioning protest of them.

Like any place that had advanced beyond the decadence of its people, arts and crafts were no longer limited to paint and sculpture. The vast companies, powered by the best minds and the most powerful machines, learned to construct the whims of its rich patrons - organic manipulation to create more exotic pets, spectacular chemical toys, harmless yet powerfully sensual narcotics, and so on. Large scale biological warfare of the same kind had caused the virtual extinction of most kinds of classical narcotics-bearing plants and animals, thus ending the ancient war on drugs by making drugs too expensive for any but kings and princes of industry, who rarely needed the stuff, because biological marketing had created far better and less lethal chemicals.

Because so many people were nothing but idle, and poor, the great industries sprang up around keeping the idle content. Governments encouraged the creation and production of cheap, effective stimulants and amusements, because it kept listless people socially sedated and easier to govern. Corporations liked it because it boosted their P.R. and stock holdings. And the rich liked it because it kept the poor from their gates. Conglomerates like Globaltechnologies and Industrial Protagonists catered to the human degeneracy. And ruling over them all was the Happy Human Labs, the grandfather of the conglomerate industries. Twenty percent of the country worked for the Happs, as they were known. And forty percent of the country was unemployed.

The third at the poker table, unconcerned with much of the conversation till then, cast down his hand in defeat. “I’m out.” he said. He was a tall, hugely-build techie, dressed the same as the first speaker. The sides of his hair were slashed with grey, even though he couldn’t be more than thirty. His arms were long and corded with unnaturally thick muscle - the mark of having been raised in a corporate school, where they could seamlessly condition your body however you wanted. Rising, the man walked to the door, stumbling only once over the cleaning robot leaning against the wall. By morning the machine - less expensive than an organic machine, but still damningly efficient - would have the entire bar sparkling clean, germ-free, and even the air cleaned out.

The first speaker, the ratty techie, called to the leaving man. “See you at work on Monday, eh, Talbain?”

The drunken giant didn’t even bother replying. Drawing his coat over his shoulders, he skulked out. He stalked through the night, heading home. He had barely a moment to get wet in the pouring rain outside before a flitting Umbrella Bat - yet another engineered organism - sensed the presence of a walking person at this late hour, flitted over and floated above the giant, keeping him dry. Ahead of him, the plentiful ads adorning the mile-high structure that was both city, factory and labs of the Happy Human Labs, Chicago Branch glared at him with neon fury. Talbain shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and trudged onwards.

“Val, you are NOT listening to a WORD I am saying, are you?”

The effeminate little man put both hands on hips and leaned forward over Val Tannis’s desk, exposing Val to the sickeningly sweet lilac perfume the little man wore, then cupped his hand to his ear. “I’m wai-ting.” he added, gay as a lark with his lisping voice and with all the manner of a teacher addressing a preschooler.

Val Tannis, Junior-Lieutenant in Advertising Division Delta-4, twitched his eyebrows disapprovingly from where he sat behind his desk. “I’m listening, Carl.”

In his own mind Val was quite sure he wasn’t listening to a word the Captain was saying. Long ago, Northern Technologies had employed this insufferable snot of a man into their Division Alpha-7 Advertising corps. The man was hardly the Northtech type. A rich man’s son, this effeminate little man had done very well in college in the advertising training. But Northtech was famous for choosing only elder, experienced men for its lucrative advertisers, not this young snot. As one of the big competitors in the you-name-it-we-grow-it business, Northtech was not the biggest shark in the ocean, but it was the meanest. Although it had been only two years since Val had been hired into the company and sworn his classified-documents oath in front of a cleric, he’d learned enough to put a big hurt on the moral statute of the company motto. Here, ‘industrial sabotage’ and ‘territory expansion’ were extremely literal terms. Val had managed to get in because he was good. But he had been assigned to one of the lowest echelons in the company because of his relative inexperience. It wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but it was a good start for a successful man.

In his office, Carl was still talking about the benefits of watercolours over ceramics, or some such nonsense. Val had almost given up on listening to the tiny man’s talk, and would have drifted off to sleep had his phone not rang.

Tannis put up a hand to stop the rush of words from the breathy-voiced man’s mouth. “Hold that thought, Carl. I’ve a call to take.”

The little man stopped in mid-sentence, took a breath, and wagged his finger disapprovingly. “You’ll go nowhere with that attitude, mister.” he warned, and then backed out of the office, leaving behind a dissipating cloud of lilac cologne.

Val Tannis wrinkled his nose and hit the receive button on his phone. Multiple speakers in the room brought in the speaker’s voice as if he were standing right there.

“Val Tannis, Junior-Lieutenant in Advertising Division Delta-4, Northtech, speaking.” he rattled off. “What’s your shit?”

“Mr. Tannis, this is Inspector Quade of the United States Patent Bureau.” the voice said.

Tannis sat right up in his chair. “Yes?” He said quickly. Since the inception of the mega-conglomerate corporation and the advent of bio-toys, the patent bureau was one of the biggest government branches in existence. Not to mention the most powerful. It had taken under its wing such divisions as the CIA and the Consumer Safety Association. Technology progressed often faster than could be believed. And corporate sabotage of competing and similar projects was common. So, without a legal patent, no product could be legally sold in the country. And the Patent Bureau never gave out patents until it had thoroughly researched every new item that was produced in the country. A call from the patent bureau, therefore, was of considerable importance.

“We’re calling because we have an immediate need to request an interview with you, Mr. Tannis.”

“Interview?”

“As soon as possible, in our Detroit branch office.”

“And why is that?” Asked Tannis. It was a highly unusual thing to ask of a junior lieutenant in advertising.

“Not just yet.” the voice responded. A worrying sensation crawled up the back of Tannis’s neck.

“There are certain priorities that must be met by the Bureau. As such, we are always in search of new, qualified personnel.”

This Tannis understood. “You mean a job offer? I just took this job at Northtech. I don’t think I need a change just yet.”

“Nevertheless, we would appreciate you taking time off of work to drop by for the interview. We will make it worth your while, we promise.”

“I’ll consider it.” Mentally, Val Tannis was making other, less elaborate plans for his future.

“Please do not be late, Mr. Tannis. We’re faxing the date, time, and address to your machine now.” There was a beep, and the machines were disconnected.

Val Tannis sat a moment in silence, pondering. A second later, his fax machine spat out a slip of paper printed from the Bureau’s computer, giving him directions, and a date and time exactly twenty-four hours away. He frowned. If they wanted him to come in during his own work hours, they were certainly mistaken. He turned back to his work and within minutes, forgot about the Patent Bureau of the United States.

In the Evening Room of the techie’s quarters at the Happy Human Labs Chicago Branch, a sobered-up Talbain Arsteel sat at a cheap metal desk, eyeing a glass of pure-as-diamond water. Like everything else at the Happs, it was perfectly clean. He glanced over at the monitor embedded in his desk. It oversaw the operation of one of the thousands of micromachines that worked in the plant. It was, of course, pointless. The machine he was monitoring not only never stopped working, it also never broke. In addition to that, the monitor was automatically programmed to alert all available tech staff if a problem really did occur. Backup machines would be activated, and emergency automation put into work. Everything flawlessly automated.

So there was nothing to do.

Across the hall, a couple of his co-workers played ping-pong on a electronic holographic table. A bright sphere shot at lightning speeds between the two men’s gloves, darting through the hazy artificial playing space.

Tal was bored. Bored bored bored bored bored. Bored to hell. He thumbed the monitor, switched it over to personal use. He tapped in the dial code for home, reviewed his personal information. As nothing more than a techie, he had little access to the popular stuff. His at-home relay was limited to basic entertainment and informative news. Everything he owned went through the Happs’ network, so most of the entertainment and news was generated by their Media Division, anyway. They owned the rights to a number of good classical movies, and owned a studio or two besides, so it wasn’t all bad.

Checking through his mail and phone calls turned up zilch. Fine, he was used to that. His ex-wife, Mileena, hadn’t called him in weeks. She used to call all the time, before she’d gotten used to the divorce. Then she started calling only on odd occasions, when she needed something, or just needed to talk. Now she never called, which meant she probably had found someone new. Someone with an upwards career, like herself, who could stand more of her constant bewailing about what was wrong with everything. Or even better, someone who could understand half the stuff she talked about. He was about to give up when his monitor beeped.

He paused. The monitor was programmed to do any thousand things, but beep it shouldn’t. He hadn’t heard it beep in quite some time. Checking the source produced less dramatic results than he’d at first supposed. Instead of being an alert from the plant monitoring equipment, it was a message that had arrived for him while he’d been connected to his home computer. He sighed. Looks like sudden chaos wasn’t imminent after all, something he could have regretted less had he thought about the implications.

Sliding his thumb over the screen, he brought the message up. He frowned. It was V-mail. That meant near-lifelike holographic visual images and sound. Very, very rare. Sensos were even rarer, for the bosses and so forth. They had mail that could project full 3-D images, complete with sound, sight, and smell, right into your brain. But techies never got stuff like that. In fact, techies didn’t even have the ability to produce V-mail. They were still limited to voice, images and text. That meant that the mail was either a random spam advertisement from the Happs for new products, or else it came from an outside source. Occam’s Razor, he reminded himself. It was probably an advert.

He keyed the mail. The almost never-used projector whirred to life and within a moment, it spawned a mini-sized image on the workstation in front of him of a thin man in a tight, tight suit sitting behind a desk. He didn’t look like an actor - in fact, he looked ugly. Gangly, with big teeth and the kind of messy hair that comes from having hair that no comb can tame. The man spoke like he was spitting every other word. “Good afternoon, Tech Talbain Arsteel. I hope you are having a pleasant day today.” The man spat it out, like he was overly eager to get rid of the pleasantries and move on to business. “I am Lieutenant Batis, Human Resources division. I’ve got a considerable offer for you, Mr. Arsteel.”

Tal tightened his gut. He only hoped that the offer wasn’t a severance package. He was low on the echelon but at least he was employed, and that was better than most. Batis went on. “It is my duty to pick out favourable personnel for advancement within the company. After having reviewed your personal file, I believe that you could be a grand new asset to our Product Tester’s Division, Section Alpha-3.”

Tal tried hard to suppress a shocking start. Product Tester! Alpha level! That hinted at riches he didn’t even begin to qualify for. Product Testers were paid an insane amount of money to make sure that every new product the Happs built would pass Patent inspection. Their suggestions were what made the company function. But Testers usually underwent years of training, so that they knew what bugs to look for in a product. If they handed him a new micro-species, he wouldn’t know which end of the microscope to look through.

Lieutenant Batis wasn’t finished. “To that end, you are scheduled for an interview in my office, level 88, tomorrow morning at ten. Please be prompt, Mr. Arsteel. I look forward to making your acquaintance.” The image of the man leaned forward and touched a control out of the camera’s range, and the recording ended.

Tal sat back in his chair and smiled like a cat. One of his co-workers, sweaty from the game, was leaning over his shoulder. “Wow. Tester, eh?” The small man said. “What, you goin’ to night school? That’s one hell of a boost in pay for a techie.”

Tal stood up from his chair, patted the shorter man on the shoulder. “Who gives a shit?” he asked. “I couldn’t care if they ask me to do the same thing I do now, as long as they pay me a tester’s wages.” Grinning to himself, he grabbed his coat and walked out of the office. If they wanted him that bad, they’d let him take the rest of the day off as a token of goodwill.

Val Tannis checked his clock. He was an hour late for work, but that really didn’t matter. He’d spent the night pondering the offer from the bureau, but in the end turned it down because it had cost him a good night’s sleep. And besides which, he probably wouldn’t do as well there anyway. He leaned back in his self-adjusting chair and ran a hand semi-nervously through his long brown hair. It was braided again and again on itself. It was both comfortable and defining. The ends of his hair, however, were blond, and matched well in contrast the dark, press-tight suit he wore to the office.

The door chime played and the panel next to the door lit up, revealing an image of the person outside. It was Carl again. The boss always made a routine inspection of the floor every day, only because he was perfectly incompetent to do any real work. Sighing audibly, Val punched the door open button on his desk. The little man dressed to suit his personality; light, fluffy colors that made you sick to look at him. His silk suit, violet in color, meant he wouldn’t have survived a day on the ground-level streets in the city. He leaned into the door and smiled.

“Don’t be late for your appointment, Vally.” he said.

Val Tannis frowned. “What appointment? I’m not scheduled to see any clients today.”

Carl put a hand on his hip. “Why, your appointment with the Patent Bureau, silly.” he admonished. “Your time off was cleared at the highest level of the department.”

Great, thought Tannis. They want me over there bad enough to make a bad impression on me with the bosses. Tannis had just started his job at Northtech and wasn’t about to let anything blockade his career - if the Bureau really wanted to see him, they’d just have to wait until he made himself available.

“I’m not going, Carl. I’ve got a lot of other things to do. It’s just about some stupid job offer, anyway. I don’t need it.”

“You shouldn’t say that.” said Carl, putting fingers to lips. “Every department caters to the Bureau.”

“And I cater to the bosses’s paycheck, Carl. See you later.” Carl backed out of the room and the door closed behind.

Val punched the air-clear button, cleaning out the lilac perfume, and then addressed his secretary-machine. “Memo, title undisclosed, recipient Patent Bureau, Detroit branch. Subject, I regret to inform you that I have a serious deadline and cannot accept your invitation at this time. However, please mail me back with a more appropriate time and place, and we will meet up in the near future. Thank you. Signature normal, send now.” The machine recorded the orders and the message and sent it off promptly and without fail. And Val Tannis turned his mind from the strange ways of the Patent Bureau.

It was ten minutes later exactly when his comm beeped again. Looking down, the caller was identified as the Patent Bureau, Detroit division. At this point, Val was not quite amused. He had better things to do than worry about the actions of the Bureau, which were beginning to bother him immensely. “Hello?”

The surround-sound filled the office. “Mr Val Tannis. Although at first we wished to merely extend our invitation to you, at this point you leave only the opportunity to insist that you attend our interview.”

Tannis leaned forward angrily. “Now wait just a minute...”

“Please arrive at our offices in one hour, Mr Tannis. We cannot stress enough that this is self-evidently an important meeting. Do you think we would otherwise be so persistent?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is that I have a lot of work to do, and I cannot spare the time. And even if I could, I am not interested in working for the Bureau. Northtech holds a decent future for me. It may not be the brightest corporation in the world, but it’s more honest than most, and I appreciate that.”

The voice was hesitant to respond. “I see. Saddening, Mr Tannis. Yet we must still insist to the highest degree. Please be present in one hour, your career notwithstanding.” Again the comm clicked, and the call was over.

Tannis fumed. He was not at all endeared by the Bureau at this point. As well, they held enough influence to cause enormous amounts of trouble for him within the company. Despite that, he wasn’t about to be bullied around by the government. It was illegal as well as immoral. Cursing to himself, he set himself to his work, and consigned the Bureau to oblivion.

It was late that night at his home when Val’s emergency comm beeped at him. He rose groggily from his bed and addressed the machine to play the message.

The voice was eerily recognizable - it was Malthus St. John, the head of Northtech Industries. “Dearest employee, due to a seizure warrant from the United States Patent Bureau, Northtech Industries has been forced to close pending an investigation into several of our unpatented products. While I insist to you, our loyal workers, that there is nothing illegal underway at Northtech industries, I have sadly been forced to extend massive temporary cutbacks to our staff, during the period that we will not be in business. I hope that in the future, when this unpleasantness is resolved, that you will all be able to come back to the Northtech Industries family. Good night.”

Val Tannis was stunned. The Patent Bureau had shut down Northtech for an investigation? Illegal patents? That wasn’t the way of Northtech Industries. They were ruthless, but never illegal. Worse still, had the Patent caused the shutdown just to get at him? To give him no alternative but to come to them? It was both deeply disturbing and evil in portent. He tried to visualize, say, a million people out of work because of his stubbornness.

The monitors printed out lines of text detailing the extent of the severance package he would be offered at his level of employment, but he ignored it. He promised himself to go to the Patent Bureau as first light, if only to correct what he perceived to be a terrible wrong.

Wow. You set it up so well. Your descriptions are just great. I love it, Lag.

Kelly Antilles wrote:Wow. You set it up so well. Your descriptions are just great. I love it, Lag.

Thanks! I'll be putting some more up on Sunday or Monday.

The crispy autumn dawn found Val Tannis in the lobby of the United States Patent Bureau office, Detroit branch. He wasn't sure what he hoped to find here. The Bureau hadn't communicated with him since the day before, but apparently liked to keep their communications to the more inconvenient lunch hour. After introducing himself at the pale and unassuming front desk, a smiling secretary ushered him into an elevator and was still smiling when the doors closed. There was barely a ghost of a sensation of movement, and then the doors opened again on a hallway. A corridor window was across the hall from the elevator shaft, and looked out from the thirty-third floor of the Bureau Tower. The hallway was otherwise quite empty, save for a few exotic plants that Val couldn't immediately identify. The blossoms were at least a foot wide and bright yellow, and opened and closed rhythmically in the sun. He wasn't a botanist, but he was fairly sure, from looking at the perfectly symmetrical petals, that this was an artificial lifeform, created for decorative purposes.

Stepping out into the hall, there was a dead-end on his right and a door at the end of a short corridor to his left, so he couldn't very well mistake where he was supposed to be going. At his approach, the door to the office opened and Val stepped inside.

The office was very sparsely furnished by modern standards, which normally featured hundreds of electronics cleverly ingrained into the walls, furniture, everything. All there was was a decorative wood-framed mirror on one wall, a couple of soft couches in the middle of the room, and a food-and-drink dispenser on the other wall. The two remaining walls consisted one of the doorway in which Val stood, and the other was ceiling to floor window, without a seam in the glass anywhere. It was a vast and impressive room, obviously designed to receive visitors.

At this point, however, there was no one but Val there. He took a couple of hesitant steps forwards and examined the couch. There was no one about, but they'd sent him up here for a reason. Examining the mirror, he found what he was looking for. The mirror surface was Transaphil, an expensive substance that was reflective on one side and transparent on the other. It was normally used in automobiles for dramatic tinting effects. Val would bet his teeth that this one was for surveillance purposes. Having worked for a conglomerate who specialized in exotic building materials, such products were readily visible to him, as he had worked in the advertising of similar textiles.

The elevator in the hall chimed in arrival, and Val gave off studying the mirror in favor of walking back to the door to see who was arriving. He'd almost reached the door when it slid open, and a mid-height, nervous-looking man stepped in. He was about five-six, nowhere near Val's six-two in height. He didn't quite look panicked, but moved quickly, as if in a terrible rush. He carried an electronic datapad, at which he glanced continuously. Val almost had to duck as a small electronic contrivance buzzed by his head. The small ball of metal floated near the man's shoulder, and Val recognized it immediately. A floating pickup, it responded to its master's voice commands. It could probably adjust anything in the room, explaining the relative lack of electronic interfaces in this room. On another note, it kept picky people from playing with buttons.

"Oh, mind the buzzer"; said the man absently, gesturing at the pickup. He looked down at the datapad and addressed Val.

"You're Mister Tannis?" he asked. Val nodded. "Good. We've been hoping you'd come. You put us to a little more trouble than we thought, but I'm glad you saw through to accept our invitation."

"Well, I wouldn't have come over if you hadn't shut down my job." said Val, folding his arms carefully.

The smaller man stopped moving, glanced over his shoulder and gestured with the datapad at Val. He addressed him blandly and quickly. "Hey, you know what? You're funny. Good. Have a seat and let's get started, shall we?"

Val sat back in the immeasurably comfortable sofa. Modern weight-sensitive fabrics, he knew. Very expensive, and which could lull anyone into a false sense of comfort. Val sank back anyway, and the couch automatically began to warm itself and rub at a particularly tense spot in his lower back.

The man read off the datapad. "You're not married, that's true?"

Val shook his head. The man continued, "Engaged, dating, anything?"

"Nope."

"Good. We don't like our applicants to have too many ties." The man smiled.

"What makes you think I'm an applicant?" said Val, irritation creeping into his voice.

The man took a breath and nodded thoughtfully. He sank into the couch opposite Val's. "Well, probably because you wouldn't be here if you weren't. The fact that you're here tells me that you're here for a job." Val was about to speak up when the man raised a hand and continued. "Look, let's review the facts, okay? One; you're out of work. Your former employee has been put into a patent investigation and had to lay you off. So what? Patent investigations like this happen ten times a year. Everyone thinks they can beat the system. Point two; you've got every qualification for the position. I don't have to tell you the unemployment rate around here. Qualifications are worth more than gold in this country. Or would you rather be collecting welfare?"

Val Tannis looked down, thought a moment. The smaller man took further strokes. "Look, a job is a good thing to come by. If you want, you can just get up and leave the interview now, and no one will care. The welfare bureau is down the street."

The man pointed to the door, and the little pickup flashed one of its many tiny lights. The door slid open for effect.

Tannis shrugged. "The least you could do is tell me what's so damned important about me, and this 'job' that you have to put thousands of people on the streets because of it?"

The man smiled. "Now we're getting somewhere. I'm agent Ray Delberg. We go out of our way to find our candidates. You see, the Patent Bureau is the largest department in the country, the Happs notwithstanding. This is because we have a tremendously large pool of people to investigate. In our eyes, the conglomerates are dangerous to everyone, because if they had the chance, they'd market and sell anything they could build. More than eighty percent of the products that get built in this country never pass inspection. But lots of companies market them anyway, or sell them on the black market. It's our job to keep that to a minimum. To that end, we do as much as we can; employee monitoring, frequent and unannounced raids on various labs, the works."

"And just what on earth do you want me for? I'm advertising. I can't help you uncover anything about the patents of Northtech Industries any more..."

"Not Northech. Don't you worry about them - they're in good hands. No one who was affected by the shutdown is going to be in any trouble for very long. The outfit that we're looking for is the Happy Human Labs."

Tannis pondered. "The Happs? What do they have to do with me?"

The man smirked. "I see I have your attention, then. Good. So for the moment, can you concede that we're not the bad guys here? It'll help smooth things along." Tannis nodded once. Delberg continued. "Good. Now that I've answered some of your questions, why don't you answer ours? This is, after all, an interview."

Tannis thought it fair. "Okay, then. Interview away."

"Firstly, let's just review. You're not attached, which is good. We don't like to worry about taking care of those on whom our people might be dependant. There's very little to really worry about, but we like to be sure."

Tannis was not heartened in the least. "Great."

Delberg paused again, gestured slightly with the datapad. "Don't be so discouraged. It's not that bad at all. Now, a little review, correct me if any of this is wrong." He read off the datapad. "You placed near the top of your class in Creative Media Advertising, with sub-degrees in Marketing and Corporate Ethics, Advertising for Bio-Synthetics, and General Media. That's all fairly standard for someone in your field of work, although the Ethics course was a surprise." Delberg grinned, and with good reason - ethics wasn't a speciality of corporate workers. Lawyers studied it more often, of all ironies. He continued reading aloud. "As if that weren't enough, you also did some pre-college studies with the Human Aesthetics School. There, you studied poly-synthetics and bio-textiles. You did fairly well there, but obviously not well enough to encourage you, because you decided later to major in advertising. All right so far?"

"Yes, so far."

"Hobbies include sensory games and artificial sports. Nothing exceptional there, either, unless you count a seventy-seven game win streak at Running Man. That's a netgame that requires enormous amounts of physical endurance. The machines keeps you moving on adrenaline-plus for several hours. I can imagine the hell that culminates in if you're out of shape."

Tannis nodded. "Okay, so, what does this mean to you?"

"Questions first. Has any member of the Happs organization ever approached you with any offers of any kind?" Delberg had become very serious-looking.

"Nope."

"How about communications, personalized adverts, or prizes?"

"Well, there was a few. Some of my netgames gave me Player of the Month awards, and those games are owned by the Happs, but nothing you'd think of serious recognition for."

"Do you know much about forced-evolutionary organisms?"

Tannis was growing wary of the strange tangents the conversation slid onto. "A bit. Not enough to score on the table, though. Only what I need to know in order to advertise for them. But Northtech was more into electronics and textiles than bio-toys."

Delberg was nodding vigorously. "Um-hmm. Exactly. And when you had your pick of the litter, you went with a smaller concern so you could stay away from bio-express, right?"

"Maybe. I don't give much of a damn about the rich and famous and what they smoke, Delberg. Electronics are more honest."

Delberg was smiling now. "Good, good. Excellent frame of mind. A few more questions. Can you operate a firearm?"

"Excuse me?"

"Weaponry. Guns, ammo, cleaning and care, the works. Can you?"

Tannis stood. "Would you now tell me just what the fuck is going on?"

Delberg made a move with one hand. The pickup buzzed and the drink dispenser began pouring a cherry-colored liquid into a pair of cups. "Sit down and relax. Have a drink, and I'll explain as much as I'm allowed to."

As he's allowed to? Tannis was thinking, Just who are these assholes?

Tannis took a drink and flopped back into the couch. Sipped at the drink - it was an excellent red wine.

Delberg took a sip of his own drink and began to explain. "Ever since your pre-college days, the Happs have had an enormous and unusual interest in you, mister Tannis. They sponsored a number of the games that you were good at. Take a look at this here." His pickup buzzed and a holographic image spouted from the floor between the two couches. "This is the interest and funding levels of the Happs in the public sector. A disconcerting number of the public contributions they've made in the past twenty-five years has surrounded your activities. When you started playing R-ball, they made a huge investment in increasing the R-ball facilities. When you tried netpainting, they spent a couple million dollars devising better software."

"That's bullshit. When I was into that stuff, so was everyone else."

"Not before it was even in activity world-wide, they weren't. You were into things they almost exclusively tested in your area. If that's not enough, look at this - their dropoff of interest coincides with your own, Tannis."

Tannis smiled. "You're telling me that the Happs have one person on their poll for what's hot and what's not, and it's me?"

"It may be less humorous than it sounds, Tannis. Because of your distaste for bio-synthetics, it's the only area of their research and spending that has fallen far behind the curve we're noticing - at least for you. The trend doesn't exist for you because you don't care about bio toys. So their funding and interest in bio-toys has seen a completely separate and almost seemingly haphazard and random set of fluctuations for years."

"And you care...why?" Tannis prompted. "If it matters, which I don't think it does, why don't they come out and just ask me to be their president or something."

Delberg gestured with his drink. "Maybe they want you to run the company without having any actual power or wealth. Course, that's probably bull too, but we're busy entertaining all our hypotheses. We don't actually know what the Happs want to do with you, but all the evidence says that they care an awful lot about you, and have for a long time. We've been trying to pin the Happs for years with something that would justify increased Bureau presence and monitoring at their labs. Sometimes we win, sometimes they win. An illegal patent here gets covered up nicely, all our informants and evidence vanishes. Every so often our undercover agents get turned into rat chow. It's a nasty, violent little secret war going on out there, with no clear winners or losers."

"Which, I hope, brings us to what I'm here for."

"It does and it doesn't. We know that very, very soon now, you're going to be approached by the Happs with a job offer of some sort. We want you to accept that offer and go to work for them. Only, you'll answer to us instead."

"Wait a moment - you want me to take a spy shot at the Happs, when you just told me that your own agents get taken apart from time to time? I don't have the time for that kind of risk, buddy. No dice."

"It's not that simple, Tannis. You see, you're not the only person that they've been monitoring so closely. There are others. For all of them, the Happs have done the same kind of thing; watched their actions and made sure that they had access to all the stuff they needed to maximize their abilities. All of them but four have already been soaked up by the Happs - you're almost our last chance to crack this pattern. If they got to you before we did, you'd vanish into a paper trail that our grandfathers will be sorting through, and we'd never see you again." The holoscreen changed information. "This is a few broken pieces of coded Happs transmissions. We believe that you and the others are being, or are going to be, involved in a project with something called the Givers. The Happs have been working on this for years and years. They picked twelve people, probably at random, and they've been toying with them ever since. And we know that for a few of them, and probably you too, it's more than just them following your interests. In many cases we can prove that once they've comprehended your patterns that they've actually altered the activities, software and hardware to steer your social and physical growth. Think of it as maximizing your strengths. Then, when the time is right, they plucked the people into their ranks: Twelve perfect specimens to work with, with their entire histories charted, and the Happs completely aware of their physical and mental abilities. We think that you guys have been somehow customized, by their influence, to be used in the production of the Giver program."

Tannis was almost speechless. "Shit."

Delberg smirked. "That's close to right. You now know as much as I know, which is almost as much as the Bureau knows. We have every reason to believe that you twelve have been fucked with for years, and now they're reaping the wheat."

"What for?" Tannis asked.

"That's what you're going to tell us."

Tannis was not at all convinced. "I don't believe that any company would do that to a person. What you're talking about, it's nothing less than forced social evolution, kidnapping and human lab rats!"

"It's just that." Delberg leaned forwards. "Look. You owe them for this. And you owe us for bringing it to light before they got their hooks into you. Just go in, find out what their interest is, and then get back out again."

"And get killed, right? Isn't that how it goes in the secret agent business?"

Delberg drew a breath. "Look, we can offer to compensate you as heavily as you want. I know that doesn't buy your protection, but it's a damn good start. We can offer you money and fame and all the rest - but what you should do this for is for all the people who stand to get screwed in the future if this gets out. If it's a project that is so deadpan locked that they're more willing to feed people to the recycling machines than let it get out, then it's already illegal and immoral. Otherwise, why not subject yourselves to normal pre-patent inspection and spare everyone the trauma?"

"Why don't you just go in and shut them down, they way you did with Northtech?"

"Oh, we could. No question. But they'd have the data and the personnel erased and buried before the ink was even dry on the paperwork. Sure, they'd lose the project for now, but it wouldn't do anyone any good. They'd just resurrect the project later, with even tighter safeguards. Better the devil we know being developed over there than the devil we don't know about, right?"

"And about the firearms?"

"It's not necessary. We're not going to arm you or anything. We just want to know what you';re capable of. It might explain why the Happs have an interest in you."

"I"m not convinced, Delberg. Look at it this way - I don't have to accept a job from the Happs, no matter how lucrative they make it. Problem solved, for me."

"They won't make it that easy. You'll join them because they can make it happen. If they want you to simply vanish, they'll make that happen too. You can't fight them alone."

Tannis rose. "I'll decide that."

Delberg thought a moment, then gestured. The door opened. "Fine. You go, and you think about it. When you change your mind, call us. If you don't go along, well, we've done our best." Tannis moved to leave, and Delberg yelled after him. "Remember this, Tannis...when they want you, they get you."

Talbain Arsteel tried to settle himself into the too-plush chair that he was offered by Lieutenant Batis of Human Resources.

The lieutenant wasted no time on any preamble. Apparently he was more cordial on screen than in person. "Mr. Arsteel. I'm very, very pleased to see you here. You've been an important part of the company whether you know it, or not."

The giant Talbain dispensed the praise with a flick of his wrist. In person, Batis' features were even more gangly in appearance. The man seemed to be more bone than muscle, lost in an attempt to appear dignified and sombre.

"What we have for you, Mr. Arsteel, is something many, many years in the making. As you know, Happy Human Labs is constantly in search for new products that we can sell on the open market. Well, we have one. We're currently working on a bio-toy that will put many, many others to shame. Due to the security necessary to preserve this secret, I must remind you that anything we discuss here falls into category A of the classified company documents section."

Tal nodded in agreement. He'd been subjected to various degrees of the classified documents section for years, but no one trailed him, asking questions. It was no big deal.

"Okay, then. Our new project is so classified that we've even had to hide it from the patent inspectors, to avoid word getting out to our competitors."

Tal was inwardly shocked. To defy the Patent Bureau was serious stuff indeed. He could be arrested or worse if he was caught. "Umm, about that..."

Batis raised a thin hand. "Do not worry, Mr. Arsteel. We're not engaged in anything criminal here. Of course, when the research and development is done, we will have to submit to inspection in order to sell. We are merely protecting ourselves from our competitors' prying eyes." Arsteel was visibly relieved. Batis continued. "We've been looking at your file for a while, and you have everything we are looking for in a tester for this new project." He folded his hands. "Let's be frank, here. A techie's job is pretty bad, right?"

Arsteel nodded. It was a considerable departure in conversational tactic from the near-robot he'd heard before.

"And you can't really have that many true credentials to bring up as a Tester, right?"

Arsteel fidgeted. "I suppose."

"But we picked you anyway? Obviously it must have been on merits other than your work, right?"

"Okay."

Batis smiled. "Good. So here it is; we've selected a few employees based on other, unique qualities. Their genetics, social predisposition, size, and many more minute qualities. In other words, Mr Arsteel, you are quite honestly the only man for this job."

Tal Arsteel smirked slightly. He could tell he was being fed bullshit somewhere here, but he wasn't yet sure which of it was bullshit. Better that he play along until he could find out. He nodded again in agreement, letting Batis talk onwards.

"You see, Mr. Arsteel, why we must be as careful as possible in our selection. You are, forgive me, a relative unknown. You have no service record or education of any kind. If it were not for the fact that you were able to make yourself at least barely presentable, you wouldn't even have a job."

"Did you bring me here to insult me or to hire me?" Tal leaned his elbows on the desk, willing to risk appearing too intimidating than humble in the face of this scrawny little man. "You called me up here, out of god knows how many million people, and for what? I'd rather hear about what it is you want from me than to hear what I already know."

Batis almost smiled. "Alright then. I prefer to do things the brisk way anyhow." Batis crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, then began as if from memory. "You are needed for a special project. Bear in mind that this project is so highly classified that you will be given no details about it until you accept the offer. Likewise we are not giving you any time to think about the offer. You must either accept or decline the job right here and now." He smirked at Tal. "Which means, if you say no, you'll slip back into the relative obscurity of the techie pits. And from there, who knows? The company prefers agile, upwards-minded individuals."

Tal wondered only briefly if that was a threat that he would be fired if he didn't comply. Just then, Batis seemed very much the predatory animal. Talbain watched the lieutenant's hand. It was shaking slightly, and he seemed to be twitching towards the control panel set in his desk.

Batis continued. "Before you decide, know that it's not bad news. If you accept, you'll be trained, and paid Alpha level Testers' wages. You can't ask for more than that on this planet. I could spend the next hour or so enumerating all the lovely things you'll get, but that would waste my time and yours. If you accept, we'll go into those details. Just remember that it's lucrative by any company's standards. Furthermore, we rarely offer a position like this to someone like you. I can't imagine for the life of me why you'd refuse."

Tal spoke up. "And my duties? You already said yourself I don't know anything about being a Tester."

Batis waved it away. "Inconsequential. You see, you won't need to test products on anything, or identify bugs in some random software. Your testing will be entirely to use our products and give us feedback about how entertaining or effective they are to you, personally."

That sounded appealing. "You mean like play with your new toys and see how much I like them, to see if they'll be a hit or not, huh?"

Batis nodded. "Something like that, yes."

Even without that, the dollar figures had already done it long ago in Tal's mind. "I'm in."

whoa....

Awesome as usual Lag. What a twist!

*dizzy*

Whoa. Good.

Not bad at all

Val Tannis hadn’t quite reached his building when the vehicle sidled up to him. An expensive vehicle, it’s unexpected approach caught Val completely by surprise. Most vehicles still clung to the ground, as anti-grav floaters were beyond the reach of all but conglomerate executives. There had once been the possibility of such a vehicle in Val’s future. The vehicle’s repellers didn’t make a sound as it slowed beside Val, except for the whish of dust being blown aside on the street. The vehicle did not have any apparent windows or doors - yet an instant later a flawlessly-seamed, window-sized hole melted out of the side of the vehicle.

Val pretended not to be impressed, but he was. Intelligent metal, it was laced with micro-organisms which would change the temperature, size, and shape of the metal body of the car in accordance with various stimulus. That metal itself was worth more than the repellers that held the car off the ground and moved it noiselessly along. The head that thrust itself out of the window couldn’t have been more stereotypical - dark sunglasses, black suit, shady appearance with a cleft in his jaw. If this man wasn’t a ‘negotiator’ for a major conglomerate, Val would eat his own shoes. These men typically stood around with executives to help negotiate on tough deals, by which they meant intimidate. They were the conglomerate’s equivalent of the Secret Service, and most of them had undergone robotics and organic alteration to the point where they were less human than organic killing machine.

Val had had pretty much most of his life thrown upside-down in the past twenty-four hours. He didn’t know whom this man might represent, the Happs or the Patent Bureau or God knew who else. And he didn’t care.

“Mr. Tannis?” the voice asked.

Val stopped walking without looking over at the man. Val studied the semi-transparent flooring that made up the roadway. Buildings here topped the half-mile height, and secondary roadways were built between the buildings. So the city was arranged, as most were, on a vertical-class basis, with the lowest-income housing at the very base, on the old and broken streets at ground level. Thousands upon millions lived down there in cramped housing that stuck in-between the massive supports that led up to the crystal, pristine city above, like infections on the foot of a giant.

Still staring through the ground, Tannis responded, smiling. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m sure you want my attention for more than directions to the local sausage shop.”

The thug frowned, taken aback. He obviously wasn’t used to dealing with people more confidant than himself. “Not me. Dr. Batis, in here, wants to see you.”

From inside the hover-limo a thin voice called out. “That’s enough, Armand. Open the door and pour Mr. Tannis a crisp glass of wine, would you?”

The thug’s head retracted into the window/hole, and the intelligent metal portal grew to door-size. Shrugging, Val stooped and entered.

The inside of the limo was extraordinarily well furnished. Given the price tag he could have attached to the outside of the vehicle, that was not surprising. Val sat down on the weight-adjustable seats facing the rear of the vehicle. It was far more comfortable than the Bureau’s office. Which made what the thug said next seem less surprising.

“This is Dr. Batis of the Happy Human Labs Conglomerate.” He said, handing Val a glass of sparkling liquid and pointing to a wide screen set in the back of the seat facing where Tannis sat. The screen was set into the back of the couch itself, and flanking it on either side were two titanic thugs: Square-Jaw and Shoulders...or at least, that’s how Tannis thought of them upon a first glance. On the screen was a man who could have been anything on earth but a film star - he was repulsive. A gangly man in a suit that was at least four sizes too tight, he watched Tannis from the other side of the screen with all the interest of a pre-college student examining a frog bound for dissection.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Tannis.” The image lied, “I regret not being there to meet with you in person, but I have a number of meetings today and this is the best I could do. As well, although I had already planned to contact you, I must admit I was somewhat forced to step up my plans to do so on account of recent events. I trust the accommodations, while temporary, are to your liking?”

Val did not like this little man. He spoke eloquently, but with a hurried undercurrent, as if he had a lot to do and didn’t care to be doing any of it. His voice seemed pleasant, yet he still managed to convince you that he didn’t like you. Nevertheless, Val answered pleasantly. “It suits me, thank you. I seem to be taking a number of invitations lately.” Batis almost frowned. Val had no intention of hiding the fact that he’d just been in the Patent Bureau’s office. If half of what Agent Delberg had said was the truth, then chances were the Happs already knew. If Delberg was lying, it shouldn’t faze this Happs individual in the slightest. For all Val knew, the Bureau was looking for someone to trick into spying on the Happs, and had somehow found out that Val was going to be offered a job with them.

“Well then,” Commented Batis, “you’ll want to hear what we have to say. We know that you have recently been offered a job with the Patent Bureau, is this correct?” Val nodded, and Batis smiled and nodded back. “You must understand, we do a great deal of research on people to whom we wish to offer any contract. In short, Mr. Tannis, we have been appraising you, through your Federal Human Resources Board profile. And we were hoping that we might have this opportunity. I mean, you have recently been forced out of a progressive job, have you not?”
Tannis still smiled, but scowled inwardly. It seemed that there was no one who didn’t know what he did or who he talked to. Just then, his life seemed very much a public affair. Neither the Bureau nor the Happs seemed at all like pleasurable options. Val Tannis felt like a man who had suddenly realized that everyone around him was a cannibal.

Batis just kept talking. “I have been authorized by my conglomerate to offer you a job. Should you wish it, of course.” Batis continued smiling and shrugged. “We both already know you are out of work. Humans with excellent skill are prized higher than the most powerful computers, because unlike machines, they cannot be re-created, and only one comes along at a time. Even though you haven’t proved yourself in the work force, we know talent when we see it. As you have already doubtless seen with the Bureau, employers are aggressive when it comes to seeking out qualified personnel.”

“I’ve noticed.” said Val Tannis, keeping his face straight as a patent negotiator’s. “Perhaps you would tell me the nature of this position, rather than how highly I might be qualified for it?”
Batis smiled - an honest smile from the man. “Of course. I prefer doing things the brisk way. We want you for a position as a Product Tester, Alpha-3 level.”

If Val had been five years younger and fresh out of Matriculation, his jaw would have plummeted. That was a significant job offer. Val knew this had been coming, but he had at least expected they’d hire him for something plausible, like an advertising Major. This was so far from his field, it was ludicrous.

Batis wasn’t finished. “Naturally such a responsibility-intensive position carries with it a sizeable price tag and benefits. You would be on the upper echelon of society, Mr. Tannis. I can’t imagine a man being offered better. I myself do not make so grand a salary as you would.”
Val was impressed, but was still wary, considering what the Bureau had told him. If he hadn’t had that meeting with the Bureau, he would already have said yes. “And my specific tasks? What kind of products does your Alpha-3 Division work with?”

Batis’s face gave away nothing. “Mostly social products, which is where your expertise will come in handy. You have a long and impressive streak at most of our social programs. As such, we are always looking for people who take an active interest in such participant activities or sports that we may come up with, real or virtual, in order to test them out before they hit the mass markets.”

“Or the patent officer.” Added Val, calmly smiling.

Batis’s face tightened, but lost none of its composure. “Of course. You are an intelligent man, so I will hold nothing from you.” He linked his fingers together on his lap. “I don’t know what they told you, Mr. Tannis, but the Patent Bureau is the archenemy of most corporations, as your late employer and yourself doubtless already knows. This is because their job is to control the kinds of new products that enter the country’s open market. With such a duty, they are constantly bombarded with requests for patents, on a daily basis. And thus they are constantly afraid that they will miss something of importance, let a defective product slip through. In this day and age, a defective product, especially if it is biological in nature, can cause widespread epidemics or disasters in a relatively short period of time. In short, this makes them paranoid towards all new products. And it falls on conglomerates to prevent losing research and development time by unending Bureau investigations that - this is documented truth - more often than not ends in nothing being wrong. But the Bureau can at least go before the media and their superiors and say honestly that they’ve done the best they can to prevent anything bad from happening in the first place. Meanwhile, conglomerates strive to minimize their contact with the Bureau to save research time. And in today’s world, Mr. Tannis, the difference between conglomerates that even a day makes, is vast.”

“I understand that, of course. But it is still the law that every company submit to inspection.” interrupted Tannis.

Batis smirked. “And if you did any research on the subject, you would notice that ever product the Happy Human Labs sells on the open market has passed that inspection, legally and quickly, as required.” The image of Batis took a deep breath. “Since our projects are so highly classified, I unfortunately cannot tell you anything about what we require you for at this time. But I can promise you that we will make all known to you once you accept the offer.”

Tannis took a deep breath of his own. He was curious about this program that so many powerful entities were so interested in. He was greedy for the wealth and power both sides promised him. But at the heart of it all, he hated all those involved. “Sorry, Batis. I’m not interested.”

The image didn’t blink. “I have offered you wealth, prestige, and a life of luxury in exchange for what I assure you is your minimal amount of input on a very important program. I assure you that for you, this project will mean little; to us, it is the future of our company. I beg you to reconsider, for the good of our organization and all those dependant on its continued livelihood.”

Tannis shook his head. “No. I don’t know what this is really all about, Mr. Batis, but I’m frankly suspect of people who drive up to me on the street and offer me lucrative jobs that I’m in no way qualified for. I’m not willing to jump into any decisions, particularly one that I am unaware of the consequences of.”

Batis didn’t say another word. One of the thugs lifted an expensively-suited arm. From a fleshy swelling on the side of his wrist, a thin, spiny tentacle whipped out and stung Val on the side of the neck. Before he could even think to shout, he was unconscious on the seat. Quietly, the vehicle sped on into the city, losing itself in the mire of rush-hour morning traffic.

In the sixty-third sub-basement of the Happy Human Labs research building in Chicago, Dr. Batis sat at his metallic desk, facing a life-sized holographic image of a group of men and women. One of them was speaking, his deep baritone voice echoing in the Lieutenant’s small office. “You weren’t supposed to do that, doctor.”

Batis almost snarled. “I was required to contract him no matter what. I did the best I could given the difficult circumstances.”

The lead image shook a finger at Batis. “This one will be missed. The Bureau already knew about him. We must assume they are expecting to hear from him again.”

Batis steepled his fingers. “And they will. He has been given a mild repressant and my people are chemically implanting the necessary new memories now. He will awaken thinking that he accepted our offer and then passed out during a subsequent drinking-binge celebration at a company bar. We have added an associated tab to his credit to help confirm this.”

The figures seemed somewhat mollified. “Very well, doctor. I presume that you have what you need to begin, then. We will contact you later.” The image of the group flared and then disappeared.

Batis called out, “Winters?”

From a speaker, another voice answered. “Yes, doctor.”

“It is time to collect all of our new Testers. It is time they were all formally introduced.”

Senior Technician Corrigan Mal-Tel looked up from his desk as the huge man entered, which was no small feat for the technician. He was an ancient man, nearly 90, looking for all the world like he hadn’t slept in years, but otherwise quite healthy.

“Mr. Mal-Tel,” stated the large, dark-suited man, “It’s time for me to introduce you to your new office and coworkers.”

The old man wearily pushed himself erect. He tottered forward, arm grasping for something to support himself with. He looked at the large man with shining eyes. “Is it time? Time for me to go? Wonderful, young man. They promised they could make me young again. They said they would, so here I am. Let’s go, I’m ready.” The old man rattled on, either oblivious or not caring whether the huge man was paying attention. Slowly, the large man led the feeble old Corrigan out of his humble office in Happy Human Labs Toronto, where for sixty years he had made a modest career of doing absolutely nothing.

Deborah Manning stared into a mirror, prodded herself with cosmeti-sticks and punctured herself with wrinkle-removing agents. She winced in pain as the chemicals took hold, then opened her eyes and smiled somewhat at the younger face that now reflected in the mirror. The chemicals had changed her appearance - if somewhat temporarily - from that of a homely 35-year-old to a sexually alluring 25-year-old. Carefully, she tucked the instruments of beautification into her purse. Some were legal, some were not.

She gathered herself up, adjusted her flawlessly re-constructed breasts, and wandered out of the ladies room, to wait in line for the elevator that would take her to the Happy Human Labs job she had recently been hired for. She smiled at the waiting security guard, flashing her brand new Top-Secret security pass. On the way down into the bowels of the building, she checked a pocket mirror to make sure everything was okay. After all, she had a new and lucrative job to do, and nothing was more important than looking her best. Absolutely nothing.

Young Timothy Rodriguez stretched on his bed. He jumped up and out of the bunk and towards the shared bathroom. His roommate, Jesus, was already there, brushing his hair.

“Hey, Timmy.” Jesus said, smiling. The two boys looked much alike, both around ten years of age, with brown hair and eyes and undistinguished Mexican features. Both were also orphans. While readily available chemicals and machines existed that made unwanted childbirth almost impossible, there were always a few mothers who couldn’t bring themselves to kill their own babies, and preferred to give them up for adoption instead. The Santa Maria Orphanage in Mexico City was one of the places where children like that ended up.

“Big day, huh?” Asked Jesus.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You know who your new parents are?” asked Jesus, picking absently at his teeth.

Timothy disrobed and climbed into the shower - an old-fashioned water cleaner, it sprayed comfortingly despite being so primitive a manner of cleaning one’s self. After a moment of luxuriating in the hot water, he answered. “Naw. I think it’s a couple of folks from out of town. And I don’t care, either, s’long as they’re nice and take me outta here.”

“Huh.” Jesus quietly left the room to get ready for his busy day of playing and learning. After his own shower, and dressing himself to meet the people who, he had been told, had recently adopted him, Timothy wandered back to his room to find the matron of the house standing there with a huge man in a dark suit.

“Why, hello, Timothy,” said the matron, “Here is your new daddy, Senior Smith.”

The huge man barely smiled. “Hello, Timmy. Are you ready to go?”

“Just let me pack the last of my things.” He replied. Timothy tossed his few real important possessions - a stack of old comic books - into his backpack. Then, without looking back, he strode out of his room with the big man. In his own heart, he didn’t care who he left with, even big, strange looking men. Anything must be better than the life he left. Why, almost anything at all.

“Huh?” Mann Dal Paris nearly dropped his broom. He mustn’t do that, he knew. But this stranger had said something to him, and he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard right.

“We have another job for you to do, Paris.” said Mr. DeLuis. Mr. DeLuis was his boss, Paris knew. He was the one who told him to sweep, and when not to sweep. He was a good boss. Paris smiled, then made the mistake of trying to scratch his head. An arm corded like a ship’s anchor cable gouged out a hole in the thin plaster wall as it rose, and a fist the size of a large roast sent an overhead chandelier swinging violently.

Mr. DeLuis and the large stranger dodged slightly as the clumsy, dim-witted giant ashamedly took down his arm without hitting anything else. In stature, Paris was larger than almost any man alive - the result of a failure of an illegal bio-alteration operation, no doubt. His lack of wit, however, was honest. The man was slow. His boss had cared for him in the way that a circus master cared for his tigers, but the giant never knew that. He was happy and fed and had a job. And Mr. DeLuis had told him that was all that counted. Paris’ boss gestured at the dark-suited stranger.

“Monsieur, I do not know what you want with this man, but you are free to take him. He does nothing but wreck my café. I would sooner employ an ox; it is as strong, but not so clumsy.” The diminutive Frenchman made a sour face.

“I is sorry, Monsieur DeLuis.” stammered the giant. “I didn’t mean to break the wall again. I was just confused.”

The dark-suited man spoke up. “Don’t let it bother you, son. You come with us, and we’ve got a nice new home all picked out for you, and a great job you can do to help us.”

The giant’s face picked up. “Better than sweeping?”

The dark-suited man almost smiled. “Even better than that.”

Mann Dal Paris almost skipped out of the place alongside his new friend, but did not, minding his size and strength in the tiny Parisian restaurant.

In the deepest part of Happy Human Labs South Africa, a pair of medical technicians wheeled a sedated man along. They were flanked by several ranks of armed guards.

“So, what’s with the infantry?” asked Medtech one.

“Are you kidding? I asked for twice as many.” replied his counterpart. “You didn’t hear what happened to this guy the last time.”

“Last time? He’s a repeater, huh?” asked the first, looking at the man strapped to the gurney. He was tall and thin, with simply horrific amounts of scar tissue covering his face and hands. His body seemed to be constructed of patchwork bits of skin grafted together. He was a test subject - and obviously had seen thousands of questionable procedures in his miserable lifetime.

“Yeah.” replied Medtech two. “Some small-time crook got himself captured and sentenced to life as a test subject. Not pretty, what they’ve done to him since then. He’s basically a vegetable, but when he’s clear headed, he’s dangerous.”

“Huh. How long he been here?” Asked the first.

“‘Bout ten years, or so I understand. We’re shipping him out today, though. We got orders, apparently from very high up.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. We were told to remove all prosthetics and reverse as much as we could, and to ship him to the Chicago labs in America. Apparently he’s wanted to test something new, and, if you ask me, something big.”

The small troupe wheeled the unconscious man to a busy shipping and receiving room. A series of long steel boxes lined the room, and a robot slowly patrolled the room, avoiding the small herd of people bringing in various objects destined for shipping throughout the globe, scanning filled boxes, and lifting them into place. Carefully, the unconscious specimen of a man was lifted off the gurney and placed in a chosen box, hooked up to various sensors and intravenous cables, then carefully sealed in and placed into a line with other cargo destined for transportation. Only one thing differentiated this box from the others in line; the designation Seventeen: False that was stamped in large letters on the hood and sides of the temporary coffin.

The legal offices of Baynard and Chusky were lavish. No, they were more than that. They were divine. The modest office at the penthouse of the Mitsubishi Tower in downtown Japan-controlled Vancouver island was home to the most prosperous and successful attorneys on the hemisphere. In a private room furnished only by completely sentient, colour-changing flowers and a herd of luxuriously comfortable chairdebeests munching quietly on the organic, quick growing purcinias carpet, a pair of individuals fumed. One was the lawyer Diamond Chusky. The other was the soon-to-be ex-wife of Happy Human Labs Vancouver’s Senior Executive in Charge of Experimental Development, Sandra Baer.

The forty-ish woman, decked out in artificial furs and flowery gaiety, addressed her viciously expensive attorney in a rich southern American accent that betrayed her as no native of this place. “Now, sir, I expect you’ll have no trouble extracting what it is that I want from that scumbag Charlie and his floozy of a mistress, am I right?”

The lawyer fidgeted but replied. “I forsee few problems, madam. But the package he’s offering you is quite generous. As a professional, I would recommend you accept it graciously. The summer house, the cars, half the money, and a new position in Happs Chicago as a product tester on some high-level project - all very lucrative.”

Mrs. Baer bristled. “I have no need to accept my scandalous husband’s payoff. I have a perfectly valid case and I intend to make it work for me. In short, sir, I expect to make YOU work for me.”

A light started beeping on the lawyer’s desk. Chusky glanced at it and sighed. “I’m sorry, madam. But it turns out that I can’t do that after all.”

Mrs. Baer sat straight up in her living chair, which adjusted itself to support her change in distribution of weight. “Excuse me? I’m paying you. Why can’t you?”

The lawyer grinned. “Because you aren’t paying me enough.”

The chair that Mrs. Baer was sitting on promptly heaved back and galloped on its tiny, stubby legs towards the door and halted abruptly. The door swung open and a large, dark-suited man stared down at Mrs. Baer in a most disconcerting way.

The lawyer moved around his desk. “I’m sorry, madam, but your husband - a wealthy and influential man - has ‘volunteered’ you for a new position in the company. I’m afraid that he wants to avoid any potentially devastating scandals or lawsuits, and you’ve brought one of each to his attention.”

She barely had time to inhale to scream as a tendril shot out of the dark-suited man’s wrist and stung her on the neck, pitching everything in her world into darkness.

Fort Tucson military base was a large and well-known training facility for the United States military. Presently, a group of individuals hurried down a corridor deep within the facility. They passed by training rooms where men of various stature practised bare-handed and with arms against a variety of simulated targets. Here were the training facilities for the most impressive soldiers the military had to offer.

The two men in the lead were an odd couple. One, a highly decorated and plumed general, the other wearing a lab coat adorned with the insignia of the Happy Human Labs. The rest of the entourage consisted equally of military officers of various high rank and the omnipresent dark-suited men of the Happy Human Labs.

The general was talking, “Your boys have promised me a field trial of the new materials by late next week. Do you intend to follow through on your promise, Mr. Deville?”

The Happs representative answered. “General, we’ve been working on this with you for some time. I have no reason to believe we’d want to back out now.”

“Dr. Batis assures us of the probability of success.”

Deville cut him off, “...and you’ll be first to know when it does, General. All we need is the individual in question.”

The group strode to the end of a hall and through a pair of double doors into a large gym. A group of men were wrestling in the centre with a single soldier who stood bare-chested. The men he was wrestling with were all smaller than the bare-chested man, but moved with incredible speed and agility - and the fluid muscular movements of an artificially enhanced body. Despite being outnumbered, the larger man was holding his ground.

At the group’s entrance, the general announced, “Ah. Here’s our man now.”

“AttentION!” Called out the gym trainer, and abruptly all the men in the ring stopped and stood single-file, with the heaving, sweaty, bare-chested man at one end. The Happs man examined him with interest. Up close, he was impressive. A towering man with ebon skin and a thickly muscled body, he was obviously an incredible physical specimen.

“Here you are, then, sirs. Private Billy Raymond. Unaltered, original human soldier. Conditioned just as you asked for.” The sergeant, thus addressed, glanced over to survey the group. The general called up to the ring to the dark-skinned man. “Are you ready to serve your country, Private?”

“Sir, yes sir! Sir, I’ve been training my whole life for this, SIR!”

“Well,” said the general. “He’s been briefed. He’s all yours now.”

Mr. Deville raised a hand, and the dark-suited men accompanying him began to climb into the ring, scattering the private’s former opponents. “Just a moment, general. I want to test the candidate’s abilities for myself.”

The general just smiled. “Whatever you want. We have nothing to hide. Give ‘em hell, private!” he called up to the man in the ring.

As one, the four dark-suited men attacked. Their combined speed was ludicrous - no ordinary man could have evaded them. The dark soldier hardly waited for his opponents. He hurtled like a tiger towards the first and met him solidly. He pummelled the dark-suited man with his fists, but the unnatural Happs’ man did not give. Feeling the rush of the others, Private Raymond reached past his opponent’s grasping arms and hurled the first Happs’ man from the ring. The dark-suited man twisted in mid air and landed, catlike, on his feet. He was about to head back to the ring, but a wave from the Happs’ Mr. Deville halted the rush. In the ring, the other three had fallen onto the private, and was immediately hard-pressed to defend himself. Thin, flexible cables shot out of his assailant’s wrists and bound him across arms, waist and throat. Two of the men held the private thusly while the third lashed out with his tendrils and stung the soldier repeatedly. After three or four such barrages, the soldier stopped moving.

The lab-coated Mr. Deville of Happy Human Labs just shook his head. “Nothing stands in the way of superior technology, general.” Then he laughed.

Warden Miller did not like the little man facing him on the viewscreen. Did not like him at all. In all his forty years of managing the prison colony of Barbados, he had known the most unlikeable people humanity had to offer. To say that the warden did not like the man he was presently talking to was saying a lot.

“And you want me to just release him to your custody, Dr. Batis?” the warden was saying, “He’s not eligible for submission to product testing. The families of his victims purposely selected life in prison.”

The reedy figure of Dr. Batis scowled on the prison warden’s viewscreen. “I am aware of all of this. You may be surprised to know that this particular inmate has been selected as part of a...prisoner rehabilitation program.”

The warden scoffed. “There’s been thousands of prisoner rehab programs. Most of them work. This guy has not been OFFERED such mercy. He’s suffering for his crimes in here. No matter how nice and docile they make him, he’s still a killer. The victim’s families have the right to choose punishment after the verdict is delivered.”

The image of Dr. Batis shrugged slightly in his too-tight suit. “Be as difficult as you like. All the appropriate paperwork has been filled out months ago. The only issue left is whether you are going to peacefully ship him here, or whether I will be forced to the uncomfortable position of having to send my own men out to claim him.”

The warden glared at the screen. Not for nothing had he been given power over this place for the past forty years. “I’ve already seen the damn paperwork. But I swear to God that while I’m warden, no one is taking that man out of this prison. The law is the law, and justice is justice. He stays with me, paperwork or not, you little asshole.” And with that, the warden flicked off the monitor and terminated the connection. He was mad. Mad at the system, mad at the Happs, mad at everything. He stared at his personal computer, where he could see displayed the criminal reports of the convict in question: the man to whom the greatest number of personally handled murders in all human history had been attributed, the pyromanic who called himself ‘Prince Bastard’. Finally he shut the machine off with an curse and grabbed his coat.

When the notice of the termination of his employment came through via fax a few minutes later, the warden was not there to read it. Witnesses said that he had left shortly before in a fuming rage, something completely unlike the man. Nevertheless, it was to his unexpected firing and the man’s subsequent reckless anger that the authorities attributed his tragic and fatal car accident later that night.

Kelly Nivea ran through a corridor, then another, seemingly at random. She was lost. Her clothes were ripped at the midriff and shoulder, and deep bruises were evident on her face and arms. Closely to her breast she held her 6-month-old son, Robbie. Rounding a corner in the monotone and seemingly endless maze of corridors that made up the bowels of the Happy Human Labs London’s Human Resources Department, she finally came upon a series of elevators. She sprinted up to them, panting heavily, eyes wild with fear. Behind her, somewhere amidst the maze of corridors and cubicles, she heard the sound of a trash can being knocked over.

Gasping with renewed fear, she jabbed repeatedly at the call button on the elevator, desperately whimpering to herself. A reassuring ding sounded as the elevator arrived a moment later. But at that sound, she heard a half dozen other sounds, scattered behind her - the sound of men who had heard the elevator call bell and who were now zeroing in on her with tremendous speed.

Kelly squeezed into the elevator as the doors opened, then slammed down on the close button. She watched the doors close just as the shadow of a huge man crossed her line of sight on the wall opposite the elevator doors. She breathed a sigh of relief as the elevator began to move. She brushed at the child’s face, wiping her own sweat off its brow. Kelly withdrew from her pocket the one thing that had let her evade her pursuers so far - a civilian-approved personal defence weapon, designed specifically to halt and incapacitate mechanically-augmented criminals. Most petty criminals couldn’t afford biological augmentation, but robotics were cheap and easy to find. She checked the charge on the weapon; it was less than half full.

Sighing, she forced herself to calm her breathing, resting against the wall and getting ready to complete the sprint from the elevator to the front door. She didn’t know who the strange dark-suited men were who chased her. Only that her boss had requested her presence at his office late this evening, and had asked that she bring her son. Yet instead of who she expected, were those eight men in dark suits who had tried to grab her and her child. Instead, she’d shot at them and run.

She had no plan - only to get away. Fear and panic had lent her strength and speed. Finally, the elevator settled at the ground floor and opened. She started out at a jog, looking left and right for ominous dark-suited forms. She entered the great glass-framed foyer of the building, making for the wide entrance doors which were bathed in the light of street lamps from outside. The eerie dark and silence of the great building was unnerving to her; there should at least have been security guards on call here. She slowed as she reached the door, reached out to grab the handle.

It was pure luck that saved her. With a resounding crash the door to the emergency stairwell on the other side of the foyer blasted open as if impacted by a terrific force. Kelly bounded backwards by instinct as the metal door flew past where she’d been standing a moment before. She look back as a dark suited man hurtled with demonic speed through the damaged opening. In one motion, he raised an arm, and a long, fleshy tentacle shot out. It covered the twenty feet separating them in almost lightning speed. But Kelly was frightened to superhuman speed herself, and already had her weapon raised. A blue arc of energy whipped out from the barrel of the stubby weapon. The target-seeking, intelligent weapon directed the wildly-aimed barrel towards the hurtling tentacle at speeds unmatchable by Kelly’s assailant. The arc of energy latched onto the end of the tentacle, which twitched and stopped in mid air. At near-light speeds, the shock had travelled up the tentacle and engulfed its owner in a bath of blue haze. In another moment, the man was hurled back into the stairwell corridor and into a group of his fellows, then crumpled down to the ground, smoke rising from his twitching body, the tentacle automatically retracting to the grotesque man’s wrist.

Kelly didn’t wait. She turned and sprinted out the door, hearing the thudding of too-quick feet from the foyer behind her. She fumbled with her weapon for a moment as she emerged into the rainy night, splashing through puddles. Just ahead of her, parked against the side of the road, was a militia patrol cruiser. Frantically, she ran towards it, trying to swap out the power supply of the weapon while holding onto baby and sanity at the same time. Finally giving up on the weapon as she crossed the last five minutes, she tucked it in her waistband and impacted the side of the car, pounding on the side of the window to a startled patrol officer.

“Please! Let me in! Please!” she screamed.

“What the...!” exclaimed one of the patrol officers. “Hey, hey, calm down, get off the car, lady!”

“Please, take my baby! They’re coming!” she pleaded.

“Who’s coming?” asked the second patrol officer, reaching for the door-open control on the side of the vehicle.

Kelly suddenly shook once and fell limp against the vehicle. The patrol officers saw the three large men in dark suits emerge from the Happs building behind her, but not the fourth standing off to the side. If they had seen him, they might have noticed the thin, spiny tentacle retract into a fleshy protrusion on the man’s wrist.

One of the patrol officers scratched his head confusedly. “What do you make of her?”

His partner shook his head and opened his door, stepped out into the rain. He ran his light over the three men. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

“This woman broke into our facilities and was trying to steal property.” replied one of the large men. “Don’t worry about her, we’ll take care of her. She’s probably a vagrant on some kind of narcotics. We’re H.H.L. Enforcers.” The three raised their wrists and tiny holographic projectors embedded therein displayed floating images of official badges of the Happy Human Labs security corps - which, among other things, gave these men powers equalling that of the patrol officers in terms of law enforcement.

The patrol officers stared at the woman a moment, then shrugged. “Just get her off the car. And take care of that baby.” The infant lay squealing where it had been dropped at the woman’s feet in a puddle. With that, the officer climbed back into his vehicle. One of the dark-suited men gathered up the infant while the second lifted the woman off the vehicle in one massive hand. Once the cruiser had gone around the bend, the men turned to re-enter the building. What happened next was equal parts fate and justice. The Enforcer carrying Kelly’s limp form adjusted her on his shoulder, and as he did so, the weapon wedged in her belt came loose and tumbled to the ground. The weapon was still open at the side, the three-quarters drained - but still active - energy core exposed dangerously on the side. The gun splashed down in a puddle and hit the ground hard, cracking open and exposing live and damaged circuits to the atmosphere.

None of the men had a moment to react. In an instant, a violet cloud of electric energy erupted along the ground as the charge spread under the feet of the men and through the puddles in which they stood. The power core drained of all its remaining energy, not in a controlled and non-lethal stream capable of rendering a victim unconscious, but in a vicious haze of lethal power, jolting all present and throwing them in all directions. When, a few minutes later, the enhanced men and their captives were discovered by another roving security cruiser, they were horrified to discover all of them, including the woman and baby, dead on the wet sidewalk near a broken and drained civilian shock pistol, their brains and central nervous systems completely shut down by terrible energies that had erupted from the damaged charging device and power core of the weapon.

whoa.... sensory overload!! Very good!

Val Tannis awoke with a pounding headache. He was aware of a damp sensation across his brow, on and off. With a great force of will he opened his eyes and blinked. The light from an overhead source was jarring to his senses. For a moment he saw stars, then closed his eyes and relaxed. He felt the dampness again. Someone was applying a cold, wet cloth to his forehead.

He licked his lips, feeling parched. He searched his memories carefully to figure out if he knew where he was or why he felt like the floor of a public transport. Nothing. He vaguely recalled speaking with the scarecrow of a man from the Happs, then something about a drinking binge. He had no idea of what had occurred other than that. He forced himself to open his eyes again, and found himself staring up into a wide, blond-bearded face of giant proportions. The man didn’t look like an Augment...he just looked big. A big fist came into view and dabbed at his forehead again.

“Where am I?” Val asked, wincing at the effort it took to move his jaw.

Harsh, thick British tones assailed him; “Happy Human Labs Chicago, of course. You took a nasty fall on the way in. Banged your head. You were staggering like you’d emptied a barrel of beer by yourself and passed out. You’ve got a nasty bruise.”

Val sighed painfully. “Happs, huh?” Val still recalled his meeting with Agent Delberg. He wasn’t sure why he had ended up with the Happs when he was sure he had planned to turn down the job offer when it came. “And who are you?”

“Name’s Talbain. Talbain Arsteel. I’m your roommate, for the night at least. They were bringing in people all night. All shapes and sizes. Gonna be an interesting project they’ve got us on, don’t ya think?”

Tannis shook his head, forced himself to sit up. He felt his forehead. He did indeed feel a lump where he’d banged his head on something. “Great. I guess you’re one of their Testers too, huh?”

The giant’s pride seemed dinged. “I am. And what of it? They said I’m as highly qualified as you college boys.” He smirked. “At least I can hold my alcohol when I’m out celebrating my new fortunes.”

Val looked around. The giant had helpfully dimmed the lights in the small apartment. He recognized the style; it was a corporate apartment, used to house personnel who were working on projects so top-secret that the company didn’t trust them enough to leave the premises. He’d seen them before, but never been in one. The apartment was extremely luxurious; all mechanicals, no organics. It was obviously designed for the comfort of those sentenced to live in them. However, Val considered, a well-made-up prison was still a prison. Whatever he had agreed to, he was going to be doing it for a while. Conglomerates, all of them, guarded their secrets well. And Val knew that this meant that he would be under as careful a guard as long as he was exposed to those secrets.

“You said there were others coming in? Where are they?” Val asked the big man.

Talbain stood. “Been coming and going all night. A couple of women, some old geezer, a very young boy, a man who makes me look like a brine shrimp but who seems to be on par with the boy in terms of his noggin, some black fellow who stands so straight you can smell the military training on him. Oh, and a pair of guys in stasis boxes.” The giant grinned. “A real odd company, ours is.”

Val Tannis shook his head. Those would be the ‘others’ Delberg had mentioned, if indeed he had been telling the truth. At that moment, the door chimed and swung open. A tall, lanky fellow in a grey coverall wandered in. Not one but three floating pickups followed close by him, ducking as they cleared the doorframe.

The man smiled. “Ah, good morning, Mr. Tannis. I noticed on the monitor pickup that you were awake. Welcome to The Project.”

Val held one hand to his temple, stood up. “And who are you?”

“Oh, sorry for not introducing myself. I’m coordinator Winters. I’m in charge of the accommodation block here. I’ll be looking after you during your tenure with us.”

The giant spoke up. “And any idea how long that’ll be? I don’t enjoy being out of the sunshine for too long.”

The man waved a reassuring hand. “Not too long, I think. I don’t know the exact details, but apparently you’ve all be selected as testers for an important project. I have heard, however, that it’s going to be fairly simple, all in all. Shouldn’t take more than a month at most. Then, if all goes well, I’m sure the company will transfer you to another program, and so on. That’s how it goes in the Testing business.” Winters handed the two men slim datapads, on which was printed a dizzying amount of information. “These explain the details of your contract, payment information and compensations, as well as benefits and company expectations. It also has our mission statement, company history, and a lot of other general information packages. You don’t really have to go over it all, but at least review the contract and affix your personal confirmation seal to them. If you don’t have a seal, a thumbprint will do until we can get one implanted. Other than that, if you would like to come with me, we’re all meeting in the lounge for breakfast.”

The big man stood, licking his chops. Tannis didn’t feel like eating. Or moving. Or anything for that matter. But he did want a better look at his surroundings and the people he was supposed to be working with. They *did* sound like an odd bunch. Val Tannis and Talbain followed Winters out into an open corridor. The ceiling here was high, and the walls were lined with rows of window-baskets containing various beautiful and sweet-smelling exotic plants. The air was slightly humid and warm, and the high, arched ceiling contained bright sunlights. Tannis doubted, however, that it was the actual sun and sky he was looking at. More likely, they were several miles underground in a structure capable of withstanding everything up to and including orbital impact cannon attacks.

The corridor opened up into a spacious lounge area, complete with swimming pool, billiard table, and many ingeniously designed artificial sports and net access ports. At one end of the room, sitting besides a gorgeously designed garden pond, was a series of tables and chairs and what looked like a small open-air restaurant. A few individuals were already sitting around this area. One, a gorgeous young woman in seductively tailored clothing, another an older woman wearing a jumpsuit like the one Winters and, Tannis observed, himself were wearing. She, like Tannis, also looked like she had recently awoken with a violent hangover. The large black man that Talbain had mentioned sat in a far corner, eating a modest breakfast. His bullet head was shaved smooth, and a military ID barcode was tattooed onto the man’s left cheek, just below the eye. Over by the pond, a young boy was prodding at the waters with a stick, while an ancient-looking man sat near him, watching him with tired eyes.

“Excuse me.” came a voice, thick with a French accent and deep and powerful. Tannis almost jumped to the side as an enormous man wandered out of the corridor and past him. Val Tannis had never seen such a man. He was freakishly large - a good three metres up and broad in proportion. Nevertheless, he smiled playfully at Val Tannis as he passed, and sauntered over to where the young boy was playing, and joined him in poking at the water and the fish therein.

Val didn’t need any of his experience working for a conglomerate to tell him what was wrong with this group; Testers were usually design engineers of the highest caliber, who had spent lifetimes in their particular field and consequently knew exactly what was wrong with every product that crossed their path, and exactly how to fix them. This group of children, octogenarians, gentle giants and fashion models was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a selection of the finest and brightest of any scientific or engineering field.

The hulking Talbain came and stood beside Val to survey the group. “Hardly what you’d expect, eh, lad?” Talbain said, echoing Val’s thoughts. “You and that old lady over there are the only ones here who actually look like they belong in a conglomerate testing lab.”

Val looked up with interest at the big man. He wondered that there might be more to him than met the eye. He speculated on the big man’s age again, and failed. Talbain might have been thirty or fifty.

A chime, as of a dinner bell, rang throughout the lounge area. At that, the attention of the small group perked up. On one wall, an image was suddenly projected; that of Dr. Batis.

“Good morning, all.” came the reedy voice over the room’s speaker system. “I trust you’ve all been made comfortable.” the enigmatic Happs scientist seemed downright happy. “I do not intend to waste much over your time with this; I would just like to welcome you to your inclusion in this project, an event which marks the culmination of decades of research and preparation. Each of you, each in your own way, has some quality that we are looking for. I admit that our method of selection has been...shall we say, duplicitous, but nevertheless I am glad that you all saw fit to accept your invitations to work with us...in one form or another.”

Val Tannis took a moment to pause from watching the image’s strange welcoming speech and evaluate the responses of his fellow team members. Tannis was confused, annoyed, and frightened all at once. He was sure he didn’t want to be here, and was unsure of why he’d accepted the job. Of the lot of them he only saw a similar expression on the face of the 40-ish woman in the jumpsuit. She bore a look of resignation, despair and defeat that seemed wildly out of place for a person recently selected to work in a lucrative, top-flight job. The young, exotic-looking woman seemed more content with attending to caring for her fingernails. Of the others, the young boy seemed to pay little to no attention, as did the titan. The old man seemed oblivious to the world around him. The soldier had his eyes locked on the screen, but he was trained to pay close attention to his superiors. Talbain stood stock-still, arms folded. He was paying attention to the screen, but a light and sarcastic grin split his face. Here is a man, thought Val Tannis, who know when he’s caught up in something he shouldn’t be into.

“Please enjoy the day.” the image of Dr. Batis was saying. “Come tomorrow morning, we will be starting with your first assignment.” With that, the projection on the wall flashed and vanished, leaving Val Tannis with even more questions than before. He turned to look for Winters, the only other Haps representative that he had met, but the man was nowhere to be found. Rubbing his still-sore temple, he stalked towards the common area with Talbain to grab his breakfast and, he hoped, some more insight from his fellow teammates...or perhaps inmates.

Hm, interesting. Very interesting. This is going great, Lag.

One question, why do you periodically call Val by his full name (in the same chapter, that is)? Just curious.