Chapter 9 will be out later today, so don't worry about this chapter being so short ;)

When James regains consciousness, the first thing he feels are a sharp tugging on his wrists and a rough burning sensation on his heels. He is being dragged along the ground by a pawn. His hands are bound together by a zip tie. At first, he struggles to free himself.

“Don’t bother,” says a voice beside him. He sees Abby being dragged in a similar fashion.

“I’ve tried squirming. It doesn’t do anything except hurt.” James takes her advice, and focuses on trying to make the ride as comfortable as possible. It doesn’t improve much.

They come to a large wooden door, and one of the pawns knocks on it. The door swings inward, revealing an extremely muscular man.

“What do you want?” he demands. The pawn gestures to the two prisoners they have in tow.

“Oh, Abby.” he says as his expression softens. Abby scowls at him.

“Father,” she spits.

“Bring them in here,” he says. “We need to talk.”

“Talk about what?” James asks as he is dragged through the doorway. “About your plans to take over this country with your chess army? Because we both already know about that.” The King laughs. So does the Queen, who is in the room sitting in an armchair.

“Oh, you foolish boy.” The Queen says maliciously. “ If control over the nation was what we wanted, we would have gotten it a while ago. No, we have much bigger plans in store.”

“What kind of plans?” asks Abby. The expression on her face has shifted slightly from one of anger to one of curiosity and fear.

“You both know what the black market is, correct?” says the King.

“No…” Abby whispers. “No, you can’t be thinking of…”

“Oh yes, that is our plan exactly,” the Queen answers. “You may not know this, but super soldier formulas sell for a lot of money on the black market. Preconditioned super soldiers go for an even higher price. In the millions, I believe.”

“So, what? You’ll just sell these brainwashed children all over the globe and let the leaders of the world’s most devious cults and mafias take over?”

“You don’t think your father and I are that stupid, do you dear? There’s another formula I don’t believe we got the chance to tell you about. It’s called the Masterpiece formula.”

“Masterpiece? What does that even mean?” James asks.

“Do you know how chess works? None of the pieces are in charge of how the team moves, it’s the player that makes those decisions.” the King says matter-of-factly. “So, this formula allows a person to telepathically give orders to the pieces. Once we have every ‘devious cult and mafia’ filled with our super soldiers, we’ll call them all to follow our leadership, and them we shall take over the world, one nation at a time.”

“You, Abby, were going to have the privilege of leading our empire with this new formula,” the Queen informs her daughter. “But since you’ve been resisting conditioning, we’ve been forced to look into other options. Darling, could you come in here?”

Another little girl, perhaps two years younger than Abby walks into the room. She has freckles covering her face, and dark green eyes. She has the same black hair that Abby does. In fact, it’s the same black hair that everyone, all the pawns, the King and Queen, even the men in lab coats all have. Abby recognizes the girl.

“Briana? No...” she says quietly.

“You know her?” inquires James.

“That’s my sister.”

“Oh.”

“Hey big sis!” Briana says joyfully. “Check this out!” She concentrates on one of the pawns next to Abby, and the pawn begins to perform the chicken dance. Briana giggles at him.

“Alright Briana, that’s quite enough,” instructs the King. Briana looks slightly disappointed, but looks at the pawn again and it ceases dancing.

“We must go and continue preparations,” says the Queen. “Keep an eye on them here,” she tells the pawns. With that, the King, Queen, and Briana all leave the room.