Pearse Psychological Research Laboratories lay a little under fifty miles northwest of Atlanta, hidden among the wooded valleys forming the edge of the Dahlonega Plateau, the southern end of the Appalachians. What was now the Main Complex, containing the major laboratory and administration blocks, had been built originally as the research facility of private genetic engineering interests, closed down by animal-rights lobbying. Since its takeover as a military facility, a patchwork of more sprawling extensions had -attached themselves in a succession of uncoordinated addi-tions. The establishment oversaw and instituted programs connected with various aspects of military psychology and psychological warfare, stresses of combat environments, maintenance of morale, optimization of training methods, and a few other things that weren't publicly talked about.
Names only would be used for the volunteers, Demiro had been told; ranks would not be disclosed. He arrived with another soldier who gave his name as Schott, and a black called Lowe, who had been collected at the airport by the same shuttle bus. They had exchanged the usual basic data on the ride back to Pearse. Lowe was from Mississippi, had had postings in Venezuela and Alaska, had been a bugler, still played jazz trumpet, would lay odds on any sport, and thought that being in bed with a woman was the most natural thing in the world because he'd been born that way. Schott was more taciturn, but from the few things he said he came from New York State and thought that one thing to be said for army life as opposed to civilian was that at least you didn't have to choose who got to push you around. Neither of them had any more idea than Demiro did of what the assignment at Pearse was about. Lowe had volunteered to escape an amorous entanglement involving a sergeant's wife; Schott said he was just curious to find out what kinds of things happened on programs that volunteers were invited for.
They checked in at a guardhouse by the main gate, where IDs and security clearances were verified, and were escorted to one of several regular army-style billet huts in a compound on one side of the main complex, which they were told would be their assigned quarters. A number of other volunteers for the same program were already unpack-ing kits into lockers and settling in, having picked the best bunk spaces. A Sergeant Eades, from Pearse itself, was in charge, standard Army product, stiff-backed, pressed and creased, and would evidently be handling routine administrative and day-to-day matters.
They had lunch, eleven of them, plus the sergeant and a couple of other NCOs that they'd be working with, in a canteen located outside an internal security perimeter that was designated the Restricted Zone and included most of the Main Complex. That was where the classified work went on, and anyone without high-level clearance required -escort at all times. This was when people competed in the heats for first impressions, and the initial forays were made to rough out whatever pecking order would finally assert -itself. Demiro tended to a lower-profile role, keeping eyes and ears open. As an old cowhand turned bar owner had told him once when he was a kid growing up in Denver, "Y' don't learn nuthin' while yer talkin'."
After lunch the shuttle bus returned from another pickup at the airport, bringing the total number of recruits up to twenty. When the newcomers had been installed and given a chance to clean up, they were all taken to a room in the Facilities Block, again still outside the Restricted Zone, for a preliminary briefing.
The warm-up man was a Major Gleavey: a smiling Mr. Personality, everybody's friend—perhaps a frustrated talk-show host or prime-time variety MC. He welcomed the company to the establishment, enthusing about it as if it were a Boy Scout camp, stressed the importance of team spirit and making the effort to fit in, and promised them some "truly fascinating and exciting things" if they stayed with it. He wanted this to be a happy place. The secret of success in anything was to learn to work together. And of course, ". . . if you've got any problems, come to me, okay?"
He then introduced Colonel Wylvern, who, as most of the men present had already discerned for themselves, would be in ultimate charge of things while Gleavey did the legwork and fronting. He didn't make any especially spectacular impact: the kind of CO whom they'd all seen a dozen times before, square-set and solid, with wavy hair, a touch of floridness about the features, sufficiently aloof and remote to maintain a distance of militarily proper impar-tiality. He delivered a set-piece recitation on the importance of security, a warning that infractions of discipline would not be tolerated, and some words about the privilege of having an opportunity to serve the nation in this way. Nothing new or interesting there. Wylvern ended, "This may look like a small-time, backwater project from the scale of it and the number of you here, but I can assure you that it has national importance. In fact, it's under the personal direction of a general, who'll be making himself known in due course, after we've made some initial progress."
Then it was the turn of the civilian in a dark gray suit who had been sitting listening without change of expression through all this, and drawing curious looks from the troops. He was tight about the face and lean-jawed, which drew his mouth into a thin-lipped line that hinted of humor-lessness, determination, or both, an impression strengthened by the narrow, thinly knotted necktie—constraining his person, as he perhaps did his emotions—and the cold eyes staring out through rimless bifocal spectacles. "Economy" was the word to summarize what everything about him seemed to project. He expended no unnecessary effort in his movements; there was no pointless expressiveness in his manner, nor sartorial elegances in his dress. Gleavey, who Demiro had already dubbed inwardly as "Glee-show," intro-duced him as Dr. Nordens. And it quickly turned out that Nordens didn't waste anything in words, either.
"We'll be exploring a new territory of science, concerning the mind and how it functions. We are looking for a particular type of subject to help in these researches, and the first part of the program will consist of further testing and selection before we move on to the program itself. For obvious reasons I can't go into details at this stage. But I can say that those of you who remain can expect to acquire skills and abilities that you never thought possible. The rest of today is available for you to relax and settle in. We begin work tomorrow morning, at eight-thirty sharp. The schedule will be posted. Thank you." He sat down.
The official designation of the project they were now part of, the men learned, would be "Southside."