The door of the sleek sedan opened with a soft click. Rain pattered gently on the tinted windows, turning the night into a distorted blur of reflections and red tail lights. A man—in his early forties slipped inside the passenger seat of the car, shutting the door behind him carefully.
Without turning around, he addressed the woman seated in the shadows behind him.
"One of the test subjects— Subject Fourteen, precisely- escaped today," the man began, skipping past the initial greeting routine. His voice was filled with anxiety. "It was contained before it left the outer ring, but—there was violence. Two of our handlers were injured. One... badly."
The woman drew in a sharp breath, leaning forward towards the man. Her face was masked with annoyance, which the man would have seen if he had turned back.
"How," she began, "does a creature designed to obey escape in a facility crawling with guards? How could you have let that happen in a camp filled with students, children of Alphas, precisely from two of the most prestigious academies in our world? Do you understand what kind of risk you created?"
The man swallowed hard, his hands fidgeting with a tablet in his lap. "I have no explanation for the escape itself. Security protocols were followed and tightened upon the arrival of the students. There was also no breach in the containment logs. No power outage. Nothing on the surveillance can be traced, and we had put them all to rest. It’s like something woke it up."
"So, you want to tell me that Subject Fourteen just disappeared and appeared outside the containment unit? Can you hear yourself, Albert? Don’t you sound stupid?"
Albert didn’t say anything.
The woman inhaled deeply, then leaned back in her seat, running a hand on her brows. "I heard four students saw it. What is the school doing about it? Have they talked to anyone? Are they beside themselves with shock?"
"They claim they do not remember," Albert said quietly. "One of the handlers that went to retrieve subject fourteen, however, said they initially asked questions, but Alpha Thatcher’s son had a health crisis, and by the time we tried to ask them about it, they claimed they had forgotten."
Silence reigned in the car.
A bead of cold sweat had settled on Albert’s brows now, despite how cool the car was. He wiped them off with the back of his hand, and since the woman was no longer talking, he continued.
"But, we—I noticed something strange happened..." he paused again as if he was gathering courage before continuing. "When Subject Fourteen encountered one of the students, it exhibited a behaviour we’ve never seen before."
He tapped the tablet in his hand and passed it backwards through the gap in the seats. The woman collected the tablet, examining the screen with obvious disdain as she played the footage.
After watching for a few minutes, she passed it back to the man.
"What am I supposed to see?"
"Eamon Riggs," Albert said tentatively, "That’s the name of the student, Subject Fourteen was going after. From the footage, you can see that we had an electrical fault in the pool area for a few minutes, and Rogues also breached the camp. As Eamon was running to safety and screaming, Subject Fourteen was trying to find him."
"Find him? I don’t understand." The woman snapped.
"It’s as if Subject Fourteen was trying to rescue it. Notice it wasn’t vicious or trying to attack. It was trying to help him avoid being attacked by the rogue. We believe something about him must have triggered that response from the subject."
Albert paused to wipe his face, his eyes glinting with excitement. "For months, we’ve been struggling to make the subject more cognitive and induce an independent response with no result, but when it looked at him, it wanted to protect. It knew he was in danger, and after this encounter with Riggs, Subject Fourteen seems to be responding to stimuli in ways we haven’t achieved before."
Albert turned slightly, as if waiting for a reaction. There wasn’t one—only a long silence. Then, finally, the woman muttered thoughtfully.
"Hmm. Tell me about the new drug compound. How did the field test perform?"
Albert relaxed slightly as the conversation moved to safer ground.
"It exceeded our expectations. Within seconds of consumption, the students entered a completely relaxed state and began acting on their basest impulses without holding back or self-consciousness. Now we know Alpha and Luna wolves react to the drug differently compared to an Omega or Beta."
"And the trials on the Ebonvale girls?" the woman asked.
"Effective," Albert responded. "Since most of the girls were in their fertile cycles, some were even on heat, we’re projecting positive pregnancy results within fourteen days."
The woman sighed, a sound that could have been satisfaction or frustration. "And the documentation?"
"We recorded all the interactions. I’ll forward them to your secure server later tonight."
Another sigh escaped the woman’s lips as she leaned back in her seat. "Our clients are breathing down my neck. They’re becoming restless. They want results. They want proof. We still have outstanding orders that need to be fulfilled, and delays are becoming problematic for our business relationships. How many batches are left to fulfil?"
"Three more batches and we’ll be back on track," Albert replied.
"This won’t do, Albert," the woman sighed. "We need more than just three batches. We need to make sure that every single girl from that pool party gets pregnant. During their orientation party sometime this week I think, increase the dosage."
Albert’s eyes widened in alarm. He turned to stare at the woman, catching a glimpse of her lips, painted black, her signature look, and a wide-brimmed hat that covered her face. He looked away immediately.
"That could be extremely dangerous," Albert shook his head. "The students could only handle the dosage we gave them because they have stronger wolves. We haven’t conducted trials at higher concentrations. The risk of permanent neurological damage—"
"Are you questioning my authority, Albert?" The woman’s voice rose to a near scream. Her face had turned into an ugly mask of desperation. "If you want me to stop funding this project, just say so. And then you’ll explain to our investors why your pet monsters are half-formed corpses and your lab is full of waste. Time is not on my side, and you don’t have the luxury of ethics or to grow a conscience."
Albert lowered his head in defeat. "Understood, I’ll make the necessary adjustments."
"Good," she leaned back. "We need to ensure the drug is potent enough to work effectively on both the boys and girls. We cannot afford missed cycles."
Albert nodded wordlessly, and both of them lapsed into silence. After a moment, the woman spoke again. She seemed calmer now.
"I trust none of the drug was administered to the Thatcher boy and other Alpha’s children from core packs with strong connections, especially the Thatcher boy."
Albert shook his head immediately. "No. We were careful about that."
"Better. He’s high profile, and as much as Terry doesn’t show it, he loves his son to death. If that hospital detects even a trace of an unusual substance in his bloodwork, everything we’ve worked for will be for nothing. We cannot afford that for the other students, too, from Core Packs."
"I know," Albert said. "We were cautious."
The woman nodded approvingly. "Good. I expect to hear positive news from you in two weeks. We’ll be meeting with some of our key investors, so you should come to the meeting with the other leads for the review and bring results that will justify our continued investment in this project."
Her voice dropped to a whisper that carried more threat than the shouting she’d done a while ago.
"If the data doesn’t impress, you’re done. Not just fired. DONE! We wouldn’t want your next report to be from the bottom of a lake."
Albert exhaled shakily. "I won’t fail you."
"Excellent," the woman’s tone became cheerful. "I want you to assign someone at the academy to keep an eye on this Eamon Riggs. I want a full report on his movements, habits, and anything unusual. I want to know who he speaks to. Who he slept with at the pool tonight, too?"
Albert’s brows furrowed.
"Do you think he’s a threat?"
The woman paused, considering his question. "There’s something about him that affects our test subjects in ways we don’t understand yet. That could be either a tremendous asset or a threat, like you said. I need to know which it is before we proceed any further."
"I’ll handle it personally," Albert assured her.
"No," the woman corrected firmly. "You have other responsibilities. Assign someone with access but not authority. Someone who won’t be missed if they need to be...retired... for security purposes."
"I understand," Albert said quietly.
Albert didn’t hesitate. He opened the door, stepped into the damp evening air, and shut the door behind him with a soft click. The car pulled off without another word, red tail lights vanishing into the mist.
And inside the vehicle, the woman removed her wide-brimmed hat, settling it on the space next to her before leaning back in her seat.
She stroked the scar on her face; she always does that when she’s bothered about something. She couldn’t stop thinking of the image of Eamon from the footage. His high-pitched screams, his small, lithe frame and the way he carried himself—everything about him seemed wrong for a teenage boy.