Chapter 14
Oliver Sustain was in his office when Mitchell Gaines called to report on the latest findings.
“DNA is a little weird, Sir,” he said. “It’s definitely markers from both his father and mother. We had profiles on both – one from his blood work for his Senate confirmation and the mother’s from crime scene files. No surprises there.
“His EEG is really off the wall, MRI shows an anomaly deep in the core, midpoint. We have all the results from Walter Reed. Showed a large thickened mass of tissue when he was admitted. Now, it’s the size of a pea and is in the area of the pineal gland which you know has been associated with extrasensory perception. Both of the lab staff have designed trials to test the boy.”
“The father?”
“He believes the boy’s been kidnapped, the FBI is on the case. They’ve tracked him to the Verizon on East Gate. The FBI has the phones tapped and are waiting for ransom demands. The Senator has gone on TV to appeal to the kidnappers, citing his brain injuries. There is a million dollar reward. President Rickover has also made an appeal. The media is all over this.”
“We need to provide a body, then.”
“Yes, sir. Or turn him loose,” Gaines returned.
“Can you supply enough of his blood to prove he’s dead?”
“The lab geeks say yes. We’ll take 2 pints and replace it, keep it in a centrifuge so it doesn’t gel. Can’t put stabilizers in it or it shows up in the forensics tests.”
“Are two pints enough to prove a fatal scenario?” The Director questioned.
“Borderline. Anymore and it’s dangerous for the boy. 2 pints is a serious loss. Without medical aid, the victim would most likely die. We can’t wait days between the sampling, forensics would prove the samples came from different pulls.”
“Can you stretch it to three?”
“I can ask,” Gaines hesitated.
“Don’t risk his life, Mitchell. Not until we find out how he does it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”
“I believe he reads minds, Director. He eavesdropped on the conversation between my wife and me.”
“Keep me informed. How’s his health?”
“The docs had him tranked on Thorazine. He doesn’t care about anything. He’s a zombie. I’m not sure he can do what he does so doped up. Yet, when he is aware, he’s a little Spitfire. He tried to take me out twice now. Tough little bugger.”
“He’s an asset, Gaines. And a loose cannon. We can’t have him poking his nose into the White House and Langley. Find out how he does it, and fast.”
“Yes, sir.” The Director hung up first.
The boy was strapped into a chair like a dentist’s, hooked to an EEG. He looked asleep, his bald head shining in the sterile light of a small, fully equipped OR. Two techs reading the print outs were circling high peaks with a red felt pen.
Images flashed in front of the boy’s eyes on the blank wall, voices droning through a set of earphones around his bare skull.
Gaines watched from the window as a male scientist explained the testing. “We’re asking him to name what he sees,” he said.
“His eyes are closed,” Gaines protested.
“Closed, taped shut and dilated. He can’t see if he wanted to. Yet, he’s 100% accurate with the images. Watch this.” He spoke into the microphone. “Phil, images on number two.”
The images in the room with a boy blanked out and began to show in the room with the pair. Gaines named them and heard the boy echo his own answers.
“How?”
“He can see them somehow. With his mind.”
“He reads minds?” Gaines was skeptical. In the background, the lab monkey screamed and shook the bars of his cage.
“No,” the doctor shook his head. “Watch this.” He spoke into the microphone and turned to the monkey cages, covering them as the tech in the room with the boy did the same to all the lab animals. As soon as the last one was covered, the boy’s voice fell silent. Plaintively, he said, “That’s all. Can’t see…no more.”
“He sees through their eyes, hears through the ears of the animal,” the scientist looked ecstatic. “He feels what they feel.” He poked the rhesus with a prod and the boy’s reactions were the same, his face grimacing in pain. “His pain responses are the same as the rhesus, their brain waves are patterned exactly the same.”
Gaines mused, “My Labrador retriever was in the bedroom when I told my wife about the Senator. Christ, that’s the connection we were looking for – every one of these leaks had a pet involved. Dogs, cats, even a God damn parrot!
“Can you imagine the implications, doctor? Donate a trained falcon to the Sultan of OPEC and know exactly their policies before they make them? A trained dog to the President of Russia? 90% of foreign leaders have pets. We could spy on anyone without risking an agent’s life!”
“We don’t know how far his range is,” he warned. “Or how long he can meld. I suspect the use has short and long-term damage effects to his brain. Perhaps, it triggered the neurological storm he was in Walter Reed for. His original scans indicated a serious, perhaps fatal condition.”
“And now?” Gaines asked.
“Doctor Soong had decided to send the child home and just monitor him. Not having read his personal notes, I don’t know if it was because he considered the child hopeless, and to let him end peacefully at home, or he believed the boy would grow out of it and recover.”
“What do you think?” Gaines entreated.
“I think if we can keep him alive and on our side under our control, he’d make the perfect stealth weapon. Terrorist, dirty politicians, crime bosses. Anywhere an animal can go, we can point and aim him.”
“How do we control him, doctor?”
Now, the scientist grinned. “Ever hear of mind control? We know how to use EEG waves to loop and feedback the mind, program it to do nearly anything in an adult. A fourteen-year-old will be child’s play.”
Gaines suppressed a shiver. “In short,” the scientist said. “We’ll kill his ego and implant a whole new personality. He’ll be a totally different person.”
“How long will that take?”
“No more than two years to become permanent. Once started, we can’t stop without killing him. You sure you want to do this thing?”
“It won’t destroy the…thing he does?” Gaines wondered.
“It shouldn’t. It’s not like we use electric shock or torture. It’s all done with electrical impulses and subliminal transference under a auditory and optical stimulation while he’s in a comatose state. The initial phase takes a week in a sensory deprivation chamber. He’ll be catheterized, fed IV and hydrated during the entire process. Do you have any particular guidelines for his new persona?”
“Like?”
“We can program different languages and skills, job knowledge, personality. You want him a tough bully or shy introvert? Sports inclined or effeminate? Animal lover for sure, woman hater or sexually precocious?”
Gaines stared in disgust. “Can’t you just leave him as he is, but make him want to work for us?”
The scientist shook his head. “I have to destroy his personality before we can control the new one, or it won’t last. The core personality will reassert eventually and blow the entire program. We’ve done this before. I know the pitfalls of the procedure. He’ll be the youngest I’ve ever programmed and his will take the shortest time. The younger they are, the easier it is to break them.”
Gaines cursed and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind to bounce open and shiver on its hinges. In the room, the boy lay twitching.