With the flat of his hand on the tabletop, Trey Hartwell called the meeting to order. At table, all members were known by noms de guerre, as they referred to them, taken from the names of past American presidents. Hartwell was Madison. “Going forward,” he said, “if we are to gain complete control of this country’s military-industrial complex, we have to provide a service that is capable of winning any kind of war anywhere in the world. As we know from painful experience that’s not going to come from shock and awe, missiles, carpet bombing, or any of the other mechanized modes of modern warfare. Against terrorists and insurgents they’re all ineffective and outmoded. We’re facing a foe that is not afraid to die. This is asymmetrical combat at its most extreme. We must reply in kind, fight fire with fire. We create our own answer—the only answer that makes sense—an answer that will win us the wars overseas: weaponized warriors that leave conventional soldiers in the dust. With extraordinary power, no sense of remorse, prepared to die each time they are deployed.

“These warriors will not be soldiers who are weak-willed and return home only to be a burden on this country and its citizens. When they return home they will be ready for another tour of duty, and another and another, without end. We have taken a page from Putin’s book—rounding up criminals, sociopaths, the disaffected, disenfranchised, and the delusional—and have gone a giant step further. The Mobius Project will transform these misfits into the mighty fighting machines of tomorrow, enhanced warriors who will bring us victory wherever they are deployed, in international hot spots with missions whose objectives can adapt to the rapidly changing political environment. And when that happens we will have created an entirely new method of waging war, one that can bring us victory after victory without the humiliation of even a single defeat.”

Every member of the Alchemists nodded his head in agreement. So far, this was all known to them, but they were aware that it was but prologue to the news that was to come.

“Now that Mobius has moved into human trials,” Hartwell said in the deep, sonorous voice of a Southern statesman, “I believe it would behoove us to consider reopening the Well.”

The bombshell dropped, his voice was quickly damped down, the soundproofing swallowing whole all murmur, no matter how minute. There would be no echoes in this room, no matter how heated the conversation became.

“Now hold on a minute,” Jefferson said. He was a slim, silver-haired gentlemen with keen eyes and a Boston Brahmin’s accent. He had made his fortune several times over, first in insurance, then real estate, and latterly, in venture capital. “We shut that place down for a number of very sound reasons, not the least was survival.”