A Cold Heart

The gunshot was not loud at all. Only a little bit of smoke rose out through the nozzle.

‘A blank?’

Jason stood still, his hand still inside his jacket. He slowly pulled his hand out from the pocket.

On realising that the gun was filled with blanks, Richard dropped it and raised his hand up. It was now all over for him. The CIA wasn’t a very forgiving entity after all.

Jason’s palm came out of the coat but there was no gun.

He then began to clap. John joined in on the applause.

“Congratulations. You have cleared the test. You are now part of the CIA.” John said.

“Huh?” Richard was shocked.

“The whole thing was staged.” Jason continued

“What?”

“We are CIA agents. Why would we ever disarm ourselves and put the weapon in front of the enemy?” John explained.

“A bait...”

“Yes, and you took it. But the moment you fired the gun, you had cleared the test. We needed to see if you had what it took, to be a CIA agent.” Jason said.

“What does it take to be a CIA agent?” Richard asked.

“A cold heart.”

Richard had calmed down by then. He took a deep breath, “I don’t have a choice again, do I?”

John smirked. “Don’t worry. It’s pretty fun.”

“We need to move now.” Jason interrupted.

“Oh yeah. Boy! Pack up in fifteen minutes, we are leaving.”

“Where are we going?” Richard asked.

John smiled again and put his arms around Richard.

“Headquarters.”

----

A year had passed by. Richard Brown had become an excellent agent at the CIA. He was so talented that he had completed his role in three different special top-secret espionage operations in only a year in various cities in Europe.

His calm and quick thinking, complete rationality at all times, and cold-heartedness made him one of the best agents in the CIA.

He was in the same team as the four other men: John Smith, Jason Smith, Viktor Morros and Brian Lee.

Richard was the youngest and the least experienced agent on the team, yet his abilities were on par with his fellow peers.

“We have been ordered to return to the headquarters immediately,” John said.

“Is our mission done here?” Viktor asked.

“Yes. Looks like we will be assigned another mission once we reach the headquarters.” John replied.

“Why go all the way back to the headquarters for that? Is it that important?” Brian asked

“We’ll find out once we get there.” John smiled.

----

The five agents landed in the mainland US after having spent a year overseas on espionage missions. They finally reached the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia after a long flight in a private aircraft.

“Really? Another mission?” Brian asked.

“We don’t know that yet. Just wait until further orders are issued.” Viktor scolded.

They entered the facility and were guided by the security personnel into the research and development laboratory. It was a huge white building filled with men in white lab coats, scurrying all around like ants.

“Why are we here?” Brian asked.

“Stop asking questions and just wait for orders!” Viktor scolded again.

Just then one of the scientists came up to them. He was tall, thin and of Asian descent. His black hair was neatly combed and he surprisingly didn’t wear glasses unlike the rest of the scientists in the building.

“Welcome to the research and development facility. I’m Takahashi Kawasaki. I’m also the head scientist of this laboratory. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

The agents introduced themselves one by one and shook hands with Mr Kawasaki.

“So why were we brought here?” Brian asked.

“Stop asking questions and just wait. We are about to get orders soon!” Viktor scolded again.

“Ahaha yes indeed. Follow me.” Mr Kawasaki instructed and began walking.

They climbed up the stairs and followed him into a big meeting room with glass walls. One could see the entire building along with every person working in it, from the room.

A man in a black suit was sitting at the end of the long meeting table in the room. His head was leaning on his hands as he was deep in thought. The agents along with Mr Kawasaki stood in front of him.

“Ah, this is General Michael Porter, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.” Mr Kawasaki said.

The man looked up and pointed to the seats, “Please sit down.” His voice was very deep and it echoed through the room.

“Damn, are we being punished or rewarded?” Brian asked in a low tone.

“How many times do I have to tell you to wait...” Viktor whispered.

“Behave yourselves. We are in front of the Director.” Jason scolded.

The five agents sat down at the table. Mr Kawasaki stood up and walked up to the wall which had a presentation being projected on it.

“Agents, as you know, forty-one years ago, all the countries in the world came together and formed the Global Labour Union. After which, the countries reached a global consensus and banned the development of A.I. technology. Of course, development in A.I. continued and it remained a top-secret program for the military. Things were going great until a year and a half ago, when a whistleblower exposed our top-secret operation and defected to Moscow.

To avoid war, we ended up sharing the technology that we had spent years on developing.” the Director said.

“Yes we are very well aware of the past and global affairs, sir.” John said.

“Good. Since our top-secret programmes were exposed, the enforcement from the Global Labour Union has been very strict. Humanity has stagnated. There is no progress at all. To live a monotonous life with no change, the public really has become crazy. But thanks to our research team, that won’t be the case anymore.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Brian asked.

“Stop asking so many questions and have some patience.” Viktor whispered.

“Adrenaline...That is the key to humanity’s evolution as a species. To increase productivity, either we rely on A.I. or machines, or we evolve to be more efficient.”

“How?” Jason asked.

“Mr Kawasaki, the head scientist of the research and development wing of the CIA, will tell you the details.” the Director said and turned his chair towards the presentation.

“Increasing oxygen supply to muscles or organs has shown to increase the efficiency of the target organ or muscle. Haha, this really isn’t something new. Meditating helps in the increase of the oxygen supply to the brain, thus increasing concentration significantly. The efficiency of the brain increases by increasing the oxygen supply. The same principle can be applied to exercise too.” Mr Kawasaki said.

“How is this related to adrenaline?” Brian asked.

“Stop asking questions and just listen.” Viktor scolded again.

“Based on this concept, we have tried to explicitly increase blood flow to a particular organ by vasodilating the arteries thus increasing oxygen supply. By placing miniature pumps in the heart and on various other points in the body, we were able to successfully increase blood flow to specific target muscles and organs. The first stage of these experiments was a success. Increasing oxygen levels throughout your body definitely does increase the efficiency of the body, thus making humans more productive. But it was not enough...”

“Adrenaline...” John muttered to himself.

“Have you heard of the story where the mother lifted a one-tonne heavy car to save her baby? Or the story where the firefighter was able to rip the door open to help the man stuck in his car? Adrenaline increases your physical strength significantly. So we ended up placing devices on the adrenal glands to stimulate the production of adrenaline whenever required. Basically, it is an artificial adrenaline rush. With the increase in oxygen supply, faster heartbeat and a spike in adrenaline, we can do anything. This way we can really evolve as a species. The productivity would be 10-15 times higher. The first stage of the experiments that involved artificial production of adrenaline was successful too. The results were amazing. The strength factor increased significantly by 489%. On top of that, due to the increased oxygen supply and blood flow, the healing of body parts increased by 351%. They show even better results for exterior wounds like cuts, scratches and bruises. They heal almost instantly. These results were indeed unexpected. They were way higher than we had predicted. Looks like we still don’t know much about the human body.” Mr Kawasaki said.

Richard’s face went slightly pale. Even though he was a seasoned killer, he still found taking a life unnecessary and immoral. But he never let such thinking interfere with his work; he would continue to follow orders.

John noticed the shock and paleness on Richard’s face.
“What happened?” John asked.

Richard ignored the question, as his focus still remained on Mr Kawasaki’s presentation.

“How were you able to research all this?” he asked.

The glow in Mr Kawasaki’s face vanished and he remained silent and averted his eyes.

“Don’t tell me...”

The Director stood up and said,

“Isn’t it obvious? Human experimentation is what we did.”