AN: Sorry for the long delay. I lost both of my beta readers. I welcome all comments.
The two men had their work cut out for them as soon as Gojyo and the woman left in the car. They had to report to their employer on Gojyo by the time the car reached its destination. The two of them went over all the material from their latest test and added it to the rest they were compiling. Looked at all of the video they had, they couldn't find anything wrong; it looked like everything went according to the plan and Gojyo appeared to be following the set script. They went over their work three times before bring it to their employer. They wanted to make sure everything was right. They didn't want to find out what the consequences would be for failing. For they had heard about others who had failed, they didn't want to be one of those or experience what the rumours lead on to.
They had enjoyed the challenge of making Gojyo into another person and they were pleased to see their method, had worked. They hadn't tried it out before. All the other methods they knew of required breaking the subject down emotionally not mentally. Both of them believed if they were able to break him down emotionally it would last longer. With destroying his emotional connection to Hakkai and replacing it with another one they would be able to get him to hold onto the new one even more. However, that didn't stop them from using some of the proven methods. Then if their boss agrees that they had in fact changed Gojyo into another person they would be able to move onto the next phase. The two of them wanted to be part of the few groups which made it to the next phase. They did know of one other group which made it to the next stage, the ones who programmed the woman for Gojyo. The next phase looked like it would be closer to what they wanted to do. It was the reason they joined the program to begin with.
When they entered the room their boss had been watching the proceedings from, he was sitting there with a grin of satisfaction on his face. They hoped the grin was with what the man had paused on the screen and not with weapon in his hand. The rumours were this man was a sadist and found any and all possible reasons to inflict pain of any kind on a person. It didn't matter if the person deserved the punishment or not. They handed over their report to the man and wait from him to tell them if they had passed. They were like a pair of children who wanted to be loved the most by the parent who didn't really care for them.
The man took his time looking over the results and all the tests the men had done on Gojyo to make sure he believed he was a different person. They stood there waiting for what felt like forever before the man had said, "Good work, you can move onto the next phase." Both of the men gave a weak smile at each other, there was something in their boss's voice which made it sound like there was a 'but' coming. "Out of the list of targets, why did you go for this one?"
Both of them took a quick glance at each other before one of them answered, "We went after this one because he appeared to be one which would come with a challenge and because you made it clear we weren't able to do anything to the man he was living with. We wanted to see if we could apply our technique to someone who had a strong emotional attachment to another without outright destroying. We wanted to see if we could get one person to change into another person without having either of them believe the other was dead. We had given Gojyo the threat of killing the man he loved in front of him if he didn't stop trying to fight us. To give up on the attachment he had, because he wouldn't be there anymore if he kept fighting. We know that could give him motivation to pretend he as being programmed, which is the reason for the test we had just run. We had given him, what looked like, a good opportunity to run away, but if he had tired, we'd have both of them now." The one thing they hadn't told their boss was it seemed like he was wanting someone to try and change this one person, more so out of anyone else on the list.
They spent a long time going through the list. They had looked at all the requirements and what they were allowed to do. Some were going to be easy and they came with little risk. They were the ones they would be allowed to kill everyone they were close to. To them that was too easy. As they took their time deciding on what they would take several of the names were coming off the list. And it wasn't surprising the ones who were first off the list were the ones which didn't require much attention. As they watched the list shrink they had decided to go after the one everyone was ignoring, Gojyo.
Their explanation brought a twisted smile to the man's face. Once again they weren't sure if it was a good thing or not, he was a hard man to judge. "What if the test you just ran, failed? And then you'd have both of them. What would have you done?"
The other started off slowly unsure of where this was going, "We were going to try again, but we were going to make both of them believe the other was dead and put the other man back at his apartment knowing it was his fault Gojyo had died. We had everything ready to try all over again on Gojyo, but it appears we don't have to. To be safe we should still keep an eye Gojyo over the next couple of days to see what he does. We want to make sure it wasn't just an act he was putting on for our own enjoyment and just waiting for us give him more room to move around in and less security." If Gojyo had tricked them, it was the best job they had ever seen. They had looked at looked at his facial expressions when he was talking with Hakkai. Admittedly there was only one section they didn't have any facial expression for, but it was too short for anything to happen and Hakkai wouldn't have seen it.
Still that twisted smile played on the man's face. "You may keep a watch over him for the next few days; I would like you to start on phase two, but whenever he goes outside of the house make sure you find out all of the people he interacts with. We don't want your hard work to go to waste. We don't need him remembering who he is and where he belongs, if we are going to get this to work."
They looked at him confused. It seemed like their boss had a different idea than what the original plan was. Whatever it is, they were looking forward to finding it out. They wanted to be set apart from the other ones they were competing against. They wanted to have the most praise out of all the people they were going up against. The higher praise they received from their current employer, the more jobs would open up for the two of them. They would even like to try to make sure the others failed; they just knew they weren't going to have the time to do that. They knew they had picked the hardest and they knew there was something different about the subject they had chosen, something they were hoping would be a good thing. And that it was something worth the risk they were taking.
"Call the driver to let him know he has the okay to drop them off and you will get in touch with them when it is time for them to go to work." Their boss said as he stood up and took his leave of them.
He took the entire file they had compiled on Gojyo. He was going to take a second look. He wanted to make sure the results were what he wanted. He needed this to work, to be able to get his plan to work. He was going to be watching this project closer than any of the other ones.