Xarissa sighed in relief. So it hadn’t been her fault. “Do you know when he’ll be better?”
“He should be back to normal in a few days. We don’t want him to do anything strenuous until he gets a lot better, though. You’ll have to wait awhile before you can retest him.”
“If he still wants to, of course,” Xarissa answered.
“I’m sure he will,” came a voice. Xarissa turned around to see Rebecca walking towards them. “He doesn’t give up that easy.”
*****************
Connor woke up slowly, not wanting to let go of his delightful dream. He didn't want to let it go, but it slipped out of his memory. He opened his eyes and heard someone talking. Talking about him. He wrinkled his brow in thought, not sure what was going on. He suddenly remembered, all of his sleep gone, as he sat up straight in his bed. The nurse, however, noticed, and quickly pushed him down again.
Rebecca said to him, "You fell unconscious. You need to rest before trying to take the test again." Connor reluctantly obeyed and watched Rebecca walk out of the room with his tester.
****************
"So you think that he won't be giving up?" Xarissa asked Rebecca.
"Not a chance. He may be nervous, but the people at the GCA are insanely stubborn. They're worse than Laura."
"I guess we now know where your stubbornness comes from." Xarissa joked.
"Ha ha." Rebecca laughed sarcastically.
"Do you think that he'll pass the test when he recovers?" Xarissa questioned.
"There's a chance that he'd pass the hackers' test, but he has a slim chance of making it through the other tests,” Rebecca reported. In actuality, she thought he could make it through all the tests. There were a few reasons why she didn’t tell Xarissa. First, she didn’t want Xarissa to know because then she would make things hard for him, and he really didn’t need that. Second, she didn’t want the agents at the HIA to think that the GCA had a stock full of great fighters in their incorporation. They did, but if the HIA knew that the GCA was actually just as good as them, they would start recruiting all the agents from the GCA. Whether they liked it or not, the HIA needed the GCA, and they needed to be separate. Rebecca looked back in the direction of Conner. The last reason was because if Conner somehow didn’t make it, she wanted to spare him the humiliation and discouragement it would cause.
She then remembered the disk that she had in her room, and figured she could give him just a little credit. "He scores lots of points when it comes to creativity and technology."
"Does he now?" Xarissa asked curiously. Rebecca remained silent, knowing it would help Conner for there to be at least one thing interesting about him. She knew that it would be dishonest and illegal to show anyone in the HIA Connor's airplane, but she really wanted that technology in the HIA.
****************
Xarissa let Rebecca keep her secrets. Laura had tons of them, she knew.
"Think of the devil." Xarissa said as she saw Laura walk towards Rebecca and Xarissa.
"What?" Rebecca asked.
"Oh, I was just thinking about Laura, and here she comes." Xarissa responded.
"Hey, can I talk to Rebecca alone?" Laura asked politely. Xarissa nodded and left the two of them to themselves.
****************
He was moving up. Imraan knew he was getting closer and closer to the top. He had achieved so much lately, being promoted to Workman Surveyor, then to Head Lab Tech Supervisor. By the rate he was going, he knew he would finally be able to meet the Head Executive of the GCA. It seemed like he’d been waiting for this moment his entire life. Once he was in the Leading Assembly, he would petition the rejoining of the agencies. Things were looking good. He only wondered what his brother was doing…
****************
Armaan set his head onto his hand and stared at Malyssa with a bored expression. “I told you I don’t know how it all happened,” he said. “They had already gotten over the rage by the time they got here. It had transformed into a heavy depression stasis.”
Malyssa sighed. “Two days ago you said that you used a method of hypnotism on the subjects.”
Armaan lifted his head and his eyes narrowed. Subjects? He repeated in his mind. He didn’t like the taste of that word. “I don’t mean to sound rude here, but they’re not lab rats, Miss Posokhov. These are people you’re talking about.”
Malyssa shook her head. “I’m sorry for my choice of words. Of course they are people. You said you used hypnotism on the agents?”
“Correct,” Armaan answered.
“How did that work?”
Armaan folded his arms and sat back, preparing for a long explanation.
****************
Finally, his time had come.
Irmaan had finally gotten an invitation to a personal meeting with the HE. Nobody from his line of work had ever met the Head Executive in person, so this was definitely a great feat for him. He almost couldn’t believe it!
After a lot of work, he finally could be moved up to a much deserved position in the LAGCA.
****************
“So you’re saying you worked it much like someone would for a brain trauma patient,” Malyssa said, understanding.
“Yes,” Armaan replied. “The mind is much like a storage unit. Actually, it’s everything like a storage unit. Every memory, every new aspect that the brain catches onto, everything you learn gets pushed into this huge expanse. When the body or the brain experiences a lot of trauma or depression, it pushes bad thoughts and feeling back into the far recesses of this unit, making it hard to recover. But the memory still thrives in the back of the mind, creating an imaginary fungus. This theoretical fungus grows and prospers, and soon begins to affect the rest of the brain, eating away the good thoughts until everything is affected. What I did was an attempt to remove the fungi as best I could, but I had to replace it with something. It wasn’t hard.”
Maryssa nodded in agreement, then her eyes narrowed. “I just…I still don’t get why our soldiers are still in a rage while your agents were able to fight it. Is there anything special that you have that maybe our soldiers don’t?”
“Not that I know of,” Armaan answered. “I’ll look into it, though.”
“Thanks.”
“Am I done here?” he asked.
“Of course,” Maryssa answered. As he stood and left, she saw him rub his shoulder. She wondered about it for a minute, then her focus went back to trying to piece this new information together into something she could use.
****************