next subject please [profoundling trials]

Time is just as fragile as his subjects for Declan. His partner has had his retirement written up for at least a decade now but this morning, he finally handed it in. Just one more month and Declan will be left alone in this study. A study that has consumed his life longer than any of his grandchildren have been alive, his own children were barely through school when it began and yet where is the success? Time is running out but Declan Garner cannot give up now, not when he has just so recently had an unlikely breakthrough in the subject.

”Alive, for one whole week!” Declan taps on the tablet screen, zooming in on the collection of graphs and notes written about number six hundred and sixty five. ”What made him so special from the rest?”

665 – an unexpected subject, one not exactly scraped from the bowels of District Six - Trey did good finding this one. An aspiring neuroscience researcher, an unfortunate loss for that field. Young, fit and healthy at the age of twenty-nine. No history of recreational drugs. Not even a touch of liquor. Possibly a virgin. The cleanest subject of them all. Surely that was not the missing key? Yet not clean enough to last a lifetime with Profoundling running through their veins. The only child that Declan devotes his life too. A super serum that cannot get past the first trial. He will fight until his last breath to see it succeed.

”Can you bring Trey in here? I need something specific from him this time.” Dec tells the assistant, a dopey skinny wet sock that would unlikely to survive three seconds after getting the syringe. There really is no hope when his assistants and most of his workforce are forced labour. Unfortunate criminals that stumbled into the secret, given the choice to work for him or face the needle. It is too risky plucking from his legitimate workforce on the payroll, that work in the pharmaceutical factory that hides away this little study. Now that Garaplin is in the Hunger Games this year, the legitimate business is booming. The money is going straight into this hidden laboratory.

The old man his leaned over his desk, still tapping away at the screen. The notes are clear. ”I need someone younger. Cleaner. You are going to have to wait outside one of the school’s this time.” He tells Trey, not looking up once from the flashing data that is filling his brain. ”They need to be under eighteen. Think reaping age but nothing too young. A minimum of fourteen…maybe.” It’s the age of his golden grandson, the one he would have handed all of this too if not for the fact the idiot decided to volunteer for the games…and win. Though Declan is starting to have a change of mind, especially after hearing that he was going back to school. Maybe he is the only one in the family with a work ethic.

”I want them in here by tomorrow night. Don’t let me down. You never do. Get Johnny in here to collect 665 on your way out, will you?”