Braya didn’t know if it was luck or fate that Bash Industries was having open-call interviews when she walked into the lobby. She tucked a few face-framing pieces of her blonde wig behind her ears and introduced herself to the guard as Tuesday Fields, the lesser-known niece of January Fields. Braya came ready with a stack of paperwork that boasted her graduation from a prestigious overseas military school. To seal the deal, she performed martial arts moves on a tired janitor, who would have a bruise on his behind for the rest of the week. Within the hour, she was given a name tag, keycard access of every elevator in Heathrow Heights, a code to Sebastian’s office, and a stern warning that she should only visit his penthouse in an emergency, otherwise she would face Janelle’s fury.
Braya thought this was hilarious. Janelle, the terrified secretary whose trembling hands sloshed coffee all over the countertop? Please.
She found herself repeating the actions of yesterday morning, making her way past the sterile cubicles on the 100th floor and punching in the code to Janelle’s office. Strangely, the secretary wasn’t there, and now that Braya was Sebastian’s head guard, there was nothing keeping her from brewing herself a cup of black coffee with his fancy espresso machine and doing a thorough search of his penthouse.
Braya hadn’t been able to appreciate the size and grandeur of his office the last time she was here, but now she reveled in the plush rugs, modern lamps, and floor-to-ceiling windows and bookshelves. At Sebastian’s desk was a triple monitor and a prism-shaped plaque that read “Sebastian Mulgraves, KING.” She rolled her eyes and tied her blonde wig in a ponytail. She had work to do.
Braya knew that behind every evil genius, there was a page of notes SOMEWHERE describing what they were up to. She spent three hours combing the bookshelves and hacking into Sebastian’s computer, and was not disappointed. After she cleaned out the drawer on the left-hand side of his desk, she found a button that when pressed revealed a secret drawer. Inside were two leather-bound notebooks. One seemed to be a diary, and the other was filled to the brim with scientific diagrams and equations.
She was an intelligent woman, but Sebastian’s equations were beyond her level of comprehension. The little sketches in the corner were definitely diagrams of the brain, with the prefrontal cortex highlighted in yellow, and the amygdala colored blue. Next to one brain, he wrote “cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element-binding proteins,” whatever that meant. Halfway through the notebook, she came across a stream-of-consciousness paragraph in Sebastian’s signature scrawl.
Nobody has seen through my perfectly curated image in years, but I visited a health professional today, and she read me like a book. Fifteen years spent on the streets. I thought I had chronic fatigue, but doc says I need to calibrate my personal machine every day, not just once a week. Neurons overexpressing CREB… I can already single out my CREB to bind with other people’s neurons and control them. But what if I can DESTROY neurons overexpressing CREB = erase my memories of my past? Which existing neurons hold which memories? If I could market the Memory Eraser to retirement homes… war vets… PTSD treatment… nobody will ever know they’re under my control… brilliant!
It went on and on, and Braya covered her mouth as she read Sebastian’s evil plans. Binding his neurons with other people’s neurons to control them? Memory Eraser? No wonder Triumphia wanted him dead. No one man should have this kind of power! She should have left him in jail!
The intercom crackled above her head. “Who are you and what are you doing in Mr. Mulgraves’ office?” Janelle asked.
Braya froze, stuffing the notebook in her waistband. She threw the rest of Sebastian’s office supplies in the drawer and slammed it shut, reaching for the knife strapped against her hip. When she turned around, Janelle was in the doorway, both hands wrapped around a pistol trained on Braya’s chest. Her hands weren’t shaking at all.