Betrayal: Book 3 of the Guardians Saga

Ch 3.3 Reboot The Mission

A/N Please listen to the music video "Reboot The Mission" for full effect!

*****

In a non-descript office with standard office furniture and chairs, two non-descript men in non-descript black suits with white shirts sat facing each other.

Their faces were clean-shaven and they wore standard haircuts. Other than hair color and weight, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish them from Grange and his boss.

They waited, one reading his computer while the blonde one fidgeted and kicked his chair. They both stilled when a third man in a white lab coat entered.

"I don't see why we're going to all this trouble," the blond man grumbled. "Just slap on the electrodes and give her a jolt.  She'll remember the rest."

"Will she? You are so certain of that." Brockner examined his cigarette and then looked up at his associate. "Suppose she doesn't? Or suppose she remembers it all and decides she prefers her cozy little life with her close friends rather than rejoining us. What do we do then, Scott? "

"Bag her and sell her."

Brockner snorted.  He stubbed out his cigarette and straightened his tie. "Hardly. Dr. Cohan, explain."

The white-coated man looked down at the blonde man, who stared back in challenge.

"She's useless dead. All the biochemical processes will be erased and those neural tissue implants won't make much sense in a corpse either," Dr. Cohan explained.

Brockner interrupted, "If we sell our little darling against our will, she'll know what to tell. We will become her secrets to sell. No, I don't think so.  We have to knock out her sweet arrangement out from under her.  It must appear to collapse on itself. Then she will have nothing to go back to if we do restore her memory."

"If she doesn't find out that you engineered it all," the blonde man said.

Brockner smiled.  "That's why they pay me. I'm leaving. Dr. Cohan, you're excused to complete your lab duties."

Dr. Cohan wasted no time sweeping out of the office and slamming the door behind him.

"I hate that weasly creep," Scott said.

"That's why they pay you."

*****

Alex saw the blur of motion, but let her attacker tackle her to the ground anyway. She did brace herself so that her head didn't slam into the concrete.

She let him grab her jaw with his meaty hand and gut-punch her once. It gave her the excuse to go still, as if in fear and defeat. She was waiting for him to declare himself.

Her attacker, young twenties male, gangsta clothes, short hair, and the stupid slack expression of most of his kind, cursed and threatened her before tearing her blouse open.

Rapist, not mugger.

Alex blasted him back into the wall. He stayed on his feet and straightened, because muggers were blasted unconscious, but rapists received a more thorough treatment.

His face twisted in fury and he rushed her again, a knife appearing in his right hand. His slice went wide and Alex yanked him past her and kidney punched him as he overbalanced.

He stumbled a step, but whipped around. Alex grabbed his right wrist, digging her thumb into the median nerve, and savagely punched him in the nose. She released his wrist once the knife clattered to the ground and both his hands went automatically to his nose.