Sean made his run for the door, arcing around another counter for misdirection, the moment the goon guarding the door started toward his partner. As anticipated the goon wasn't easily fooled, reversing course to head off Sean. Martha braced herself against the door reaching into her backpack, expecting Sean to shove her out of the way which would delay him long enough for the goon to catch up. Sean had never been into martial arts or combat training, but Tiffany's warning had spooked him enough to print out and absorb the rudiments of self defense.

The best defense was always to run away, failing which... Sean spun on the ball of one foot, kicking sideways with the other. His boot connected with the opponent's knee, the goon's momentum adding to the impact. In a fair world that kick would have crippled but the goon's knee pad took most of it. As the goon staggered grunting in pain, Sean followed through with a rehearsed strike with his right arm, open palm slamming up into what would have been his towering opponent's nostrils. Unfortunately for Sean, the goon's faceguard took the impact, painfully jarring Sean's arm. Then all rational thought left Sean as his body convulsed in shock, the lab floor cold against his cheek as he lay flopping like a beached fish. What am I doing on the floor? Sean wondered as lucidity rushed back. Martha stepped into his field of vision reeling a thin wire back into something she'd wielded.

"Sorry about that, Sean," she pouted, "you were being difficult."

Prongs glinted at the tip of the receding filament. Taser. What the... the brat had tased him. Sean felt himself lifted effortlessly by the two goons and lowered into a lone chair reserved for instructors. He tensed cradling his fractured arm, but the goons handled him gingerly and no load was applied on his cast. Luckily he hadn't fallen on it. Martha was pulling out two pairs of handcuffs from her backpack and passing them. What was in that backpack, seriously, a police interrogation starter's kit? Goon One - identified by shoe laces that had come undone in the shuffle - snapped a handcuff on Sean's good arm twisting it behind his back. He paused realizing he couldn't bend Sean's other arm to attach the handcuff to. The chair was armless and backed by solid plastic that offered no bars or grilles to anchor. The goon resolved the conundrum by locking the handcuff around the chair's hind leg. He seemed to display no ill-will despite limping a little from Sean's kick.

Goon Two simply slipped the other pair of handcuffs on Sean's ankles. Now that he was properly trussed up, Martha approached shaking out a white lab coat from her backpack.

"You clowns are fucking dead," snarled Sean, "And what's with the lab coat?"

His temper that had lain dormant since the disastrous night at the Fullers' was now booting up again. Jason had crossed the line and was going to pay for this, one way or the other, Sean swore. But even as righteous anger swelled up, Sean wondered how things must look from Jason's point of view. Sean was a despised nemesis who'd wormed his way into his sister's confidence with presumably nefarious intent if rumors were to be believed. Could Sean honestly claim to feel differently if positions were reversed?

"You aren't the first to want us dead, Mr. Cook," Martha waved her hand dismissively, slipping on a black neoprene apron over her lab coat, strutting forward with a small carrying case, "and don't mind my getup. Just a precaution. Some of my subjects tend to get a bit... messy."

"Subjects?" Sean stared, "What do you want from me, you creep?"

"Just relax, sweetie," Martha produced a loaded syringe from the carrying case, "we aren't going to hurt you. Not physically anyway."

"What the heck's in the hypodermic?" Sean demanded, his voice rising.

"An exotic derivative of scopolamine," Martha smiled, "developed by the Stasi before the fall of East Germany."

"Scopolamine?" Sean scoffed, relaxing a little, "what's this... the Dark Ages? No pscyhoactive drug has been proven to be a reliable truth serum. You won't get anything useful out of me."

"We aren't grilling you, quite the opposite in fact," Martha shook her head, "you see, this concoction has very useful side effects. It makes the subject extremely trusting and susceptible to suggestion. "

Sean felt a chill. He swallowed, "What are you trying to pull?"

"You mean what you are pulling, big bro," she grinned, "In a few minutes you'll call the Principal's office and leave a message demanding that... what was his name... Jason be expelled for beating you up. And you're about to trash this lab to show just how angry you are."

"What? That makes no sense," Sean began to struggle in his chair, "The school has nothing to do with it. Nooo..."

Sean tried to twist away, but Goon Two held his right arm in place until the needle pierced skin.

"That's it?" Sean frowned. The syringe still held most of its contents.

"Minimum dose to calibrate your sensitivity," Martha explained, "Wouldn't want to fry your brain."

"How considerate," Sean grimaced.

He willed his thoughts to push through the relaxing warmth seeping through. What exactly was Jason's game? Had he hired the Collection Agency to frame Sean? Assuming Martha - if that was really her name - wasn't just bullshitting him with IV saline. The bespectacled girl was looking at him expectantly, posing with hypodermic in one hand. He wondered why he'd dismissed her as unremarkable at first. Her eyes gleamed with a precocious intelligence that were simultaneously cold and trustworthy. Yes, Sean was starting to feel he could trust her. She was the adorable little sister that he never had... wait, what? Since when were sociopathic little brats adorable? It was the damned truth serum. The neuropharmaceutical was beginning to sink its hooks into his frontal cortex. Sean tried to hold on to his anger but it seemed unimportant in the company of friends.

"Find his phone," Martha looked at one of the goons who frisked Sean to locate it. He handed it to Martha who googled the Portsmouth School District page to find a number.

"Tell them you are trashing the place," She held his phone to Sean's face. The audio recorder blinked within the texting app poised to transmit to a number that Sean recognized only too well as Principal Stewart's. Years of being summoned by school administration for minor infractions had branded the much hated number into his mind. But that was all in the past. Surrounded now by people he trusted what did he have to fear? Sean giggled.

"Hey, Stew in a stew," Sean growled, even as his face spilt into a demented grin at the lark, "Sean Cook here. I'm fucking done, man. That douche Jason is walking around unpunished even after messing with me all these years. It ends tonight. I'm trashing the Chemistry Lab, so you know how pissed I am. You'll be fucking sooorry..."

"That'll do nicely, bud," Martha hit 'Send', dropping his phone on the counter, "Hmmm, you are more sensitive to the dose than most."

Sean blinked as the serum's grip on his mind loosened. Goon One was up on the counter tops disabling the fire alarm sprinklers on the ceiling. Sean stared with growing horror at Goon Two who was walking down the aisle smashing each glass cupboard with a small wooden stool. Glass shattered spilling reagents. Acrid vapor drifted up, acids reacting with bases. A spectrum of odors assailed his nose.

"Why are you doing this?" Sean pleaded with Martha, "This is your school too. We all lose."

"What makes you think I attend Cardiff?" Martha raised a brow, "The Collection Agency spans many schools. Founded by child prodigies with varied talents."

"Whatever Jason's paying you, it's not worth it," Sean tried reason, "Unlike your other subjects, I will point you out to the cops. Can't be that hard to find you. And once we do, Jason is going down too. His rich dad won't save him this time."

"Even if you manage to catch me, silly boy, you'll never prove it was Jason or whoever," Martha snorted, "All our clients contact us anonymously. We are never certain of their identities, it's better that way. Besides, you won't remember me."

"Um... what?" Sean blinked.

"Remember I mentioned side effects? As in plural," Martha tapped her hypo with a demented grin, "A stronger dose induces retrograde and anterograde amnesia, for almost an hour before or after the shot."

"You're shitting me," Sean paled.

"Nope, works everytime I use it on my mom and dad," Martha shrugged, "don't take my word for it though. Do you remember when I injected you earlier? You know I must have, because you did what I asked you to like a good little boy. But do you remember actually getting the shot?"

"Use it on your... ?" Sean stared at the freckled baby-faced apprentice of Dr. Mengele, doubt fading to despair.

He could recall his cringe worthy voicemail, but try as he might the actual memory of being injected was elusive. How would Mrs. Holt feel on seeing her lab destroyed by her star student? No one would believe Sean's claim of amensia. He'd be expelled, maybe even sentenced to juvie. But what frightened Sean most was what he himself might come to believe. Might he believe that his power had finally driven him round the bend?

"Shit, someone triggered the B4 sensor cam," Martha held up her phone, muting the shrill beeps, the screen displaying a video of the corridor outside, "it's Cook's girlfriend... how the heck did she locate him so fast?"

The video resolution was high enough to identify Kaitlyn striding purposefully toward the lab.

"She isn't my girlfriend," Sean gritted his teeth. They'd planted motion-activated Wifi-cams as trip-wires? The Collection Agency seemed more resourceful than anyone suspected.

"Did you dose the handle?" Martha demanded. Goon Two nodded. The handle? Kaitlyn stopped outside the door, her looming face distorted by the fisheye lens on Martha's phone.

"Sean? Are you in there?" Kaitlyn's voice sounded muffled followed by loud knocking, "Sean?"

"Kaitlyn," yelled Sean, "don't touch the...oooff"

Sean's breath went out of him as Goon One - back after disabling the fire alarm - punched him lightly in the belly.

"Sean... whaaat's goooing..." Kaitlyn's voice slurred, her eyelids drooping on camera as she slid out of view.

"What did you..." Sean gasped, recovering his breath.

"Knockout gel. Inner surface of the door handle," Martha giggled, "Ingested by skin contact. Preferred by Soviet counter insurgency units. Show him, Fred. "

Goon Two - Fred? - held up what looked like a silverfoil toothpaste tube stenciled in black Cyrillic alphabets.

Sean looked around wildly. Was there anything he could use? If this was a movie Sean would slip out of the chair to quickly whip up some kind of harmless knockout gas from the contents of the lab. But this wasn't the movies, the chemical stockpile was on the floor and even if it wasn't Sean couldn't concoct something both effective and non-lethal. His eye caught a shiny hulking cylinder by the windows with a circular handle and gauge on top, labeled NITROGEN REFRIGERATED LIQUID. Mrs. Holt had procured it for some cool demos next week. Sean frowned. Liquid nitrogen boils at -196 deg C, his mind helpfully supplied the useless tidbit. It was a full cylinder... of how many gallons exactly? How big was the room? In his mind Sean frantically multiplied the guesstimated dimensions of the room.

Goon Two - having finished vandalising the lab - strolled to lean against the door. Goon One paced stretching his legs, his shoelace undone by their earlier schuffle dragging on the floor. Shoelace... Sean stared, a desperate plan germinating. He started to rock his chair back and forth, head down and groaning as if in depair.

"Hey, hey, take it easy," Martha crooned, "it'll be over soon... Hold him down, please."

Sean slid down his right arm as far as he could, tilting his chair until the handcuff loop slipped out of the rising chair leg. He swung his arm up with all the force he could muster, wielding the handcuff like flail. The ring smashed up into the goon's chin, the only exposed part under the faceguard, eliciting a yell of pain. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Goon Two move. Martha fumbled in her backpack - no doubt reaching for her taser - but was hindered by the glass hypo in one hand which shattered when Sean's handcuff caught it. Sean hopped away as fast as his manacled ankles allowed, his ears ringing from Martha's unlady-like swearing. As he neared the windows he briefly entertained the idea of smashing through the glass. But escape with a broken neck was no escape at all. He teetered for a moment, using the liquid nitrogen cylinder to prop himself, reached for the dewar's safety lid and twisting it. Goon Two's gait was measured, utterly confident that Sean had nowhere to go. Goon One followed just behind, rubbing his chin.

The lid came loose with a hiss, and Sean threw it hard at Goon Two. A faceguard is adequate protection against a piece of flying metal, but Goon Two instinctively raised his arm to shield himself, grunting in pain as the heavy lid glanced off his forearm. Without pausing, Sean placed a raised foot against the nitrogen cylinder and shoved, bracing himself against the window. The container was taller than his waist and heavy, but slowly tilted, falling on its side with a ringing sound. Thick white fog roiled out of the open mouth spreading across the floor.

"Watch out," yelled Martha, "your feet will shatter like glass if you step in it..."

The two goons leapt out of the way of the boiling cryogenic fluid, with comical eagerness. They gingerly stepped around the fog on either side to flank Sean who had run out of options. Sean grunted as Goon Two punched him again in the belly. The boy's expression was bored, like it was all in a day's work. Sean doubled up, blinking back tears of pain, even as he suspected the goon had held back from using his full strength. Sean was picked up by the pair and carried again back to the chair.

"This time make sure his bindings are topologically secure, idiots," Martha snarled, holding another full syringe, "You just completed the destruction of the lab, Mr. Cook."

Darn it, how many spares does she carry? groaned Sean, I need to stall for time. Getting the villain to monologue was kind of cliche, but Martha did seem to love talking. This time the goons found a wood stool with struts that the handcuff couldn't slip out of. They held Sean in a death grip as Martha injected the stronger final dose. Sean struggled briefly, uselessly. Goon Two walked back to his place by the door.

"Since I won't remember any of this," Sean glared at Martha, "do you mind telling me what you did to the Queen Quad to scare the shit out of them?"

"I suppose there's no harm," Martha looked thoughtful, "It wasn't my operation, mind you, so I don't know the details. The bullies were zipped up in sensory deprivation suits fitted with scuba gear and dumped in the pool. They were gibbering, almost catatonic, after an hour of immersion."

Sean felt almost sorry for the Queen Quad.

"What?" Martha snapped at Sean's expression, "you are judging us? Do you realize how many kids the Queen Quad has tormented and driven into depression? Pleas falling on deaf ears, dismissed as a harmless joke by the bullies' parents. How many lives have we saved by stopping them?"

Sean swallowed, having no response.

"But you're ruining my life," Sean protested, "You aren't any better."

"True," admitted Martha, "the Collection Agency strives to be morally neutral... on average. We greenlight our operations on that basis, saving as many as we destroy. We aren't a charity after all. College isn't going to pay for itself. We collect debts... metaphorically speaking."

"Yeah, I got that," muttered Sean, "why didn't you just knock me out with your fancy gel after the first shot?"

"I would have if I'd known how much trouble you'd be," retorted Martha testily, "unfortunately I need my subject's physiological feedback for dose control. But you're right, it's time to knock you out and bid adieu. Can't have you tied up for the authorities to find, if you are supposed to be the perp."

"Your shoelace is untied," Sean looked at Goon One, feeling the lassitude of the truth serum sink into him. Soon he'd be a simpering fanboy without higher brain function.

The goon looked down in surprise with an annoyed exclamation, crouching to tie his shoe. Sean held his breath, trying not to stare. Goon Two was heading for Sean at a leisurely pace, the tube of tranquilizer gel in his hand. Goon One was taking a while to tie his lace. His movements slowed, fingers fumbling, then he slowly toppled over. Goon Two froze, unsure if anything was wrong.

"What the heck is Felix playing at?" Martha kicked the prone form on the floor, "Get up, fool. Not the time."

Goon Two - Fred - crouched down, shaking his partner's shoulder with rising concern, "Felix, get up dude."

Sean giggled as Fred collapsed over his accomplice.

"What did you do?" Martha whirled to Sean, her eyes wide.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Sean smiled beatifically at Martha, "Not sure why. I like you guys. Especially you, sis. Can I call you 'sis'? We can hang out at the mall and play arcade and drink smoothies at the food court..."

"Shut up, moron," Martha screamed, "tell me what you did to them."

"Okaaay, sis, let's see," Sean gazed adoringly at his little 'sis', even as he struggled to force his thoughts, "I spilled several gallons of liquid nitrogen. And when liquid nitrogen turns to gas its volume expands nearly 700 times, displacing the ambient air. The gas is relatively cold and sinks down. We are standing in a pool of pure nitrogen gas, maybe three feet high, devoid of almost any oxygen. It won't feel any different to anyone breathing it, even as their lungs starve till they collapse. That's what happened to Fred and Felix. They'll probably be dead soon. Or brain damaged. Whichever comes first. Unless you turn on the vent fans."

A distant part of his mind informed Sean that letting Fred and Felix die here was probably not good. But it was so hard to care. Martha stared at him for a moment, her lips quivering, then ran to turn on a wall switch. The muted hum of the vent fans came on. She ran back snapping open her hardcase for yet another syringe. Pinching her nose, she leaned down jabbing the needle into Fred's arm depressing the plunger by half. Straightening up she deftly swapped out the needle, plunging it into Felix this time.

"So long, Sean," Martha pushed the door open, stepping over a prone form in the corridor , "Can't win them all. Nice knowing you."

Martha's rapid footsteps faded away. Arms were visible on the floor beyond the open half of the doorway. Kaitlyn. A groan sounded. The arms pushed against the floor, propping up their owner.

"Sean, what the heck is going on?" Kaitlyn staggered in drunkenly, her eyes wild and bloodshot, "I got a text saying you were trapped here."

"What's going on?" Sean giggled uncontrollably, "I'll spill the beans, Kate."

"Go on," Kaitlyn stared in shock at his handcuffs, as sudden inspiration made Sean pause.

"Turn on the voice recorder, Kate," Sean nodded excitedly at his phone on the counter, "You won't believe what went down here. I met this smart adorable freshman called Martha who ambushed and tasered me..."

END OF CHAPTER