"I hope you had that notarized."
Sarah Amos, director of subcontracting for Ahriman Defense Inc., had no time for her divorce. She had retained, to presume by the fee, an entire law firm to extract child support from her ex-husband. An attorney on the other side of her phone line informed her of promises she was sure her ex didn't intend to keep. She grew weary of listening.
"Just get him out of my life and get me the money. Expeditiously. Jenny deserves it."
And he, the infidel, deserved to be ground to dust beneath the weight of their daughter's therapy bills. It's one thing when your wife catches you in bed with your mistress; entirely another when you're caught by your child. Jennifer would probably not put that out of her mind for quite some time.
Sarah's vacation plans would not sit well with Jenny either, she knew, but Sarah had accounted for one contingency that Dennis had not: she wouldn't be discovered. Not by him, her, or anyone who cared. This was, in fact, crucial to Ahriman's goals as well.
The defense subcontractor was well known for its scrupulous corporate citizenship; although, as the entire Board of Directors knew, this was the world's biggest little white lie. Ahriman was involved in exactly what its name implied: the most remorseless chicanery ever to stain the fabric of society. The Chief Executive Officer had been heard to remark after a board meeting dealing with the latest diversification acquisition, "why do all of these morons fail to see that we are literally named after the Devil?"
Sarah had seen it and understood immediately. Dennis hadn't, which was another excellent reason to ditch him. Jenny had an inkling, but not Sarah's own chilling insight into exactly what the company would do to turn a profit on national security.
Case in point: diversification. ADI had acquired the rights and facilities for an ethically bankrupt genetic engineering project that had been hushed-up by the government before public scrutiny had exposed their operation. The nosy professors could not be bribed, but they were mollified by the apparent confiscation of equipment and imprisonment of the project's wealthy financier.
Actually, the financier _was_ imprisoned; but upgraded models of the equipment were requisitioned, tight-lipped staff were procured, and the super-soldier experiments could thereafter continue.
"I want the first flight to the training facility," Sarah demanded after she'd hung up on her lawyers. The flight was a tiresome ordeal - the corporation's jets weren't built for comfort - but she was pleasantly surprised by how easily a deadly knowledge of human anatomy became a pleasant massage from the right hands. Decades of these experiments had produced indifferent killing machines who really knew their Shiatsu.
And they were certainly indifferent. Whatever the scientists had done had removed the formerly normal humans' sense of self and their ability to question their orders. They had no conscience, no ambition, and no personalities in the individualistic sense of the word. The retroviral genetic modification had dulled the subjects' sense of pain and made them less likely to experience fear. They had been trained in war, her host explained, but could become lucrative assets in any profession.
