After this project was complete, he was scheduled to take over a different project that had not making the expected progress. Another team had been working on a type of reversible nerve agent, one that would have no permanent effects but would still have extremely uncomfortable symptoms. Davenport felt a surge of pride that he would be the one to take the project to its completion. He had no doubts that he would be able to succeed where the other team had failed.

He finished off the last tube and handed it to his technician. He went over to the sink and washed his hands, drying them off on a towel next to the sink. Taking off his lab coat, he threw it into a laundry bin next to the door on his way out of the lab.

Back in his office, he began recording his report as a video record of the success he had with the sterilizing agent. Detailing the complete recipe and process, he droned on in his dull monotone, no excitement in his voice, belying the thrill he could feel inside. Shuffling through his notes, he found an entire page that he had overlooked, explaining a step from the beginning that he completely forgot. Grumbling, he deleted the file and restarted the recording again.

He was so focused on the report that he didn’t hear the faint steps behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of movement. Before he could turn, the thin wire was slicing through his throat, blood pouring down his chest and spraying on the desk. When his body stopped jerking, his assailant quickly deleted the last several files that the doctor had recorded. Picking up the dripping papers from the desk, he stuffed them into a plastic bag.

The attacker was dressed entirely in a pale grey color, with a full face mask and gloves. It was late at night, so the lights were dimmed. The grey of the suit was light enough to not be obvious as the individual sprinted from the doctor’s office. There was a shimmer in the air surrounding the figure, if one of the cameras picked up the motion it would look like just a flicker on the lens. The elevator doors were opening at the end of the hall, and the person darted inside.

Inside the elevator, the figure jumped up to push the ceiling tile out of the way. Swinging up through the hole quickly and sliding the tile back in place, she pulled the tightly fitted mask off and shook out her long hair. The elevator was going down, so she moved to the side and found the ladder handle inside the shaft. Gripping it tightly, she pulled herself up and began to climb. She never knew when the elevator might start going back up again, so she went as quickly as she could. She could see the service shaft just a few feet above, and swiftly climbed up to it and crawled inside.

She had been living inside the building for seven months, ever since she was removed from her group and scheduled to be moved in with the test subjects. Her name was Taya and she was one of the most powerful psychics that had ever been born at Sawtooth. The was her only skill, however. She did not have any kinetic abilities, only an extreme talent of mind control. For the last few weeks, she had been sneaking in to the labs and offices and ruining anything she could find. Tonight was the first time she had taken anyone out completely, but she could see no other way to prevent his work from being created.

The rest of her group had been disposed of, she had found out later from one of the techs that she had subdued. They had been taken to the test facility and hadn’t survived the testing. She had been very close to the other members of her group, but when she found out what was being planned for them, she rebelled. Unfortunately, there had been a few tests already done of them before the disposal. They had all been exposed to an extremely potent hallucinogen, and it had seriously damaged their minds. Now she lived in a strange paranoid world, with twisted ethics and beliefs.

Taya had psychically blasted the technicians that had come to take her away, and took control of their minds. After seeing what was planned for her, she forced them to let her go. They hadn’t had a chance to block or shield against her attack. She made them take her outside the tower, but unable to find the way out, she had come back in through a ventilation shaft. Making the maze of ductwork her home, she had been going around sabotaging cameras and vandalizing offices.

Keeping this complication a secret was difficult for the security team, they had managed to keep it quiet until now. The murder of a distinguished and conspicuous doctor would be a serious problem. She made her way through the convoluted shafts back to her home base. It was near the furnaces and only rarely did the maintenance crews come down to this level. When she got to the furnace room, she took the bag from her shoulder and opened the access door. Pulling the still wet papers from the bag, she stuffed them inside where the flames would destroy them.