The man was walking a fine edge, although Helen had yet to figure out what the two points of that edge were. He was obviously ordered to show up here. His reluctance was very subtle, but she felt it. T. had a lot of explaining to do.
“What did both the serums do for you? Specifically SYMBIOS 2.” Since she would have that injected into her….
“For me?” Armando straightened up, steepling his hands under his chin. His eyes were hooded. “Well, for me, once I had the misfortune of being in the way of a bullet which left me with a severely bleeding leg. I didn’t feel the pain I should have. Instead I was able to carry on with the mission without limping, or if I did limp, I didn’t notice. I should add that the operation included a five-mile hike.
“Then there was the time when I was caught between two warring hostile parties fighting over a shipment of illegal arms. My job was to destroy the shipment, but you can imagine the fireworks flying around me while this was happening. For me, that moment to make the decision as to what my next step was…”
Armando closed his eyes. With his hands still clasped together under his chin, he looked as if he was praying. “It was perfect. Like executing a perfect three and a half somersault dive.” He opened his eyes and gazed directly at Helen. “Like making everyone believe you sawed a girl in half. Like making a perfect two-hundred-miles-per-hour pass of a rival race car for the checkered flag. It’s a high that’s quite memorable. I’m sure it will do similar things for you.”
Helen didn’t blink. Yet another racing reference for the day. She chewed her bubble gum thoughtfully, ignoring the avid attention that was on her now. “I read the possible adverse reactions—headaches, dry mouth, disorientation. Did you suffer from these side effects?”
“There are always side effects to drugs.” He lowered his hands.
“I know that. But did you have any that you would like to share with me?” She lowered her voice a notch, arching one brow mockingly, as she touched his notepad lightly, suggestively.
Standing there in his black T-shirt and jeans, thumbs through the loops of his belt, he didn’t seem so strange. It was only when he moved, or when he spoke, that somehow jarred with that bad boy image. It gave Helen the odd feeling that his mind wasn’t totally there.
Armando looked at her hand lying on his notepad. “The effects vary.Alice in Wonderlandhad Alice taking pills. The first time, she went very small. Later, the magic pill made her huge. Yet she was never fearful of her situation or was aware of how disorienting her sudden change in size was. I think she was on the SYMBIOS potion myself, but saying it was magic simplified the procedure.”
Helen relaxed in her chair. “Thank you. Your answers helped tremendously.”
“That’s all? Dismissed already by the High Priestess? The mantle has been passed on, just like that?” Armando mocked. “Don’t you want to know more? There’s always more.”
She shrugged. If she wanted direct answers, she had to find another way to get to Mr. Chang. He wasn’t going to share in front of an audience. “You’ll be around for questions later, right?”
“Affirmative. Later can be better.”
“Thank you, then.” She gave the group a smile in an attempt to break up the awkward silence. She had a feeling they were playing audience, keeping quiet as they watched the two of them. She caught T.’s eye an instant longer before moving on. “Is it my place to just get to the operation specifics themselves so we could end this meeting earlier? I need some time to myself. Can I talk to someone to move the Psych session?”
Helen had too many questions to feel like being questioned herself. Everyone seconded her motion.
“Okay, can I ask who the operations chief is for this particular mission? In fact, no one has told me who’s in charge of the future operations,” Helen said.
“I’m operations chief for the test session.” It was Drew De Clerq. A quiet man, he was in charge of assigning new operatives to their different branches within COMCEN, and as such was one of the first people with whom Helen became acquainted when she first arrived.
“We’ll wait till after this operation to decide the future OC,” T. chipped in. “Right now, we don’t even know whether there is a future one.”
“Don’t you think I can do this?” Helen asked.
T. shook her head. “I know you can, but it’s up to those department heads to sign off on the project. The contract with GEM is very specific. Training through the various departments, followed by a test session.” She paused. “You have two choices. To be successful and make them think they can duplicate the whole process with someone they want. Or, to be impressively successful and make them want to continue to use you. As you can see, some of these men’s future jobs depend on you.”
Helen grinned at them. “Be nice to me and I’ll think about it.”
They laughed at her joke. Someone mentioned that with the thousands of dollars invested in her already, the chances of them not continuing if the test session proved successful was low. Besides, they still didn’t have their new VR machine.
“Don’t be too sure,” Armando said quietly. “They’re all watching your every move. They want to duplicate the process and be in charge of their own candidate. And why not? Every department had their own covert group, so why should they depend on one outside their domain, especially one as independent as Center? We’d gone through this with the V-Program.”
“So you think they’re working on a VR portal themselves?” De Clerq asked.
“You tell me. The other labs had tested the Solarbot program using similar simulation systems. Flyboy was the model for the Sim-Flight-Control Systems in Florida a while ago,” Armando pointed out. “We watched them. Don’t you think they’re watching us?”
“Then what’s the point of using COMCEN? Especially if every agency isn’t cooperating fully,” Helen asked. The man might act eccentric but his mind was sharp as a tack. She still wasn’t sure what the whole story behind him was, but she intended to find out. Another thing on her list, she thought wryly.
Armando scratched his stubble lightly as he regarded her with those intense dark eyes. “The possibilities are endless. Why don’t you remote view and find out yourself?”
The mockery was intentional. He seemed bent on trying to set her off. Helen refused to take the bait.
“That kind of remote viewing has a price,” she said. “It’ll take more than one remote viewer to go through so many departments, anyway.”
