The emotions were easy to gauge because he felt it and knew it was her reaction. The thoughts were harder because he had to learn to separate his own from hers. It was easier in the beginning. Her thoughts were focused on his avatar body; images of his nakedness slipped into his mind and he knew that was how she saw him in VR. But it was different in remote viewing. Something had happened in the course of his putting a sexual imprint in her psyche while that brain oscillator had adjusted their brain waves to theta.
He had expected the remote viewing experience to be similar to what they had been doing but instead, her bilocation had been fully projected into his mind, as if she was the virtual reality room and he was experiencing what she was doing there. He hadn’t needed to ask her any questions at all; he could see and feel what she was seeing and doing. The only thing he couldn’t control was movement. It was a strangely…disembodied experience. With full sensory capabilities.
He was excited by the experience. He’d never thought any new thing at COMCEN could excite him that much. But then, this involved Helen and anything she did excited him. He had thought to be inside her soon, but this was reallyinsideher. And he had been there to feel her response to him.
Did she know what he had done? She had to. She was a GEM operative and a remote viewing one. She’d understood the implications of sexual mind imprintment. She probably didn’t have the time to analyze it all yet but he had no doubt she would be even angrier once she did. He looked forward to their next session.
He had an inkling what that serum would do. He wasn’t suffering from RV downtime or he’d take it himself and do the operation without her needing to have that shit inside her. The thought startled him.
He had never stopped any operative—male or female—from doing what they were trained to do before. In his world, every operative was needed for whatever capacity they were trained. Sometimes, it had meant sacrifice. Often, there was compromise. He had done both.
Helen was perfectly capable at getting this operation done, with or without him. He’d watched her train for this moment and after getting some of her thoughts, he knew she was more than ready, mentally or physically. It was the drug that worried him and with Helen, he was determined not to sacrifice or compromise.
“Operation instructions,” he said softly. “Number One, Number Four, Number Seven, Number Nine. Number One will start with initiating a dummy account. Number Five will obviously be transport. Number Four take care of weapons. Stand by for further instructions from Number Nine.”
Eleven
Helen shook her head when Alex Diamond offered her a bottle of water. She wasn’t thirsty.
“Drink,” he ordered.
“Later,” she said. She examined the dress she had been given. She frowned when the bottle was shoved under her nose. “What is it with you and water?”
“You have that serum in you. The first time, you forget to eat or drink.”
She looked up and found herself staring into his light blue eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m feeling neither hungry nor thirsty.”
“When did you last eat or drink?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to her. “A while,” she admitted. “Is it the drug doing this?”
Alex Diamond took her hand and put the bottled water in it. “It takes a few times to remember that what you aren’t feeling is still there,” he said before he walked off down the aisle of the plane.
Helen stared after him thoughtfully as she unscrewed the cap from the drink bottle. She took a long swig.
It takes a few times to remember that what you aren’t feeling is still there.Interesting turn of phrase. And he was correct. Mentally counting, she should be hungry by now. It’d been a long day. Yet she wasn’t feeling any need for food or drink at all.
They had told her the effects of the serum but telling her wasn’t the same as experiencing it for herself. She had thought, for some reason, that she would feel like a superwoman or something, able to do anything. A high or a rush, maybe.
Nothing. She felt perfectly normal. Yet, she’d forgotten to eat and drink. Of course the drug would be insidious, you idiot. It was a painkiller. Like a giant dose of Advil or something. Like he said—she glanced down the aisle again—she had to pay attention to what she would usually be feeling. She finished her drink as she continued watching him move around the spacious plane.
Number One, that was what they called him during operations. Alex Diamond looked the part of the initiator. She thought of what little she knew about him through files. T. wasn’t too forthcoming with the information for some reason. Helen smiled wryly.
Alex Diamond, late thirties, one of the original commandos. One of the five in that incident that had killed two of her GEM sisters, one of whom happened to be his wife. The only one who had ever walked out of a COS operation and had to be lured back into the fold. In a way, Alex Diamond had initiated the beginnings of the merger between COMCEN and GEM.
Initially, the big blast had been thought to have killed all of the operatives. GEM was just a contract agency for COMCEN then, but without Diamond and the others at the helm, COMCEN was forced to change.
Helen wondered how they convinced him to come back. Alex Diamond didn’t seem the type that could be easily threatened or tempted. She had an idea T. had something to do with it. Anyway, he was back as Number One, and she was to work with him today. She glanced at her watch. Frankfurt’s time difference was six hours.
“Should I sleep, too?” she asked as he came back toward her.
It was disconcerting the way his gaze seemed penetrating and yet, uninterested, at the same time. “You won’t be able to the first time,” he said. “Your body’s confused, even though you feel fine.”
“Is that how the serum affected you?”
“SYMBIOS 1. I’ve heard your version is an improvement,” he said, his expression hardening slightly as he added, “as Armando would no doubt testify.”
Was that a warning? “They told me the thing about both serums is that they have different effects per individual. I’m just collecting data from all of you who’ve tried it,” Helen said. “It’ll help me.”
