The three men behind the screen watched their monitors intently. One sat at the control panel, adjusting various dials and switches as probes entered the skulls of the five unconscious teens in the room.
"I can't believe we're already on to human trials," the man standing in the back said, "there's so many more questions."
The man at the controls scoffed, "This is going to give us innumerable answers that we'd never get testing on chimps for another five years. You should be glad we were able to get this fast-tracked!"
"Yes. The initial results are promising. It's just... well, these are just teenagers."
"Which is exactly what we need. Their brains are at the perfect stage of development. Any younger and the implants would certainly cause brain damage. Any older and they'd be too developed - the neural impulses would barely have any effect. These five are strong, mentally, but still malleable."
"Hopefully not too malleable," the quiet one to the side said, "We all know what happened with the last group of chimps."
"Yes, yes," the seated one said dismissively. "The one with the dominant personality started exerting more control, until the entire group had been mentally overwritten by the dominant chimp. But it's a risk worth taking. This is an important next step in our research!"
The other two nodded in agreement. A monitor flashed, "IMPLANT COMPLETE" blinking on the screen. The three technicians approached their test subjects and removed the headgear. Jon, Karyn, Trevor, Biff, and Sarah slowly began to stir.
