Eager to rid herself of the travel grime, she didn't bother waiting for the security personnel to approach her before she walked towards the exit to the Commons. They blinked in surprise, and the nearest moved to stop her, but before he came close to touching her she had her ID Badge out to show to him, holding it by the barest corner in case he wished to take it. A pointless precaution - in a closed environment like this one, any pathogens he carried on his skin would long ago have been carried into the recycling systems and fed to the masses within the space of a day or two. These orbiting schools were as close as one could get to a perfectly sterile living arrangement.

Even so, after he took the badge and examined it for validity, handing it back with a sharp salute, she took it with her gloved hand and passed it front and back across the sleeve of her black leather trenchcoat before she replaced it in her pocket. Old habits were hard to break.

The guard affected not to have noticed, but his eyes narrowed a little anyway.

Corrina Reynolds couldn't possibly have cared less.

The Commons was much as she remembered it from her last visit four years ago. She'd been summoned to deal with a recalcitrant student who'd mentioned to the wrong person he'd been considering suicide. Such unsavory characters needed to be dealt with in a quick and quiet manner, and Corrina was nothing if not discreet. Any of that sort of information leaking to an outside source could cause serious repercussions in the civilian quarter, and that was a problem her superiors cared to avoid. The IF soldiers of tomorrow were not depressed. Charybdis was an excellent place to hide the non-conformists. She'd made sure his parents received a very nice letter of condolence on their son's death during training exercises. There might even have been a medal involved. Whatever it took. That seemed to be the motto of the people in real power above her, and she had adopted it as her own.

And that motto was really what had brought her here, not the Headmaster's request for information about a Charybdis probational student. She wanted to be certain that her patients were performing as well as she'd hoped, and that couldn't be left to underlings to supervise. She'd gone to far too much trouble to arrange parole for Katera Quistin and Nathan Terrence to allow someone else to botch things for her now.

She considered going directly to the Headmaster and then changed her mind. The feeling of dirt was a little too heavy on her, and she wanted to get her clothes into the cleaner as quickly as possible. The students were giving her odd looks, but she ignored them and walked into the faculty living quarters, heading for the first available guest room, her boots clicking on the metal floors. Even the few teachers here gave her more than a passing glance. They'd gotten used to seeing uniforms. Corrina was technically a civilian, but she dressed conservatively, as befitted her position as director of the Charybdis Institute. At 33, she was the youngest ever to attain such a position, and she took her job very seriously, and this was reflected in her choice of attire: a simple black suit with a white shell. Slacks, not a skirt. She preferred her clothing to be functional as well as esthetic.

For a reason she promised herself she would discover later, the Headmaster had not arranged for a specific suite of rooms for her, but a quick chat with the proctor cleared things up nicely. He examined her badge, verifying that the auburn-haired woman with dark blue eyes in the picture matched the one in the present before offering her a somewhat sloppy salute and attempting to take her small carrycase from her. "That's not necessary," she said coldly, and he blinked and shrugged and showed her to her rooms.

His first cigarette in months, and it felt... great. Its effect on him was almost instant. He calmed down, a man standing in the eye of the storm. All around him raged a hurricane of rage, but where he stood a terrible calm ruled.

The door clicked shut and removed the last of her doubt, and she finished and exited the shower stall into the tiny bathroom, leaving the water running. She had neglected to bring a set of clothes into the bathroom with her, but there was a supply of towels that would do nicely for the modesty's sake. Probably some idiot functionary, a maid or a maintenance person who hadn't realized this room was occupied. Once the idiot saw her bag, he would most likely beat a rapid retreat.

A strange, familiar odor wafted to her from the next room, and her eyes widened in surprise. She hadn't smelled tobacco in years. It wasn't allowed at BattleSchool or Command School, and the few high-ranked officers at IFC who might indulge occasionally merited a special filter in their offices or living quarters. She wasn't sure who would be brass-balled enough to be smoking a cigarette in her room, but it wasn't a confused maid.

She fastened a towel about her hair, and another firmly around her midsection. The sooner she discovered who it was and what he wanted, the faster he would take himself and his foul-smelling cigarette elsewhere. She outranked anyone she could think of off-hand who might be here besides the Headmaster. She would have an explanation, and she would have it immediately.

Von Starnburg looked her up and down before responding, letting the discomfort settle like a blanket over the procedings. He was in charge here, and he wanted her not only to know, but also to acknowledge it/Memory. A metal bed. Lights. /He took a deep drag from his cigarette, and let the smoke coil slowly out of his half-open mouth, a noxious snake that hovered in the air between them. Johan snapped his jaws shut, and gave her his most penetrating stare.

"You can begin," he said levely, "by explaining to me exactly what you are doing at my school." A flicker of suprise darted across her features./Straps, voices. Needles. Memory's slow smolder heating up./ He noted this, just as he noted, with clynical detatchment, that this doctor was quite attractive. Not that he cared one way or the other - you learned to put such things as hormonal desire aside if you wanted to advance in the IA - but... it did to take these things into account.

"The headmaster requested my personal advice on a patient of mine," she said coldly. "I felt I could make a better judgement on the case in person, and informed him that I would be arriving today." She paused, and then decided to try to draw him out. The IA was not the only repository for interrogators within the IF, after all.

Johan sat languidly in one of the room's chairs, still idly smoking his ci/'Perhaps this one can be saved, more conditioning?" Faceless bodies. His mind invaded/garette, staring at her expectantly. He disliked this Institute woman, her arrogance was like a foul stench in the room, but he forced himself to be civil, a use for her already brewing in the back of his mind. Had not young Terrence spent some time there? Even as he thought this, von Starnburg couldn't surpress a feeling of wry amusement - the boy was becoming his white whale. Still, if he played his cards right, this dressed up tart could unlock the mystery of his personality.

The space was uncomfortably tight, but she managed, and emerged appropriately clothed from her cuffs to her boots in loose black slacks and a white blouse. Simple efficiency was something Corrina prized, and she wanted the man gone as easily and painlessly as possible. If that meant sitting through some sort of question and answer session, she was amenable.

"Well, first, you may begin by addressing me with the respect due me," he said with a snarl, "I am not some middling attache you to deal with or work around. I am in charge here, and you would do well to accept the fact. Second. This ex-patient you are here to visit. He - or she - must be rather important for you to come all the way here, personally, Director." This last was said with a sneer. "I should like to know who it is and why your presence is required." He snubbed/Fire, pain. A mind invaded. 'He's making fine progress, don't you think?' 'Yes, doctor.'/out his cigarette in the same potted plant.

Ah, a simple puzzle after all. Just another insecure high-ranking officer who felt the need to throw his weight around. She knew how to handle that type. Making trouble would only cause more trouble. Easiest just to answer his questions and wait for him to finish vindicating his genitalia before he bored himself with strutting and left of his own accord. She could afford a little personal inconvenience, if it avoided interference in her mission, and once that was complete, she could leave this rock and set about devising a full report on the mental stability of the man in charge of the school.

Until then, however, a little distasteful accommodation was in order. No doubt he'd tire of hearing her voice without his own interrupting before she got very far anyway. A cursory explanation should suffice.

Madness.

Corrina was used to dealing with madness, but she was used to handling it with twitchers and guards and transparent polycarbon walls to protect her. Still, she knew her job, and that was the only assurance that kept her from complete breakdown. Intellectually, she knew she was in serious trouble. This cabin was quite likely soundproofed, and any attempt to call the guards would probably do little more than antagonize the subject. She could attempt to subdue him herself - a futile prospect at best; he was IA, and moved with the assurance of a trained fighter. Her last self-defense course had been several years ago, and though she was fit, she was far too out of practice to consider such a path except as a last resort.

He seemed to know something about Terrence. She couldn't bank on his lack of knowledge by giving him false information. If all he wanted was Terrence's case history, that wasn't worth fighting over. He could request the file anytime he chose with the access the IA granted to people of his rank. No need to lie, yet. He didn't need to know the real reason for her visit.

Her eyes were wide with genuine fear and shock when she finally mustered enough coherency to reply. Reasoning things out intellectually did not prevent her from being terrified, but it did give her a reason to attempt to remain calm. "Nathan Terrence beat his BattleSchool army Commander Anjelice Iddantel and a toon leader, Ariadne Ivemey, nearly to death shortly after being transferred into Fox Army. There...there was a good chance that he was romantically involved with Iddantel, but nothing was ever proven. I treated him while he was at the institute. He was a difficult patient, didn't respond to psychotherapy, so we had to resort to chemical means. That did little, and the board gave him up as a lost cause and sent him to the labs, but I convinced them to discontinue it and resumed his psychological treatment, with much more success. I signed his release myself." The recitation brought a little more of her mood under her control, but she did nothing to hide her fear. "There was some question that he might have been involved in an incident, and I wanted to make sure for myself that he wasn't...regressing. He's had advanced combat instruction, and that could be dangerous to the...to your school and its students."

Would that satisfy him?

He had been 9 or 10. A student at Battle School. A capable and intelligent student, if somewhat asocial. He hadn't disliked people, but he hadn't much liked them either. This had left him vulnerable to alliances and plots, though his natural survival instinct had prevented him from going under. And yet, the strain proved too much. His suffering ended in disaster, Johan stalking the school for nearly a week, attacking his enemies with a crudely made shiv.

No one had been seriously hurt - his blinding rage had prevented him from administering more than deep fleshwounds. It ended, of course, as these things often do. He was caught after six days, haggard, unkempt, and silent. Psych evaluators had rushed to examine him, declaring him severely antisocial with psychopathic tendencies.

They had sent him to Charybdis.

It had been the worst, most shaping experience of his life. Subjected to endless tests and treatments, his problems had only become more pronounced. He withdrew within himself, shunning the company of others, yet watching everything with eyes of stone. It was at Charybdis that he learned to observe human nature, to learn what mannerisms alerted the doctors, and which soothed them. How the inmates acted when they lied as opposed to when they told the truth. All manner of psychological tests were administered, and he learned them all.

As time dragged on, his readings became increasingly conflicted. Any written tests he could pass with ease, yet personal interviews always left the interviewer with a deep sense of unease.

Thus he was slated for chemical treatment.

Even now, with all the sensations rushing back on him, that part of Johan's life remained foggy; a dark cavern in his mind, populated by vague and menacing forms. A battery of mind-altering drugs, behavior mods, and even devices implanted in his brain. It had not been pleasant. They broke him down and rebuilt him dozens of times over. Always in the back of his mind burned the flame of angry revenge, but he had only been a small child, no matter how gifted. In the end, he had found he could only survive by adapting to their molds. By staying calm in every situation, by never letting surprise get the better of him.

In the end, he had been rescued by an Internal Alliance man charged with monitoring his case. The IA, he later learned, observed almost all the cases at the institute, looking for subjects it could mold to its unique mission. Johan had proved to be one of these special cases. His experiences had made him cold, calculating and ruthless. All he lacked was focus, and the IA had that in spades.

So he had been rescued, trained, and had advanced quickly through the ranks. Letting the helpless fury of childhood out in concentrated bursts of cruelty. Until now. His pursuit of the boy Terrence had set him on edge, and meeting this.. this doctor had been enough to bring it all out at once.

So he stood silent, staring down at her, an internal battle raging. He reached out with his right hand, shaking slightly,his face still a nightmare visage. And then, his hand poised in front of her face, something happened. He snapped a second time.

The clouds parted, the fever broke, and for the first time, he saw things in perfect clarity. Johan knew what he had to do. The tic on his face sputtered and died, his hand stopped shaking.

"You poor, stupid bitch," he said, completely without malice, "Do not insult my intelligence to such an extent. Would the Director of the Charybdis Institute come all the way here for one, ordinary, routine patient? I think not. Now," he hooked two fingers in the soft spot under her chin and pulled her to her feet.

Corrina was used to exerting control, not receiving it. She handled her patients with a tight hand because it gave her the most control over the outcome. She used drastic measures because half-measures weren't worth the effort it took to make them. She had never paused to consider herself under circumstances similar to her subjects. It wasn't productive to sympathize with the patients. It would only distract her attention from the ultimate goal, whatever she chose to make it. Corrina was good at what she did because she didn't hesitate to do whatever it took to achieve those goals.

Her goal right now was to survive.

There was no doubt in her terrified mind that he could - and would - kill her if he wished. She had never felt any apprehension when dealing with her patients, no matter how sick or twisted they were, no matter what crimes they had committed, because she was in control. She knew the safeguards at the Institute, knew precisely how far she could push them, how far away constituted out of reach. Wherever they had come from before, the patients were on her territory at the institute, and they all ranked the same amount of respect from her within those walls. None at all.

"Of course," he said softly, "you don't have to tell me anything." His lips brushed her cheek, she shuddered. "We don't need words, you and I. We are... alike." Johan reached out with his other hand and turned her face towards his own. "I can see right through you. Behind that crumbling mask of strength is a hollow and empty woman, waiting to be filled with something, some purpose, some reason of being.

What this man threatened wasn't death. It was much worse.

Corrina loathed human contact, in all forms. She never struck her patients, never touched them in any way. She did not shake hands unless absolutely necessary. She never allowed anyone, man or woman, to lay hands on her in the manner this man had. It was a measure of her control that she had never been willing to sacrifice for the meager reward of sensation.

Nausea seized her, and all her muscles went rigid as she tried to deal with the idea of what was about to happen to her. No. This wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening. It was too fast...but it didn't matter how fast or slow it had come about, because it was happening. There was no hesitation in this man's eyes, no anger, no desire...and that was what scared her most. She could have understood desire, or at the very least, identified it. She could have despised him for that weakness, and that might have saved her.

"T...Terrence...I handled his admission to Charybdis two years ago!" The hand did not move away, but it stopped over the center of her stomach. She could feel the loathsome pressure each of his fingertips exerted on her skin as it rested there like a spider that hadn't quite decided how hungry it was yet. It began to move again when she went silent, and she launched into wild speech to keep it at bay.

"He...when he came in, they said he'd beaten those soldiers, the others tried everything they could to get him to admit his guilt or proclaim his innocence, but he wouldn't talk to them at all! I put him on medication, and he complained of being disoriented and out of touch, but...but he made no progress, wouldn't talk, wouldn't cooperate...I had to send him to the labs. Nothing else would get through to him! He...when we finally brought him out of the catatonia, he was...open. Communicative. Everything you could want in a model patient, but we needed more time! The brass wanted proof that what we were doing was working, and they wanted it immediately. I tried to tell them, the process takes longer, no one was ready, but they disagreed, and so I sent him and Katera Quistin, one of the lifers, up for parole. They passed the tests, I knew they would, they're BattleSchool brats, and those two could have beaten any test those idiots could throw at them, and now they're here, and Terrence attacked Moira Callenstrom and got away with it, but he wasn't supposed to get away with it, don't you see? Quistin was a backup, violent and combative. She should have been in the detention center the first night, waiting to be shipped back to Charybdis, but she wasn't. Terrence was supposed to crack, but not like that. The brass had to know we needed more time! You have to understand, it was a necessary risk, a necessary sacrifice! I had to make sure they were...progressing..."

"Not a nice feeling, is it?" he asked, "That feeling of helplessness, knowing that I can do anything, and you can't prevent me." His hand snaked around, until his palm rested on the back of her neck. Johan leaned in closer, so that his forehead rested against hers, a false portrait of intimacy. Had anyone walked in on them at that moment, they would have seen what appeared to be an older man, gently comforting a distraught young woman. He pulled her closer, murmuring in her ear. To the observer, he might have been whispering to her sweet nothings, words of love and comfort.

Then she went rigid. Tried to pull away. Color draining from her face. Breath in ragged gasps. But his was a grip of iron, relentless and inexorable, and she was pulled helplessly back into his cruel embrace.

For the first - and the last - time Johan had let the Darkness take control. He had let the demons out, and they wanted blood. No sexual desire did he harbor, his actions were purely motivated by the desire, the need to hurt, to break, to destroy. How unfortunate, then, that this woman had made clear her loathing for physical contact. As she had done numerous times, Johan had gotten inside her head, had found out her greatest fear, and intended to exploit it; to drive through the breach and wreak havoc upon her carefully constructed persona.

He broke into her body without hesitation and without interest. Pain, but it was the sensation of something foreign invading her with foul, mechanical regularity that pulled tears from her eyes as they went blank under his assault. Any movement she tried to make only made it worse, made her more aware of what he was doing, and at last she lay still and cold, her mind retreating as far back into itself as it could go, but nothing could block out the sight of his empty eyes above her. She tried to turn her head, shut her eyes to his cold indifferent violation, but her neck did not move, and her eyes remained open through to the repulsive conclusion.

She did not faint, did not lose physical consciousness, but it was the closing of the door that brought her back to her senses. She did not know how long she lay there, smelling his filth on her, but when she moved it hit her in a fresh wave, and she turned her head to the side before she threw up, her body trying to purge itself of the taint he'd left her with, the taint that mixed with the blood that was drying on the skin of her thighs in sickening lines.

The shower stall was miles away, but she crawled the distance and activated the spray before slumping against the tile wall. The water struck her full force, and it was not enough. She pressed her way up the side of the shower, bracing in the small space so she could reach the temperature controls and twisted the knob to increase the heat, and it was not enough. Her skin turned pink, and then red, and still not enough. Nothing would ever be enough.

When the automatic shutoff finally kicked in, she was too weak to move, her tears gone with the scalding water down into the drain. She wanted very much to leave this station, before that water reached the purification filter and spread through the school, before she had to drink what she'd just washed away.

Nervousness.

She paused behind Mode, unease giving her the unpredictable wary aura of a caged animal. Everything had seemed just fine until now. She'd managed to keep herself out of too much trouble; at least, any trouble that the administration knew about, and that could get her sent back to Charybdis. But having the director of that hellhole here... and just waltzing in to talk to her...

Not hard at all. Fuck, you managed all those years at Charybdis. Remember the psychological re-evaluation? All those interrogations? The tests and studies and torture you went through? This bitch doesn't know anything. Mode knows the name of the game, same as you do. Manipulation. Need to spell that out? Just be the innocent wide-eyed sweetheart who always gets her way. Then we can go hunt later to feel better.

Behind this door was the woman responsible for everything that had happened to him once he'd walked through the doors of Charybdis. He remembered being close enough to smell the light scent of shampoo when she was near him in the labs. He knew her step, her voice, her eyes, the tiny cold smirk she used when she was trying to make him angry, trying to draw him out. Besides Katera's vicious, sporadic companionship, Dr. Reynolds had been the only other constant.

Dr. Reynolds had made sure he knew what it was to wish to die. She also made sure that he wanted to avoid feeling that way again enough to cooperate with her. At the time, she hadn't been the focus of hate she was for him now. She had been like gravity, an uncomprimising and unforgiving force with which there was no reasoning. But now...

But now, she was here.

The door did not open at Kat's knock, and after a moment's hesitation, Mode pressed his palm to the pad, expecting the notifying chime of the engaged door lock.

The door slid open, and the room became visible. More spacious than the four-person cells, this room had been designed to accommodate guests of the administration, and Mode had to step into the chamber to get a glimpse of the bed where Corrina Reynolds lay asleep...but it was not a peaceful sleep, by any stretch of the imagination. The bed was stripped of sheets, and the woman lay on the bare mattress wrapped tightly in one of the rough military blankets. From what he could see she wore nothing on her upper torso, though all that was visible was her back and neck where her hair had fallen away. The skin was pink, like she'd suffered a mild sunburn.

Someone has been here before us.

He fought it with every ounce of his will, but an unwanted thread of concern was pushed into his emotion by the dormant Angel with the same ease he'd batted Asmodeus aside, and he took a step towards the bed and then stopped.

Remember how blank she looked when she gave you the J/T injection, how intently she watched for any sign of change in your features. She was monitoring you. She knew when your nerve endings spiked what you were feeling...she just wanted to make sure no one could see any difference on the outside. You stared into those pretty blue eyes all the way to hell. Remember what it felt like when they threw you back into your cell and she came to visit you before they had to tie you down again, how close she was when you still couldn't move on your own, how you longed to break her then, to make her feel a hint of what you did. Whatever the IA spook did to her is nothing to what she deserves. Break her now, Nathan.

Yes. Become what she was, what the interrogator wants you to be.

He didn't move any closer, but his hand reached up of its own accord and brushed the hair away from her face.

The reaction was violent. Corrina Reynolds bolted straight up, clutching the blanket around herself and backing up as fast as she could go, obviously startled into terrified consciousness. It took a moment for recognition to blossom in those wide blue eyes, but when it did her terror magnified, her gaze flying from him to Katera and back before that cold composure he'd grown to know so well during his two year stay came down like a portcullis. He took an involuntary step back and checked his own instinctive fear. All her vulnerability was gone, and he found himself wishing he hadn't come, and utterly speechless.

Every doctor wore it, every interrogator and attendant and administrator and lab tech. Some, more than others, but it was always there. Cold. Commanding. Completely devoid of any sort of human warmth. Dr. Reynolds hadn't been there when she'd first arrived, but her Internal Alliance overseer had, as had her physician, and they all carried that same mask of emotionless, powerful ice.

How to respond depended on the person, on the circumstances. With Major deVillefort, she'd been innocent, naive. With her advisor, as sweet and charming as possible. With Dr. Reynolds... well, all Kat remembered now was that this woman was responsible for all the pain her Mode had ever gone through, and the surprise in the woman's eyes as Mode woke her demanded only one reaction.

Kat smiled.

Mode, on the other hand... he froze, stepped back, and she could sense his fear. Kat was afraid too; she didn't want to go back to Charybdis any more than he did, and this bitch was certainly a sure-fire way to the Institute. But she was also thirsting for a chance to play, to manipulate, to puppet this woman as much as she'd been controlled herself. Maybe it wouldn't be much, maybe she'd see right through her false demeanor, but if there was anything Kat could do well, besides kill... then it would be lying.

The woman was now watching them even more intently, bright blue eyes roving from her to Mode and back again, and Kat's own emerald green eyes shone with all the sincerity she could foster. It was obvious something had happened; something to damage her control, make her afraid as she sat curled on the bed in only a blanket... but it was just as obvious that she had noticed the look Kat shot her. Predatory lust, hidden behind innocent naivety. Why had she even agreed to come with Mode in the first place?

Because she's done much to hurt me, to hurt him. There had to be some reason she let us go. I'm not fool enough, not blind enough to ignore that I shouldn't have been let free. There was something... now she's here. Why would she take us back if we haven't done anything wrong-- at least, anything they can prove wrong? Maybe she's here for another reason. Maybe... damnit, too many factors. I don't know what's going on... only that I'll never let her take Mode back to Charybdis. I'll die before that happens. Or she will.

When she'd last seen Nathan Terrence, he'd been standing at precise attention before the parole board, doing a very creditable job of concealing his surprise when he heard the verdict. Control had been hard coming to him after the labs, but when he finally did attain it, he'd never let it slip. Not in front of her, anyway; she'd spent hours watching him when he thought he was alone, and very occasionally a little of the mass of bruised and swollen emotion slipped through the edges. He would shiver and clench his teeth, and it would pass.

She'd chosen him as her example for the administration before he'd actually arrived at Charybdis. He was still in transit when she got the notification from Headquarters about the Institute funding reduction. She had explained to the IF liason that what the patients required was therapy and time. The liason had explained in return that time was not a luxury they could afford. She needed to produce results if she wished the institute to continue to receive the generous investments the IF had made in the past.

Corrina had not been lying to the liason. True recovery could not be effected in a brief, stopgap fasion. True recovery had to proceed at the patient's pace, not the IF's. The IF needed convincing, and to do that she had to show them the fallacy of their ways. She had to find a patient and treat him according to the IF's new time standard and release him, and that patient had to prove her correct. Such a position couldn't be filled by just anyone. Once a subject had entered Charybdis, she had no way of quantifying his past traumatic experiences; Charybdis had a habit of multiplying those far too quickly for it to remain a controlled environment. She needed someone untainted.

She needed Nathan Terrence.

He was the perfect candidate. She had his entire life documented, courtesy of the IF, and she knew what he would experience between Command School and Charybdis, locked into a stasis pod. His infraction was also ideal - an obvious loss of temper, un-premeditated. His past record had no other disciplinary instances, and that indicated a very well-kept veneer of calm over that unstable temper. He had physical aptitude, and obscure martial arts training that predated his BattleSchool enrollment that, to date, he had no record of using. He was, in a word, perfect.

Upon reading into his file, she was a little concerned at first that perhaps he hadn't been the one to beat Iddantel and Ivemey nearly to death. There was some question of who had beaten Terrence when they'd found him trying to finish off his commander and her toon leader. When she read the aide's note on possible romantic involvement with Iddantel, it washed her concern away. Iddantel and Ivemey both had implicated Terrence, and obviously someone had beaten them both very badly. Some childish lover's quarrel, she had no doubt, and Ivemey had simply interrupted at an inopportune point.

Of course, if he'd killed his commander, they wouldn't have offered him parole. It seemed it was simply meant to be.

She'd taken control of Terrence's case from the very beginning. He was precisely what she expected, from his personality profile - withdrawn, bitter and remorseful. At first, Corrina tried psychological therapy exclusively, allowing him free access to the gym when he wished it so she could study him more thoroughly. He was remarkably agile; his movement was fluid and efficient, and Corrina respected efficiency. It was important to him as well, and when he did not respond to simply psychological therapy, she rescinded his gym access and placed him onto a moderate regime of chemical therapy.

It was then she discovered his chemical tolerance. Sedatives, pain killers, anesthetics, tranquilizers and several other forms of medication had very little effect on him. To get the desired result, dosages had to be tripled, often quadrupled. The combination of drugs intended to drive him to either display his illness openly or move towards catatonia merely disoriented him, making him feel ill and out of sorts. He was still singularly uncooperative, and her timetable was being threatened, so Corrina signed the release and sent him to the military labs.

Three months later, Terrence broke after one of the injections left him huddled and unable to speak or move for nearly three days. When he came out of it, he displayed promising flashes of mindless rage followed by periods of blank catatonia. She waited until one of these quiet moments to give him another chance to cooperate.

"Hello, Nathan. How do you feel?" The blank grey eyes focused on her, but the boy remained silent. "Nathan, I'm here to help you," she said, an excellent imitation of tenderness touching her voice. His eyes widened just a little, but there was no other response.

"Do you know why you're here?" she asked gently. Tears came into his eyes, but did not fall. "You're here because you did something very bad, Nathan. You hurt someone very badly. Do you remember who that was?" Tears spilled at last, fell down his cheeks as he began to shiver, bowed his head. His voice was low and raspy, and he whispered a single word. "Anjel..."

Corrina nodded quiet approval. "Yes. You hurt her. You're a bad person, Nathan." Even through his sorrow, the rage flickered across his features, and his shivering ceased. Still proud, she thought, irritated. Perhaps she could turn that to her advantage. He was shaking his head slowly, and she raised an eyebrow and gave him a disbelieving look. "No? I see. She hurt you too." He met her eyes with much greater focus, a hunger for understanding laid bare by his suffering, and she knew what she needed to do.

She made a show of looking over the paperwork with her. "It says here," she said with a small, friendly smile, "that they used to call you Angel. Is that true?" The shame displaced much of the rage in his eyes and he looked away, nodded once. The drug had left him jerky and unstable, robbing him of much of his former grace. She was fairly certain there wasn't any permanent nerve damage, but she made a note to keep a close eye on him. He was no good to her if he couldn't function.

"I don't think you deserve to be called that any longer," she said coldly, her voice and her features dripping with disdain as she looked him over. "Do you?" The rage returned, but he bowed his head again and did nothing at all. The tension did not leave his shoulders. "No, you're not Angel. No angel would do what you have done. Do you know what happens to angels when they do the unforgivable?" She paused, but he said nothing. "They *fall*, Nathan. Just like you. Your name is Asmodeus." His head remained bowed, but a strange shudder went through him. He did not look up when she left, did not protest when the nurse came in afterwards to give him enough sedative to put him under for three days, just quietly went to sleep, more obediently than any time before.

He didn't go back to the labs after that. She was never certain afterwards if he truly remembered their conversation or not. He adopted the name, but she made subtle references in later conversations to that encounter in the lab, and he only looked at her in confusion. He became coldly polite, began to answer the questions she asked him with what she knew he felt she wanted to hear...and it was. He gave every outward evidence of recovery. She silently guided him towards perfecting his cloak of sanity while delicately prying at the cardhouse structure, making sure that a single blow in the proper area would bring him back down, should the need arise. She played on his intelligence and his pride and his seething self-hatred, and he responded beautifully, becoming precisely what she wished him to be.

Katera was more of an afterthought.

She shifted her gaze to the wild green-eyed girl with the contrived expression of innocence on her features that now stood besides Nathan, casting a glance at him before smiling back at her. A concerned glance. What an interesting development. Quistin and Terrence had been distantly amicable at Charybdis, but Corrina had made sure he was never in the state of mind to foster any distractions. It appeared Katera had managed to get past one of Corrina's carefully placed blocks. Were the rest of them still in place?

"Asmodeus," she said smoothly, crisply. Nathan flinched and blinked at her like he didn't recognize her for a moment, but she didn't have long to wait before the familiar cold slate replaced the darker grey he'd somehow managed to unleash once again. Kat's interference, most likely; it was good to know she could still control him. "I am going to get dressed. Take your friend and wait outside." His eyes narrowed briefly, but she held them with her own, and he dropped his first, turning to Katera and wrapping a hand around her arm, dragging her out. The door shut behind them, and, reassured, Corrina rose and dressed quickly, ignoring the pain in her abdomen and thighs as best she could.

She called him back, and he brought the girl back in with him. She wrenched her arm free and glared at Nathan in pure hatred and frustration. Corrina controlled a smile.

No. No... no, if I can't get Mode back, he'll kill me...

She didn't have time for more frantic contemplation as he forcefully dragged her into the corridor; she didn't have the coherency to try to call him back, and she didn't have enough control on her rage to do anything rational until he hauled her into the room again. The moment they entered, however, she wrenched free from his grasp, hate in her serpentine eyes as she glared daggers at the man she hated and loved.

But she couldn't do anything, not here... not where Dr. Reynolds might see. Kat didn't want that woman to know anything, although it was becoming evident by the veiled smile in her eyes that she did notice something between them. Fuck. She hadn't worked this hard to make him hers, just for some twisted, manipulative excuse for a human being, so like herself, to take him away from her.

And so she turned her rage to the woman, taking a few steps to circle slowly, slitted pupils watching her with seething hatred buried beneath false friendliness. Her hands itched for her dagger, and she had to hold them behind her back so neither Corrina nor Mode could see her nails digging into her palms. But fear tightened her heart as she gave the bitch a raking once-over, eyes flicking back to Mode, making her restrain a shiver at his expression, and it was with sugar-coated malice that she answered.

"Just... heard you were around."

If he doesn't come back, it's all your fault, bitch. I won't die because you can call that bastard, and I can't get my love back. I wish we could kill you now, make you feel just one moment of what I've had to live through for eight fucking years because of you and your goddamn kind. And I'll have to stop him from hurting you, if he so chooses to do so, as much as I'll hate to... because even as Asmodeus, I'll never let him go.

Corrina did smile then, a cold smile that lent no warmth to her dark blue eyes. Quistin was obviously distraught over Nathan's alteration in character. Corrina had not chosen Quistin randomly. The girl had a lengthy disciplinary record, and most of revolved around her "romantic" associations with fellow male prisoners. She had been examining Nathan's few speaking acquaintances and come across Katera before she'd decided to send another subject up to Command School. It wasn't until she'd reviewed Katera's file that she decided only blind luck or divine intervention could have provided her with such a perfect combination.

Quistin was also a BattleSchool reject, a borderline Epsilon case that was eligible for Command School, if barely. Terrence was rated a solid Delta, prime reform material; getting Quistin into the parole room hadn't been nearly as easy, but after she'd read the girl's file, there was nothing that would stand in her way, not after she'd learned about Jaxen Narita.

Narita, who could have been Terrence in a previous physical incarnation, was the prime figure in all the notes from Quistin's primary physician. Corrina had attended school beside Victor Legault, and trusted his judgement concerning vicious little Katera's motivations. There was even some speculation she'd had something to do with Narita's disappearance. Further research into her relationship with Terrence suggested that his resemblance to Narita was not lost on the girl, but strangely enough, she'd made no move to increase or diminish the depth of their association.

Terrence was a scalpel, aimed directly at Anjelice Iddantel. Corrina had scheduled him to arrive six months after Iddantel, before the girl got too comfortable in her surroundings, before Terrence had a chance to attempt to live a normal life. Failing Iddantel, there was always Ivemey.

Failing Ivemey, there was always Katera.

She'd even arranged to have them bunked together, increasing the likelihood that Katera would be under enough pressure to crack...but now it appeared that somehow, not only had Katera Quistin avoided injuring anyone, she had managed to develop some sort of lasting attachment to Terrence, something he quite likely returned, since he'd managed to relapse from the state of perfected bitter resolution she'd sent him up in. This development had either severly complicated or simplified her plans.

She needed to find out if Nathan was indeed responsible for Callenstrom's little accident, but she also needed to verify the extent of the damage Quistin had caused, and what might prompt a reaction violent and public enough to catch the attention of the IF. Nathan was under control for now. It would be more prudent to interrogate Quistin first.

As if I ever tell the truth. Play it up to her; I'm such an innocent, repentant little thing...

"Oh, Dr. Reynolds, they have me in weapons class, and it's so much fun! I didn't know how much I missed all those courses, you know, after I left BattleSchool... but I'm trying really hard to catch up, isn't that good? And... well, sometimes it's tough since we're Charybdis parolees... but I'm finding all sorts of new friends too!" Kat smiled sweetly, eyes sparkling a sincere emerald even as she thought of all the delightfully vicious things she would love to do to this bitch. Torture would be so nice. So would giving her that fucking serum she'd gotten once from the labs...

It'd be so nice to see you bleed, bitch doctor...

Mode was still silent, but that was probably a good thing... he didn't appear to be in any sort of condition to play as much as she was doing right now. If only they could leave soon, so she could get him back to the barracks, snap him out of Asmodeus, and try to figure out a way to stay out of trouble until Dr. Reynolds left. It was going to be harder than she'd thought, especially with Ryan and his boys lurking about, especially with Gabe and Sol teasing her mercilessly, all of them just begging for a fight. What a nuisance. Well, she hadn't survived eight years to become impatient now. She could wait.

In the damp metal darkness, Nathan was screaming.

Cold steel held him down, the same cold steel that wrapped the foundations of the demon above him and kept him immobile and subservient to the woman before him. If there was anyone else there, Nathan was not aware. Everything appeared to him as if from a great distance, the words echoing in his head like someone shouting into a dark cave, the lights and the colors muted and unreal. Nothing he said, nothing he did, nothing he willed made it to the surface. He could not touch the light.

Asmodeus was in control.

Yet even he was not himself; something was binding him as well, holding him to heel like a vicious pet. Nathan could feel the hatred Asmodeus was struggling to contain and wondered faintly why he was containing it at all. That brought a wave of fury down on himself, and he could do nothing but maintain his own integrity for a few moments as the dark one attacked him with all the anger he was shielding Reynolds from.

-Why not her?-

Shut up.

-Are you afraid? Weren't you just begging me to kill her?-

You fucker, this is all your fault. I can't kill her now, and it's your fault...

-So you let her own you instead?-

Outside, nothing moved. There were hints of sound, of conversation, but nothing was addressed to him.

I'm not going back.

-You are scared. Not going back. If you can't do what you have to do to make this bitch pay, then you don't have to go back, do you? You just take it with you instead. You called me a coward. Where's all that anger, Asmodeus? Where's all that rage? Did you spend it all on Katera and Dante?-

None left for us.

Until something called sanity stopped her.

It stabbed at her painfully, making her eyes widen. Don't be a fool, it hissed. Kill her and you'll be sent to Charybdis. Kill her and you'll never see Mode again. Kill her, and you might as well kill both Mode and yourself to save the trouble later, because they'll sure as hell have no qualms about murdering you there.

Her rage had another agenda.

Slice the bitch... it whispered temptingly, tantalizingly. Make her feel every tear of the flesh, every scream of the nerve, every single moment of pain. Everything she and all those other doctors gave you, you can give her back. Make her bleed, Kat, make her pay. Look at her. She's afraid, like you used to be afraid of her. Your lover wants to kill her too... why don't you end the whore together? Wouldn't that just be the biggest fucking moment of poetic justice?

She didn't understand nor appreciate the vise that tightened around her as she started to drop into a crouch, hand slowly inching towards her dagger. It wouldn't let her anywhere near the weapon, wouldn't let her do anything, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. And oh, but Kat was trying to fight it. She wanted this bitch doctor dead and buried somewhere far, far away. She wanted her gone forever.

Mode was obviously thinking the same thing, but had no such inhibitions.

He took another step closer, and Dr. Reynolds' eyes widened further, fright and something Kat couldn't quite identify clouding those blue eyes. If practicality, or whatever the hell it was wanted to keep her from harming the woman, then why did she have to stop Mode? Give him the pleasure of the kill; it was a gift Kat was willing to sacrifice for her love. He deserved it, more than she. But... but...

Good idea. Such a good idea, you blade-happy little girl. It's as if you want to be sent back to that hellhole. Kat winced internally, a hand moving of its own accord to grip Mode's forearm tightly. Charybdis means death for you and for him. Torture. Pain. And there will be no way out this time. No miracle. No one wants that. Take him away from here, and maybe you'll live to see another morning with him.

Someday that blood will paint your hands. Not just yet. Patience...

"Mode."

Dr. Corrina Reynolds, Director of the Charybdis Institute, had come to Command School to check the progress of a potentially profitable experiment. Instead, however, she seemed to have fallen into someone else's maze, no longer the work of her own design. Johan von Starnburg was mad, Katera Quistin and Nathan Terrence equally mad and uncontrollable.

To hell with the experiment. Reynolds was leaving, and she was leaving now. To hell with the funding, to hell with Terrence and Quistin; nothing was worth what she'd already been through.