Awakened: Book One of the Mind Agents series

Awakened: Book One of the Mind Agents series, Chapter 19

The doctor leans back in her chair. The light from her window is gone. David and Sarah would be sitting alone at the table with dinner about now. She pushes her wheeled chair back and rests her head on her desk.

She quickly checks herself, looking up at the glass wall of her office that faces the hall. She's almost certain the shades are drawn, but has to make sure. Having worked in the National Security apparatus, specifically in Special Access programs, most of her life, she knows the importance of appearing unflappable in front of staff. She can't let anyone on the team see her looking weak. She certainly can't let anyone see her looking like she's about to cry. Not that she was. But that's what it might look like. Especially given that she's a woman, which matters far more than it should in this male-dominated sector.

She plays back in her mind when the director first assigned her. She spoke candidly, telling him what she thought about the project. Her opinion has scarcely changed in twenty-two years. Those in the broader NSA who have clearance enough to know say the same thing, even when they don't say it. She can see it in their faces at the cocktail parties, the dinners, and the interdepartmental meetings. They humor her. Despite its foundation in peer-reviewed physics first uncovered by scientists at Menlo Park, the division was viewed as highly speculative, and that was putting it generously. To many, it was frivolous, lucky to be funded at all. And with only a ragtag group of four children now, the first recruits in more than two decades, no one could reasonably expect much from it.

Many believe the project's entire existence is based on a foundation of hot air, on wild dreams of military power that no one, from SRI to the NSA, has yet been able to unlock. The Army and the CIA's investigations into paranormal and psychic activity over the years showed nothing but a possibility of certain types of intelligences having an increased proclivity to conceivably one day developing some unknown measure of enhanced skill.

This tenuous rationale is not exactly something to inspire confidence, let alone build a career on. But she did it.

Beyond that, there are the rumors of such skills developed elsewhere—the whisper of rumors, really. Even in her years of hands-on experience she's only seen one recruit with potential, but scarcely enough data to document a single psychic event. And that was a long time ago. If it hadn't ended so badly, he'd most likely still be alive today. All they have now are third-hand field reports of a former recruit lost in the desert. They're fighting an arms race with a phantom.

She learned so much from him. His work took them in new directions, lead to major systems refinements. Over the lean years these refinements lead to an overhaul of the tests, and finally bore fruit with the surge in recruits this year, just when the project is in what many believe are its final throes, perilously close to the chopping block.

And now a bizarre murder-suicide of two field agents. Then, right on top of that, a mysterious explosion that could have killed the children.

She takes off a shoe and rubs her foot under her stocking. She's been on her feet since before dawn. Too much of the day spent demonstrating how unflappable she is.

These incidents could cast doubt on her leadership, at least, within the rumor mill. If they prove to have been caused by something random, like poor maintenance, or a lovers' quarrel, her station as the resident laughing stock of the civil service will move a notch or two down even further, which is difficult when you're already on a subterranean rung.

The thought gives her a dull pain behind her eyes that she can't massage away.

On the other hand, if evidence of sabotage is uncovered, the project will be buttressed. The higher-ups will finally take her efforts seriously, finally give her the respect, and the commensurate budget, she deserves. She'll broaden her political influence beyond just the one patron in the Senate.