They both jumped upon hearing a loud voice over an intercom. "Yes, you certainly should expect the unexpected," it repeated.
"Who the hell is that?" asked Nicole.
"Professor, that was highly unprofessional conduct," said the voice. "There will be repercussions."
"Damn...they have listening devices everywhere," said the Professor. "That's the Chief Executive of the company, he must have been alerted we escaped and set the audio systems in the building to detect any sounds."
Moments later, they heard the security officers rattling the locked door to the storage room in which they were hiding.
Security guards made quick work of busting down the door, and despite the couple's efforts to elude capture, Nicole and the Professor were restrained, injected with sedatives and taken to different rooms within the same facility.
When Nicole woke up she was laying on a bench, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. She realized she was back in the same room where she had undergone the first experiments with the mind probe and the augmented reality goggles. She was furious at the situation. She wasn't going to allow herself to be controlled in this way!
Hovering over her was a person she didn't recognize. An older man - perhaps in his sixties. He introduced himself as the Chief Executive of the company - and the person for whom the Professor worked. His face belied a sinister character, and Nicole immediately took a dislike to him.
"Are you feeling any better?" he sneered.
"Let me go!" demanded Nicole
"Now, now, Nicole," he said. "The Professor evidently let his feelings for you get in the way of doing his job and he will face the consequences for those actions."
"Where is he? What's going to happen to him?" asked Nicole, looking around the room with genuine concern.
"Appropriate remediation," said the Executive.
"Please don't hurt him," said Nicole, "He was just trying to help me."
"Help You?" Her captor laughed... "That's an interesting perspective. When we found you, it appeared to us that you two had been fucking each other's brains out. I'm not sure who seduced who, but it was clearly a violation of the Professor's contract with our company, to say nothing of a gross violation of ethical conduct."
"But listen, we're not tyrants here," continued the Executive. "You have a choice. You can choose to stay here with us for a little while longer, continue with these experiments until we can get the device up and running, and then you can depart with a little extra money than you had before."
"Or alternatively," the Executive let those words rest for a few seconds, "you can just walk out the door. We'll of course need to administer a drug that inhibits your short-term memory so there's no recollection of your time here with us. Proprietary reasons you understand."
"What will happen to the Professor?" asked Nicole.
"Do you really care, honestly? Fine, if you choose to stay and you cooperate, we may be able to overlook his transgressions."
---------
A short time later, the Professor awoke in an adjoining room, but because of the thick walls had no way of knowing Nicole was so close. He was tied to a chair with his arms and legs bound.
Although he was groggy, he immediately grasped the situation: "Where's Nicole? What did you do to her?" The Professor demanded of the guard watching him: "Release me! You have no right to hold me."
The company Executive had made his way into the room and greeted the Professor with a creepy smile: "Oh, Nicole was having so much fun with the earlier experiments that she's decided to stay with us indefinitely."