Page 156 of You Only Love Twice
The queen's eyelids grew heavy. "They cannot fight it?"
"No."
The entire Council exchanged a look. He recognized Jasper and Rosalind Lynch, the Duke and Duchess of Bleight; Sir Gideon Scott, the head of the humanist faction in London; Aramina Barrons, the Duchess of Casavian, and her consort, Leo Barrons; and Blade, the Devil of Whitechapel. Every single one of them looked ill at ease.
Only Malloryn looked bored, but he'd heard this story several times over.
A faint tinge of horror darkened the queen's eyes. "And it is still in use?"
"The Blood Court is far less evolved than even the prince consort's," Malloryn murmured. "As horrifying as your husband's policies were, our humans were still somewhat protected. In Russia, they are livestock. There are no rules and one of the Blood may take as many lives as he wishes. I have heard of duchesses who fill their baths with blood to keep their skin youthful. Princes who refer to children as 'veal.’ When the rebellion was crushed, the Blood chose to make an example of the rebellion's leaders. One in twenty of them were flayed, and their tongues were removed. The rest were crucified. To prevent such a thing from occurring again, most of the Blood forced their serfs and servants to be implanted. Now they cannot even scream when they are bled." Malloryn tipped his head toward Obsidian. "Go on. Tell her about our version of the neural implant."
"It was created by an English scientist named Henry Richter, who worked for Lord Balfour, and was inspired by the Russian version."
The queen flinched when he said Balfour's name.
"Balfour used it for nearly ten years before your own revolution, though it was an imperfect weapon. I believe you are aware of a recent case involving its use. There were rumors of an assassin named the Chameleon who plagued the Echelon and could not be caught. One of the reasons for his elusiveness was because the Chameleon's identity constantly changed. The scions of the Great Houses of the Echelon grew up watching their backs, so it was deemed too difficult to insert an assassin into their households. Instead, Balfour arranged for long-faithful servants or family to be kidnapped off the streets and implanted whilst under anesthesia. They were kept sedated until the procedure was completed, hypnotized, then returned to where they were taken minus their purses or jewelry to plant the seed this was merely a theft. Often they would awaken with no memory of the event, and only a small wound at the back of their skulls, easily explained away as a blow from a blunt object. They would return home and recover, and nobody would be any the wiser, as the neural implant is not activated until required. We called them drones."
"Sleeper agents of the worst kind," Malloryn mused. "The poor bastards didn't even know themselves."
"The Chameleon Protocol originally required a handler with a frequency box to 'flip the switch' so to speak. When the neural implant felt the right frequency vibrating nearby it would activate. Certain instructions were given to them under hypnosis, and the second the frequency blanked their minds they became mindless killing weapons. In some cases, they would not even remember having murdered their target. In others, the frequency destroyed their minds. Some resumed a vegetative state. It wasn't an entirely foolproof plan... until recently.
"Dr. Richter came up with a secondary neural implant which could be initiated purely by stating a certain combination of words. The frequency transmitter is embedded in the neural implant itself, and no handler is required. One can walk past the subject, state the code words, and continue on their way. We used to use a certain passage of music as the code, but there was an incident where one of the drones attended the opera. It didn't end well."
Malloryn looked up sharply. "Wagner'sDie Walkure?"
"When that man strangled the conductor and shot two members of the audience before turning the pistol on himself?" the Duchess of Bleight asked.
"Yes." Ghost had been livid, and threatened to embed one of the neural implants in the good doctor if he ever heard the strains of the famous opera coming from the doctor's phonograph again.
To this day, Dr. Richter turned pale whenever Silas hummed the opening strains to "Ride of the Valkyries," which was as often as he got the doctor alone.
Silas would have gotten along well with Byrnes.
"How does one know if they've been implanted?" the Duke of Bleight asked.
"Unknown lapses in time, a 'blow' to the head or other unaccounted injury there, a sudden spate of nose bleeds.... The neural implant doesn't always work properly. Some people get a tic in their eyelid, or the muscle of their jaw. Some suffer brain hemorrhages. Indeed, Ghost's preferred victims are usually blue bloods, because the mark of the incision vanishes within an hour of the surgery, and the craving virus often heals any hemorrhages. They are also better assassins, and more difficult to kill."
The entire council shifted.
"Are there any of these 'drones' within the Ivory Tower?" Sir Gideon Scott asked.
"Two, as of my understanding. I gave their names to Malloryn this morning." He hesitated a second. "However, I was not involved in the Chameleon Protocol. It's Ghost's pet project, and I wouldn't be surprised to discover there are more sleeper agents than I'm aware of."
"'Ow the 'ell do we find 'em?" This from Blade.
"You can't," he replied. "The only way to be certain none of the guards or servants are affected is to shock them all, the way I did with Gemma. It shorts the electrics within the neural implant and renders it inert."
"It could also kill some of the human servants," the queen whispered in a horrified voice.
"How close do these handlers need to be to activate their drones?" Lynch asked.
"A hundred yards usually. Dr. Richter's been experimenting with the range."
"They wouldn't get close enough to activate someone within the tower." Lynch rubbed at his mouth. "The outer walls are at least two hundred yards away from the base."
"Therefore, an agent with the right code words would need to be in the building, similar to the situation with Miss Townsend," the Duchess of Casavian mused. "An inside job."
"Unless one keys the code to a certain phrase one expects to be uttered by a certain person," Obsidian countered.
