Omega, Director of Propaganda and Vice President of New Marketing, smirked at her two unconscious patients belted tightly to their overstuffed indoctrination chairs. With the aid of her trustworthy assistant sodium pentothal, over the last three days she had uncovered everything she needed to know to create a unique program of re-education for each patient.

As the only female executive in the company, she had cleverly chosen the easy-to-remember moniker ‘Omega’ over her birth name, which even she had long forgotten. With her new name she had climbed the ranks, gathering lauds for her revolutionary PR campaigns and skillfully crafted promotions. Now she was working in tandem with Research & Development on a new employee loyalty program.

It hadn’t been easy with the two new subjects. Each man swore blind that he had been promised a new life in Australia. Their conviction baffled her. No one in upper management, especially Falcon, would ever make such a promise. It took two incredibly intense days of suggestion to set them straight in preparation for the procedure. They had fought her bitterly to the end, but now lay docile in their pillowed seats.

Methodically dabbing at the base of each patient’s neck with an alcohol pad, she extracted a slender plastic case from her leather suit jacket. Emblazoned on the cover were the Greek symbol omega and the engraved word “Cycle Protocol”. Unhinging the case, she daintily withdrew a device the size of a half-dollar and pressed it onto the back of the neck of Patient One. With a twist of her thumb, a spike in the device lodged into the spinal cord. The patient shuddered involuntarily then slouched back down into his coma. She repeated the process with Patient Two.

Stalking around the computer console, she delicately ran twin feed cables to her patients and plugged them in directly with a satisfying snap.

“Show time, Monsieurs!” She closed her eyes halfway in pleasure as she sat down at the console, crossing her legs in a manner that would have made even the most austere priest blush, and cued up each man’s profile on the station’s monitors. Primly stroking the keys, she ran the prerequisite subroutines until finally a smiley face icon accompanied by the words “Are you sure you wish to proceed with re-education?” sprung to life on screen. Taking one last glance at her subjects, she smiled to herself and clicked OK.