Karen hadn’t been able to do much of the talking. Her ability to speak on the topic was limited by Fantasio’s programming. But nothing stopped her from standing there, listening, and taking in what had been said. After Carmen finished her recitation, Karen tried to ask a question and nearly choked on her own words.

After she recovered, she closed her eyes for a moment, marshalled her strength, and forced out the words “So what do you make of that?” She found herself with a clearer idea of the limits her programming had put on her ability to communicate around the issue, and through that, a clearer idea of the shape of the commands she’d been programmed with.

Old C.A.L.I.B.R.E. mental resilience drills had been built on the assumption that if you could understand the shape of the structure your controller had erected in your mind, a strong-willed operative would be better able to circumvent them. Following her old training, Karen would have to give some time over to developing ways to work around this. But for the time being, Carmen was speaking.

“I think this is like my captors,” she was saying. “They had stolen many technologies. Many tricks. And they were experimenting on how to affect us, taking notes. Finding the techniques that would give them best results. Yes?”

Karen nodded fractionally, an acknowledgement more than anything else, and Carmen continued, feeling emboldened. “For this, I think they have different techniques for different operations, just as you do. The helmet that programmed me is very different from what seems to have happened to you - uh, pardon -”

This last because as Carmen asserted that Karen’s mind had been affected, the programming within her reacted. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she crumpled backward, only vaguely hearing Carmon’s sudden worries.

*

The superpowered villainess must have caught her before her head hit the floor, as Karen woke up without the residual pain that would have come from impact, reclining on the sofa in her TV room. Carmen, back in sweat pants and loose grey T-shirt rather than her makeshift maidslut attire, was seated on the recliner, and had her telenovela back on as she waited for Karen to come round. Her telenovela?

Shit.

It had taken her to the following morning to recover.

“The, uh, thing you said,” Karen began, once the commercials were airing, “don’t say it again. We both know it’s true, but - defences trigger then.”

Carmen nodded deferentially. She shut off the TV and slipped from the recliner to settle to her knees beside Karen on the sofa, folding her hands in her lap.

Karen was… less than sure what to make of all that. Not for the first time, she pushed that question away as too much to deal with right now. With luck she’d be able to push it away long enough that Enmascarada would be out of her life before she had to actually question it.

“Alright,” she said, collecting her thoughts. “Right now, neither of us really know enough to do anything sensible about this. And I think I need you to help me. Not the… puppet version of you. You understand?”

Carmen nodded, and Karen willed herself not to notice the look of disappointment in those superhuman eyes. It was just her programming, she told herself. She was imagining things. C.A.L.I.B.R.E. drills had talked about Svengali Syndrome a lot, the curious way a lot of mental manipulation lead to its subjects twisting their perceptions of reality to justify their programming. She was under that effect, and so was Carmen, and what she saw would be the result of one or both twistings. It wasn’t real.

…Of course, the way the helmet worked seemed to involve a lot less twisting reality than what her handler had done to her - why twist what someone thinks when you can completely override their bodily autonomy? - but thinking about the fact she probably had a less clear understanding of the world around her than her (slave) enforced roommate wasn’t going to help anything.

Anyway. Thinking about that was not helping.

“There was someone else at the place I was summoned to,” she said. “They took the helmet. And I think… maybe… that they’re in charge?” She tried to shrug, but winced instead; it was difficult to come out with even this much that was so close to what was on her mind.

“I just have no idea who they are. And if I break in to find out, getting caught risks everything. You might be able to monitor more easily - if you can avoid being seen?”

Carmen bit her lip, then nodded. “I can try, anyway,” she said. “Where?”

Karen opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried to mouth the address and her jaw locked. Tears welled in her eyes and she pounded the edge of the sofa with clenched fist. This had nothing to do with the infiltration of C.A.L.I.B.R.E., but her hindbrain was sure it did. She couldn’t speak.

She got up and stalked out of the room, heedless of a worried Carmen scrambling from her knees to follow. Heading into her bedroom, she opened her laptop up and settled on the edge of the bed. After a moment of hesitation, Carmen sat tentatively beside her.

Karen booted up her word processor and typed out the address. She mentioned just how many turns on it had been from the junction where Carmen had been frozen in place, helplessly waiting for her return. She described her contact, though she blushed helplessly toward the end of that description as her fingers continued to type out an extensive description of his cock, and she couldn’t seem to stop typing or delete it.

When it was all typed out Carmen nodded and rose. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said, and made her way out to the condo balcony, from which she launched into the air.

Karen watched the spot she’d taken off from for a long time. A queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach told her she was failing to be the loyal agent of C.A.L.I.B.R.E. her handler wanted, even as common sense suggested working against him might be the better, wiser action.

She wondered if she’d even have the will to resist him in this way if he hadn’t gotten his cock inside her, under his control, on both of their two meetings.

She wondered who he was working with. What their plans for Enmascarada might be, through her. Who else was going under that helmet. What had been on the flash drive she’d connected to Doctor Hendricks’ computer and-

Karen blinked and sat bolt upright. With how much had been going on, she’d managed to completely overlook the previous task she’d been sent on.

Was Doctor Hendricks, even now, reading through modified versions of C.A.L.I.B.R.E. psych profiles, about to provide the wrong treatment to the wrong people?

*

Pinwheel slave Hendricks was in her station wagon heading toward C.A.L.I.B.R.E. headquarters, driving with a clarity and totality of purpose that didn’t permit her to question her orders or her purpose. She wasn’t a thinking human being; she was a tool, a limb of the pinwheel, following the wishes of her programmer.

If you were to ask her about the effects of Pinwheel on its human puppets, and if her programming required her to maintain the mask of an expert therapist in front of you, Pinwheel slave Hendricks would have told you that it was one of the most effective covert brainwashing techniques devised, but limited. Its puppets joined the pinwheel, but like a pinwheel set out in the garden, they would only do certain things. Karen and Enmascarada were both, in their own different ways, more flexible, because they maintained agency, but a Pinwheel slave would respond to specific triggers laid out during their brainwashing, act in specific ways, and then revert.

This had its advantages - a Pinwheel slave programmed to do specific actions that were required regularly would be very effective and would not stop, slacken, or question until their programming elapsed some months after conditioning, and while not triggered, they were almost undetectable; you identified Pinwheel slaves by catching them mid-activity, by tracing the path of the spread from other Pinwheel slaves you’d previously identified, or - very rarely - by noticing their artificially increased libido, as this was the way Pinwheel locked in control.

However, it wasn’t without its disadvantages. Pinwheel slave Hendricks was now focused entirely on a single duty. As she would have told you, if you had the clearance level to know and you asked her, the Pinwheel process was useful to create patsies, one-use sleepers, and concealed drones. It did not create agents who could respond when the situation changed.

What she would not have told you under any circumstances is that creating responsive agents was the task that, as a Pinwheel slave, was now her whole purpose and identity.

She parked up beside the C.A.L.I.B.R.E. facility and made her way in, the only indication that anything had changed in what outside observers would consider to be Dr Zoe Hendricks being the roll of her hips within the skirt of her grey power suit as she marched into the security area.

She showed her photo ID and submitted herself to retinal scan and then she was in. Before she made it to the elevator, an experienced, thin man in the most unmemorable of grey suits detached himself from his position leaning against the wall and fell in walking alongside her.

“Agent Colby,” she greeted him. Her eyes barely took him in. The programming driving Pinwheel slave Hendricks dictated he had to be misdirected, but otherwise he was irrelevant to her purpose.

“Doctor Hendricks,” he returned. “We’ve got a bit of a live one for you.”

“I’ve read the basics,” she said. “What’s missing from the report?”

There was always something. Not only that, but it was almost a rote response for Doctor Zoe Hendricks, and thus something that must be mimicked as part of Pinwheel slave Hendricks’ protective camouflage.

“The main thing? We don’t know what her exposure was, or what technique was used.” Colby’s thumb hit the call button for the elevator, a courtesy he always offered the woman he thought he was talking with.

“Do you have anything you can give me?”

“Aside from the report?” He shook his head briskly. “As well as deprogramming her, we need you to extract that for us. She’s been used to attack C.A.L.I.B.R.E. We don’t know who used her, how they got to her, even how they found her - but that last one is Internal Echelon’s job, not yours.”

Pinwheel slave Hendricks nodded because that was what Doctor Zoe Hendricks would have done. “I’ll see what I can do. With some techniques, though, it’s unrecoverable, as you know.”

Colby sighed. “Yeah, but I can hope.”

“You can hope. I have to stick to science.” She paused, and simulated regret at a prospect her supercharged libido delighted in. “I may have to stimulate her to access concealed areas of her subconscious. You know my usual request.”

Colby nodded. “Nobody will be monitoring the feed.” It was, perhaps, the one nod to privacy they enjoyed within the agency.

“Thank you.” The elevator door opened, and she stepped into it. Colby left her there, presumably heading on to his own irrelevant matters.

*

Nobody looks in the sky.

Carmen had learned that lesson in her criminal activities south of the border. Even others with the power to fly under their own steam rarely look anywhere but straight ahead and down at the earth; if you’re just a little more attentive, you can comfortably avoid being seen.

She’d worried, in flight, that she wouldn’t recognise the building she needed to observe, even with the information she’d had. It had turned out to be more than easy enough; when she saw that strange transmitter, she knew this had to be the house with the sinister plan attached.

She overflew it once, keeping an eye out for anything automated that might turn, swivel, or otherwise track her. Another swoop followed, just in case she’d missed anything. Once she was confident she alighted on the roof, her touch so light and gentle that it would make no sound.

She looked at the transmitter curiously, but only for a few moments, just long enough to snap a picture or two on her phone; technology in general wasn’t her strong suit, and the device in front of her was clearly one of a kind. Instead she settled down on the roof and waited for her adrenalin to die down, then started moving quietly along the rooftop, looking at the grounds below. Had she been imagining it, or…

No, there was her quarry; the man Karen had described and with him, a sawed-off, stubby, robust barrel of a woman, greying of hair, with the expression of someone who’d found the taste of life sour for some years. They were seated in the back garden of the house, in two old, white metal chairs, around a round kitchen table. On that table were two things that immediately drew Carmen’s attention; a laptop computer and the large metal box she’d stolen from the C.A.L.I.B.R.E. convoy the previous day.

It was at times like this that Carmen really envied powerhouses like Ms Triumph, who as well as their strength, resilience, speed and flight had their senses greatly enhanced. There was no way she could get close enough to the pair to eavesdrop without being spotted, and if they knew about Karen, she had to assume they knew about her, too.

She took a photo with her phone and took back to the skies. At first she just tracked back toward Karen’s condo, but after about five minutes in the air, an idea occurred to her. It was, unfortunately, technically against the limits of her parole, and she flew on another minute or so, but - having realised that now the idea was in her head, it wasn’t going to budge - she diverted and flew down the coast for about half an hour.

By the time she landed she’d be, she calculated, about three or four cell towers along from the one her phone was served by at Karen’s condo. It might be enough to keep her unwilling Mistress clear of accusations, if any came up; it offered a screen of plausible deniability.

She dialled a number she knew by heart and waited for an answer, all unknowing that in the back garden of the house Pytki and Fantasio were using, a discussion was under way that would trigger a phone call of its own.

*

The interrogation room they’d put Sandy Ruyter in was fairly typical, albeit medium-security by C.A.L.I.B.R.E. classification; the doors, desk restraints, and walls could not be damaged by purely human efforts, locks all needed to be remotely disengaged by the duty sergeant and by the door guard, and as well as the surveillance equipment, there was an experimental power dampener field cage built around the room. (The dampener field had around a 7% success rate, making it the most efficient on the market.)

Sandy sat at the desk. With ankles chained to the chairlegs and hands cuffed to the centre of the table, there wasn’t much else she could do. Running through her mind, insistently, was what Colby had told her as she was carried off.

“Don’t worry. Dr Hendricks is very good at undoing this kind of programming. You’ll be better off this way.”

Sandy didn’t want her programming undone. Worse, she knew that what she’d done was important; it was one of the actions keeping C.A.L.I.B.R.E. on the right path. Just by arresting her, Colby had identified himself in her mind as one of the rogue agents threatening the integrity of the agency.

The door guard let Hendricks in and locked the path behind her. Ruyter looked anywhere but at her; working as an internal agent, she’d never had to go through one of Hendricks’ anti-indoctrination sessions, and wasn’t sure how she did things. She didn’t think Hendricks had powers - couldn’t imagine C.A.L.I.B.R.E. would encourage anyone with hypnotic eyes to use them regularly; that seemed like a security risk.

But as she’d recently learned, there were things going on in the agency that proved it was rotten to the core, and without the right support, she and the few other agents her handler had vetted wouldn’t be able to recover that.

Hendricks set her briefcase upright on the table, just out of reach of where Sandy could reach if she were to try. She had the feeling the placement was not accidental; that Hendricks knew exactly how far people could reach.

“Good morning,” Hendricks said. Sandy didn’t answer, didn’t look at her. Hendricks chuckled. “And how are we today, hm?”

Sandy still didn’t respond. The deprogrammer left her briefcase upright and locked, directly in front of Sandy’s face - and therefore, right where she could stare at it, dwell on it, and wonder what was in it. Hendricks, meanwhile, moved over to one of the interrogation room’s side walls, where she stood for a moment apparently picking at the paint.

Sandy knew she was taking the bait, but she couldn’t help it. She was studying the briefcase, trying to imagine what might be inside. A metronome? Some sort of spiral? No; those would already be set up, surely. Instead, her bet was on drugs. Some sort of chemical designed to lower her resistance and, maybe even make her hallucinate a little so she could be guided into a more pliable state.

It was strange how just having decided that made her feel better. She nodded to herself, eyes on the briefcase, as Hendricks wandered around behind where she was seated. If she was right, she was confident she’d feel even better. Maybe there was a way she could get out of this after all…

Hendricks struck from behind, stepping quickly into Sandy’s personal space and thrusting her hands under Sandy’s own arms to grab and squeeze her breasts. It was a shocking moment, but also one that keyed off the pleasure conditioning Fantasio had carefully set up - and the eager, needy way she’d been pawing at herself during her overnight imprisonment, so given over to the triggered pleasure reward that the shock of capture and the certain knowledge her cell had been monitored couldn’t stop her.

Her chest ached, and yet what flooded through her was pleasure sweetened by that pain, not hindered or reduced by it. The ache of her all-day pleasure bender somehow made another’s hands on her all the sweeter.

Sandy moaned in delight, reacting before her brain caught up to protest that this wasn’t her friend, wasn’t her ally, was just someone looking to take advantage of her. Her arms had come up in reaction, but were cut off from their movement when they reached the end of the short chains at her risk with a jump.

“Mm-hmm,” Hendricks noted, her fingers finding Ruyter’s nipples through the fabric of her top. “I see someone’s a little excited.” Then there was a pause. Her hands abruptly stopped pawing at Sandy’s chest and the captive woman’s back arched as if she was trying somehow to press her chest back into the deprogrammer’s grip, so much did she crave the pleasure.

When Hendricks spoke again, Sandy would have sworn her voice had changed. It was somehow hollow now, as if the vibrancy and intelligence of the woman in place had been suppressed.

“Sandra Ruyter,” she said. “An employee of C.A.L.I.B.R.E. Also a Russian Doll.”

Sandy flinched. That was true - but she’d hoped Hendricks wouldn’t know. She’d processed enough paperwork relating to anti-indoctrination sessions and full deprogramming activities to know that it often took Hendricks most of the day to identify the techniques used on her charges. She’d been counting on that; it would mean her handler had a full 48 hours of lead before she could possibly be broken.

But somehow, Hendricks had guessed within the first five minutes. Almost as if…

Her eyes widened, and for the first time she turned her head and looked at the therapist, trying to read the truth she suspected in the other woman’s face - which failed; Hendricks’ expression was unreadably absent, her face slack, eyes seeming out of focus.

If she hadn’t been panicking, Sandy might have wondered at that. Far more important to her was just the question of whether Hendricks had already known.

“Russian Doll techniques are associated with a very limited number of programmers, of whom most are now confirmed dead,” Hendricks continued, her monotone making her line of thinking sound like a rote recitation of facts in a schoolroom. “Identifying your programming directly implicates one of three operatives, two of whom are also believed dead.”

Sandy’s heart sank. Hendricks knew everything. She’d probably already told that traitor to C.A.L.I.B.R.E., Colby. A strike team would be being assembled already.

Hendricks moved back around the desk and opened her briefcase. “This is unacceptable,” she continued in the same drone. “You represent a vulnerability and a liability.”

She took out a thin black leather pouch, and Sandy’s attention zeroed in on it, confident it would be the drugs she’d predicted.

A battery-powered wand followed it out onto the table, and Sandy blinked. What was that all about?

For the first time, she deliberately tried to test and break her restraints, even knowing they were built to be far more resilient.

*

“I didn’t receive my usual email update this morning,” Fantasio was saying, “so I know they’ve caught Ruyter.”

“Hmmp.” Pytki was fond of these monosyllables. Fantasio wasn’t sure if that was just her way of buying time while she translated news into her own tongue and pulled the response back out of it, or whether she expected him to read the tiniest indicators of her shifting emotional state and compensate for that ahead of time. “You have the psychiatrist in hand?”

“Yes,” Fantasio nodded, electing to skip over the fact there was no confirmation. That wasn’t how Pinwheel processes worked, not unless you were enough of a software expert to modify the commands more thoroughly; the simpler interface he was using he’d bought off a CodeBreak affiliate. It was enough to implant direct, uncomplicated goals, but it was also designed to remain undetectable, and as such, the interface didn’t permit communication commands.

Pinwheel got called a virus a lot, and while it had been deployed as one initially, that had been by the original programmers - people who had access to the version that checked for updates to its instructions. For Fantasio, this had been a question of getting to Hendricks effectively - her position meaning that his usual approach wouldn’t work for her.

On the other hand, Pinwheel’s infection rate was believed to be 99.8%, and that 0.2% were rumoured to be partially alien, with brains that had fundamentally different strengths and vulnerabilities to humans. And Wainwright was an excellent operative. Hendricks would be a pinwheel slave, and would be taking the relevant steps.

“Good, then,” Pytki said, offering up a grudging nod of acknowledgement. “The red herring is loose in the ocean, and they will chase.”

Fantasio nodded in turn.

“And we know they will send the right people?”

Another nod from Fantasio. Deputy Director Burrows had a very unwise predilection for picking up men in bars, which made security issues in accessing her for long enough to condition her nice and simple. Now she saw absolutely nothing illogical in having a ‘handler’ who she believed she outranked within the organisation, and had been very happy to finally approve two research agents for field ops duty - and to attach them to a new strike team.

Thinking about her body, still kept in full ops-ready condition by a frankly ruthless fitness regime, Fantasio let a smile creep back onto his lips. She had her instructions already, but it might be worth paying her a call later. He could make sure she was still following her programming. Put her through her paces.

Yes, he decided. That was going to be a necessity.

Pytki was chewing on her lower lip, mulling over the plan. “Our fools will have their fall guy, and our new tools start on the Spiral Path. Yes, this is good. This afternoon you must begin on our next quarry.”

Well. So much for a trip to Burrows. Unless… perhaps he could use her to access Flores Base? It’d certainly be more pleasant to be chauffeured for two hours than to drive the route himself. He turned the idea over in his mind, exploring it, until with a jolt he realised Pytki was studying his face. His daydreaming had interrupted any answer that might otherwise have been forthcoming.

He nodded hastily, left once again with the sensation that control of this situation had passed a long, long time ago, back when he first nudged the happy, phlegmatic Russian who barely knew her brother into this new course. It was like he’d ended up with a Tiger tank by the tail. “Don’t worry. We’ll have the access codes in time.”

Pytki smirked. “Good. If we’re to make this work, it’s essential my enemies destroy themselves.” She sat back and nodded. “And for that, you’ll have your reward. And not before. You understand me?”

Fantasio met her eyes, trying to read them. Did she know what he’d been thinking about? She didn’t have any powers, or shouldn’t do. Her brother hadn’t had any - there’d been a year or two, from time to time, where he’d stolen some, but they’d always faded, and they were always a question of physical power and might anyway.

“I understand,” he said, then, after a moment’s discomfort, he leaned forward and picked up the phone. “Time our other agent began her own duties,” he said, and dialled Karen Wainwright’s number.

*

“Whoever this is,” the man said sleepily into his phone, “calling me is your own mistake.”

“Manny, it’s me,” Carmen said, and waited. She counted to five in her head, picturing her ex-husband’s reaction throughout. One second: wondering who it was. Two seconds: recognising her voice. Three seconds: sitting bolt upright. Four seconds: doubting his recognition. Five seconds should be a bewildered question, and-

“Carmen? The news said you were dead?”

She laughed. “And what did you say, Manny?”

“I said anyone who knew when to get away from me wouldn’t be so dumb they’d be caught in a collapsing building.” He laughed his hearty belly laugh, and Carmen smiled. It was easier to love the big lug when you didn’t have to live with him. They might not work together, but they’d had the most mutual respect of any marriage she knew.

But then, most of the marriages she knew were two super criminals, and those weren’t often founded on respect or love. “Manny, I could use a little insight,” she said. “You said my building collapsed?”

“Right.”

“Well, I don’t know what happened but I know that was no kind of accident. I was grabbed, Manny. And held captive a long while.”

“You need an escape route?” Amusement was gone from his voice now, and she had another reminder of just how intense he could be when given a reason.

“Actually, no,” she said, and laughed. “That’s been handled. But you know what that means, Manny. Obligations.”

“You don’t owe anyone a damn thing, Carmencita,” said Manny, and the words were ones he’d said a dozen or more times, his answer every time to the idea she should uphold her obligations. For once, she had a better justification than just preferring to consider them settled - but admitting she’d had her mind controlled would provoke Manny, in one direction or another. Protective or possessive, she wanted nothing of either.

“No, but I might owe you a thing or two in an hour or so,” she said. “Are you still seeing la Agudeza?”

A moment’s hesitation. “We’re… still connected, yes,” he said guardedly.

“I need an identification,” she said. “If I sent you a photo, can you get me independent verification of who they are?”

“When you say independent - you’ve got someone else looking for ID?”

“Yes. But I think their lines of inquiry might be… fogged. I’ll trust it a lot more if it comes from you.”

“And in this case, Lorena is me?”

“You trust her, Manny. That’s good enough.”

“Alright. Send me the photo. I’ll ask her.”

“Thank you, Manny. I know you’ll do your best.”

Carmen hung up and sent the photo across. She took to the sky again, heading back for the Cannon Beach condo. She was all too aware of just how low down on the pecking order of control she’d fallen; a pawn of a pawn. Karen managing to solve her problems with work put Carmen in a better place, too. And Karen feeling gratitude… well, if she kept her under control, Carmen would enjoy that. But if she just looked the other way and let her go, Carmen would be OK with that, too.

*

Ruyter’s moans of pleasure had subsided into whimpers, and she sagged back into her chair, still held in place by the restraints, as Pinwheel slave Hendricks lifted the wand from between her thighs at least.

The therapist circled back around the desk and sat down to face Sandy’s glassy eyes, folding her hands.

“You are not a Russian Doll,” Hendricks told her. “You never have been.”

“I am not a Russian Doll,” Sandy tried to reply. Her words came out slurred, not quite clear enough for Hendricks to make out. “I never have been.”

Hendricks didn’t feel the need to check the words. She was confident in the work she’d done.

She continued to talk, almost reciting the biography she’d been primed with, erasing the truth of Sandy’s handler for a cover story.

*

By the time Karen heard the phone it had been ringing for some time, the volume increasing steadily until it was audible from where she’d stashed it halfway across the house the previous day.

I should just let it ring, she reminded herself. This is as suspicious as anything. Until I have answers I should hold off. But even as those thoughts went through her head she was hurrying through the condo toward it. For all her suspicions, her body and her hindbrain were loyal to C.A.L.I.B.R.E.’s true path, just as her handler wanted.

She picked up the phone, hit answer, and came to attention, phone to her ear as if she was saluting.

“Wainwright,” she said in greeting. “Go ahead.”

“Good morning, Agent,” her handler’s voice began. “I have direct orders. You understand what my orders require of you?”

Karen’s eyes unfocused. “Unhesitating obedience, sir.”

“Good. These orders are to be followed efficiently and accurately, and you are not to allow anyone involved to suspect your direction does not come from the Director of C.A.L.I.B.R.E. Do you understand?”

“I understand perfectly, sir.”

“Excellent. There are items that we’re going to need which are currently in the Portland branch office of the FBI. They must be acquired and taken directly to C.A.L.I.B.R.E. headquarters. And it is crucial that your agency affiliation be clear to the FBI while you do so. I advise you to keep your identity hidden, though. You don’t want an internal investigation.”

“No, sir,” she agreed. “I don’t want an internal investigation.”

“Good. I’m texting you a list of files that must be liberated from the FBI. It’s vital we receive all of these files and only these files. Are you ready, Agent?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get going.” Her handler cut the call. Karen sagged out of attention, turned on her heel, and stalked back to her bedroom to prepare for her raid.

She had pulled out of the drive and was accelerating away from her condo when Enmascarada Roja landed on the deck outside and made her way in.

*

“Well?” Colby asked. Hendricks’ eyes flicked sideways to the door guard currently locking the door on Ruyter, and Colby nodded. The two of them paced away from earshot, and Hendricks pitched her voice low. “You’re not going to like this,” she said.

“No, but I’d better hear it,” he said with a sigh.

“CIA,” she said. “It took a while to recognise it. I’d say they’ve been refining their techniques and they’ve neglected to supply us with updated handbooks as requested. From the variations in technique, I’d guess their protocols have had two major updates since the last one we saw.”

“That would make this…”

She nodded. “Majestic-17, at least.”

Colby exhaled slowly. “So the CIA are trying to steal from us?”

“Yes. Ruyter didn’t know what, though.”

“Well, that’s classified.” He smiled thinly to her. “Thanks for your help, Doctor.”

“I’m very glad I could be of service,” said Pinwheel slave Hendricks, and she headed for the elevator and away.