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"Take a left at the next junction, Eggsy," advises the calm voice of Merlin in his ear.
Eggsy pelts down the subterranean corridor. Following Valentine's attempt to bring an end to civilization, only a heandful of the Kingsman organization had survived. There are a half-dozen new members with even less experience than he has, and when Geheris's com had gone suddenly silent, it fell to Eggsy to go in for a rescue.
There's something just inside the left-hand tunnel; he's pretty sure it's a body--he just hopes it isn't Geheris's. No, it's not. However, the corpse's fingers are clenched around Geheris's headset. Probably cadaveric spasm caused by having his head on backward. He also has a broken nose and one knee is bent at an unnatural angle.
Eggsy allows himself a grin at his protégé's decisive action. All those years of karate classes paid off, mate.
"Well, that's a good sign," says Arthur, who's also monitoring the action. .
"Which way, Merlin?" Eggsy asks.
"Left leads to those storm canals, right dead-ends in storerooms. I'd say left."
"Left it is." The view from Eggsy's glasses-cam shows him moving rapidly down a tiled passageway.
"Let's hope you're right," says Arthur to Merlin, off-mike. "I'd rather not have to go through all that again for another candidate. Or, God forbid, both of them."
The new leader of Kingsman was once Galahad; when they had returned from thwarting Valentine's scheme, it had been to find Harry Hart convalescing at the Camelot estate. "Oldest mistake in the book," he explained to them. "Valentine didn't check to see if I was actually dead. In fact, I've had a steel plate in my head since a small mishap in Marrakesh. I was knocked out for a while, but no lasting harm done."
Back in the tunnel, Eggsy hears distorted roaring. He slows his pace, approaching with caution. A familiar voice is speaking with calm authority, and gradually the cacophony dies down.
"Geheris?" he calls.
At once the barking resumes. Geheris makes the noise that meant rebuke while training...instant silence.
He enters the room at the end of the tunnel. It's been fitted up as a kennel, and three massive Rottweilers are seated in front of Geheris, quivering.
"Look at this!" Eggsy's protégé holds up what looks like s remote for the telly. "It's how they were controlling the dogs. This button rewards them with stimulation to the pleasure centers of the brain. That one stimulates aggression, that one causes pain."
Small wonder that body had been killed up close and personal. Geheris--formerly Leslie Swann--had been a professional dog walker before being recruited for Kingsman. (It had paid for the karate classes.) The Doberman she'd selected to train had been a paragon almost overnight.
When the time came for the final test, she looked long at the gun, "You know, they used to have Nazi officers do this to prove their loyalty." Was her reproachful comment. She scratched behind the affectionate dog's ears. "Good girl, Daisy." The barrel was close to the dog's chest when she pulled the trigger. If it had been a real bullet, the end would have been quick and painless.
"You can't be planning what I think you're planning," Eggsy says.
"They're coming with me."
"They're killers!"
"So? I've killed four people tonight," Geheris looks steadily at him. "I'm not going to punish a pack of innocent dogs because they were brainwashed."
"That's not brainwashing, Les, that's..." Words fail him.
"They're the victims here, as much as the people they were sent to kill. Remove those implannts and they'll be normal dogs again."
Short of dragging her out of there, Eggsy knows when he's defeated. "All right already, but mind you, keep them under control."
"Let's go!" Geheris says with a tone of such enthusiasm that the dogs scramble to their foot, wagging their hindquarters.
"Yes," Arthur drawls in Eggsy's ear. "Better get those implants out first thing."
"Right," Merlin agrees as Eggsy, Geheris and company head toward the exit. "The last thing we need is for someone's garage door control to send them into a killing frenzy."
"This isn't my idea," Eggsy says, to get it on the record.
"Maybe not," says Merlin, "but she is your candidate. If she doesn't make it through her probationary period...let's just say you'll be in the dog house."