"Sure. I have about fifteen minutes."
Agent Yu followed her into the office and took a seat in front of the desk. Meanwhile, she pulled another small hairpin from her pocket and flipped the power switch on it.
"Fire away," said the doctor, sitting behind the desk. She turned on the computer and glanced at the screen before giving Agent Yu her full attention.
"I'm trying to get a sense of how pliable the couple appears to be at the moment. Given the mild interrogation methods we've employed so far, do you think they'll be more forthcoming as we move forward with our information gathering? What methods would you say have demonstrated the most success or the greatest potential for success so far?"
Doctor Thomas' face lit up with a satisfied smile, and she leaned forward. At once, she launched into a lengthy summary of her observations.
Agent Yu noted how the doctor looked positively excited to discuss the barbaric treatment of the couple. In fact, she wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, but the doctor's pupils seemed to expand and drown out the blue of her irises. Her impassioned voice and mannerisms sent chills through Agent Yu. Something about the woman was downright terrifying.
"As you can see, we're exploring all avenues to retrieve the intel from them," said Doctor Thomas.
"Thank you. This is helpful." Suppressing her desire to ask an additional question, Agent Yu stood and made her way to the door. "I don't mean to keep you from your meeting."
She rose and walked with Agent Yu to the door. "Not a problem, Agent. If you need anything else, feel free to stop by or call."
Agent Yu wondered if she'd ever seen the woman look so cheerful and eager to help. "Actually. I'd love to know who did your hair. Do you mind?" She reached out to touch the doctor's hair that was pinned up in some sort of pompadour.
Clearly flattered, she patted her hair and smiled. "Oh, there's a little salon in the South Loop at the corner of Wabash and Balbo, called Hair Karma. Ask for Vanessa. She's a miracle worker."
"I'll take your word for it," said Agent Yu and nodded, relieved to be leaving the office.
***
"Do you think she has any more information yet?" whispered Niles, sitting on the sofa and looking around the apartment.
Samuel and Eve sat next to him. They all faded and waited in silence.
"I mean," said Niles, interrupting the brief quiet. "I’d be kind of surprised if she has much yet."
The door creaked. "Shush. I think that's her now. Remember the plan, okay?"
"Got it," said Niles and Samuel in unison.
The door swung open and in walked Agent Yu supported by crutches. A man with eyes nearly identical to hers followed behind her and closed the door.
As planned, Niles crept to the opposite side of the room, while Samuel went to the front door and Eve remained close to the sofa. Agent Yu hobbled to the lounge chair and plopped down. Her companion sat on the sofa directly across from her. He reached for the crutches and laid them against the coffee table.
"How long are you going to need those?" he asked.
"A couple of weeks they say," said Agent Yu, rubbing her feet.
"I wish you'd tell me what happened."
"Don't start—"
"Or at least let me move in here for a week or two and help you out. You shouldn't have to do this alone."
"Isn't he sweet?" said Eve, appearing in front of the television.
Agent Yu registered no shock but held Eve's gaze, not blinking. "It's okay, Ian," she said, not turning to look at him. His eyes were wide, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
"Who's your new friend, Olivia?" asked Eve.
"My brother."
"Ah, that's right. Ian Yu. Yes, I know all about your family situation. Did a little bit a research during all the spare time I've had lately."
"Speaking of new friends, I see you've brought along Mr. Kim," Agent Yu remarked, her stony gaze flashing on Samuel. "How are you?"
"Your boss tied me to a chair, stripped me, and poured freezing water on me. After he Tasered me and starved me while you did nothing but watch," said Samuel, his voice deeper than usual. "How do you think I've been?"
Eve and Niles stared at Samuel, who was pointing his gun straight at Agent Yu's chest.
"You had a choice, Mr. Kim, and you chose unwisely. You chose to renege on your duty to complete the assignment and retrieve the drive. There was nothing I could do to help you," said Agent Yu.
He advanced toward her.
"Sam, stay where you are," said Eve. She raised her hand and shot him a dangerous glare. If you fuck up our plan, I swear to God I'll shoot you.
He looked from Agent Yu to Eve and, after a moment, stepped back.
Eve turned to Agent Yu. "Do you have a conscience in there? At all?"
"I've done a lot of things I'm not exactly fond of remembering, Miss Cooper."
"How much do you remember about Forest Sherman?"
At the mention of the name, Agent Yu averted her eyes and looked at her hands.
"Those little flash drives you all have us recovering, they have some wild stories on them," said Eve. "Special Operative Forest Sherman: a fader SPI captured. From what I've pieced together, SPI tortured him, but he wouldn't break. Tell me, why do you all think torturing us works?"
"That's a better question for Agent Grobeck," she replied.
"Well anyway," Eve said, shrugging. "The problem is that's about as far as I've gotten with the information on the flash drives. But I also had a weird dream recently about you and this Forest guy, and I'm wondering how close my dream is to reality. See, in this dream, he was unconscious in his cell, emaciated and, for all intents and purposes, dead. What did you and Grobeck do to him?"
Agent Yu kept her eyes lowered. "His sensitivity training didn't take, so we shut down the project."
The unusual quiet tone of her voice made the hairs stand up on Eve's neck. "Sensitivity training?"
"Yes, an earlier version of the training you went through. We called it the Special Project, Part One."
Eve's stomach turned. "By 'training' you mean 'torture’. You tortured him to death?"
"The training was intended to desensitize the subjects and ensure they were ready for the field."
"Why didn't you offer him a cushy spy job like you did me and the others?"
"We were experimenting with different recruitment models," said Agent Yu.
"So you figured you'd brainwash him to work for SPI?"
"That was Agent Grobeck's brilliant idea."
"But you went along with it. And when he wouldn't comply, you all tortured him until he died."
Agent Yu sighed. "Physical conditioning was not intended to be the primary method. I developed the pilot with Doctor—"
"You developed it? It was your idea to torture people?"
She looked at Eve and was silent for a moment. "I developed a program focused on desensitizing through enhanced psychological conditioning. No physical conditioning, except as a last resort. The elements of the pilot all but eliminated the possibility that the physical conditioning exception would ever be necessary to employ.
"But David—Agent Grobeck—had different ideas. I didn't expect him to exploit the exception in the program. The exception spelled out that physical conditioning was only allowed for subjects presenting an immediate threat to national security. I developed the pilot right after the 2015 terror attack in DC, so we had to be particularly vigilant, do some things we didn't want to do.
"When we launched the pilot, however, there was no immediate security threat. We were playing offense. We were experimenting with options in case an immediate threat arose. But mid-way through—when we were actually making progress with Sherman—Grobeck got impatient. He found an excuse to justify using the exception."
"And what excuse was that?" Samuel interjected.
"The very existence of your kind. Specifically, the threat of your kind falling into the hands of enemies and terrorist cells that could exploit your a
bility and use it against our country. As Grobeck saw it, that sort of threat made us immediately vulnerable. It triggered the exception." Agent Yu stopped and exhaled. "I was naive not to see what he would do. And by the time I did see it...it was too late. I tried to protect Sherman. But I couldn't. And when Grobeck started the physical conditioning phase—"
"Conditioning," Eve scoffed, rolling her eyes. "For fuck's sake, just call it what it is. Torture."
"When Grobeck started it, Sherman didn't last a week. I was bringing him his meal one afternoon when I found him dead," said Agent Yu.
"So, he really is dead?"
"Yes."
"You people are sick," said Eve, barely above a whisper.
"Sherman was the only operative who died as a result of or during the intensive training. As for the program, it's now—"
"A run of the mill, good old-fashioned torture program. I mean, who doesn't have one these days?" Eve smacked her lips, hot with rage as she thought about what Sherman endured. The Tasers. The electric shocks. The beatings.
"Essentially, yes, that's what it is now. Agent Grobeck and Doctor Thomas corrupted it. They like the torture. They get off on it. Thankfully, they've restructured and rewritten it, so my name's no longer on it. It's their program now."
"Because that's all that matters. Your name and keeping your hands clean. Of course," Samuel replied, fuming.
Agent Yu looked from him to Eve and fixed her eyes on Niles, the one semi-neutral face in the room. "Try to imagine creating something, spending months creating something that's supposed to help do some good, only to have your boss take it and turn it into something perverse and totally unrecognizable. Imagine how that feels."
Niles looked at her with revulsion. "It was already perverse. Mental torture is as bad as physical torture. Maybe worse."
"Don't try to put yourself on a higher moral ground. You're just as disgusting as Grobeck and Doctor Thomas," said Eve.
Agent Yu cracked a smile. "You have no idea the levels of depravity human beings can sink to. At least there's a limit to my depravity. I'd never have done to Sherman or anybody the sick things they did to him."
"Just answer one question for me. Was Forest Sherman capable of other things?"
Agent Yu sat up straight and regarded her with increased interest. "Yes."
"But you hid this information from everyone else, didn't you?"
"Yes. How do you know this?"
"Like I said, I had a weird dream." A familiar image flashed in Eve's mind—an image of Sherman naked and writhing on the wet floor, fading in and out and his hair changing colors. She shut and opened her eyes, trying to erase the image. "I'm wondering why you kept the information about him to yourself. Why you went out of your way to conceal it?"
"Isn't it obvious?" said Agent Yu, incredulously. "Agent Grobeck and Doctor Thomas are monsters. Genocidal. They were already terrified of your kind. Imagine what they would've done with that information."
Eve shuddered.
"I couldn't live with that. I couldn't," Agent Yu added.
Eve stared at the agent. She hadn't expected to feel sympathy for the woman.
Zoey and Gabe. You're here for them, and for AJ. Focus.
"Look, as much as I'd love to sit here and listen to the rest of your shameless attempt to avoid accountability, that's not why we're here. You're going to tell us where Zoey, Gabe, and AJ are, and you're going to help us extract them."
Agent Yu mouthed the word "extract" and snickered.
"Then—"
"You want the contact list of all the trainees," Agent Yu muttered, bored. "I already have the list ready for you on a flash drive." She pulled a flash drive from her pocket and handed it to Eve.
"What is it with you people and flash drives?" asked Samuel. "Ever heard of secure cloud storage?"
Agent Yu smiled, smugly. "Keyword: secure. Which cloud storage is not."
"I don't just want the list of faders," said Eve. "I want the whole file on the Special Project."
Agent Yu's smile vanished. "What if I'm tired of complying with your demands?"
Eve approached Ian Yu and lowered her gun so that it was level with his chest. She looked at him, realizing he couldn't be more than nineteen years old or so. "Ian, I imagine this is all very upsetting to you right now. All these horrible things you've heard and your sister's role in it all. I imagine you're thinking you don't know who she is. How could your own sister do these horrible things? Believe me, I know the feeling. Families are so complicated. And I'm sorry you've had to hear all of these things. But this is your sister's chance to rectify the damage she's caused to many people. Wouldn't you say it's wise for her to accept this opportunity?"
He stared at her before nodding.
"Your brother's got the right idea," Eve remarked, turning to Agent Yu. "You should listen to him."
Agent Yu straightened her posture.
"Now, first off," said Eve. "Where are my friends?"
"Zoey and Gabriel Ellis are at the Galena facility. Grobeck transferred them for enhanced interrogation. I don't know how long they'll be there."
"What's the address?"
"I don't know."
She raised the gun and pointed it at Ian. He shrank away. "What's the address?" she asked again, not taking her eyes off the agent.
"Advanced locations are not generally disclosed to lower level agents. But I can find out tomorrow. I can check the database." Her voice wavered as she looked at her brother's panic-stricken face.
"Good. Where's AJ?"
"She's at the facility here in the city. On North Elston. The big gray warehouse building where you were held. She's helping me set up Grobeck."
Eve lowered the gun. "You're setting up Grobeck? Why?"
"He literally enjoys torturing people. He's a psycho who needs to be put down."
"You're calling somebody else a psycho?" Samuel sneered. "Irony truly is dead."
Niles chuckled.
"Say I believe you. I mean, I don't, but say I do. Why would AJ help you?" Eve asked.
"I promised her freedom."
"And she believed you?"
Agent Yu shrugged. "She's cooperating, which is all that matters to me."
"So," said Eve, regarding her with suspicion, "what's this plan and how far along are you?"
Niles stepped forward. "Eve, you don't believe her, do you?"
"Why would I lie?" asked Agent Yu, smiling.
Eyebrows raised, they all stared at her, their incredulity undisguised.
"Fine," said Eve, at last. "Ian, hand me my laptop from that bag there."
With shaky hands, he did as told, watching Eve's hand on the gun.
***
Agent Yu removed a black hairpin from her hair, attached it to a flash drive she retrieved from the breast pocket of her blouse, and inserted it into the computer. "This should bring up the live feed from the recording device Miss Taylor is wearing. I also placed one on Doctor Thomas—she should be meeting with your friends and Grobeck this evening for more interrogations. Obviously, I planned to use the most damaging clips from the recordings, assuming I manage to get any damaging footage. There's seventy-two hours of memory available on each device." She extended a black cord to Eve. "I need you to turn on the TV and hook this cord into it."
Eve handed the cord to Samuel and kept her attention on Agent Yu. Once the cord was plugged into the television, the laptop's desktop screen appeared on the television.
Agent Yu clicked on a video icon. It brought up a screen showing a blank gray wall and a steel door. "Looks like we have nothing so far. But we're live right now in Miss Taylor's cell. From the looks of it, she must be sitting in the chair and facing the door. As for Doctor Thomas..." she went on, minimizing the video screen and maximizing another screen that showed Agent Grobeck talking inaudibly. "What's going on here?"
When Samuel increased the volume, they could hear Agent Grobeck saying, "If we can't get anything out of them, we're going to have to suspend this in
vestigation and move them."
"Good," said Doctor Thomas. "I would like to continue my work with them. It may require experimenting with more traditional EITs."
"Let’s try other methods before we do that."
"It’s been three days, and they’ve given us nothing on Miss Cooper’s whereabouts. What other method do you suggest?"
"One that we tend to save for high-value targets," he said, turning to someone else who wasn't visible in the camera frame. Although his voice grew faint when he walked out of the frame, he could be heard saying, "Bring in subject two."
A man moaned and muttered indistinctly. The moans became louder but stopped the moment Agent Grobeck returned. Zoey Ellis, wearing tattered, dirty clothes, stood with her head lowered in front of Agent Grobeck. Her face was smudged, and she was shivering. Not saying a word, Agent Grobeck ripped the clothes off her body.
There was a commotion off camera and someone—Eve assumed it was Gabriel—yelled, "No, please. We don't know anything."
Zoey appeared too weak to do anything other than try to cover herself as tears escaped her eyes. There were bruises on her chest and stomach where she'd been beaten. Her abusers had spared her face.
"This can go easy if you tell us what we want to know, Mr. Ellis. What do you know about the whereabouts of Eve Cooper?"
The camera turned to reveal Gabriel slumped in a chair, crying and struggling to free himself. His limbs were tied to the chair. His shoulders rose and fell as he sobbed and shook his head. "Please. I don't know anything. We don't know anything."
When Agent Grobeck and Zoey came into focus again, Gabriel still could be heard crying out and begging. "This doesn't have to be so hard, Mr. Ellis. I want to help you." Agent Grobeck looked at Doctor Thomas, bringing his empty gaze into focus with the camera.
"Stop, please," Gabriel appealed. "We don't know anything."
Zoey kept her eyes lowered while Agent Grobeck studied her. Without warning, he smacked her face once then twice. She didn't move or make a sound until he grabbed the back of her head and brought out a large plastic rod. He rubbed it against her cheek.
Gabriel went from moaning and pleading to hurling every threat conceivable at Agent Grobeck.
"Mr. Ellis, what do you know about the whereabouts of Eve Cooper?" asked Doctor Thomas.
Eve and the Faders Page 23
