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.
As he leaned over in agony, Alex kneed him in the face. His head snapped back and she clouted him on the side of the head.
Once he collapsed to the ground, she blasted him again. She honed her blast above his pubic bone into the plexus of nerves behind it, hoping to burn them out and make his privates useless. Once he passed out, she took all his clothes.
Waking up naked in a New Orleans alley is too good for such scum, but it's a start.
*****
Brockner watched Alex and thought it was sloppy of her to visit the same place over and over to stretch her muscles. Even petty criminals could spot a pattern.
He adjusted his Glock on his waist and primed his tranquilizer cuff gun. He pulled his sleeve over the cuff gun.
"It warms my heart to see those abilities put to good use," Brockner said and then ducked as she turned and fired on him. "Whoa, don't shoot the good guys."
"Good is a relative term to most people," she said, but held further fire. "I doubt you fit the absolute definition of good. Who are you? I see your Glock, moron."
"Alex, you see my Glock because I want you to see it as a sign I trust you. Don't you remember me?" he asked, not at all surprised by her ignorance.
"Don't screw with me." she snapped. "Tell me who you are and how you know my name or I'll slag your nervous system."
"All right. All right. Do you recognize this?" Brockner carefully reached in his pocket on the opposite side of the Glock, drew out a leather billet, and flipped it open to display his badge.
After a quick glance, Alex sneered, "Could be from eBay."
"I suppose I purchased your name there, too."
"Explain. Quickly."
"I'm with R&D. That means—"
"Research and Development. I'm not stupid."
"No, but you are suffering from post-traumatic amnesia. I'm not surprised, considering the machine setting that traitor Morgan used on your brain," Brockner said.
She flinched at the name. "What do you know of him? What is this about?"
"Calm down. Please, I don't mean to upset you. We should go somewhere to talk."
"Not going anywhere with you. Two seconds to explain."
He shot her full of tranquilizers from the armed cuff under his sleeve. "James Bond, you are an amateur compared to me," he said to himself.
*****
Consciousness came with distortion, but the bonds on her wrists and ankles were obvious to Alex. She tugged against them until she regained enough sense to learn it was useless.
She looked around at the glass cylinder that was her prison.
Brockner sat on the other side of the glass, reading a tablet. He looked up and said, "You coherent yet?"
She glared at him, wordless.
"Ready to listen to some reason or would you prefer to waste some more energy struggling?" Brockner asked.
She looked down, gave one last tug at her restraints, and then said, "What do you want?"
"Good question. None of this 'who are you', 'how did you find me', who am I' crap. What I want is for you to work for me."
"I never ask who I am." She rolled her eyes and then smiled wickedly. "Untie me and I'll be a model employee."
"Not just yet. All employees need incentive, so let me give you some. First, you're endowed with very controversial, very effective, and very expensive powers. Did you really believe that you would be allowed to run around free forever? That no one would come looking for you?"
He paused to assess her fierce expression. "Or perhaps you were naive enough to believe you could elude your creators forever? While we know everything about you and you know nothing of us?"
"I knew someone would come looking for me. I've eluded you this long." Alex studied her captor.
"You should be glad that I found you first."
"You weren't the first to find me," Alex retorted. "I wish you had been."
"You think Morgan's your only problem?"
"You knew about Morgan?" Alex shot back. "And you did nothing?"
"I tried—"
"You failed. Is there someone else I can talk to? Like your superior?" Alex looked past him and around the room.
Brockner banged on the glass cylinder and Alex flinched.
Only macho morons suppress the startle reflex.
"I was smart enough to capture you. You have more enemies than you can count. There are the upper levels embarrassed by this project's failures and wouldn't mind burying everything, your lovely corpse included. There's counter-intelligence from several different countries who'd love to haul you back to their god-forsaken corner of the world for study. There are even those in my own department who wouldn't mind dissecting their only success to date in order to determine why you're successful. I'm the best friend that you've got right now," Brockner said.
"Untie me, best friend, and I'll send you a fruitcake at Christmas." Alex smiled in a way that didn't reach her eyes.
"In time, in time. I don't think you're convinced," Brockner said.
"It would lend a lot more credibility to your 'friendship' if you let me go."
"Patience, my dear, patience. Look at these." He opened a file on his tablet and showed her two pictures through the glass.
"These are the two North Korean agents assigned to capture you and bring you back for study. We don't know their real names, so we call them Ing and Eng. Very racist, but there it is. We don't know the names or appearances of the Chinese agents assigned to you. They're a lot more sophisticated than the North Koreans. More money, you see. The Middle Eastern countries should be interested in you, but they're so bigoted against women that you're safe from them for the moment. Maybe. Religious zealots can be hard to predict."
"Bastards. And?"
"I want you to help me eliminate these two to start with."
"Why should I?" Alex sat on the floor and leaned against the cylinder wall.
"An idiot. That damn Morgan fried her brain so that now she's an idiot." Brockner shook his head in frustration.
"If the CIA is so hot to get me back, they should be more than able to bust those two. They shouldn't need my help."
"Don't you see? The more people looking for you, the better. We won't stop them. We assign a tail to keep an eye on them. That way the Koreans do the footwork and if they find you, so do we. Increases our efficiency."
"As if any beginning spy wouldn't know how to handle a tail," she replied. "A little under-confident in our agency, aren't we?"
She wasn't an idiot, Brockner realized. He would just have to be more creative.
"Perhaps," Brockner admitted. "That's why we need you. Show them, Alex. Show them that you're no failure. Shut up your critics once and for all."
"Your critics are more like it." She tested her bonds again. "Can't stop Morgan, can't catch Korean agents. You should apply to Wal-Mart as a security guard."
Brockner was desperate. If he couldn't tempt her into it, he would have to play his ace. "Would you like to know how I found you?" he asked.
"Spare me your bragging. I only changed my name and address and job every two weeks. You can apply online for Wal-Mart jobs."
"I found you through a scientist named Josef Hermann," Brockner said and had Alex's full, focused attention.
"What do you know of Josef Hermann? What did he tell you?" Alex jumped up.
Brockner saw he had hit the nerve he had been probing for. "He asked to be remembered to your friends."
"I'll remember him all right. Release me so I can kill the scrawny, sick bastard."Alex banged her hands against the wall of the cylinder.
"Amazing you didn't break your wrists with that. So, Josef Hermann's a favorite of yours? How would you like to go after this creep? Lock him away forever, official style?" Brockner asked.
"Lock away official style? Fire truck that. I'll kill him." Alex pounded the wall of the cylinder.
"Tsk, tsk. That attitude will get you nowhere. Well, it will—back in his lab sedated. And this time he's ready for you. You don't have a prayer—alone."
He leaned forward and gazed at her. "You dare not tell your friends. I suspect they'll try the same. End the same, too, as specimens in a glass jar."
Alex's eyes blazed.
"You need me to catch that scumbag. I need you to catch these North Koreans. Deal?" He knew that he had her when she dropped her gaze.
"My friends," she said slowly. "They have to be protected at all costs. At all costs. "
Brockner thought with satisfaction at how high the cost would be, but he said, "Of course."
"I don't want them knowing about you, that Josef Hermann's back, or what we're doing," Alex said.
"My suggestion exactly," Brockner agreed.
"You can release me now."
He agreed with her defeated tone and did so. When she sat opposite him, he asked, "How would you like to capture these two?"
"Turn on them when they're on my tail and blast them." Alex shrugged.
"Ah, force. What about your other abilities?" Brockner asked.
"What do you mean?" Suspicion blazed back.
"You could always seduce them."
"Ick! I'm not that type," Alex said.
"I didn't mean that way. I meant use your powers. They're not only for force. In fact, that's the lesser way. With those powers you can make anyone fall hopelessly in love with you. Not some surface, physical lust, I'm talking mind and soul. Those two will sell out their own government for you, if you do it right."
A blast of wild, uncontrolled terror snuffed out the suspicion in Alex's eyes.
Brockner felt better. It made the worst case scenario less likely: that she would admit to her friends the manipulative ability of her powers. No, she would take one of two courses: either lie and cover up this ability or use it fully. Either way would be satisfying and useful to him.
****
A/N
Dedicated to my newest readers [I hope they read to this book!]
Here comes Alex's origins! Thanks for you patience waiting until book 3 for it!