"Well?"

A tall, lanky man wearing a lab coat down to his knees poured two bottles worth of pills onto the mahogany desk behind which his employer sat steepling his fingers and gazing on expectantly.

"You've analyzed the pills and confirmed their contents?"

The scientist nodded and adjusted his glasses at their bridge before running a hand through his long, disheveled bangs.

"Yes, Brooks' anxiety and prescription sleeping medication." he replied, his voice deep but smooth and heavy with British accent. "Blackbird replaced them with the pills I developed. The side effects won't be pretty."

The man behind the desk was only partially satisfied. "And how long will we have to wait, Dr. Raynes?"

He shrugged, his eyes flitting around the room from one corner to the next and fingers absently twiddling through his blonde ponytail. The questions were quickly becoming tiring.

"The first signs should manifest themselves in a few days or so," Raynes sighed with obvious disinterest. "Lots of factors involved, like whether or not Brooks takes his medicine religiously and his average metabolic rate. Trust me and be patient, and it'll all-"

"I am tired of being patient. That damned assistant of yours has already kept us waiting far too long. If Spring isn't holding up her end of the deal, it's time to use more force."

The doctor covertly rolled his eyes and cracked the bony knuckles in both of his hands in a trembling, nervous motion. "Amaranthe is one of us, now. She'll do what she has to in order to remain thus. Ophelia shouldn't need to use much force. But as a last resort, I will be one taking charge of persuading our lovely psychiatrist. I have, well, several more effective methods in mind than Ophelia does, I'm sure. Torture is, as you know, sir..." The doctor looked his employer straight in the eye for the first time during their meeting and once again ran a hand through his bangs. The disturbance of the hair around his face allowed the other to catch a glimpse of the scar tissue around his scientist's left eye and forehead. "...my specialty. Experience really is the best teacher, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't exactly call her one of us. Not yet. She certainly hasn't proven herself," the employer said spitefully, averting his eyes from the sight of the scars marring the blond's otherwise handsome face.

Raynes turned his back with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "Ah well. She will be soon enough, even if not by choice." He was bored, and he had never liked his new employer very much. "Toodles, sir. Blackbird will be in touch with surveillance updates."

The boss really needed to teach that cocky bastard a thing or two about respect. Then again, there really was no teaching Liam Raynes much of anything.

A young woman with a head full of curly auburn hair pulled back into a messy bun sat intently at her lab bench down the hall. A thick pair of protective goggles covered her eyes though she wasn't working with any hazardous materials at the moment. She heard the door to the lab open and slam shut and her favorite voice call across the constant hum of machinery, "Ophelia, boss isn't pleased! He wants more progress with the psychiatrist!"

Liam appeared around the corner of the shelves hiding his assistant's bench from view of the rest of the lab and languidly rested a hand on his hip. "I frankly don't care about the whole goddamned thing, but he wants you to do something."

The woman named Ophelia paused her work and looked up at Liam with pursed lips. Though he couldn't see her eyes through the bangs in her face trapped beneath the goggles, he knew her well enough to read her expressions by her mouth and cheeks alone. Her lips were pursed in disgruntled annoyance.

"Tch, I'm doing what I can without bloody hurting her. If she weren't falling in love with Brooks this would be a hell of a lot easier."

Liam wanted so badly to tear the goggles from her face and push the bangs away, to look into her eyes and cradle her face in her hands and tell her it would be all right, but he knew her style and her ways. She would probably bite his hands off if he tried any such thing.

"Falling in love? Well doesn't that sound dramatic," he mumbled, disinterested as he pulled a couple of latex gloves from a cardboard box above her bench and snapped them on so he could continue his work. "Whatever you want to do is fine with me as long as the boss is happy. You know how he gets about Brooks. It's frustrating to say the least. If you can't get results just come to me and I'll force her. But I'd really rather not, lovie."

Ophelia's nose wrinkled only slightly at Liam's nickname for her. Any other day and her heart might have leapt at it, but not then. She was too pissed off at the situation and at the doctor she had been trying to manipulate. Slamming her pipet down onto her bench with disgust, she shoved her stool back and tore the protective eyewear from her face with more force than was necessary. Brushing her bangs back down into her eyes and muttering something about her work being interrupted and the whole damn organization being insane, she slammed the lab door behind her and went to find her darling Amaranthe.

I'll show that bitch a thing or two about love.

The lab they had provided Amaranthe had been so much more than she had ever had access to before. While much of Amaranthe's work involved people - observing them and interviewing them - dabbling in molecular and neurobiology had always been one of her favorite pastimes. She was a genius, and the wide range of topics she specialized in proved it. Her knowledge extended far beyond the observational but also delved deep into the physical and biological workings of humans, NEXTs in particular. They had always fascinated her, from the very day she had found out that she was a NEXT herself.

She was eighteen when she discovered her extraordinary talent for the first time, just beginning college and her pursue of a career in science. She soon made it her primary goal to figure out how NEXTs such as herself worked and what made them different, and she didn't let her age become an obstacle. From day one of her university years she worked under biology professors and studied both genetics and molecular biology, but the nature of her power compelled her to learn more about the brain. But even more than that, Amaranthe strived to understand people's emotions. She graduated, continued to professional school, started her own lab, but as much of a genius as she was and as many times as she was published here and there for her innovative research, she always seemed to be underfunded. Very few people were interested in investing in research about freaks.

Until recently.

Half a year ago, when Barnaby Brooks Jr. had left her office for the first time, she had received a proposal that she couldn't refuse.

Her own lab. Unlimited funds. A nearly unlimited subject pool of NEXTs. Intelligent colleagues who shared her passion.

There had been one condition, however.

The door to Amaranthe's lab suddenly slammed open, interrupting her thoughts, and she cowered in her seat at the sweet but angry voice that followed.

"Amaranthe, dear, there's been a little problem."

Ophelia approached the psychiatrist from behind and grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head backwards and grinning maliciously.

"I think it's time to play."