Specimen

“There’s no telling,” Isaac says. “It’s not like we’re given a lot of extraneous information.”

“Need to know basis,” I mumble, and he smirks.

Riley appears at the door, and I immediately stand to greet her. She’s visibly troubled by something, but when I ask what it is, she just runs her hand up the inside of my arm and tells me everything is all right.

Dr. Rahul comes into the room as well. Her expression is more passive than Riley’s, but she doesn’t smile or greet me like she normally does. She quickly collects Isaac as Riley leads me back to the lab.

“What’s going on?” I ask when the door closes behind me.

“No one is listening to me.” Riley slams her tablet down on the desk. “In other words, status quo.”

She starts to pace back and forth, running her hand over her careful bun, causing some of the strands to get loose. She grits her teeth and shakes her head slowly.

“Idiots,” she grumbles.

“What happened?” I ask again.

“They’ve decided you’re all ready for an actual mission,” she says. “I keep telling them we need more trial runs first, but they’re insisting the timing is right. It’s all so fucking political!”

I flinch. I’ve never heard Riley so upset, and I can’t recall her cursing at all unless she was on the verge of orgasm. I’m concerned for her mood but also turned on.

“What’s the mission?” I ask, wondering if Pike had been correct.

“Intelligence wants you to go out and retrieve a defector.”

“Who?”

“Errol Spat.”

“The tech who designed our implants.”

“Yes, that’s him. There has been some information regarding his whereabouts, and more importantly, where he will be in the near future.”

“Where will he be?”

“There’s a main road that parallels the Grey River, right by the border between Mills-controlled Yorkstown and Carson-controlled Haprin. Can you access it?”

“Yes.” I see it all clearly in my head.

“There is rarely any travel on that road due to the proximity of the border. Do you see our border wall there?”

“Yes, it’s just on the edge of the river.”

“That’s it. The road connects Carson City with Haprin. We believe there will be a convoy carrying grain to Haprin and that Errol Spat will be transported from Carson City to Haprin and then further into Carson territory to Martinsberg. Carson Alliance has recently built a new tech facility there.”

The route is clear, but the location of the tech center comes up as unknown.

“I don’t see the tech center.”

“We don’t know exactly where it is.”

“If we knew the timing of the convoy, we could swim the river without detection.”

“That’s the idea.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“You aren’t ready for this, Sten! None of you are! I haven’t completely finished the data based on the last upgrade of your medication. I’m getting some anomalies from your sleep-patterns, and I don’t know what they mean.”