Ward told him. “And she’s been transferred here.”
“Here?” Tommy felt a confused mixture of outrage and excitement. “She’s right here at the base?”
“Confined in a cell, unfortunately,” Ward said. “I wish she had agreed to come when we asked her, but she didn’t leave us any choice. We are taking good care of her, though, and she has shown some willingness to cooperate with tests. There’s potential there, but we need to bring it out.”
“Let me talk to her,” Tommy said. “I’ll explain what you’re really doing here.”
Ward paused for a minute, as if thinking this over carefully. “Do you believe she will listen to you? We don’t want to upset her.”
“She’ll listen,” Tommy said. “Maybe not right away, but if I can keep visiting her, keep talking to her...She’s not stupid. She’ll come around.” Tommy had no idea whether she would ever agree to work with them, but he was dying to see her again.
“It might help her along, seeing a familiar face,” Ward mused. “Having someone she trusts to comfort her.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Ward turned his attention to his computer screen. “Dismissed.”
Tommy walked back toward his room, but he slowed as he passed the double doors to the third corridor, where he’d seen the conjugal rooms in his flashes of his previous life. It felt strange to think of himself as an S.S. officer, a Nazi...under Ashleigh's control, yet again. He was beginning to wonder how many lifetimes he’d spent being manipulated by her, even while immune to her actual power.
He pushed on the doors, and felt mildly surprised when one of them opened. He walked into the third corridor, wondering if all the luxurious furnishings were still here, the old phonographs waiting to play German chamber music.
He opened the door to the first room. It was empty, stripped down to the bare concrete, with a huddle of cardboard boxes and trash bags in one corner, all the beauty long since carted away by either the Nazis or the Soviets who came after them.
Tommy crossed the room, his sneakers echoing like heavy boots against the floor. He found the little hole in the wall, which had generally gone unnoticed, lost between the curlicues of a fancy mirror frame. He closed one eye and looked through it, but there was only darkness on the other side.
He had stood there, he remembered, in the narrow hidden passage that ran along this side of the hall, enabling researchers to observe the conjugal rooms without being noticed. He had stood and watched through the little lens in the wall, and now felt embarrassed at the memory.
* * *
Niklaus walked up the narrow, dim hidden passage, long after supper when the base was quiet and nobody was likely to be looking for him. He stopped at one of the tiny, glowing circles in the wall, closed an eye, and looked through.
The room was empty, of course, the bed curtains tied back, the furniture dusted. Only a single small lamp provided illumination. It had slipped his mind that they’d already moved Sebastian and Mia out of the room. He’d come here out of habit, along with a dim hope that maybe some other couple had been moved onto the hall.
He’d watched Sebastian and Mia several times over the weeks. At first, it had only been out of curiosity and boredom, a late-night search for entertainment. Watching their bare bodies grind against each other had been far more exhilarating than he’d expected. They fucked with a raw abandon, thanks to Alise’s enchantment. On subsequent nights, now and then, Niklaus found himself sneaking back for another look, and once he’d gone so far as to unzip and pleasure himself while he watched, never mind the scientists who might walk in on him at any moment.
They were gone now, and he would not get to see Mia squirm in pleasure again, unless they decided to breed her again in another year. Maybe that would be with Niklaus. He’d asked Alise to arrange it for him, but she’d stalled, and now Mia was pregnant by the American instead.
Niklaus started to turn back, feeling disappointed, until he heard a gasp farther down the hidden passage. He followed it to the last room on the short hall. The walls near the hidden lenses were perforated with pinpoint holes, allowing sound to pass through to observers. He heard the sound again—a high-pitched squeal, then a gasping sound.
Grinning, he wondered who had been paired