"Ma'am." Mercury spoke lowly as he walked in, "Subjects one, two and four through twelve have settled in nicely."
"Excellent." Minerva praised him as she finished the last of her paperwork for the day, she looked up, "Why are you standing there? Come sit!"
Mercury sat down as Minerva got up to pick a bottle from her wine cabinet, "This," She started as she brought the bottle and two glasses towards Mercury. "Calls for a celebration."
Mercury didn't belive what he'd done deserved much more than acknowledgement, let alone a Chandon from the year 2105, he was simply a messenger, but since he was getting a Chandon 2105 no less, he kept his mouth shut and simply thanked the 500-something- year- old in front of him.
"Thank you…" He said as she poured and handed him a glass.
"Cheers." Minerva said as she took a sip. "Did Daniel… Ah sorry, we're supposed to refer to each other by our titles, yes? Did the Jupiter say what will happen to subject Three?"
Mercury cleared his throat, "He has given orders to implant subject three's mind into a Manaed commoner from Tiberia, the details are still being ironed out."
"Hmm…" Mestiroria said as she picked up her glass and got up, "Walk with me, I need to stretch my legs a bit."
Mercury also got up, "Yes Ma'am." He adjusted his suit to make it slightly less uncomfortably and walked beside Minerva, a bit, behind her.
They walked out of the room and into the 2300s inspired hallway. Mercury had an inkling of a feeling that he knew where Minerva was taking him, yet, said nothing.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Tiberia sounds… Familiar…" Minerva stated.
"It's the Prefecture where the newest… Welll… The half-Zent is from." Mercury reminded.
"The one that got away." Minerva sighed, "What was his name again? Freddy something?"
"George, Ma'am."
"Ah yes… George." Minerva grimaced, "So why is the Dark God sending subject Three to Tiberia? And why as a Manaed 'commoner' of all things?"
They took a left turn at the intercrossing, "Well, Liviana, the Erhenfest acting First Lady poisoned a pregnant aid of his recently, it is because of that and a number of reasons that he had fled to the temple, mostly to make sure his remaining aids aren't assassinated, or so I've heard."
They took a right turn and entered the laboratory as Mercury had expected, he continued talking. "Regardless or reasons, the Dark God wants subject three's mind to be merged with a Manaed commoner because with George in the temple, through a series of missions and operations in the background, Subject Three will become part of the temple, then the academy, then a Noble, which will pave the way for more Manaed commoners to become adopted, increasing the overall Mana and high quality Manastones to harvest."
"Hopefully he knows what he's doing." Minerva said as she watched the body in front of her float in the glowing yellow liquid inside a medical capsule. "Mana is a multi-quadrillion Dollar industry but considered 'unethical' unfortunately, it was bad enough when the company bought criminals the first dozen times two hundred years ago and two hundred fifty years ago. But after the more recent prisoner transfer…"
Mercury nodded in understanding, "Yes… The whistle-blowers, no one could pinpoint who it was for a while, luckily we captured them before they could do any more harm and have been keeping an eye on them… yet… Other than that the public is having a little tantrum about it, not that the whistle-blower exposed too much… If they knew the Manastones came from humans-"
"-Then nothing will happen." Minerva said with a hardened tone, "They'll throw a fit, and then they'll forget in a few months, What we're doing isn't that different than the industries meat processing factories, the only difference is we use humans, though they can barely be considered humans, each and every single one we have transplanted is, and always were, criminals.
Mercury watched as Minerva touched the fridge cold capsule of subject Three, the glow of the golden liquid reflected off her skin and Subject three's asleep silhouette reflected off of Minerva's eyes. "Forget all that." Minerva said, "Let's focus on the present and the future and the amount of misery and entertainment that could be squeezed out of it." She said, looking back at him with a wide smile. "Because I have a feeling the next few decades is going to be fun."