Verity Sherman walked down the central colonnade of the Facility, a pretty young woman in a pastel yellow sundress, her full lips pursed with trepidation. It was Monday morning; the Committee was meeting at ten thirty-five to discuss her latest progress report. Verity noted the time with an anxious turn of her wrist. Attendance was mandatory, she couldn't afford to be late by even a few seconds. She quickened her pace to match the pounding in her chest.

The colonnade was a vast expanse of iridescent columns sweeping off into an alabaster limbo. Opalescent pillars loomed on either side, their crystal surfaces glimmering in the muted light. Verity could hear her heels clicking along the vast corridor, remote echoes in the brooding, marble stillness. A fresh summer breeze seemed to flicker along the Italian floor tiles, raising the hem of her dress.

It was a trick, of course. Like everything else in the Facility, the breeze was an illusion, a simple mirage redolent with the scent of grape and honey-suckle. Deception was the only truth in this house of vacant fantasies. Everything here was either a lie, a dream or a nightmare - although the boundaries between the three were somewhat obscure, Verity had come to realize.

In the three months since she'd entered the Program, Verity had been exposed to indignities without number: probes and penetrations; medical procedures which invariably left her shaken and tearful. The invasions never seemed to end. They'd explored her most intimate recesses with a barrage of wicked-looking instruments, delving and touching and pricking and poking until she'd begged them to stop, wailing like a child as each new device was inserted.

Still, there was something worse than all the violations she'd suffered over the past ninety days.

There were the Interviews.

Reaching the end of the colonnade, Verity entered an equally extravagant hallway decorated with Baroque oils - Rembrandts, Van Dykes, Rubens and hundreds of others she'd never heard of. The walls were covered with thick indigo velvet, lending the hall the appearance of some lavish private gallery. Verity wasted no time examining the artwork; she could think about improving her cultural literacy if she survived her probation. As it was, she'd be lucky to make it through the next twenty-four hours with her sanity intact.

Verity wasn't alone in her never-ending pilgrimage through the Hall of Wonders. Like every other candidate in the Reorientation Program, she had a bodyguard assigned to accompany her whenever she moved about the Facility. A combination security guard, escort and prison warder, he rarely spoke, other than to inform her which door to enter or what direction to take.

Verity looked shyly up at the man striding beside her. He was a big, heavy-set veteran in a black business suit, aged perhaps in his mid-thirties. He walked with the precise, measured step of a military serviceman. His dark, impassive face was masked by a pair of reflector sunglasses, enhancing his hard, disciplined bearing. The tag on his lapel read TYLER, F. Verity had often wondered what the 'F' stood for, but had never summoned up the courage to ask. She was under strict instructions never to engage the bodyguards in private conversation.

They walked past a chain of sumptuous Rococo sculptures depicting the Rape of Persephone ('rape' being the operative word in this case), arriving before an enormous oaken door, half as tall as a Los Angeles apartment block. Verity's gaze wandered up to the coat of arms mounting the portal. Painstakingly embossed on the sepia woodgrain was a silver serpent coiled around a cross. The letters 'TVC' were inscribed in gold leaf directly below the shield. Verity had never understood the significance of the crucified snake, but she thought she knew what the initials stood for.

The bodyguard stepped in front of her, his large frame blocking her view of the logo. He must have been at least four feet across the shoulders. Touching a finger to the side of his sunglasses, Tyler F spoke quietly into his comset.

"Miss Sherman's here."

Endless grey silence for several seconds, followed by an equally ominous click: hidden locks turning in varnished oak panel. Verity's knees weakened as she contemplated the reception awaiting her on the other side of that monstrous door. She was dizzy, light headed; almost feverish with fear and expectation. It was a consistent paradox: despite her misgivings, Verity always felt a thrill of excitement as she prepared to face the Committee.

The door opened, evidently of its own volition.

"Go in," Tyler told her dispassionately.

Stealing a final, calming breath, Verity stepped across the threshold.

The Committee Room was roughly the size of a European Nation. The titanic proportions never ceased to amaze her. Walls lined with cedar bookshelves rushed upwards like errant skyscrapers, their lines broken by a series of gigantic frescoes filled with battle scenes, tiger hunts and similar masculine subjects (the paintings were actually state of the art holograms, reproducing the originals right down to the crumbling plaster. As Verity had noted previously, everything in the Facility was an illusion). The thick red carpet was littered with antique furniture of virtually every period; Victorian chaise-lounges vied with art nouveau sofas and coffee tables. The place had the feel of an Edwardian gentlemen's club, complete with the disapproving English butler (although such allusions would have been lost on Verity; history had never been her strong point, considering her background).

Picking her way through a forest of Chippendale easy chairs and stalwart black Grandfather clocks, Verity made her way to the far end of the room, where a long mahogany table lay before a row of tall French windows. Thirteen men were seated at the Committee Board, their forms silhouetted by the Autumn sunshine hazing in through the windows. The table was covered with laptops, legal files and drinking utensils.

There were a dozen new faces on the Interview Panel. Verity recognised Scott Freeman - the Executive Officer of the Committee - but the remaining twelve were unfamiliar to her. They were all cut from the same cloth, however; affluent young executives with leather jackets, five o'clock shadows and the coolest moves in the space-time continuum. Looks, money and attitude: a devastating combination.

Freeman himself was a supernaturally handsome man with Alpine features and the gaze of a white pointer. Seated at the central position, he dominated the entire room with his Herculean presence, an upstart god resplendent in all his glory. He wore a black leather shirt open to the chest, cuffs and pockets studded with gold. His hands were as smooth and hard as veined marble, giving the simultaneous impression of superhuman strength and breathtaking sensitivity. A silver-grey Macintosh iBook sat before him, jacked into a terminal in the middle of the desk.

Scott barely glanced up as Verity approached the Table, although she knew from prior experience that he was aware of everything that occurred in the Committee room. A silver-plated comset twined unobtrusively around his temple, his fingers toyed with a tiny grey palm consol, feeding data into the iBook. Leaning forward on his left elbow, he read from the laptop's LCD. His words were brief and clipped, matching the quasi-Edwardian decor of the room.

"Interview convened at 10.35 AM/ September 15/AST. Subject: Sherman, Verity, JN162054/19C. Category: 19C; Inductee (probationary). Program: Reorientation, level G7A. Authorisation: Freeman S/2051A16."

Scott paused to enter the information into the iBook's database, then settled back into the ebony depths of his armchair, greeting the 'subject' with a vaguely wolfish smile. Verity felt her spine tense. His manner was taunting, self-assured, almost dismissive.

"Morning, Verity," he began, idly fingering his palmset, "you're looking considerably better than the last time we saw you." He made no move to offer her a seat. His eyes strayed from her face to her belly then up to her breasts. Verity shifted uncomfortably. The sundress was a wisp of fine yellow cotton, her figure must have been visible through the translucent fabric.

"Yes, thank you," she replied to his comment, "I've had a good week; Doctor Wanderly gave me something for the morning sickness." Nausea was one of the more common side effects of Tetragynozine. Most of the 'girls' in her dormitory had suffered some degree of physical discomfort during their transition. At the end of the day, genetic reconfiguration was simply another form of advanced chemotherapy. She'd been lucky to get off so lightly.

"Good," Scott said, absently clicking away on his palmset, "How have you been feeling - emotionally, I mean? Doc Wanderly noted some minor bouts of depression in your last psych report."

"I'm fine, thanks," she answered, a little more shortly than she'd intended. She'd been walking the razor's edge most of the week, knowing this meeting was just round the corner. She found these weekly interviews even more invasive than the Psych Unit's daily evaluations.

"Care to talk about it?" Scott inquired mildly, already knowing what her answer would be.

"No," she retorted with just a hint of petulance, then added in a more reasonable tone, "I've already discussed it with Doctor Wanderly." Which was true enough, Wanderly's mindprobes were as exhausting as her daily physicals. Scott nodded, as if he'd expected nothing better from her.

"Well, in that case, we'll get this over with as quickly and painlessly as possible," he remarked off-hand, still wearing that lupine grin. Verity braced herself, knowing what to expect now that the formalities had been completed.

"If you'll take off that dress, we can get started."