Page 61 of The Sterling Acquisition
The request sent white-hot rage coursing through Dante’s veins. Leo wasn’t asking him to stop the procedure—he was asking him to help make it successful. To use his corporate training to ensure Orion remained compliant while Morrison destroyed his mind.
“One last consultation,” Dante said, his voice level despite the fury building within him. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” Leo said, relief flooding his features. “I know this isn’t your area of expertise, but having someone with Gensyn’s psychological training there to manage any resistance... it means everything.”
“Of course.” Dante ushered Leo toward the door. “We’re all working toward the same goals.”
Once Leo was gone, Dante stood motionless for a full thirty seconds, letting the fury wash through him before channeling it into operational focus.
Two hours until Morrison arrived. Two hours to steal the Project Tether research and extract Orion before they could turn him into a compliant shell of himself.
Time to see if twenty years of training were enough to accomplish the impossible.
Chapter twenty
Hostile Work Environment
Dante
TheSVIresearchfacilityfelt different this morning—quieter, with skeleton crew staffing. The building was all hard angles and utilitarian design, fluorescent lighting casting everything in institutional blue-white. The air carried industrial cleaners and the metallic tang of expensive laboratory equipment.
Dante moved through the lobby with the casual confidence of someone who belonged there, which he did. Corporate exchange privileges had their advantages.
Though I suspect those privileges are about to be permanently revoked.
He badged through the main entrance, nodding to the security guard who barely looked up from his coffee. Just another Gensyn consultant arriving early for meetings. The guard probably assumedhe was here to check on the vaccine production scaling—the project that hadn’t even come close to perfection and would now be reduced to ash along with everything else.
A pity, really. The biodiversity exchange program had been elegant work, the kind of cross-corporate cooperation that benefited both parties. Gensyn would miss it when flu season hit.
But some losses were acceptable when protecting what mattered.
The thought of what—who—mattered sent an unexpected surge of possessive fury through his system. The image of Orion strapped to a table while Morrison pumped chemicals into his veins made Dante’s hands clench involuntarily. His manicured nails dug into his palms, the brief pain helping him refocus on the mission.
Dante took the elevator to the restricted research level, using Duckie Chang’s access codes to bypass the biometric scanning. A few lines of code uploaded through the maintenance port, and suddenly the security system recognized him as Lab Tech Duckie Chang.
SVI’s cybersecurity was competent enough for corporate standards, but it wasn’t Gensyn-level sophisticated. Rather like comparing a child’s finger painting to the Sistine Chapel.
The restricted level was nearly empty—just one lab technician visible through the windows, focused on some early morning analysis. Morrison’s private lab stood empty, waiting for its owner to return from his appointment with chemical butchery.
The white-tiled corridor leading to Morrison’s lab felt longer than it had during his previous visit, each step carrying him deeper into territory that had just become explicitly hostile. His footsteps echoed on the polished floor, too loud in the hushed morning atmosphere. The sealed double doors at the end gleamed like the entrance to a mausoleum—sterile, imposing, designed to keep secrets contained.
Morrison’s lab required additional security, but Dante had been preparing for this since Duckie first showed him the research. Corporate security was designed to keep out external threats, not someone with legitimate access and superior training.
The security panel accepted the administrative override codes without complaint, the doors sliding open with a pneumatic hiss that reminded Dante of a serpent’s warning. He slipped inside, assaulted by the concentrated smell of chemicals, electronics, and the unmistakable antiseptic sterility that all corporate labs shared.
Morrison’s lab was impressive in a provincial sort of way—restraint systems, monitoring equipment, and an examination table fitted with reinforced restraints. All very professional, very thorough.
Also very much a crude imitation of what Gensyn accomplished daily with far more elegance.
That was what made Project Tether so offensive—not the concept of chemical behavioral modification, but the ham-fisted execution. Gensyn’s methods were refined, predictable, and reversible when necessary. Morrison’s approach was like watching someone attempt brain surgery with a hammer.
Dante started with the physical samples—vials of synthesized compounds in climate-controlled storage units, prepared serums in labeled injection cartridges, the actual chemicals that would have been pumped into Orion’s bloodstream. Each liquid glowed with an unnatural blue-silver luminescence under the specialized lighting—beautiful and lethal, like so many things in corporate research. Each one went into a specially designed containment unit for transport, while he prepared incendiary devices for the storage areas.
It was amazing how much destruction could fit into such compact packages. Gensyn engineering at its finest.
The research data came next. Morrison’s computers contained terabytes of experimental data, formulations, and implementation protocols. The monitors bathed Dante’s face in a blue-white glow as he worked, his fingers gliding across keyboards and touchscreens. He uploaded everything to encrypted drives while deploying data wipes that would corrupt the originals beyond recovery, the machines giving quiet beeps of confirmation as they prepared to destroy themselves.
Gensyn would want to study SVI’s approaches, if only to understand their limitations. Academic curiosity about inferior methodology.
