Chapter 8.3 Testing

Amos doubts mounted once the entire group was in the little conference room they been taken too. The windows were thick enough to stop bullets and overlooked smaller rooms with a cold heartless look to them. The nurses had given everyone a shot glass of some reddish liquid to drink that smelt like cough syrup and tasted like glue.

Along with the cup of medicine, everyone had to drink there was also a need for a shunt for the tests. Lines had formed quickly, organized by the enforcers, to get a shot of local anesthetic in the back of a hand so that an IV could be inserted once it was your time to get locked into a chair. They injected so much a bubble of the stuff formed under the skin and the hole left by the needle puckered up immediately after the metal was removed so none of the stuff was squeezed back out. Already his bubble had flattened out and worked its magic; he felt nothing when he rubbed the skin on the back of his hand where he d gotten the shot.

"Smith! You re up."

Amos looked across the room at a currently nameless enforcer of Bergers who was holding a clipboard in his beefy fist, and a pen in the other hand. The guy looked like he s sucked on a lemon and hadn't gone to the bathroom in a week. That added to the military haircut and hawk like gaze made the leet think that the man was a marine reject from boot camp that happened to get lucky with this job where being a brute was a plus.

He muttered and walked over to the thuggish man and suffered with being walked down one of the twisting hallways to a testing room with a heavy hand on his shoulder constantly. There wasn't anywhere else to go or a way to avoid being caught if he did try to run, any attempt would get you in trouble and in Amos s case likely reassigned to a much worse fate than this.

The room was actually one he'd looked into from the conference room and even if he hadn't looked in the chair left little to the imagination, whoever sat in it was going to get strapped down and held there until they were released. Attached to the back of the chair was a large machine with several monitors that checked routines things you would expect in a hospital and more. If he had to guess, the helmet he was going to be wearing once he was strapped down would be monitoring how his brain was working.

That would have been fine if you ignored the restraints at arm and leg positions that were maybe five inches long padded on the inside and made of metal. Worse still, it took a key to unlock them and up close and person the thought of being a prisoner in that thing was making his stomach desperately want to get away.

"Take your jacket off and roll up your sleeve of the numbed hand so we can get the I.V. in and please have a seat."

The nurse gestured toward the chair and watched Amos with professional detachment as he stripped off his jacket and glasses before undoing a sleeve cuff and pulled it up. Once he was down and the nameless enforcer had started locking his legs in place the woman, who was in her late thirties at most and good looking regardless, smiled as she approached with a plastic board and a roll of surgical tape and reached for Amos partially bare arm.

"Excuse me..." Amos pulled his arm back toward his chest and flinched as the brute clamped the restraint down on is other arm so quickly that it caught skin and hair. The raw need to ease that pain that drove him to struggle to get the caught flesh free, it also allowed the person responsible for the sudden burst of pain to grab the free arm by the wrist and pin it against the armrest.

"Not so rough Weiss, he doesn't pose any threat as he is now. Mr. Smith this is just a precaution to keep you from hurting yourself with the needle in case you react positively to the stimuli."

The woman, with the generous help of Weiss, taped the restrained mans arm to the board and swiftly stuck a needle in the back of the numbed hand before the last metal cuff was locked down. There was no way out but forward and his arm still stung where the restraint had grabbed skin through his long sleeved shirt.

"The unpleasantness could have been avoided if you had not resisted Mr. Smith."

Weiss chuckled darkly and pushed the chair towards the machines until it shifted to a reclining position with a heavy sounding click. Amos felt his heart beat pick up as the last restraint was pulled across his chest, tightened and secured, maybe this had been a mistake to just accept that the authorization was really from the Auditor. Maybe he should have insisted on looking it over to make sure it was real since he wouldn't put it past that gene twisting freak to fabricate something like that.

He was abruptly brought out of his anxious thoughts as the nurse bent over to grab the helmet behind his head with a flash of one hell of a deep chasm he hadn't seen before because of her shirt. The sudden exposure of flesh caught him off guard the same way Weiss had with the restraint and before he could blink the soft curves from his minds eye the helmet was down and secured. Well that had been very effective and far less painful, and also very sad. He had trained not to be surprised in new situations so either he was losing his edge or needed a woman in the worst way.

Blinded and unable to move the pair finished hooking the machines to the captive before Amos was finally left alone. An EKG hammered out the frenzied dance his heart was doing and he gripped the arms of the chair as his fear mounted. It looked fine from that room but having it happen to you was very different. The restraints tightened like pressure cuffs firmly kept him from wriggling his arms and legs without sacrificing blood flow. He felt about ready to throw up or to empty his bowels whichever happened to come first followed by the other option.

"You need to relax."

Berger's voice, as unwelcome as it always was, startled Amos into flinching and he turned his head to try and figure out where the man was, it sounded like he was in the room and very close.

"Try not to move your head too much; the cables on that particular helmet have gotten a little loose since we started. If we can't get good readings from you, you'll have to do this again tomorrow."

"Readings for what! You've done a damn good job keeping me in the dark!"

"I can see you saying something Mr. Smith but there's no receiver in that helmet only a pair of speakers in the helmet so you'll have to use some hand signals to communicate with us. You've watched the others so this should be easy. Closed fist with your thumb sticking out is no and open hand with only your middle and ring fingers touching is yes. Do you understand so far?"

Speakers, so the doctor might not be in the room. That made him feel a little better for some reason and he took a shaky breath before signaling yes with his right hand.

"Good. Do you understand that you shouldn't move your head?

Another yes.

"Good then we can begin."

How about not! Amos curled both his hands into fists and shot the doctor as strong a no as humanly possible before uncurling the left one when he remembered about the needle. Not feeling anything when you had a piece of metal shoved under your skin was the best way to hurt yourself.

"That wasn't a question Smith," the doctor voice quieted like he had turned to talk to someone else, "Begin on my mark."

"Doctor if I may? Perhaps I can get him on board."

That was the nurse that had flashed him! Speaking of which if her cleavage had been a grenade he would have been dead but damn what a fine view, it was like looking into the Grand Canyon.

"You have two minutes."

"Thank you, sir." Amos could just imagine those full red lips curling into s sultry smile and the EKG beeped a slightly different rhythm behind his head. "Perhaps you are confused? Everyone else knows what this testing is for but until recently, you were kept in the dark for security reasons. Is this your concern?"

Yes. He stopped for a moment and followed it with a no. He didn't really care that they were keeping him away from a secret project what bothered him was why he was suddenly forced to be a part of it.

"Part of your concern?"

He thought a moment before signaling the yes followed swiftly by no.

"Maybe?"

Yes.

"We only have a minute left Mr. Smith so I'll summarize this as well as I can for you. Project VALKYRIE is nearly ready to enter its next phase and for that, we need someone with high empathy of a special kind to be on hand to stabilize it once it's fully awake. Your boss is unable to screen any candidates and send them over so we have to scan our own staff before things become critical. There s only a 20% chance that you will qualify but wouldn't it be nice to rule yourself out now and not have to deal with that chair again?"

Oh god yes.

"Then let's get started, you'll have to calm down a bit though your vitals really are elevated so you're not going to give us a clean reading, how about the easy method first."

Amos wondered what this easy way was when his ears were bombarded with a low discordant tone that set his teeth on edge. It was like scraping your teeth on sandpaper or biting down on a bit of bone in a good piece of steak that was supposed to be boneless if such things were turned into a sound.

"By translating your brainwaves into a sound we can get a fairly good idea of your emotional state. It s a technique used in some forms of therapy where patients are asked to emulate a tone in the hope of promoting permanent changes in the brain over several sessions but for now we need something temporary from you."

He heard a second tone, this time it was something in the medium range and made him think of a mint ice cream cone on a hot summer s day. It sounded a lot nicer than the one before and he felt somewhat relieved at the disruption in the low rumble he d experienced moments before.

"This is the sound of emotional calm we d like you to achieve before we begin the real testing. Feel free to play around with the tonal changes; you will get a reminder of the sound we'd like you to reach every two minutes. I'll let you know when we start the actual test."

Amos smiled ruefully and fanned his fingers for a yes. The nurse really was a hell of a lot nicer than he'd first thought or perhaps she was looking out for this project by getting balky agents to cooperate.

He heard the discordant tone shift upward on the scale and settled into the restraints and chair as comfortably as he could. If what was going on in his head was making the sounds he was hearing then no need to make himself uncomfortable and force Berger to initiate whatever tests he had in mind and end up broken like some of the people he d seen here.

-~^\/^~-

Berger walked back into the control room with a cup of black coffee in hand; things had gone smoothly with minor setbacks from a few people and faulty equipment. Rooms two, four and seven would require maintenance before they were used tomorrow and an electrical problem had taken room three out of the equation until all the wiring was replaced.

"Status report, Annalie.

Berger took a sip from his mug and cast a bored glance at his only female assistant. Perhaps he should get more women on his staff, they were exceptionally good at making male subjects get in line like she had with Smith. One casual exposure of flesh and a show of concern and the big fellow had quietly submitted to necessity without further protest.

On cue, Anna turned to face her superior in a swirl of pin straight black hair and took in all details, from the mugs contents to his manner of speech and her sea green eyes sparkled with amusement.

"There are indications that Lawrence may have just the talent we need for this project. Smith has held stable for fifteen minutes and is finally ready to proceed with testing, with your permission of course."

The project director nodded and dispassionately watched as his assistant put a headset on to let the problematic agent know they were proceeding just as she had said she would. What nonsense in his opinion, you didn't ask your test subjects if they wanted to be tested you just did it.

He kept his eye on the monitor dedicated to room two and felt a deep satisfaction in his chest to have this man helpless and waiting to whatever was handed him through the helmet. The first stage was simple enough, could he empathize with images shown him of people in distress based on pictures taken by a second party.

From there it would get more specific as they targeted what made him react strongest and with the aid of the medication he had been given he'd become so engrossed by the input that he would react by reaching out to ease the perceived distress. If he could reach out, if they could indeed get an accurate reading of that extension of being either positive or negative his fate could be decided.

Minutes ticked by and at the onset of the second stage the monitor that tracked active ESP started to jump in the low range, strictly being able to feel pains on your own body that actually belong to another person. Forty minutes into the test the subject started showing physical signs of discomfort as the computer started narrowing the images it displayed based on his reaction to previous scenes and sounds.

The geneticist sat down at a terminal and accessed what was being requisitioned for room two and grunted as scenes of combat, domestic violence and for contrast homey scenes of families spending time together. The first one was understandable given the way things were now. The last one perhaps was a key to Smiths past or hopes for the future and the middle one left a lot open, had the agent lived with such violence as a boy, committed those acts himself or perhaps feared them?

As the test entered it's second to last stage the ESP needle began to bury itself in the high range as combat scenes were brought in from footage taken of Hank Wimbelton cutting through men with inhuman ease. Well this was getting interesting but what was bringing about the reaction?

Berger was only partially aware of another of his assistants dispatching James Butters to room two with instructions to sedate the agent should he start doing himself harm despite the steps taken to prevent it. The computer was singling out situations where the point of view was from someone trying to protect their unit from the maniac and it seemed that these scenes were triggering Amos to bury the needle for a short time.

Perhaps he was too good at getting to bury it, the monitors started blaring in his room as he began having palpations and to his untrained eye the agent was having a heart attack. James rushed into the room and clamped a rag over Smiths nose and mouth while the agent thrashed in the chair, what WAS that man doing?

Before the geneticist had grabbed a headset to bawl orders to his staff near the testing rooms Ronald Shabaz rushed into room two and started shouting at James. The two were not well matched for such a confrontation, Ronald was of thin build with piercing gray eyes and the strength of a mouse while James was built like a nightclub bouncer.

While the two had their shouting match Amos settled down and thankfully his vitals dropped to the rhythms of drugged sleep. Not a heart attack but concerning all the same, now it was time to sort his subordinates out. Berger put the headset on and flicked the mic with ease before picking up audio from the room.

"-oaf! You don't rush in and disturb-"

"If you d get your head out of your ass for one minute and listen!"

"SILENCE BOTH OF YOU."

Both men stopped and looked toward the camera tucked away in a corner of the room and essentially at their boss. Well-trained help wasn't the easiest to get a hold of but if you looked hard enough it was possible. The problem was when personalities clashed in the work place; it was not conductive to a stable environment.

"Shabaz check the subject for damage. Butters you had better have a good explanation for your actions."

"Sir I was following orders from Annalie to sedate Smith if he began to have a severe reaction to the test."

"And what assurances did you have that you weren't going to make the situation worse?"

Shabaz had his hands on Amos and pulled the rag off the subjects face before nodding at the camera and walking out. What fortune that there was no immediately noticeable damage.

"Sir I grew up seeing panic attacks in my family they can last for ten minutes easily, sometimes an hour which becomes a real problem. With his struggling, he was going to damage your equipment so I stopped the attack before it ran its course."

Panic attack eh? That was going to take some looking into and verification on top of that it would be best to finish the test quickly and move Smith out of the room so it could be serviced.

"We are going to put him through the cool down part of the test once he s awake. I want you to put a longer lasting sedative in that IV so we can have him out of there without problems or risk of another of these panic attacks you mentioned, and if I remember from my schooling correctly the memory of one attack can trigger another. Take him to the recovery room closest to the staging area for candidates. Proceed with your orders."

Berger watched James pull a plastic chair over to the agent and noted that Shabaz had walked back in, likely to measure out the sedative. Ronald saw anyone who wasn't a researcher as incapable of doing things correctly so he was always there when enforcers had to handle chemicals. This was getting complicated; he was going to have to see for himself what kind of damage Smith had acquired as soon as he was moved to the other room.

The sound of the sea lulled Smith out of unconsciousness and birds called to each other somewhere. If he could just open his eyes and see what was going on, wasn't he in a room and held down to a chair for some kind of test? Amos opened his eyes and saw blue skies dotted with fluffy white clouds and on occasion white and gray birds with black wingtips. He d never gotten to see them up close but those birds had to be seagulls

Amos turned his head to get a better look at what was around him but no matter how he moved, the view didn't change.

"Take it easy, you had a pretty rough time of it." The voice sounded like Butters but it was muffled and sounded far away.

"What s going on? Is that you Butters?" He twitched when someone pat the back of his right hand and sucked a breath in between his teeth. That whole arm from wrist almost the elbow was sore and throbbing. the agent licked his lips and strained to stretch his legs. before giving up when he couldn't ease the discomfort of sitting in teh same position for too long.

"Yeah it s me, after everything you've been through today I'd say you earned the right to call me Jim. You had a bad reaction and blacked out during the test. If I had my way you'd be out of that chair and in your room but I don't make the rules here."

"Berger?" That freak really was starting to get on his bad side with all the vaguer excuses and insistence on altering people.

"Bingo."

The ocean view had changed during the conversation and Amos was now looking at the ocean as dolphins played in the waves. The only thing that could make this illusion any better would be a pretty woman and maybe feeling the reassuring warmth of the sun on his skin. Oh, speaking of pretty ladies...

"She flashed me; right at the beginning. After Weiss almost tore my arm off. Long black hair, reddest lips and green eyes, never heard her name but what a view." Amos wasn't aware that his words were slurring or that it was taking him a little longer to respond, he was starting to feel tired and a long rest after he walked out of this room sounded divine.

"Sounds like Annalie Conner; she sure is a looker isn't she? It s a shame she s married to science or I'd take a pass at her, make no mistake."

"Wouldn't blame you with measurements like that," the leet yawned and jerked awake after dozing off for a few seconds, for a moment it felt like he was falling. "Sorry, I m so tired after being in this room so long."

"Hey don't worry about it. You feel like sleeping then you go ahead and sleep. I promise nothing's going to happen to you while I'm here."

"Thanks." He fell asleep to the sounds of an ocean he'd never seen in person with a relative stranger in the room holding his hand and locked into a chair like a criminal about to get electrocuted.

Berger watched with malicious glee as Butters plucked Amos out of the wheelchair and set him on the small bunk with care before throwing a light blanket over the agent. He hadn't expected to be able to hold power for the large man for an extended amount of time and relished the thought of forcing the lapdog to obey. Of course, it was a trifle disappointing that a panic attack had halted the testing, quick thinking on the dark skinned enforcers part has stopped this subjects' mindless thrashing long enough for sedatives to be administered.

The doctor made room while his men retreated and caught sight of the cane wielder he had been talking to earlier about the person currently laid out in the room. It seemed the bear just couldn't keep his paws away from the honey pot no matter how hard it tried to resist. With a wink and a nod, Berger left Warden unattended outside the room and whistled a little tune as he went.

Warden watched before sliding his cane between his shoulder blades as he walked over to Amos' sleeping body. He only needed a few minutes to search for the marks that quenched his thirsty mind. He stared at the face for a while before reaching near his neck, careful not to scratch the sleeper up as he felt around. There were telling signs of the Magnification process, things that were there even if the treatments didn't work as expected and long after the person recovered from the ordeal.

"Well that answered my question." He said with a sigh, a little relieved he wasn't looking at another failure on the demon's part. He backed away after a little while and walked out of the room with crossed arms. Not a MAG, just a vanilla human of unusual size.