*Director Coalson? Doctor Lulamoon is here for her two-thirty meeting.*
“Very good, Jamal, send her in.”
Coalson barely glanced up from the financial forecasts he was studying as Trixie walked in, “Good afternoon, Doctor, how are things going with that new project the Home Office assigned you?”
“We’ve made something of a breakthrough, actually, Director.”
That got his attention, “You’ve done it? We can track espers by their powers?”
“Not yet,” cautioned Trixie, “Although the project does show promise. We can, however, track these aberrant esper signatures.”
“How closely can we narrow down the location?”
“It depends on the frequency, strength and duration of their power usage,” the scientist responded with a shrug, “Like with any other form of signal tracking. But once we connect the analyzer to the PWD, we should be able to start narrowing down at least a general location for these aberrant espers. Of course, it would work much better with a completed and fully functioning PWD,” she added pointedly.
“That’s not your concern anymore, Doctor,” Coalson impatiently waved off her jibe, ‘Is she still upset about that? She really needs to get over it.’ “How soon can you have this analyzer installed?”
“It should only take a few hours.”
“Then you’d best get to it,” Coalson ordered, “I want it up and running today,” turning back to his monitor, he paused to glance back at Trixie, “You’ve done excellent work, Doctor Lulamoon, I think the Home Office will be quite impressed.”
As soon as the door had closed, Coalson let out a contemptuous snort, ‘You’re a fragging genius, Lulamoon, but so gullible. All it takes is a few compliments and the empty assurance that the Home Office is giving the orders and you’ll follow my every instruction blindly.’ Shaking his head at how easy it was to manipulate the scientist, Coalson placed a call on his cranial cellphone.
*This is Burke,* said a woman’s voice.
*Start preparing a containment cell for … two espers, just to be safe,* Coalson instructed, *Appropriate any materials you need from the medical and security divisions. Use the existing holding cells if you have too, but I want this done immediately. If Lulamoon’s work lives up to her claims, we may have subjects as early as this weekend.*
*Understood, but are you sure you want to keep the subjects at the facility? Moving containment and research to an off-site location, maybe a warehouse or something, would keep CMS personnel from becoming too curious about the operation.*
*So what if the peons get curious,” Coalson retorted, *I run CMS in this ‘plex, I AM CMS in Seattle! None of them will dare cross me if they know what’s good for them!*
*… Right. Whatever you say, Coalson, we’ll need to stock up on gas grenades and AP ammo from the armory while we’re getting the containment cells ready, so just keep that Riggs-Duffy bloke off our backs.*
*Fine, just have your people ready to move when we get a location on these abberants.*