BEFORE THE NEXT CHAPTER,THE UPDATED CHATER IS HERE I HOPR YOU GUYS LIKE IT
I JUST WANTED TO CLEAR SOMETHING UP. This isn't only a Resident Evil x Prototype story. Those two series are obviously central to it, but Zoochosis, Still Wakes the Deep and several other biological-horror settings are going to be worked into the same world as well. Gentek and Blackwatch will also come into existence gradually rather than simply appearing one day fully formed, so kudos if you've already noticed the organisation they're beginning to grow from. Nathan will eventually be capable of sensing the thoughts and location of Redlight-based organisms, and even feeling when one of them dies, but that isn't something he understands yet. The capacity is there somewhere inside what he has become; learning how to reach it is going to take experimentation, mistakes and time.
Anyway, onto the chapter, friends.
---
The incision had almost disappeared by the time December of 1916 gave way to January.
Nathan found it only because he already knew where to look. He turned the mouse beneath the shaded lamp, separated the grey fur with the edge of his thumb and followed its flank until the faint mark came into view. Three days earlier there had still been a raised seam there, pink and slightly harder than the surrounding skin. Now it was little more than a pale interruption that vanished whenever the mouse breathed and the light shifted across its side.
"Hold still." Nathan adjusted his grip when the animal kicked against his palm, bringing one thumb beneath its forelegs while the other traced carefully along the repaired tissue. The mouse kicked again and scraped uselessly at his glove, which drew the smallest movement from the corner of his mouth. "Yes, well. I suppose I would object too."
He pressed gently along either side of the old incision and watched the reaction. No heat. No swelling. No tenderness beyond the understandable irritation of being held beneath a lamp by something several hundred times its size.
When he finally placed the mouse on the examination board it immediately tried to leave, but Nathan stopped it with two fingers long enough to record its weight and inspect the wound one final time. Only then did he return it to the enclosure. The animal vanished under the paper bedding almost before his hand had cleared the opening, leaving only the end of its tail visible for a heartbeat before that too disappeared. A few seconds later the bedding stirred beside the food dish and the mouse emerged again, apparently deciding that whatever indignity Nathan had inflicted upon it was less important than breakfast.
The laboratory beneath The Knapp remained warm and still around him. Shaded lamps cast dull circles across glass vessels, polished instruments and pages crowded with his handwriting, while the air carried the familiar mixture of alcohol, old stone and animal bedding. Somewhere behind the walls the house had begun waking. Water moved through the ancient pipes, a door closed faintly above, and footsteps passed across a distant floor.
Nathan preferred keeping this particular work here. The Institute had become too large for true privacy. Assistants noticed locked cabinets. Clerks counted shipments. Committees expected explanations. Ministries funded research and naturally decided that funding entitled them to understand it. Beneath The Knapp there was none of that. There was only Nathan, whatever lived in the enclosure before him, and the ledgers he kept locked in cabinets for which nobody else possessed a key.
He compared the morning's observations against those from the previous week. Appetite had increased slightly. Weight had followed it. Blood examinations remained stable, and the altered tissue continued to remain local rather than spreading through the animal in some grotesquely enthusiastic interpretation of what Nathan had intended. He had expected himself to grow impatient long before now, yet the longer the mouse survived, the less inclined he became to rush simply because he could.
A bell sounded somewhere above. Nathan ignored it and turned back two pages to compare an earlier measurement. When it rang a second time he finally checked his watch and sighed. The mouse had lifted its head at the sound and was staring at him from beside its food dish.
"Apparently some of us have responsibilities." Nathan closed the ledger and watched the mouse immediately return to eating. He slid the book into the lower cabinet, turned the key and extinguished two lamps he no longer needed. "Your sympathy is overwhelming."
Mrs Hargreaves intercepted him near the dining room with the morning post tucked beneath one arm. She had served at The Knapp long enough that whatever awe Professor Nathan Drake might once have inspired in her had been worn down by years of finding him beneath the house before breakfast and discovering untouched meals beside open scientific journals.
"You are twenty minutes late." Mrs Hargreaves glanced toward the hall clock before pressing the letters into his hands and following him into the dining room. Nathan continued sorting through the envelopes until she drew his chair out with enough insistence to make it clear he was expected to sit.
"I was unaware breakfast had begun taking attendance." Nathan lowered himself into the chair and glanced at the plate waiting for him. "And what have the eggs concluded?"
"That you are an inconsiderate man." Mrs Hargreaves folded her hands in front of herself, though the sternness in her face was already straining at the edges.
"I shall apologise to them." Nathan picked up his fork and examined what remained of breakfast.
"You may apologise to the cook. The eggs have given up." Mrs Hargreaves turned toward the kitchen, muttering something about professors who owned watches but seemed to regard them as decorative objects.
Nathan smiled after her and began opening the post. Willit had sent several pages concerning staffing, supplies and a disagreement between two laboratories whose members seemed to have rediscovered territorial behaviour and disguised it beneath academic language. Hale's report was mercifully short. Mercer's envelope contained an entire sheet of paper devoted to one sentence.
Come in before you bury yourself beneath Dorset again. I have it.
Nathan stopped with his cup halfway to his mouth. He read the sentence once more, folded the page and slipped it into the inside of his coat.
Mercer's laboratory smelled like a tannery being dissolved in alcohol.
Nathan had barely stepped through the door before noticing strips of cloth hanging from drying racks, shallow dishes of adhesive compounds spread across two benches, stained glass cylinders crowded around a burner and, for reasons not immediately obvious, a wooden stool with a strip of prepared gauze permanently wrapped around one leg.
"What happened to the stool?" Nathan closed the door behind him and pointed toward it. Mercer, standing in shirtsleeves beside the central bench, followed his finger and regarded the damaged furniture as though he had not thought about it in several days.
"It volunteered." Mercer returned his attention to his work while Nathan crossed the room.
"It was a very good stool." Nathan gave the ruined furniture a final look before noticing the narrow white pad fixed to the inside of Mercer's forearm.
"It died in service to the Crown." Mercer extended his arm before Nathan could ask what the dressing was doing there.
"A noble end." Nathan took Mercer's wrist and turned it beneath the lamp. "How long?"
"Since yesterday afternoon." Mercer watched Nathan inspect the weave.
"You slept wearing it?" Nathan tested one corner without lifting it.
"I even managed several hours despite the excitement." Mercer nodded toward a basin when Nathan asked about water, saying it had been submerged twice. When Nathan asked about heat, Mercer indicated one of the cylinders and explained that another batch had spent six hours against it.
"Slowly." Mercer put his free hand over Nathan's wrist the moment Nathan caught the edge of the dressing. The warning was suspicious enough that Nathan looked from the hand on his wrist to Mercer's face.
"I know how skin works." Nathan's expression suggested he had been insulted.
"I have seen you remove skin, Nathan." Mercer released him reluctantly.
"Usually intentionally." Nathan began peeling the dressing away.
"That is precisely why I am reminding you." Mercer watched until the adhesive released cleanly.
Beneath it there was little more than faint rectangular redness. Nathan pressed around the area, examined the skin and then looked across what appeared to be several weeks of failed chemistry scattered throughout the laboratory.
"What changed?" Nathan let Mercer's arm go and waited.
"The backing." Mercer leaned against the bench, already defensive.
Nathan looked at him.
"The backing." Mercer repeated it before Nathan could say anything.
"How many adhesive mixtures?" Nathan glanced toward the shallow dishes.
"Thirty-four." Mercer followed his gaze and grimaced.
"And then you changed the cloth." Nathan's mouth twitched.
"The adhesive changed as well." Mercer straightened.
"You changed the cloth." Nathan looked toward the compromised stool.
"Nathan." Mercer pointed one finger at him, then glanced at the stool as though considering whether it could still be used as a weapon. "I will beat you to death with that."
"It appears occupied." Nathan followed his gaze.
"Then I shall free it first." Mercer abandoned the threat and reached beneath the bench, producing a small wrapped packet which he placed in Nathan's hand.
Nathan opened it more carefully than his expression suggested. Beneath the protective wrapping lay a sterile absorbent pad with treated extensions on either side, the adhesive surfaces separately covered so they remained untouched until the moment the dressing was required. It was almost disappointingly simple.
"You sterilised it after packing?" Nathan turned the packet over while Mercer nodded. He asked how many had been opened after storage and was told eight; he asked about cultures and Mercer answered clean.
The original request from military physicians had sounded absurdly modest beside some of the work being attempted throughout the Institute. They wanted a dressing that could be carried sterile, torn open with shaking hands and secured over a wound without somebody winding yards of bandage around a bleeding man while shells fell nearby. In London it was an inconvenience. In France it became mud in torn flesh, filthy fingers beneath cloth and infection entering long before a wounded soldier reached a surgeon.
"When are they returning?" Nathan asked.
"Friday." Mercer watched him carefully.
"Tomorrow." Nathan began pulling his glove back into place.
"No." Mercer stepped away from the bench.
Nathan continued with the glove.
"I mean it." Mercer came around the table and stopped directly in front of him.
"So do I." Nathan drew the glove over his wrist.
"We have eight cultures, Nathan." Mercer planted both hands on the bench. "If we produce twenty thousand of these and discover afterward that storage compromises the adhesive, do you intend to send a very sincere letter to every field hospital explaining what happened?" The humour had gone from his face now. "I know you want them sent out. So do I. Give me the night."
Nathan looked down at the packet. He had worked beside Mercer long enough to know the difference between caution and cowardice, and there was nothing timid in the man's expression.
"If anything changes before morning, the meeting is cancelled." Nathan pushed the packet back toward him.
"That was unexpectedly reasonable." Mercer blinked.
"Enjoy it quietly." Nathan reached for his case.
"I intend to record the date." Mercer moved toward his notebook.
"Do that and I'll reverse myself." Nathan looked over his shoulder.
"Wear one." Mercer pushed another packet toward him before he could leave.
Nathan stared at it.
"I've tested it on myself. I want another ordinary day of movement." Mercer folded his arms.
"Ordinary?" Nathan picked up the packet.
"Your approximation of one." Mercer smiled.
"You have become remarkably commanding." Nathan rolled his sleeve back and opened the wrapper.
"I have learned from watching you." Mercer leaned closer. "Corner."
"I know." Nathan stopped with his thumb less than an inch from the sterile centre and slowly raised his eyes.
"You were about to touch it." Mercer smiled wider.
Nathan applied the dressing without another word.
The representatives arrived at eleven the following morning, and the dressing was still attached to Nathan's arm.
"You kept it." Mercer caught his wrist while they waited in the demonstration room and checked one edge with genuine surprise.
"You told me to." Nathan allowed the inspection.
"I suggested it." Mercer pressed the backing.
"You were sufficiently unpleasant that the distinction escaped me." Nathan pulled his hand away.
"Any irritation?" Mercer asked while Nathan rolled his sleeve down.
"None."
"Lifting?"
"No."
"Good." Mercer nodded to himself.
"Try not to sound so astonished." Nathan straightened his cuff just as the doors opened.
Two military physicians entered with a colonel Nathan had already met several times, followed by members of the medical committee and three civil officials whose faces had become familiar during the preceding months. They settled around the long table while Mercer stood beside the prepared samples, touching one packet and then another until Nathan realised he was waiting for him to begin.
"Professor Drake, we understand you've made progress on the field dressing." One of the physicians opened his folder and looked toward Nathan.
"Show them." Nathan turned toward Mercer.
Mercer's eyes moved slowly in his direction.
Nathan waited.
For two seconds nothing happened, and Nathan could almost see the insults assembling behind Mercer's expression. Then Mercer picked up one of the packets and stepped toward the table.
"The difficulty was never really the dressing itself." Mercer opened the wrapper as he spoke and spread the contents where everyone could see them. "It was everything around it. A man may know perfectly well how to bandage a wound, but that assumes he has both hands, enough light, enough time and enough peace to stand still while doing it. France has been uncooperative on all four counts."
"We have complained repeatedly." The colonel leaned back with a dry smile.
"And still the Germans persist." Mercer uncovered the adhesive surfaces. "Very inconsiderate of them."
Several people around the table laughed.
"So we stopped trying to improve the bandage." Mercer slid the opened dressing toward them. "The pad arrives sterile. The adhesive remains covered until use. The packet can be opened without touching the centre, and once it's positioned the sides hold it directly against the skin."
The colonel picked up another packet, tore it open and immediately put his thumb through the sterile centre.
"You have contaminated it." Mercer stared at the man's hand.
"I have handled artillery for thirty years." The colonel stared back.
"Artillery is famously tolerant of fingerprints." Mercer took the ruined dressing away and gave him another.
One of the physicians covered a laugh with his hand.
"Pinch this corner." Mercer leaned over and showed the colonel where to place his fingers. "Pull there."
The second attempt went much better.
"Now put it on." Mercer pointed toward the man's forearm.
"There is nothing wrong with my arm." The colonel looked suspicious.
"Imagine heroically." Mercer pushed the dressing closer.
The colonel glanced toward Nathan, received no rescue and eventually rolled up his sleeve.
Mercer waited until the dressing was secure before pushing a basin of water across the table.
"Absolutely not." The colonel looked at the basin, then at Mercer.
"Colonel." Mercer folded his arms.
"You have been waiting all morning to make me do this."
"I have been waiting several weeks."
With theatrical resignation the colonel submerged his forearm. When he lifted it again, water ran from his elbow while the dressing remained fixed firmly against his skin. He tugged at one side and the amusement gradually left his expression.
"Well." The colonel rotated his wrist beneath the light.
"That was more or less what I said." Mercer leaned against the table, and the physicians immediately began reaching for samples.
From there the questions came quickly. How long would it hold? Several hours under poor conditions, Mercer explained, and longer under ordinary ones. Storage tests were being extended every day. Direct heat should be avoided. Larger versions could be manufactured, though excessively wide backing curled over joints and moving parts of the body.
"Could manufacturers substitute an equivalent weave if this becomes difficult to source?" One of the civil officials held the material between finger and thumb.
"No." Mercer turned from the blackboard.
"Surely there are alternatives." The official frowned.
"There are cheaper alternatives." Mercer set down the chalk and returned to the table. "That isn't the same thing."
"At the quantities the Army may require, cost is not irrelevant." The official looked toward Nathan, perhaps expecting support.
"Neither is whether it stays on." Mercer took the strip from him.
"I'm inclined to agree with him." The colonel looked down at his wet forearm.
After that, the room belonged to Mercer.
Whatever uncertainty had existed when Nathan placed him in front of the delegation disappeared as soon as the discussion became technical. Mercer moved between the table and blackboard, answering questions about sterilisation, dimensions, packaging and production. Within half an hour he interrupted one of the civil officials to correct a calculation without looking toward Nathan once.
"Professor Drake, when outside manufacture begins, how would you like inspection handled?" One physician eventually turned toward Nathan.
Nathan looked at Mercer.
"One sample from every production run comes here." Mercer rubbed chalk dust from his fingers. "If the factory changes the cloth, adhesive, sterilisation temperature or packaging, they report it before production."
"And if they fail to?" the physician asked.
"Reject the batch." Mercer answered immediately.
"Even if several thousand have already been prepared?" The civil official visibly disliked the idea.
"Yes."
"That may be expensive."
"So is gangrene." Mercer shrugged.
Nobody asked Nathan another technical question.
By the time the meeting ended, the colonel had packed several samples into his case and was discussing projected quantities with Mercer directly. Nathan allowed the conversation to finish before standing.
"There is one further matter." Nathan rested one hand against the back of his chair and waited until the room quietened. "Anything concerning this section will come to Mercer from now on. Research, manufacturing and correspondence."
Mercer looked at him with immediate suspicion.
"You're putting him in charge?" The colonel glanced between them.
"I just did." Nathan met Mercer's eyes.
Near the window, Willit began smiling.
"Well, then. Congratulations." The colonel offered his hand.
"Thank you." Mercer shook it automatically while continuing to stare at Nathan.
The physicians followed. By the time the delegation left, Mercer had accepted enough congratulations to become entirely certain that Nathan had planned the whole thing for his own amusement.
"You bastard." Mercer waited until the door shut before turning on him.
Willit laughed aloud.
"You did well." Nathan began gathering the unused samples.
"You could have warned me." Mercer followed him around the table.
"You would have rehearsed."
"Of course I would have rehearsed."
"That is why I didn't warn you."
"Most men consider preparation desirable." Mercer stared at him.
"You were better once you stopped trying to impress them." Nathan looked up.
"He's right." Willit leaned back in his chair.
"You remain silent." Mercer pointed at him without turning.
"I have no intention of wasting this." Willit smiled wider.
"They want production estimates tomorrow evening." Nathan handed Mercer the committee folder.
Mercer looked down at it.
Then back at Nathan.
"This is why you promoted me."
"Among other reasons."
"You wanted somebody else to do this."
"Now you're thinking like a department head." Nathan smiled.
"I hate this place." Mercer closed his eyes while Willit began laughing again.
By the following afternoon, the Institute appeared to have acquired twice as many clerks and three times as many crates. Specifications travelled by courier and rail. Manufacturers sent samples back for testing. New contracts multiplied. Mercer rejected one proposed replacement backing so forcefully that Nathan found the factory representative outside his office holding a strip of cloth as though it had personally betrayed him.
"Stretch that." Mercer appeared in the doorway and pushed the material toward Nathan.
Nathan pulled.
The weave distorted immediately.
"It remains within our commercial tolerance." The representative cleared his throat.
"Do you have a son?" Nathan looked at him.
The man hesitated. "Yes."
"Is he in France?" Nathan held the cloth between them.
Another pause followed.
"Yes."
"Then imagine pressing it over a hole in him." Nathan handed the material back.
The man's face changed.
Mercer took the strip from him without another word.
The correct backing arrived the next morning.
Before the week ended, crates of the new dressings were stacked across the loading area beneath a collection of names created by clerks who seemed incapable of agreeing on any of them. Sterile Prepared Wound Dressing appeared on one invoice, Adhesive Field Dressing on another and Self-Fastening Dressing on a third.
Mercer disliked all three.
"There are forty-two." Mercer stood beside the final shipment with an inventory sheet in one hand.
"The inventory says forty-four." The clerk tapped his copy.
"The inventory is wrong."
"It was counted this morning."
"So count it again."
"Professor Drake, perhaps you could—" The clerk brightened when Nathan approached.
"Don't." Mercer turned immediately.
Nathan raised his eyebrows.
"You were going to interfere."
"I was going home." Nathan opened the motorcar door.
"You were thinking about interfering."
"I shall try to govern my thoughts more responsibly." Nathan sat down.
"Forty-two." Mercer pointed toward the crates.
"A terrible mystery. Best of luck." Nathan pulled the door shut.
"You are an appalling man."
"Head of section." Nathan smiled through the window.
Mercer's response followed the motorcar halfway across the yard.
Rain accompanied Nathan through the final hour into Dorset. It tapped steadily against the motorcar roof and turned the approach to The Knapp into a black ribbon of mud shining beneath the lamps. By the time he entered the house, the servants had already settled into the quieter routines of evening.
"Nell, isn't it?" Nathan shrugged out of his coat as the new maid approached. She had been at The Knapp only a few weeks, a brown-haired young woman with an ordinary face and competent hands.
"Yes, sir." She accepted the coat over one arm.
"Mrs Hargreaves kept dinner warm." Nell stepped toward the servants' passage.
"I'm not hungry." Nathan loosened one cuff.
"Yes, sir." Nell lowered her eyes and moved away.
Nathan watched her disappear through the narrow passage before turning toward his study.
He took three steps.
Then stopped.
A fresh silver scratch ran beside the lock of the private lower corridor.
Nathan moved closer and rubbed his thumb across it. Something narrow and hard had slipped beside the keyway and scraped the metal.
"Sir?" Mrs Hargreaves came along the corridor and found him standing there.
"Who has been at this door?" Nathan did not move his hand from the lock.
The answer appeared in her face before she spoke.
"I meant to tell you about that." Mrs Hargreaves came closer. "The new girl. Nell. I found her here yesterday morning."
"Doing what?" Nathan looked toward the stairs.
"She said she was looking for the cleaning cupboard." Mrs Hargreaves sighed when she saw his expression. "Yes. I know."
"You reminded her?"
"Very clearly. I told her when she began and again yesterday. She apologised and went upstairs."
"Did you see her touching the lock?" Nathan ran his thumb over the scratch once more.
"No. She stepped away before I came around the corner."
"Where is she?"
"The upper bathroom, unless she's finished." Mrs Hargreaves hesitated. "Would you like me to fetch her?"
"No. I'll speak to her." Nathan stepped away from the door.
"She is young, Professor." Mrs Hargreaves's expression softened.
"So were we all once." Nathan looked toward her.
The answer did not reassure her. Mrs Hargreaves eventually turned toward the kitchen, and Nathan waited until the sound of her footsteps had faded before unlocking the private door.
The laboratory appeared untouched. The mouse came to the front of its enclosure when Nathan entered, expecting food or another examination, but he passed it without stopping. He checked the outer cabinets first and then the inner rooms, moving through every lock and seal in silence. Nothing had been disturbed. No drawer stood open. No instrument had shifted from its place. The final door remained exactly as he had left it.
Nathan returned to the first room and stood beside the bench.
Water moved overhead.
The old pipes stirred inside the walls as somebody opened a tap several floors above.
Nathan looked toward the sound.
His right hand softened against the edge of the bench.
The nails disappeared first, sinking into the tips of his fingers as the skin darkened into something wet and almost black beneath the lamplight. His knuckles blurred. Fingers lengthened and divided into thin red cords that spread across the wood searching for cracks. The change moved through his wrist without pain. Bone yielded rather than breaking. Muscle opened into fibres.
Nathan dragged his other hand across his chest, and the shirt beneath his palm lost its weave. Cloth sank into flesh until jacket, waistcoat, shirt and skin became different textures of the same red-black substance. His shoulders sagged inward. His jaw loosened, lengthened grotesquely and then collapsed across what remained of his face. Hair sank backward into the mass.
For a few seconds one eye remained suspended in flesh that no longer possessed a skull.
It looked calmly toward the wall.
Then it disappeared too.
What had been Nathan folded onto the floor and spread across the stone in a broad dark pool. The mass gathered itself, climbed the wall and fed thin ropes of tissue into the maintenance space around the pipes. More followed until an entire man's weight had compressed into a living coating moving through iron passages too narrow for a human hand.
Cold water ran across him.
Rust. Soap. Mineral scale. Skin. Hair. Oil.
The faint residue of people living in the house.
Nathan divided at the first junction, sending narrow portions of himself through several branches while the greater mass followed vibrations travelling through the walls.
A floorboard creaked.
Another followed.
Then metal scratched softly against metal.
Nathan stopped.
Not the bathroom.
The lower corridor.
Another scrape reached him through the wall.
Slow.
Careful.
Intentional.
Nathan reversed direction.
Nell stood barefoot outside the private door. Her shoes sat neatly beneath the wall so their heels would not betray her. Her maid's cap was gone and so was the apron. In one hand she held a narrow collection of tools no domestic servant had any reason to carry. Beside her knee lay a folded sheet covered in measurements and a rough plan of The Knapp.
She slid a pick into Nathan's lock and on then heard something wet clickinside the wall.
Nell froze.
Her head turned.
Nothing moved.
After several seconds she bent toward the lock again.
A dark bead seeped from beneath the skirting board and touched the floor.
Another followed.
Nell saw it forming.
She slowly straightened.
A thin red strand pushed through the seam.
Her eyes widened.
Her hand went beneath her dress.
Nathan came out of the wall before she found the weapon.
A cord of biomass snapped across her mouth while another closed around her wrist. Nell twisted with startling speed and dragged a small automatic pistol halfway from a concealed pocket before a third strand caught it and tore the weapon free.
She drove one heel into the floor, pivoted and tried to put her shoulder through the mass filling the corridor.
She sank into it.
That was when her face changed.
Nathan tightened around her waist.
"Du verdammtes Ungeheuer!" Nell tore her mouth free just long enough to scream the words in German before another strand sealed it again.
After that she stopped fighting like a frightened maid.
Her elbow drove toward where a human throat should have been. One knee struck so deeply into Nathan that her leg vanished almost to the thigh before he forced it back out. Her free hand clawed toward her hair with enough purpose that Nathan caught the wrist before she reached it.
A narrow blade dropped from her sleeve.
Interesting.
The lower door opened behind her.
Nell saw the staircase descending into darkness and began struggling harder.
Nathan dragged her inside.
They did not walk down the stairs. Biomass flowed along the walls and beneath the wooden steps, carrying her within it. Her body bent into angles that should have broken joints and vertebrae, but Nathan redistributed the pressure before anything snapped.
To Nell it must have felt less like being dragged downstairs than being swallowed by the house.
Red-black tissue spilled from the maintenance cavity inside the laboratory.
Nell hit the floor coughing and rolled immediately toward the nearest bench. A strand caught her ankle. She twisted, kicked and reached for a glass instrument, only for another cord to close around her wrist inches before her fingers found it.
Behind her, Nathan began rebuilding himself.
A spine rose first.
Ribs unfolded around forming lungs. Muscle drew itself across bone. Arms lengthened. Skin spread over chest and shoulders. Dark cloth emerged with it until shirt, waistcoat and body became outwardly separate again.
His face came last.
Features settled slowly into place.
Nathan opened his eyes and adjusted one cuff.
Nell stared at him.
He picked up the folded sheet carried down with them and opened it. A rough plan of The Knapp filled one side, followed by measurements of the private corridor, delivery schedules, dates and several lines written in cipher.
"Nell?" Nathan looked down at her.
She said nothing.
He crouched and examined what the biomass had taken from her: the pistol, the knife, a small capsule sewn into her clothing and scraps of paper written in German.
"You speak German." Nathan unfolded one of the notes and watched her expression change.
She answered him with a string of profanity.
"That was considerably more imaginative." Nathan raised his eyebrows.
"Schwein." She pulled once against the restraint around her wrist.
"I've been called worse." Nathan opened another page and found a name. "Anna Vogel."
For the first time something in her expression belonged neither to the servant nor the intruder.
"I prefer Anna." Nathan drew a chair closer and sat opposite her. "Nell was becoming irritating."
"Go to hell." Anna leaned away as far as the restraint allowed.
"Who sent you?" Nathan unfolded the coded notation over one knee and watched her rather than the page. She offered nothing when he suggested Berlin and nothing again when he asked about military intelligence.
"You think very highly of yourself." Anna smiled without warmth.
"I have a German agent employed inside my home with a concealed pistol, lock picks and measurements of my laboratory entrance." Nathan looked around them. "I'm allowing myself a little vanity."
"You have no laboratory entrance." Anna's eyes moved around the room despite the statement.
Nathan followed them.
The mouse had come to the front of its enclosure.
Something changed in Anna's face.
"So that was the question." Nathan leaned back slightly. "They believed I was conducting work outside the Institute."
Anna said nothing.
"What kind?" Nathan waited.
"If they knew, I would not have been sent to discover it." Anna glanced over the benches.
"Fair."
"You hide research beneath your home while British soldiers die by the thousand and then ask me why another country is interested?" Anna studied him closely.
"Perhaps I should appeal to your patriotism." Anna watched for a reaction.
"I'm not much of a patriot." Nathan gave a quiet laugh.
That made her hesitate.
"If you expected me to become outraged on behalf of Britain, you have badly misunderstood me." Nathan folded the paper.
"Then release me." Anna looked toward the laboratory door. "I can leave England."
"And report everything you've seen."
"I've seen nothing they would believe." Anna looked toward the living tissue wrapped around her wrist.
"You could tell them Professor Drake turns into sludge and crawls through drains." Nathan considered it with faint amusement. "I imagine that would brighten several mornings in Berlin."
"I can give you names." Anna spoke quickly when Nathan looked back at her. "Contacts. Couriers. People inside supply companies. Men in London who receive reports. Routes through neutral ports. You may not care about Britain, but you care about this house."
Nathan remained silent.
"I can disappear." Anna shifted closer as far as the restraint allowed. "My handlers will assume British intelligence took me. It happens. I can give you enough to stop them sending anyone else."
"Your handler?" Nathan asked.
Anna stopped.
She looked toward the door.
"There is nowhere to run." Nathan watched the movement.
"I know."
"Then why are you looking?"
Anna's jaw tightened.
"Hendrik Vos." Nathan spoke the name casually.
Anna went completely still.
Nathan had guessed.
Her face confirmed it.
"Dutch?" Nathan asked.
Anna cursed softly.
"Not Dutch, then." Nathan stood.
"I said I can tell you." Anna pulled against the restraint. "I know names."
"I believe you." Nathan came closer.
"Routes. Passwords. Codes." Anna's breathing quickened.
"I believe that too." Nathan crouched in front of her.
"What are you going to do?" Anna tried to retreat, but the strand around her ankle tightened.
"I told you. I'm not much of a patriot." Nathan raised one hand and placed two fingers against her temple. "But you've made yourself useful."
The strand around Anna's wrist began to move.
Thin red branches spread over the back of her hand and disappeared beneath her sleeve.
"No." Anna jerked violently.
"Your London contact." Nathan held her head steady.
"Wait."
"His name."
"I can tell you."
"I know."
"Nathan—" Anna's voice broke as the biomass reached her elbow.
She screamed.
"The contact." Nathan waited.
"Hendrik Vos!"
"Where?"
"A hotel in Bloomsbury."
"Which one?"
She told him.
"How do you approach him?"
"I leave a message."
"Where?"
"Behind the lower drawer of the writing desk in room twelve."
Nathan tilted his head.
"No." Anna saw the doubt immediately. "No, that's true."
"It is incomplete."
"How would you know?" Anna stared at him.
"You looked left when you lied." Nathan smiled.
After that, the answers came quickly.
Another contact. A porter. A signal placed in a hotel window. Messages hidden inside the lining of a glove. Every answer produced another question, and each question came more easily than the one before it.
"I have told you everything." Anna's voice had become hoarse by the time the biomass reached her shoulder.
"No." Nathan watched her.
"I have."
"You've told me everything you're willing to tell me." Nathan kept his fingers against her temple.
Anna looked into his face.
Whatever hope remained there died.
"No." The word barely escaped her before the biomass crossed her mouth.
Her scream disappeared inside it.
Then contact opened.
Memory hit Nathan violently.
Hamburg beneath rain.
A father fastening a military coat while a child watched from a doorway.
Her mother closing curtains before certain conversations.
Language lessons in a small room where an instructor struck the table whenever German vowels returned to her English.
A photograph of Nathan Drake beneath a lamp. Another of The Knapp taken from the road.
A typed report.
Genetic Technologies Research Institute.
Private facilities suspected.
Determine whether research is being withheld from official establishments.
Avoid diplomatic exposure.
Anna entering England beneath another name.
Anna practising Nell Price's smile before a mirror until it looked shy rather than deliberate.
Mrs Hargreaves leading her through the servants' quarters.
Nathan passing through the kitchen while Anna lowered her eyes and counted the keys hanging from his belt.
Deliveries.
Schedules.
Hale's men.
Night after night listening for Nathan's motorcar.
The first attempt at the lock.
Then deeper.
Friedrich Keller working through Copenhagen.
A British shipping clerk paid in cash.
Two factory employees who believed they were selling production information rather than medical research.
Hendrik Vos, who was no more Dutch than Anna was English.
Passwords.
Addresses.
Dead drops.
Signals.
Faces.
Nathan took all of it.
Anna's hands remained visible after the rest of her body had vanished beneath red. One clenched against the stone. The other found the toe of Nathan's shoe and closed around it.
For one moment the grip remained human.
Then the skin darkened.
The fingers softened.
They divided into strands and flowed upward.
Anna Vogel disappeared.
The laboratory fell quiet.
Nathan remained beside the empty chair and closed his eyes.
A hotel room appeared perfectly in his memory. Hendrik Vos always sat facing the door. He carried a small pistol beneath his left arm, disliked sweet coffee and checked the lining of his left glove whenever he became nervous. Four days from now he expected Nell Price to report that Professor Nathan Drake possessed a private laboratory beneath The Knapp and that she had not yet succeeded in entering it.
Nathan opened his eyes.
The mouse stood at the front of its enclosure.
"Well." Nathan looked at it for several seconds. "That was useful."
The disappearance of Nell Price unsettled the household almost immediately.
Her coat remained beside the servants' entrance. Her travelling case sat beneath the bed. Every dress she had supposedly brought to Dorset still hung in the wardrobe, and a letter addressed to a mother who did not exist ended halfway through a sentence beside a cheap fountain pen.
"She would not have left all this." Mrs Hargreaves stood in Nell's room the following morning holding the unfinished letter between both hands.
"No." Nathan leaned against the doorframe.
"She was sending money home." Mrs Hargreaves looked down at the page.
Anna had invented a mother in Yorkshire, two younger brothers and a father whose lungs had been ruined in a mill. The lie was good because it was unremarkable, the sort of ordinary misery people heard every day and forgot by evening.
"I should have spoken to her more sharply about that corridor." Mrs Hargreaves touched the edge of the paper.
"You spoke sharply enough." Nathan looked toward the empty bed.
"She was only a girl."
"No." Nathan's eyes remained on the room. "She wasn't."
Mrs Hargreaves looked up.
"Nothing." Nathan shook his head before she could ask.
The local constable arrived before noon and spent the better part of an hour asking about young men, debts, family disagreements and whether Nell had seemed frightened before she disappeared. Nathan answered exactly what a respectable employer could reasonably know about a maid who had worked for him less than a month.
Searchers crossed the grounds in rain that afternoon.
By evening lanterns moved between the trees while servants called the name of a woman who had never possessed it.
"Nell!" Mrs Hargreaves's voice travelled down the wet drive and faded into the darkness.
"Nothing this way, sir." The old groundsman emerged near the hedge with his lantern raised.
"Check the road." Nathan looked toward the gates.
"Aye." The man turned away.
Nathan remained beneath the trees after the others moved on, listening until their voices vanished into the rain.
Three days later he gathered the household in the dining room.
Nell's disappearance had left a nervousness behind it that showed itself in small things. The servants spoke more quietly. Old floorboards suddenly drew glances. Someone had begun leaving a lamp burning in the servants' corridor through the night, though nobody admitted to doing it.
"I'm reducing the household." Nathan stood at the head of the table with several envelopes arranged beneath one hand.
"Sir?" Cook frowned.
Nathan began reading names.
The newest employees went first. Then two of the younger maids. Several groundsmen hired during the previous few years followed. By the time he finished, almost half the people gathered around the table had been dismissed.
"Have we done something wrong?" One of the maids looked down at the envelope before her.
"No." Nathan shook his head.
"Is this because of Nell?" The maid glanced around the room.
The table became quiet.
"The Institute takes more of my time now." Nathan rested one hand against the wood. "There is no reason to keep the entire house open."
"What am I supposed to do with the east wing?" Cook folded her arms.
"Close it."
"All of it?"
"Yes."
"And the guest rooms?"
"Those as well."
Nathan pushed the envelopes farther across the table.
"Three months' wages." Nathan looked around the room. "References are included. Anyone requiring travel money can arrange it through Mrs Hargreaves, and I've written to several households where positions may be available."
"Sir, this is more than—" A young groundsman opened his envelope and stared inside.
"I know." Nathan stopped him before he could continue.
Within two weeks The Knapp had contracted around its oldest inhabitants. Curtains remained shut throughout the east wing. Furniture disappeared beneath white sheets. Fires went cold in rooms nobody had reason to enter, guest bedrooms were locked, and empty beds multiplied through the servants' quarters.
Those who remained had served Nathan long enough to possess habits of their own. Mrs Hargreaves walked past the lower corridor without looking toward the door. The old groundsman knew where he was permitted to dig and where he was not. The remaining maids had stopped wondering why their employer sometimes vanished beneath the house after dark and returned at breakfast as though he had merely spent the night reading.
The Knapp became quieter.
He preferred it that way.
Weeks passed before he returned to the question he had deliberately avoided.
The mouse's wound had disappeared completely. Nathan separated the fur twice beneath the lamp before finding where the incision had once been, and even then he could identify it only because he already knew the exact location. Weight remained stable. Temperature remained ordinary. Appetite remained healthy. Blood taken during the previous examination gave him no reason to stop.
The physical work had answered enough questions.
Now he wanted the brain.
"Come on." Nathan opened the enclosure and placed his hand inside, leaving it motionless against the bedding rather than reaching for the animal.
The mouse backed away and disappeared halfway beneath its shelter. Nathan waited. After several seconds its nose emerged and began working rapidly. It crept closer, tested one knuckle with its whiskers and eventually climbed onto his palm.
"There you are." Nathan lifted it slowly and enclosed the small body loosely between both hands.
Its pulse quickened.
Nathan closed his eyes.
Redlight answered.
The connection remained unlike any ordinary sense. He did not see the mouse's nervous system as an anatomical drawing, nor did thoughts arrive as words. He felt activity through the altered tissue threaded throughout its body, and the structure of that activity reminded him how much intelligence depended upon the body carrying it.
Smell dominated almost everything. Bedding. Grain. Water. Nathan himself. Touch arrived in quick bursts from paws and whiskers. Light mattered less than movement, while sudden sound could overwhelm everything else in an instant.
Beneath all of that sat a brain perfectly suited to being exactly what it was.
Nathan altered very little.
He strengthened several pathways involved in recognition and short-term retention, encouraged certain neuronal branches to persist and adjusted supporting tissue around them. Blood supply changed by fractions. He stopped before the alterations became broad enough that he could no longer say exactly what he had done.
The mouse opened its eyes.
Nathan opened his.
For perhaps a second the animal stared at him.
Then it began struggling.
"All right." Nathan loosened his hands and returned it to the enclosure.
The mouse vanished beneath the bedding.
Nathan remained beside the cage for several minutes afterward, waiting for tremors, disorientation or any other sign that he had overreached. Nothing came. The mouse eventually emerged, drank, groomed itself and then began chewing the corner of a wooden shelter Nathan had already replaced once.
He recorded everything.
The following evening Nathan hid a grain beneath a fold of cloth and watched from the bench while the mouse searched. It eventually found the food, though smell remained the obvious explanation. The next morning he cleaned the enclosure, replaced the bedding and moved the same cloth to another position without putting anything beneath it.
The mouse emerged from its shelter, wandered for several seconds and went directly toward the cloth.
Nathan's pen slowed.
The animal pushed its nose underneath, found nothing and moved away.
Nathan placed a small question mark beside the result.
The next tests used wood, paper and identical covers placed at different positions. Nathan changed the arrangement repeatedly and discarded anything scent could reasonably explain. Sometimes the mouse returned to places where food had once been hidden. Sometimes it did not. Sometimes it appeared to remember the object rather than the location.
The inconsistency reassured him.
A result that succeeded every time this early would have been more suspicious than exciting.
Only after several days did he alter the nervous system again. The second adjustment was as conservative as the first. He added capacity without attempting to dictate how that capacity should be used. Building the answer himself would have produced little more than a biological machine designed according to Nathan's assumptions.
What interested him was whether the mouse would organise the extra capacity without his guidance.
The difference appeared slowly.
Objects which had previously produced food held the animal's attention for longer. It returned to locations after fewer exposures and retained them after more time had passed. When Nathan rearranged the enclosure completely, performance deteriorated again, suggesting it was learning relationships within its environment rather than simply becoming better at following scent.
Nathan did not want obedience.
He wanted learning.
One evening he tapped the glass once before dropping in a grain.
The mouse ate.
Several hours later he repeated the sequence.
One tap.
Food.
Again the following morning.
By the fourth day, one tap was enough to make the mouse turn toward him.
Nathan tested it without immediately providing the grain. The mouse approached the usual feeding point and waited until he finally rewarded it.
Then he introduced two taps.
Nothing followed.
At first the animal responded exactly as it did to one. It approached, waited and eventually wandered away. Nathan continued until the second pattern gradually stopped drawing the same reaction.
Then he reversed the rule.
Two taps brought food.
One did not.
The mouse failed repeatedly.
Nathan let it.
The first day produced almost nothing useful. The second showed only a slight improvement. On the third, Nathan tapped twice while the mouse groomed itself. The animal stopped, turned and hesitated before approaching.
Nathan rewarded it.
The next attempt failed.
The one after that succeeded.
By the fifth day the new association had begun to settle.
Nathan reversed the rule again.
This time the mouse adapted faster.
"That is considerably better." Nathan sat beside the enclosure long after midnight comparing how many attempts each reversal required.
The animal had not merely remembered a signal.
It had learned that the meaning of the signal could change.
Nathan examined its nervous system again and found something he had not deliberately built.
Connections had thickened in places he had never touched. Others had weakened. Activity had begun redistributing itself through use.
Nathan had provided capacity.
The mouse was deciding what to do with it.
He left the nervous system alone after that.
The next experiments introduced choice. Nathan built a small wooden partition so one short passage opened to the left and another to the right. One tap meant food on the left. Two meant right.
At first the test told him nothing because the mouse followed scent.
Nathan corrected for that.
Then came randomness.
Wrong.
Correct.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Correct.
He recorded all of it.
The first meaningful change did not appear in the number of correct choices.
It appeared in hesitation.
At first the mouse reached the fork and immediately picked a direction. After several days it began slowing at the junction, turning its head once before committing.
One evening Nathan tapped twice.
The mouse reached the fork, started left and stopped.
Nathan's pen remained suspended above the page.
The mouse backed up half a step.
Then went right.
The grain waited there.
"Again." Nathan leaned closer while the animal ate.
The next attempt failed. The one after that succeeded. Over the following week the pauses became more consistent until the mouse could retain the rule even after an entire day without testing.
Only then did Nathan adjust the brain again.
He lengthened working memory slightly and left everything else alone.
Once that change settled, he introduced shapes.
A wooden circle.
A wooden square.
The circle produced food.
The square did not.
The mouse learned slowly, often choosing incorrectly and sometimes abandoning the whole problem when some noise elsewhere in the laboratory caught its attention. Eventually, however, the circle drew a reliable approach.
Nathan reversed the rule.
For most of the following day the mouse stubbornly returned to the circle. It approached, found no reward and came back again later as though refusing to accept that the world had changed its mind.
By evening it began choosing the square.
That reversal took less time than the original lesson.
Nathan recorded the difference carefully.
Physical problems came next.
He placed a grain on a raised shelf beyond the mouse's reach and left a wooden block elsewhere in the enclosure. The block was low enough to climb but high enough that standing upon it would bring the animal closer to the food.
At first the mouse simply jumped.
It failed.
Then jumped again.
The next morning produced much the same result.
On the third day the mouse happened to climb onto the block and discovered the extra height brought it closer to the shelf.
Still not close enough.
The following morning Nathan moved the block farther away.
The mouse emerged from its shelter, approached the shelf and jumped once.
Failed.
Then turned.
Nathan's pen slowed.
The mouse went to the block.
It climbed.
The shelf remained too far away.
The animal dropped back into the bedding and stood beside the wood for several seconds.
Then it put both forepaws against the block.
It pushed.
Nathan stopped writing.
The block caught in the bedding.
The mouse changed position before it pushed again.
This time the wood moved.
The animal followed, shoving it in short clumsy movements until the block rested beneath the shelf.
Then it climbed ,Stretched upward ,And took the grain.
"You did that intentionally." Nathan put his pen down and watched the mouse sit on the block eating.
The animal looked toward him once.
Nathan laughed quietly.
Comparing what he had made with a human child would have been poor science. A child possessed language, imitation, social teaching and other minds surrounding it. The mouse possessed none of those things.
But it remembered.
It adapted.
It solved simple problems.
It increasingly acted according to expectations rather than immediate stimulus.
Weeks later Nathan placed four seeds inside the enclosure and allowed the mouse to inspect them. Then he covered the seeds, removed one and uncovered the remaining three.
The mouse looked down.
It did not eat.
Nathan waited.
The animal looked toward him.
Then it struck the glass once with a forepaw.
Nathan's eyebrows rose.
The mouse struck again.
He returned the fourth seed.
Only then did it begin eating.
Nathan remained beside the enclosure for several minutes afterward. He had never taught the mouse to strike the glass when something was missing. It had noticed a discrepancy, associated Nathan with the arrangement and produced a behaviour apparently intended to change what he had done.
He wrote that result down very carefully.
Mercer's new office at the Institute looked considerably less organised than the mouse enclosure.
Nathan found government correspondence covering half the desk, surgical material hanging over the back of a chair, two prototype splints leaning against a cabinet and part of a human pelvis resting directly on top of a memorandum from the War Office.
"Put that down." Mercer looked up the instant Nathan lifted the pelvis.
"Why is there a pelvis on your correspondence?" Nathan turned it over.
"Because the bracket is wrong." Mercer held out his hand.
"You have laboratories for this." Nathan inspected the fixation device.
"My laboratories contain people who ask questions."
"And your solution was to bring the pelvis here?"
"It hasn't asked anything all afternoon." Mercer wiggled his fingers impatiently until Nathan returned it.
Nathan cleared enough papers from the spare chair to sit. The brass plate outside still looked unusually new against the wood.
THOMAS MERCER
HEAD OF MEDICAL AND SURGICAL SUPPLY RESEARCH
"You haven't torn it down yet." Nathan nodded toward the door.
"I considered it." Mercer returned to his paperwork.
"You're growing into the role."
"I spent forty minutes this morning explaining that 'nearly sterile' means contaminated."
"Did they understand?"
"No. They became frightened of me."
"Equally useful." Nathan smiled faintly.
"You knew this would happen." Mercer pointed his pen at him.
"What?"
"This." Mercer swept the pen toward the correspondence. "Every idiot with a factory has discovered my name."
"You wanted authority over the work."
"I wanted authority over the work, not correspondence concerning the thickness of cardboard."
"Power carries terrible burdens." Nathan nodded gravely.
Mercer stared at him until a knock interrupted whatever insult was coming.
"Sir, Birmingham has sent the new samples." One of Mercer's assistants opened the door.
"Correct backing?" Mercer turned immediately.
"Yes."
"Tested?"
"Not yet."
"Then test them."
"They've asked for approval today." The assistant remained in place.
Mercer's face went blank.
"They say the order is urgent."
"Then you should probably start." Mercer pointed toward the corridor.
The assistant disappeared.
Nathan waited until the door closed.
"Don't." Mercer pointed the pen at him again.
"I haven't said anything."
"You were pleased."
"I am permitted to be pleased." Nathan stood.
"You promoted me so you could watch this."
"That was only one reason."
"What do you actually want?" Mercer narrowed his eyes.
Nathan raised an eyebrow.
"You never wander into my office for companionship."
"That is hurtful."
"You'll survive."
"Perhaps I simply wanted to see how you were managing." Nathan moved toward the door.
"No." Mercer looked up again and saw the smile. "There. That look."
"What look?"
"The one that means somebody else is about to have a difficult week." Mercer sighed and returned to his papers.
Nathan opened the door.
"Whoever it is, they have my sympathy." Mercer resumed writing.
Willit already possessed Nathan's trust.
That was what made the next question difficult.
Nathan had watched him guide the Institute through its worst periods of growth. He had watched him settle disputes that might easily have become feuds, carry decisions Nathan once would have insisted on making himself and disagree without mistaking disagreement for disloyalty. Willit could tell Nathan he was wrong without first needing to prove how brave he was for saying it.
Nathan knew he trusted him.
What he did not know was how far that trust extended once loyalty became uncomfortable.
Anna Vogel's memories had changed the way he thought about that question.
Nobody began by asking a man whether he wanted to betray his friends or his work.
They began with dinner.
Shared frustration.
Professional sympathy.
An acquaintance asking something harmless.
Then another question.
Then a favour small enough that refusing it seemed melodramatic.
By the time somebody realised he had crossed a line, the line might already be months behind him.
Nathan wanted to know whether Willit would notice while he was still approaching it.
So he arranged dinner.
"Good morning." Nathan looked up when Willit entered his office the following day carrying neither papers nor coffee.
"No." Willit closed the door.
Nathan sat back.
"How much did you pay Carmichael?" Willit crossed the office and stopped in front of the desk.
"Not much." Nathan considered the answer while Willit stared at him. "Relatively."
"You had him invite me to dinner."
"Yes."
"You had him offer me money."
"A consultancy."
"He offered me five hundred pounds." Willit pulled out the spare chair and sat.
"Then apparently he thought highly of you."
"There are easier ways to ask whether I can be bribed."
"I already know you can't be bribed like that." Nathan closed the report in front of him.
Willit's annoyance faltered.
"Then what was the point?"
"How did he begin?"
"Dinner."
"The conversation."
Willit thought back. Carmichael had complained about contracts and procurement first, then about every department in London wanting different paperwork for the same order. Willit had agreed because it was true. After that came a reasonable question about whether matters had improved since Mercer took over medical supply.
"What did you tell him?" Nathan asked.
"That Mercer has become intolerable." Willit watched Nathan struggle not to smile.
Then Carmichael had mentioned manufacturers and said his firm wanted technical advisers. Someone with Willit's experience, he claimed, could make a considerable amount of money on the side. Willit had replied that he already worked too many hours.
Then he stopped.
Nathan waited.
"He didn't ask anything restricted for almost an hour." Willit looked at him differently now. "He waited until I'd spent half the evening complaining."
"No."
"That was the test."
"Part of it."
"You wanted to know whether being comfortable with him mattered." Willit leaned back slowly. "That's irritating."
"Why?"
"Because it did." Willit rubbed one hand over his jaw. "I didn't tell him anything useful. I realised what he was doing when he started asking which departments were expanding. But if he hadn't done that last night? If we'd been having dinner once a month for a year?"
Nathan said nothing.
"Maybe eventually I tell him something harmless." Willit looked down at his hands. "A project everyone will know about in another fortnight. Who has been promoted. Which suppliers Mercer dislikes. Nothing I'd think of as secret."
"And afterward?"
"You know perfectly well."
"I want to hear you say it."
"Because once I've answered one question, the next one feels less strange." Willit exhaled slowly. "That's how people get themselves into trouble, isn't it? They don't decide to betray anyone. They just keep making the next small exception."
"Often." Nathan nodded.
Willit remained quiet for a moment.
"So what are you actually trying to learn?"
"How far I can trust you." Nathan answered.
Willit's expression changed from anger into something more tired.
"You already trust me."
"I do."
"Then what does how far mean?"
"Suppose Carmichael offered enough money to change your life." Nathan leaned back.
"He couldn't."
"Suppose somebody could."
"No."
"For your family?"
The answer did not come immediately.
Nathan noticed.
Willit noticed him noticing.
"Oh, don't look like that." Willit frowned.
"Like what?"
"Like you've just found a useful specimen."
Nathan almost smiled.
"If somebody threatened my family, of course that changes things." Willit leaned back again.
"How much?"
"I don't know."
"Would you give them research?"
"I don't know, Nathan." Willit spread his hands. "If somebody had a gun against my brother's head and wanted a report, perhaps I give him the report. If somebody I loved were dying and the only man who could save them demanded something from me, perhaps I do something I'm ashamed of afterward. I'd like to tell you otherwise, but then we'd both know I was talking nonsense."
Nathan watched him quietly.
"That the answer you wanted?"
"It's an honest one."
"Honesty is cheaper when nobody has a gun to anyone's head." Willit sighed.
Nathan smiled faintly.
"You aren't asking whether I'm loyal."
"No."
"You're trying to find out what would make loyalty lose." Willit nodded to himself. "That is a miserable way to spend your time."
"Probably."
"Have you considered simply having friends?"
"Frequently." Nathan looked thoughtful. "It seems complicated."
Willit laughed despite himself.
"There he is." Willit stood and straightened his coat. "Carmichael owes me another dinner."
"I paid for the first."
"Then you owe me one."
"That seems excessive."
"You sent a man to bribe me."
"I offered you an interesting evening."
"You offered me indigestion and professional corruption." Willit opened the door.
"Send me the bill."
Willit paused on the threshold and glanced back.
"For what it's worth, if you ever want to know whether I trust you, you could simply ask."
"Would you answer?" Nathan asked.
"Probably not." Willit smiled and left.
Nathan laughed after the door closed.
Hale required a different test.
Money would have been pointless. A purse left on Hale's desk would have produced outrage, an investigation and an unpleasant afternoon for whoever delivered it. Nathan already knew what Hale thought of bribery.
So the request came through legitimate military channels.
The seals were correct.
The signatures were genuine.
Hale was instructed to provide internal security reports relating to several restricted Institute projects, including material Nathan had deliberately kept outside normal military circulation. The authority behind the request had every legal right to ask.
Nathan wanted to know whether Hale considered that enough.
"Good afternoon." Nathan looked up less than an hour later when Hale entered his office and dropped the document onto his desk.
"What is this?" Hale remained standing.
"A request."
"I can read."
"That saves time."
"They want the restricted reports." Hale pulled the spare chair out but did not sit.
"Yes."
"They've never asked for half of this before."
"So they haven't." Nathan picked up the document and pretended to study it.
"Is it genuine?"
"Completely."
Hale watched him for several seconds.
"What are you going to do?" Nathan asked.
Hale's eyes narrowed.
"You're enjoying this."
"A little."
"Why?"
Nathan said nothing.
Hale looked down at the page.
Then back at Nathan.
"You arranged it."
Nathan smiled.
"Christ." Hale closed his eyes.
"Not quite."
"You miserable bastard." Hale finally sat.
"I've heard that surprisingly often recently."
"All right. What are you testing?"
"You."
"Yes, I had managed that much." Hale stared at him.
"What would you have done if I knew nothing about the request?"
"Sent some of it." Hale looked toward the paper.
Nathan's expression changed slightly.
"The guard reports." Hale noticed. "Incident summaries. Anything involving soldiers officially attached here. They have a legitimate reason to know those."
"And the rest?"
"I hold it until I speak to you."
"They could order you not to."
"Then I ask why."
"You might not receive an answer."
"Then they wait."
Nathan watched him.
"I'm not saying I'd refuse forever." Hale leaned back. "If someone above me thinks you're doing something against the country, I need to know what the allegation is."
"And if they refused to tell you?"
"Then I become even less inclined to hand them everything."
Nathan smiled faintly.
"That isn't loyalty to you, by the way." Hale pointed at him.
"No?"
"No. It's suspicion of anybody who asks for too much without explaining why."
"What if they told you I was selling research to Germany?"
"I'd investigate." Hale answered immediately.
Nathan's smile disappeared.
"What?" Hale frowned.
"Nothing."
"You expected me to say I'd warn you."
"Would you?"
"Yes." Hale leaned forward. "I'd tell you someone was investigating you. Then I'd investigate you myself."
"That seems inefficient."
"It allows me to be disappointed personally."
Nathan laughed.
"If I discovered you actually were selling military work to Germany, I'd stop you." Hale's expression had become serious.
"Even after all this?" Nathan gestured vaguely toward the Institute.
"All what?" Hale frowned, then understood. "You think because I respect you, I'm supposed to follow you anywhere?"
"No."
"Good. Because I wouldn't." Hale folded his arms. "I trust you because I've watched what you do. I trust your judgment more often than not. I trust you with things I wouldn't put in half the hands in Whitehall. None of that means I switch my brain off."
"And where does it stop?" Nathan asked.
"My trust?"
"Yes."
Hale thought.
"If you became the danger." Hale met his eyes. "To the Institute. To the men here. To people outside it. If I honestly believed protecting you meant letting other people die for something you'd chosen to do, then I'd choose them."
Nathan remained quiet.
"Does that disappoint you?"
"No."
"You look almost relieved."
"Perhaps." Nathan glanced toward the memorandum.
"You've been thinking about this for a while."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Nathan considered how much of the truth he could give him.
"Because this place matters more now." Nathan looked toward the office door. "Mercer has his own section. Willit can carry half the Institute without needing me in the room. You know more about security here than anyone except me. The people around me have access to things that matter."
"And you've decided that means you should prod us until you discover where we break."
"That is one interpretation."
"It's the correct one." Hale shook his head. "You know what the problem with that is?"
"I imagine you'll tell me."
"If you go looking for someone who can never be compromised, you're going to end up alone."
Nathan's expression shifted slightly.
Hale noticed.
"Everyone has something." Hale continued. "Family. Fear. Duty. Pride. God. Money. Maybe not money. Maybe not threats. But something."
"You sound remarkably certain."
"I work with soldiers."
"That explains pessimism."
"It explains people." Hale stood.
"So you can be bought." Nathan folded the request in half.
"Of course." Hale smiled without humour.
"With what?"
"I'll tell you when someone manages it." Hale moved toward the door. "But if you're asking whether some officer can buy me away from you with a promotion, or whether a manufacturer can put a bag of money on my desk, save yourself the trouble."
"I wasn't planning either."
"I know." Hale opened the door. "You're more irritating than that."
"Hale." Nathan called before he stepped through.
Hale looked back.
"What?"
"Thank you."
Hale stared at him for a second.
"Don't make this strange."
Nathan smiled. "Good evening."
"Good evening, you manipulative bastard." Hale shut the door behind him.
Nathan was still smiling when the latch clicked into place.
He returned to The Knapp well after dark.
The house had settled into the deeper silence created by its smaller household. Mrs Hargreaves had left one lamp beside his study and another near the private corridor, while everything beyond those small pools of light disappeared into shadow.
Nathan extinguished the first and went downstairs.
The mouse was awake.
He stopped in the laboratory doorway.
The wooden block had moved.
Nathan had left it at the far end of the enclosure that morning. Now it stood directly beneath the raised shelf used during the problem-solving exercises.
The shelf was empty.
The mouse sat on the block anyway.
"You expected food." Nathan approached the glass and looked from the animal to the shelf.
The mouse struck the glass once.
Nathan stopped.
It struck again.
He opened the enclosure and placed a seed on the shelf. The mouse climbed immediately and took it. Nathan waited until the animal was eating before moving the block back to the opposite side.
The mouse watched every movement.
He placed another seed on the shelf.
The animal went to the block.
It pushed.
The wood snagged in the bedding.
The mouse changed angle.
It pushed again.
Nathan sat beside the enclosure while the block moved across in short, awkward increments. Eventually the mouse worked it beneath the shelf, climbed and claimed the seed.
Nathan opened the ledger.
Willit had trusted him enough to admit that loyalty could lose.
Hale had trusted him enough to say that, under the right circumstances, he might choose against Nathan.
Nathan had expected reassurance.
They had given him limits instead.
He found he preferred that.
A man who claimed he could never be broken was merely a man Nathan had not learned enough about yet.
The mouse finished eating and struck the glass again.
"Again?" Nathan looked over.
The paw struck once more.
Nathan took another seed.
He tapped once.
The mouse went left.
Nathan rewarded it.
He tapped twice.
The mouse went right.
Another reward.
Then Nathan placed the wooden circle and square inside the enclosure without giving any signal.
The mouse approached the shapes.
It looked at the circle.
Then the square.
Then at Nathan.
He waited.
The mouse waited with him.
Several seconds passed.
The animal struck the glass.
Nathan raised an eyebrow.
It struck again, harder.
"You're waiting for me." Nathan leaned closer.
The mouse continued watching him instead of choosing.
Nathan tapped once.
Only then did it move.
It chose correctly.
Nathan sat back.
That was new.
The mouse had not merely learned the rule connecting signals with choices. It had learned that information should exist before the choice was made, and it had noticed when Nathan withheld it.
He wrote that down.
For the next hour he repeated the experiment in different forms, careful not to let his own interest turn the result into something it was not. Sometimes the mouse guessed before receiving a signal. Sometimes hunger made it impatient. Sometimes it chose incorrectly and scratched at the bedding afterward with an agitation Nathan could not confidently call frustration.
But increasingly it waited.
It knew Nathan provided information.
It knew that information changed what happened next.
And now it had begun to recognise when Nathan had failed to provide something it expected.
By midnight, Nathan had stopped thinking of the work as merely increasing intelligence.
The mouse was beginning to form expectations about him.
It came to the front of the enclosure and placed one small forepaw against the glass.
Nathan looked at it for several seconds.
Then he rested one finger against the opposite side.
The mouse could not speak. It could not ask what Nathan was doing to it or tell him whether the world felt different behind those black eyes. It could not explain whether memory now remained where it once vanished, whether Nathan's signals existed inside its mind as patterns or merely as promises of food, or whether anything resembling curiosity had begun to take shape inside the brain he had altered.
Perhaps it never would.
But Nathan no longer felt as though he were merely looking at an unusually clever animal.
Something was beginning to look back.
The old pipes murmured softly inside the wall while Nathan kept his finger against the glass for several moments longer. Then he lowered his hand, drew the ledger closer, dipped the nib into the ink and continued writing.
---
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK. Also pile on as many questions as you can think of— I'll make a bonus chapter afterward dedicated to answering them.