Rita sat town, all of her muscles were tensed. She didn’t know what to do, she would be sitting next to this jerk for the next three years, so maybe she should apologize.

 You did nothing wrong, he should apologize to you for being the mean one

Rita turned away, she didn’t need to say sorry to him. She snuck a glance in his direction, the guys wore a different outfit than the girls did. Their uniform consisted of tight black pants and a silver shirt which had the same design of the upper portion of Rita’s outfit. Except his silhouette was that of a stag. Rita had to look away to stop herself from staring, she reminded herself that she was mad at him. Cole seemed to have completely forgotten that she was there and he was casually sitting down with his legs spread out. His knee touched hers and Rita grimaced, she scooted away from him, but he only spread his legs more.

Is he trying to annoy me?

He probably is.

I hate him so much right now

Why do guys sit like that?

Rita was almost falling off her seat in her attempts to further herself from him by the time they were starting their first activity.

“Today”, Mrs. Miranda said in her soft voice “We will be teaching you how to operate bugs.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rita say Cole raise an eyebrow. Rita rolled her eyes.

He’s annoying me right now

She listened as Mrs. Miranda explained what bugs were.

“They’re like little microphones that record what you say and send it to whoever’s controlling. They’re rather small, about the size of a fly, they have little controllers, these ones move, and they can hover and then stick to walls. They have motion sensors and many other features. The room will split onto two groups. One will take one bug along with a controller and the other read about them we will switch off tomorrow.”

Everyone groaned at the thought of reading, they were split up into the two groups as promised Rita’s groups was the one going to use them. 

“You will work with your partner, the both of you are permitted to practice on how to use these in the halls. Stick together.”

 She shooed them out of the room after handing each group a high tech controller and a piece of paper. Rita and Cole followed the four others into the hall. The harsh light made Rita squint slightly, but her eyes adjusted. Cole sat down on the floor next to Rita on the white floor, he looked at the instructions and read them over quickly. He pressed a button and something popped out, it fell to the floor with a ding. 

“Now you’ve broken it.” Rita whined. 

“I didn’t, I ejected the bug, because that’s what you have to do to use it.” Cole retorted. He picked up the bug and looked at it carefully. 

“You press this button.” Rita said, reaching out her hand and pressing a large silver button on the side. Her hand rested on the controller as she watched several lights flicker on in the controller and the tiny bug begin to make a high pitched whine.

“Ugh.” Rita groaned, covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. “Does it have to make that sound?”

Cole looked at the bug in confusion.

“What sound?”

“That sound, it hurts.” Rita persisted, she saw a confused look on Cole’s face so she decided to elaborate. “It sounds like ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE’ and it’s driving me crazy.”

Cole chuckled.

“You’re the crazy one, hearing things that aren’t there.”

Rita opened her mouth to respond but quickly closed it because she had never been the best at comebacks.

“Whatever.” She muttered in defeat.

“Are you admitting that you’re wrong?” Cole asked, tilting his head to the side and studying her carefully.

“Pfffft, no.”

“Mmhm, sure.”

They returned to their project. According to the instructions, they were only supposed to familiarize themselves with the controls, but that grew boring. They both looked at each other before silently deciding that their bug should go somewhere other than the hallways. 

“We’re going to get into trouble you know.”  Rita said, feeling uncertain about encouraging the rule breaking.

“Your point is?” Cole asked, maneuvering the little hovering bug through the hall and to the rotunda.

Rita didn’t respond, she peeked over his shoulder and watched the high definition live video. It was going up and up and up, it flew into an air vent.

“There are air vents in every single room, and they’re all connected.” Cole murmured. He turned left, right, down, up, down, left, down, and straight by the time he was satisfied.

“Want to check out this room?” He asked casually.

“Sure.”

The bug floated down through the air vent, the white room consisted of two doors, and they were each on opposite walls. A man walked through the first one, he was wearing a silver suit and held a folder in his hand. He entered the room, from what they glimpsed, there was a large table with chairs set up around it. Cole leaned forwards eagerly and maneuvered the bug into the room, narrowly avoiding the door as it swing shut.

“You’re going to get us into trouble.” Rita said through gritted teeth.

“Relax.” Cole said, pressing several more buttons and letting it settle on the wall. He activated the 360 camera, the screen became bigger and showed a complete view of the office. The wooden table had been polished to the point where you could easily see your reflection, the man set his suitcase down on the table and opened it up. He pulled out several papers and sorted through them. Over the span of ten minutes, the office was full. They were all silent as a large screen turned on, on the far side of the room. An image of a man took up the space, no, wait, it was a video. 

“The meeting will begin now.” He said in a tense voice.

“Yes sir.” They all mumbled in unison.

One man stood up, all eyes were on him. “Um, sir, when will we tell them? Tell them that they’re being engineered for war?” 

The man on the screen smirked.

“We won’t. If the things find out that they’re creatures of destruction, then they’ll rebel. They’ll fight back and resist. We will not tell them until their emotion had been washed out of them with the serum. By then, they will not care, and it will not matter.”

Rita tensed.

Creatures of destruction? Engineered for war? When were they going to be told this?

“But sir”, the man said hesitantly, “Don’t you think that they deserve to know? They are only children after all, and I-“

“We are not telling them, they don’t deserve to know the truth. They aren’t children anymore, they’re sub-humans, monsters; mutants.” He responded, spitting the last word. 

“But sir, when we teach them to kill, will that not arouse suspicion?” 

“No, no, no, you’re being ignorant. By the time we teach them to kill, the injections will have already begun, their brains will be changing. Rewiring, and altering the way they think. It will be effecting the way they act, and process information. They will only be hollow shells of their former selves.”

Rita flinched away.

What? No, this couldn’t be, no way. No.

She stared at the screen again, leaning closer to Cole to get a better view.
“What if it doesn’t work on them? What if they refuse to co-operate and attack” the man asked.

“Then we will kill them, just like we’ve been doing for the past couple of years, no, not years, decades. We’ve done this before, we know what to do. These are our best ones yet, the serum should be flawless by now, but, there’s always the next generation.”

Rita felt her jaw drop. 

Kill? Killing was terrible, they were kids; surely they wouldn’t kill kids, right?

Of course they will, they see you as lab rats, pampered lab rats that can easily be replaced if needed.

“The serum will arrive next Tuesday, and by the time we begin injecting them, it will be too late for their emotions to take control of their mind. They will be our little disposable soldiers, we will be able to wage war without risking anything.”

Rita couldn’t believe that this was happening, but at the same time, she was mad at herself for not expecting it. It was silly to believe that they were spending millions of dollars to change the human race. They were going to be a part of history alright, but they would be the feared soldiers that kids told horror stories about. They would be feared for their speed and enhanced abilities, their inability to feel would make them the perfect soldiers.

I’ll just be a hollow shell of who I am now

Rita shuddered. She’d never see Robin again, she’d never see Panther again, or her parents. They’d all be the same to her soon to be droid-like mind. She would kill them without a moment’s hesitation if she was ordered to. Rita drew her knees up to her chest and continued to watch.

“We’ll slip it into their food so we don’t arouse suspicion.” A man suggested.

“Yes, the food will be good.” Another agreed.

“But how will we be sure that it worked?” One asked.

“They will be put into a stimulation where they will have to fight their parents, if they attack, then it worked. No one in their right mind would willingly attack their parents.” One said, seeming proud of his idea.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we dispose of them.”

The men nodded in agreement.