AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You told me to civilize the girl. Less than two minutes later, she’s being set on by thugs.”
“A colorful description for your fellow agents,” the Head observes.
“They are not my fellow anything. The way they handle her is disgusting. It is inhuman. You wonder why she behaves in such a feral manner, you don’t have much further to look than your mirror.”
She is still for a moment. Then her lips quirk at one corner in what might be a smile. “You’re lecturing me, Doctor Ares.”
“I’m telling you what you need to hear,” I say. “I’ve been given no proper briefing. All I know of this girl is what I’ve seen.”
“Then perhaps you should have checked your email before walking her out the front door.”
“… Perhaps,” I admit.
“Let me deliver the bullet points of the matter now,” the Head says. “Electra is never to leave this facility. She is extremely dangerous. I would have thought that would be obvious to you, but apparently you need the obvious explained to you.”
Fair call. I suppose it was a stupid thing to do, but I took the ‘you own her’ part literally. Apparently, that’s just code for ‘we won’t stop you if you want to hurt her’ which is a huge part of the problem in the first place.
I search the woman’s face. “If that’s the case, why have her at all? She’s of no use to you here. There’s no point keeping operatives captive.”
“I have my reasons.”
I wait, but she does not expound upon them, so I suppose whatever those reasons are, they’re not for me to know.
“What do you want me to do with her?”
“I want you to tame her, Doctor Ares.”
“Can’t be done here. Can’t be done if she’s constantly being assaulted by your soldiers.” I almost say henchmen. I am usually very good at keeping my temper, but today has tested it on multiple fronts.
“You’re going to have to make it happen here. There are more resources than you seem to be aware of. I can give you an apartment to live in so you can be on site. I can provide some quiet areas…”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” She gives me a glare.
“You want her to act normally. No one acts normally here.”
“Miss Electra has never been allowed to mix with the general public. We are not going to break twenty years of protocol because of your demands, Doctor Ares.”
“Why hasn’t she been allowed out in twenty years?”
“Because she’s dangerous.”
“She can’t always have been dangerous.”
“Incorrect.”
“You’re saying she was choking people out cold before she was out of diapers?”
The Head’s lips thin. “What has been done, has been done out of necessity.”
“Then why are you trying to change it now? You can’t raise a person in a cage and expect them to be normal. You say she’s twenty years old now? She may never adapt.”
“She needs to be able to perform her intended function.”
“Which is?”
“You know what we do here.”
“Nobody knows what we do here,” I counter. “Least of all me.”
Ken doesn’t say much about the missions he goes on. Most of the time I don’t think he knows why he’s on them. He does as he is told. Kill this guy. Save that guy. Steal this item. Sabotage that one. He does it without question, because that’s what good soldiers do. I don’t have the same appetite for chaos and death. My job is to heal, and to protect if necessary.
“I would very much like to take her to my place…”
“She needs to be under guard. She’s far too dangerous to be at large.” The Head is adamant. In my time in this facility, I have rarely had reason to take issue with her, but in this moment I am frustrated. They have created a problem, and they won’t let me do what is necessary to fix it.
The woman’s expression softens a little. “I understand that this does not seem rational to you, Doctor Ares. There are factors at play which I am not at liberty to disclose. All I can tell you is that I do think she has a chance. I will allocate resources to create a facsimile of some kind of normality here. Show me that she can subdue her aggressive impulses. Teach her to be a decent person and we will see about letting her out one day. What I’m asking you to do is precisely the opposite of what I ask most trainers to do. She’s already a killing machine. Make her a human as well.”
“That is a tall order.”
“It is. I have already put the fourth floor aside expressly for this project. It will be ready soon. Electra has been released into a holding cell in the meantime. You can retrieve her once you have familiarized yourself with her file.”
I could tell her no. I could walk away from this now. But now I’ve laid eyes on Electra, now I’ve seen her pain, and more than that, her capacity for simple pleasure: I can’t walk away from her. Nobody here is going to give her what she needs. She’s going to get worse. And I don’t know what will happen to her then, but a life under lockdown is pretty close to no life at all.
