It seemed that Dudgeon had given her everything. While she was not even close to understanding why, and still feeling a little like a prisoner in her own home, Natalie did her best to accept the situation. After all, she was Dudgeon's right hand woman, and she deserved to know - no, she had a right to know - what she had not known in the careful years she had devoted to her career.

And she could not believe what she was reading.

'I just don't believe it,' she muttered, reading and re-reading the page. As Dudgeon's chief whip she was no stranger to spin, and she had little enough going for her that she did not much care for people as such, but this was all a little too off-the-wall psychotic for her to take in in one go. Even her enormous respect for the professor's work was beginning to falter now she had gained an inkling of the cost. And she had barely scratched the surface; the Secs continued to interrupt her throughout the day, adding more and more boxes to the growing cardboard city around her desk.

The letter continued:

"The most interesting thing about the mind of the seven year-old synesthete, is that although most neural links are completed, there remain some critical areas, where, with the correctly applied charges, connections can be made that fundamentally redefine the popular opinion of the savant.

"Where numbers are associated with colours and shapes, it is possible, to 'burn' new pathways and change these associations to taste and smell, for example.

"The changes can be made dynamically, through the sensitive application of electrical charges directed to the correct area, at precisely the correct time, and a myriad of further mental associations can be made, including translation of thought patterns into coherent, recognisable language, via perceived sound directly received by the brain itself, bypassing the auditory system completely.

"The Neuro chip enables this process through direct contact with the brain stem, creating a neural-network that, starting with the mapping of thought-processes, offers almost unlimited possibilities for the future of human interaction, beyond mere social networking, into direct access of all media, through the global internet. The chip is upgradable via over-the-air software patches, and can be physically modified, or replaced, with minor surgery (It is hoped that a simple interface may be developed to reduce the footprint of such surgery; as the technology advances with the corresponding reduction in substantive size it may be possible to install the chip via injection, or even ingestion).

"The chip requires severe restrictions to be applied if it is to be used for commercial applications, however. Current testing has shown that certain instructions will be followed blindly by the wearer, as if the chip is able to influence the subconscious mind. This is an area that begs the most investigation, proving a particular problem when a single thought is applied among several individuals on the same beta. While worthy of concern, I believe that this side-effect may eventually allow me to map the individual, physical synaptic responses of the subconscious…

"It goes without saying that if this technology were to find its way into the wrong hands, the results could be catastrophic, both for the Company and for the human race…"

Natalie stretched, yawned and rubbed her eyes. She had been wading through the stuff for hours. Letters, logs, research papers, most of it incomprehensible, all of it about brains. She felt as if her own grey matter was leaking out with each new incomprehensible, inconceivable treatise.

She had always known that the Company Secs were different to normal security forces, of course. The blank looks and strange behaviour, the uncanny ability to work together without actually saying anything, who could not have noticed that? She had even seen the scars on their necks and the odd spot of glowing redness therein. Not that she had enjoyed being that close. But like everybody else, she had blindly assumed it was all a result of their specialised training programme, an electronic tag, maybe. The Company had its enemies, after all. Its enemies and its secrets. Who wouldn't want to get their hands on the cure for cancer? Stood to reason they should train and track their own.

But this letter warned about the chips. Hagen had said they were dangerous, not ready for commercial use. She looked at the date on the letter. Ninety-four. Six years. A lot of paperwork still to get through, perhaps they had overcome this hurdle. Perhaps the Secs were safe.

She felt the bruises on her arms. Safe.

'They were all volunteers, of course,' Dudgeon said.

'That was going to be my next question,' Natalie spluttered, masterfully covering up the startled squeal with loud throat-clearing. She blinked up at the professor, a shadow in the gloom of boxes blocking up the window.

'As you can see,' Dudgeon continued, 'it is only a particular kind of person we can work with. Those who demonstrate the phenomenon of synesthesia, a condition enjoyed by less than one in 2,000 of our population.'

Natalie shrugged, finding it difficult to make eye contact. That statistic was in one of the first documents she had read, and emphasised in most of the others. The condition was rare, but not as rare as you think. Now it was the foundation of the Company. Dudgeon's secret obsession. After reading so much, the exact figures blurred at the edges, but she got the gist alright.

'Please, I know the numbers, professor,' she said, rubbing her eyes. 'They have been screaming at me for the last six hours.'

'Of course.'

'So,' she tried to remember what they were talking about. 'Volunteers?'

'Oh, yes. Adverts in local papers, rallies, that sort of thing. You'd be surprised at how easily the parents of such gifted children give them up in the name of science. Especially those from poorer backgrounds.'

'Why don't I know about this?'

'It's all here,' Dudgeon said, patting one of the columns of boxes. 'Quite a few thousand by now, I'm sure. And don't forget the scholarships at the academy.'

'But they don't end up as lobotomised Secs, do they?'

'Not all of you, dear, no.' The professor was talking quietly, matter-of-fact, as if they were discussing a homework assignment, or what she was going to have for dinner. Not real lives of real people. Thousands of real people. Natalie felt quite ill. She sat on her hands so Dudgeon would not see her shaking.

'Okay. So you acquire these "volunteers" when they are seven -'

'That is the perfect age.'

'Right. So those people in the - the Gallery - is it?' Dudgeon nodded. 'In the gallery they were all adults, about thirty I'd say,'

'Not quite,' Dudgeon said, with an irritating half-smile. 'But carry on.'

'So you've been experimenting on them for twenty years?'

'That's right.'

'And now you've killed them all? Seems a bit of a waste, don't you think?' She surprised even herself then, such glib detachment, but here in this gloomy cardboard cell it was easy to disassociate from the reality of what she had just been through.

Dudgeon's smile wavered. 'Let us be clear,' she said darkly. 'The subjects in the Gallery were the very best of a much larger group of volunteers. I will have new subjects before the week is out. I will continue the work.'

Those few, twenty-odd corpses were the best of thousands, then. 'Why not re-allocate them into the Secs if you were unhappy with them?' She asked. 'From what I understand, this Neuro chip should override any behavioural anomalies.'

'After Stagnetto had got in there? You saw how they behaved. He did something to them, something even Hagen could not have repaired.'

'But you didn't even try!' Natalie said, angry despite the cold dread in her stomach.

'There was no point, girl. I've been through this before. When they mature, it always ends this way. I'm sure the human brain can take the changes, but every time I try to take them to the next level they... break. They are worth nothing when the trance takes hold. It gets… messy. With Omega-Five we were close to overcoming that this time, we were sure we had overridden the basic issue, even allowing for his inherent psychological problems. With him gone, there was no choice.'

'Down there, you said that the cures, the medicine, the cancer treatment - that all came out of your work on these people.'

'That's right.'

'How?'

'It's all here.'

'Why don't you just tell me what your goal is?'

'Because context breeds understanding. If I just tell you, you will learn nothing. And you will certainly not understand. Trust me, it will be easier if you follow the process from the beginning. Then I hope you will realise you were right about me in the first place. Remember your campaign speeches. Remember who we are.'

'Killing cancer, changing the world.' Her voice was small, as if she no longer believed the words. Mere medicine seemed so far removed, now. 'Why me?' she added.

'I'm sorry dear, there will be plenty of time to catch up over the next few weeks. But I must get back to my Cabinet. There is much to do.' Natalie had almost forgotten the long campaign, the thrill as Dudgeon had been overwhelmingly appointed to the highest office in the land. The incredible power she now wielded. Her mind was in turmoil, head still buzzing with the headache that had plagued her since Stagnetto's distorted face had appeared on the big screen.

'I need you to study this.' Dudgeon dropped a large red file with the words "Omega Project" on the cover onto the desk. 'This,' a box of newspaper clippings, 'and… this.' She pulled her own tablet out of her pocket, which Natalie accepted with nothing less than dumbstruck reverence. 'The password is Balan.'