Eagle X, Mission 21: CTRL

Part 6: Chillard

The interior zone was slated to consist of permanent housing, office space, and domestic fabrication facilities focused on food, clothing and furniture. Construction had started, but would not go into full swing until the second and third stages of research were completed. Few visited the interior. There was nothing to see except carved out foundations and erected frames for apartment buildings. The support beams for the sky scrapers were already in place, reaching from the ground to the two hundred foot high ceiling above.

As the hostage had surmised, the sky was devoid of drones and, aside from a handful of maintenance clones, there was no one around. Construction vehicles lined the wide streets, flanked by crates of construction nano and piles of raw building materials.

The pair rested in a prefabricated rest hall. She sat against the far wall, beside a nutrient dispenser. A bowl of the thick porridge resting in her lap. Chillard sat by the exit, giving himself a clear view of her and the street. His own bowl of nutrients sat on the floor, untouched. The thought of eating with dizziness in his head made his stomach do backflips. He wouldn't be able to eat until he dealt with the psy-shock.

Chillard watched her with a small part of his consciousness while the rest of his focus walked through the third phase of the Five Steps of Quiet. Fully in tune with every inch of his body his nerves had become virtual synapses for his greater mind-self. Every breath filtered his thoughts, his memories, his expectations. In with cleansing new sensations. Out with toxic reservations and fear. With four sharp intakes of breath, he moved into the fourth phase.

Jake Vis stared with cold detachment as he swung the waste receptacle. Too confused to react, too surprised to scream. Bones cracked and shattered, eyes filled with spots and lights. Knocked to the floor, hands raised in defense. Jake attacked again and again. Each blow sending pain lancing through every nerve. Each broken bone a new agony. Darkness, but the pain, the confusion doesn't end.

The last thoughts of Jake Vis's victims lived in Chillards head, stuck in a repeating loop, poisoning his mind. In the Steps of Quiet, he could take stock of his mind and the damage his own empathic gift was doing to it. The constant replay caused micro-trauma, his empathy had become a curse. Chillard fought against the involuntary tensing of his nerves as more memories cycled through his mind's eye.

Closing his eyes, he created mental walls around the first memory and then the second. Sealed away, it would be harder for them to trigger. A psy-therapist would need to repair the existing damage, but the patch would allow Chillard to use mind-work in moderate bursts.

Five sharp breaths and he moved into the fifth phase, remolding his thoughts and realigning his mental pathways. This was the moment of vulnerability, the moment where his body entered a dreamlike state. As his mind repaired and refreshed, Chillard could watch the world and do nothing.

This was the moment the hostage would make her move.

"I'm glad the Five Steps were able to help. The tension between your eyes has already faded," she said as she opened the paneling of the nutrient dispenser. She yanked cables free, disabling the device. "I was afraid you would collapse."

She crossed the room, coiling the cables together. Kneeling beside him, she took his limp wrists and bound them to the sides of his chair.

"It surprised me to find a Xnean Special Diplomat here on the edge of human space." She sat in the chair across from him, in her hands were his pistol and the taser he'd taken from the security guard. "It's rare to run into a true secret agent."

Chillard hadn't even noticed she'd disarmed him. She was good.

"The chance of coincidence was so low, I calculated for other possibilities. Were you sent by the Armada to spy on me or freelanced out by Earth Conglomerate? Was I even the target? Were you sent for another agent or were you sent for CTRL? I wasn't sure and I needed data."