Page 39 of Claimed By the Wraiths

“I want you to understand the scale of what you are trying to destroy.”

“And someone who understands diplomatic systems as well as you do could be useful when that scale moves beyond this facility.”

He stood.

“I’d like to show you something.”

He wanted an audience.

I wanted his corridors.

“Lead the way.”

The research wing was two levels above holding.

I counted everything.

Forty-seven steps from my cell to the lift had already been fixed in my head. Two levels up. Six armed personnel on the command corridor, arranged in three posts. Cameras at every junction, overlapping coverage. Security doors that opened to Vain’s palm.

Better air. Cleaner floors.

The part of the facility he considered worth maintaining.

“The problem with biological bonding,” Vain said as we walked, “is not attachment. Attachment is useful. The problem is direction.”

“People choose badly?”

“Biology chooses without consulting operational requirements.”

He sounded almost offended by it.

“A bonded operative can be leveraged through the mate. A soldier changes priorities. An intelligence asset protects one person over the mission. Every military in the Consortium has lost personnel because an attachment formed at the wrong time.”

“So you remove the attachment.”

“No.” He stopped at a security door. “That was Hessler’s mistake.”

The door opened under his hand.

“Epsilon relied on suppression. Separation. Chemical interruption. Crude work. High mortality, damaged survivors, unstable results.”

No grief in his voice.

Professional contempt.

“My work preserves the bond.”

He led me to a viewport.

A Tsekai male worked at a console inside. His traceries were active, but wrong.

Not flat. Not suppressed.

Regular.

The same pattern repeating in measured cycles.

A human woman in a lab coat gave him an instruction. He changed stations immediately.