Three men stood in an observation room, looking through the window at River Tam during one of her training sessions. The first one used his blue-gloved hands to shuffle through her file. The second one also wore blue gloves. He was standing next to the lead physician on River’s case who was reporting on her progress.

“How is the subject progressing?”

“Remarkably well,” the doctor reported. “Even though we had to discontinue the surgical program.”

“Why was that?”

“We tried on three separate occasions to proceed with the original program, but each time, the subject’s vitals became unstable to the point of near death.”

“Why was that happening?”

“We haven’t been able to pinpoint the problem.”

“Hmmm…” Blue hand #2 mused. His tone was laced with cold disapproval.

The doctor felt increasingly uneasy talking to the blue-gloved agents. He quickly moved on to discussing their subsequent successes with River, in hopes of gaining their praise.

“Strangely, it hasn’t made a difference,” he continued. “Through behavior modification and drug therapy, we have made tremendous strides with the subject.”

“Tell us about them.”

“As you can see, her physical abilities are outstanding,” the doctor said as he pointed at River in the other room. She was locked in an intense battle with ten highly trained soldiers. The soldiers were not doing well. She had felled all but three of them. Two guards stood by the door leading out of the room, but were not engaged in the exercise.

“Excellent. And her psychic abilities?”

“Also progressing. I have some vids of her progress in the other room, if you would like to adjourn there to review them,” the doctor said as he motioned toward the room across the hall, taking a step towards it.

“We will view them soon. We would like to see this exercise completed first.”

“Of course,” the doctor acknowledged. He shifted his feet uncomfortably.

River was fighting the soldiers. She looked very convincing, but unknown to her captors, she was holdin