And here we have a new addition to this science fiction horror story, continuing our tale-within-a-tale. Duty Before Glory comes ever closer to its destiny as the Imperium pursues the unwanted intruder and Everett puts his plan to betray the galaxy’s most powerful nation into motion…
~
When valuable personnel whom the Imperium couldn’t risk damaging and losing their knowledge began showing symptoms of the inevitable F2 degradation, they were removed from those hazardous ‘ambient conditions’ to safehouses such as the asylums and hospitals in Proctor’s Gamble. Once they had recovered, they were cycled back to DROP 47. Those facilities also provided respite care for other personnel before reassignment or after mind-scrubbing. But of the personnel who came back…
The ‘ambient conditions’ weren’t like narcotics. You didn’t build up a resistance to them. In fact, it seemed to be the opposite. Each period of exposure was shorter before symptoms began to express themselves, and those symptoms became more severe. Some men and women who’d gone months and years before ‘getting the bug’ could now last only a few weeks or even days before they began to crack.
Slowly, but steadily and irrevocably, conditions aboard the station were worsening. Not in a technical manner, but in a biological and mental sense. The only people who weren’t affected were Everett’s children. Ironically, that was the very outcome that the Imperium had been seeking and needed to prove beyond any doubt, even if it cost more ‘test subjects’ their lives. And those lives were why he was here, committed to a path of treason.
“I’m sure you have procedures to handle anything this place can throw at you,” he said confidently.
“I do. Everything from mutiny to boarding by hostile forces. And do you know what gives me the most sleepless nights, Everett?”
“What?”
She jutted her fork at him like a prosecutor’s accusing finger. “Those fucking kids of yours. Even the earlier series kept getting out of high-security zones and these ones…. They’re too damn smart, Everett. I hear how you’re making progress with them and maybe you are, but forget Black, Stark and all the other divisions. If this station goes tits-up, I guarantee that your precious little boys and girls are going to be at the center of it.”
~
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