Three weeks later the day arrived for participants to climb into company buses and head off to the dorms, wherever that might be. Altogether 67 employees were listed on the official project roster: the original 55 volunteers plus 12 more selected by the company due to their “critical roles.” Each of the 12 was given the option of declining although it was strongly suggested they participate. Nobody declined.

The four remaining members of the Klatch continued to meet regularly for lunch, talking in hushed tones about absent Gloria and the newest rumors regarding Project Hydra. When they asked Mia how the business partners were getting along without Gloria, she explained they had divided up her work among themselves after management vetoed Harv’s request for an increase in head count. Mia spoke quickly and didn’t bother to go into detail about how it meant longer, more grueling days, handling divisions she wasn’t trained to deal with, getting home later each night and even then logging on immediately to see if any new crises had arisen. Everyone across the company had similar stories.

“Anybody talked to the training team since the offsite?” Alpha asked. She had that look on her face, the one that said she knew something and was about to show off how connected she was.

Nobody had talked to the training team.

“I met up with Leela this morning,” she said. “Today was her first day back after the three-day with KC.” Kansas Consulting. “She told me that over the next week we’ll all be attending mandatory sessions to bring us up to speed on Project Hydra.”

“Meaning what? Is Gloria coming back soon?”

“Your guess is good as mine. Leela was running to another meeting and couldn’t spill the whole poop, just said that whatever I was thinking, I wasn’t even close. I gotta tell you, she looked like hell.”

They all did, the training team members. Tired and pale and physically drained. But they did what training teams do: they amped up the energy and forced themselves to be genial and engaging during the employee training sessions where they explained that Project Hydra was a highly experimental biological breakthrough. The word “biological” sent a shiver down Mia’s spine and she glanced furtively around the room at her fellow business partners. Everyone was staring at the large, covered unit next to the trainer. They all seemed apprehensive, paralyzed, holding their collective breath.

Despite appearances, the trainer said, nobody had been injured. Sophisticated medical techniques had been implemented, scientific advances that would revolutionize modern surgery. He assured the group that all measures were only temporary and upon completion of the project everything would be restored to the way it used to be. With a final admonishment to remain in their seats and not overreact, he removed the panel from the front of the unit.

Mia couldn’t help gasping. The trainer’s warning had done little but make her more nervous, more anxious, more fearful. Her imagination ran wild with nightmare images of what Project Hydra was producing. But as Leela had warned, she wasn’t even close.

The box contained a machine. Control panels on the front, chemical tanks, hoses and wires below. And mounted at the top, a glass cylinder filled with translucent, milky liquid in which floated an inverted human head.

An audible gasp filled the room, along with the squeak of chairs being pushed backwards. The trainer, smiling wanly, reassured them once again that this was only temporary; as soon as the project was completed, all would be restored to normal.

Mia’s heart was beating so hard she thought she’d collapse. Yet she couldn’t move, couldn’t back away, couldn’t stand up, couldn’t flee, couldn’t even turn her head to look elsewhere. She saw now that within the tank a white frame encircled the stub of neck, with numerous lines and tubes feeding into it. The eyes stared unblinking out at the employees in the training room. At first Mia couldn’t tell if the head belonged to anyone she knew, then noted the mole near the ear and realized it was Peter Penatello, from Administrative Services.

He looked a lot different from the last time she saw him.

She almost giggled at the thought, catching herself when she realized it was the onset of hysteria. Instead she forced herself to close her eyes and take deep breaths, listening to the trainer explain that they were participating in history and should all be very, very proud.

*****

From the first day, the nightmarish units acquired a nickname. Think Tanks, they were called. Over the next week the 67 volunteers gradually returned to work. Floating upside-down in tanks (and that, Mia thought, was the eeriest, most unsettling part–that they were upside-down), the heads and their accompanying apparatuses were wheeled about the building by employees of Kansas Consulting, all dour young men in matching dark suits. Company employees were instructed in forceful language not to talk to the KC reps, not to ask questions, not to engage them in any way. Exceptions would not be tolerated.

It was on Friday of week one that Mia stepped into the conference room for the business partners’ biweekly team meeting and came face-to-face with Gloria. Suspended in milky fluid, Gloria’s capsized head stared unblinking out of the cylindrical tank, her hair drifting ever so slightly like seaweed in a gentle current.

Instinctively Mia recoiled and raised her hand to her mouth.

“Watch it,” snapped the young man from Kansas Consulting, holding up a hand to keep Mia away. It was the first time she’d heard one of them speak.

Backing off swiftly, Mia felt her legs bump into the oblong conference table. Without removing her gaze from the tank she found a seat with her hand and slid into it.

“Pretty freaky,” said someone next to her. Mia nodded without turning to see who it was. She was staring fixedly at Gloria’s upended head. The Kansas Consultant had bumped the rig ever so slightly when he fended Mia off. Gloria’s head bobbed in the waves, nodding serenely. Her eyelids didn’t move; she continued to stare straight ahead into the conference room as her hair swam in the liquid.

Mia found herself incapable of paying attention to the biweekly roundtable discussion of accomplishments and goals, deadlines and strategies. Harv babbled on as if nothing had changed, as if one of their coworkers hadn’t been gutted and mounted like a hunter’s trophy. Around the table the others muttered and mumbled sales figures and statistics and results while keeping their eyes lowered. At appropriate points Mia managed to say appropriate things, or said something, anyway, and no one questioned her, and the conversation moved on. That’s all that mattered. Meanwhile she continued to cast darting glances at the machinery, the tank, the tubes, the dials and monitor screen and the set of flashing lights repeating patterns silently like a cable modem. Periodically bubbles would escape from Gloria’s mouth and rise to the surface. The first time it happened, Mia nearly jumped out of her seat. After that, she waited for them, found them almost comforting. The bubbles meant Gloria was still alive, didn’t they? Still breathing, in some grotesque fashion.

When the meeting finally ended, an eternity later, Mia took a moment gathering her things and let her teammates head for the door first, creating the usual bottleneck. Only then did she stand and follow, lining up behind them, directly in front of the Think Tank. Summoning up her courage, she turned to look directly into the face of her former lunch mate.

Is there life in those eyes? she wondered. Gloria faced directly toward her, their faces mere inches apart. Mia looked deeply, seeking any sign of recognition, of spirit, of existence.

“That’s enough,” the Consultant barked at her, reaching inside his jacket. Mia scooted out of the room before he could remove his hand.

***

Tell us: How would you react if you found a friend’s head floating in a tank like Mia did?