Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (29 page)

“I’m a murderer.”

“No. You defended yourself. All of those who were killed were willing participants in the
Brainstorm
project. None were coerced support personnel or an innocent subject such as yourself.”

This gave me but a little solace.

“We have many peoples of many different interests working here. A number are former Soviet KGB agents, like the two men who chased you from your store. They and a number of their colleagues were unneeded when the new Russia emerged, and they were laid off from their cold-war jobs. There are many willing participants besides the Russians, and my fellow Chinese, of course, including North Korean, and North Vietnamese, as well as Pakistani, Iranian, Iraqi, Libyan, Cuban — and yes, even American.”

What I was hearing was nearly overwhelming
— the scope of this project horrifying.

I selected the file named
PhaseOne
. Inside were two files —
Acquire
and
Arrival
.

In
Acquire
, I found a scene viewed from the open cargo door of a van. There were several men inside, one hunkered in front of the camera with a silenced rifle. The van was parked at the curb, a hotel marquis in clear view, probably a hundred feet away. The sign said
Seoul Hilton
. A man walked out, past the doorman, and began hailing a cab. The man was too far away to be recognized — it could have even been me. But he wore a hat and a suit and tie. I didn’t like hats and detested ties — almost never wore one, at least, that’s what my programmed mind told me.

The man with the rifle suddenly discharged it, and the guy in the suit grabbed himself at the shoulder.

“That is you,” Yumi said.

In the video, four men pushed out of the front door of the hotel like linebackers and bum rushed the man in the suit
— me, I conceded for now.
I
kicked the first one in the face, gave an elbow to the gut of the second one and the knife-edge of my hand to the throat of the third guy. The fourth man made the tackle and managed to cover my head with a black cloth hood as I obviously became groggy.

The van lurched forward and pulled up to the front of the hotel. It took four of them a few seconds to wrangle me into the van. They restrained me, still hooded, with nylon ties and duct tape. Two of the men then pulled the guy I’d struck in the throat into their vehicle, and the van sped away as the cargo door closed.

When the video went blank, I tried to shake this craziness from my mind. I was living a nightmare.

I selected a file named
PhaseOneArrival
.

It showed a man through a wire-reinforced, glass pane in a thick door. His face was unclear. He had a light beard and bandaged head, and he sat in the corner wearing a straightjacket. The room inside was white and empty.

“It is you, again” Yumi said.

It could have been me. But it was impossible to be sure without being able to see this man’s face clearly.

In the video, three men in blue scrubs rushed into the room, and the disheveled, bound man launched up and rammed his head and shoulders into them. They lifted the man from his feet and bulldogged him to the floor. This video then went blank.

If nothing else, I felt good about the fight I put up.

The
Blank
.
avi
file had me curious. It was nearly a gigabyte in size.

As I clicked on it, Yumi said, “This was taken during your recovery after the operation to attach the enhancement device to your brainstem.”

I couldn’t help but rub the back of my head. I found a small, nearly unnoticeable line of scar tissue where my scalp had been cut and a portion of my skull had been temporarily removed for the operation. The idea of it gave me a sick sort of feeling in my gut.

In the video, the person who was supposed to be me wore a hospital gown, with #374 printed in what was probably Magic Marker on the gown pocket. My head was bandaged still, but this time my nose and chin were taped, also
— I guessed from fight injuries. With my eyes half open, I lay in a bed with other occupied beds around me. I was instructed to “get up,” by a voice off camera and I sat up. I was told to “stand up,” and I did this, also. My next command was to “come to me,” and this I did, moving closer to the camera, with halting sluggish steps.

After leaving the room I’d been in for the hallway, I joined a number of others who were walking around the perimeter of the hall. “Follow them,” came the command, and I did so without hesitation, joining the others, walking in a large circle, aimlessly, like mental deficients in a psychiatric ward, a scene from
Midnight Express
. “Everyone. Arms out,” the man’s voice said, and what looked like fifty of these vegetative patients followed the command. These were the “vegetables” Rajiv had mentioned, the Mister Potato Heads.

Yumi said, “Try the
Sensory
file.”

I clicked on an .
avi
file, and what I saw made me cringe.

In the video, it showed a man in a white hospital gown, head bandaged, face bruised, being led from the shadows to a metal chair in front of a projection screen in the middle of a room. His walk was stiff.

“This — ” Yumi began.

“I know, it’s me,” I guessed. I didn’t want to believe it, but I was becoming convinced. Still, I looked at the monitor skeptically, not one hundred percent sure. The idea of my mind being made into putty for shaping in any manner some deviant wanted, made me shiver.

The camera came in for a close up as this man — me. I was seated. The subject on this film was a perfect twin if not me, yet I could not remember any of what I watched. The camera focus stayed on the profile, but zoomed out slightly while a video played on the screen. The assistant who brought in this
blank
me laid a box on a nearby table. From it, he withdrew a stuffed bird that looked like a mallard duck. On the video screen, it showed several ducks on a lake bank. He placed the duck in front of me and guided my hands to stroke it. “Duck,” he softly said. He then pulled back the wing and used my fingers to fan the feathers. “Feathers,” he said, again clearly and softly. He returned his stuffed friend to the box and pulled out an egg. The next scene on the screen showed hens in a hen house. One got up from her nest, revealing an egg. He placed the egg in my hand. “Egg,” he said and moved my thumb over the shell.

I went forward in this file to a point where the assistant produced a pair of glasses
— my glasses, apparently. He slipped them on me. He said, “These are your glasses. You are blind without them. You must wear them at all times when you are awake, except when bathing. Never leave them.”

“Unmagnified glass,” Yumi said, “with a transponder inside the frames.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied. “I’m ahead of you on that one.”

Yumi said, “Both the
Sensory
and
Practical
learning portions of the project, although basic, are essential to the successful programming of the subject. We found without them, the subject has no solid ground in reality. That is why it was necessary for you to begin the day as if you had just awakened, then to proceed through a normal day in your new life. This practical experience helped to pull all of the programming we had done over the past two years into what you believed was your reality.”

I scanned forward on the file and came to a part where the assistant was paging through a
Time
magazine laid in front of me. To the side were stacks of
Sports Illustrateds
,
Readers’ Digests
,
Wall Street Journals
,
New York Times'
,
Denver Posts
, and even
Gold Rush Gazettes
.

I glanced over my shoulder to Yumi. “This is unreal.”

“I will give you a quick overview in simple terms about memory. The human memory can be divided into two basic types: implicit and explicit. Implicit memory is of common daily chores such as tying your shoes, walking, swimming and running, using a fork to eat mashed potatoes and a spoon for soup. It also contains identification of traffic signs, types of plants and animals, et cetera. However, no memory of specific people, faces or experiences exists there.

“Those memories are held in the explicit part of the mind. They are like old movie reels. They easily deteriorate, crack and discolor. In a normal mind, they’re stored as movie film in a salt mine, sealed and protected so they last longer. These memories have been deteriorated, through a variety of what you might call brainwashing techniques
— use of drugs and hypnotism. Your explicit memory has been erased. Such a thorough cleaning was necessary as actually to affect a small part of your implicit memories and that is why those memories were fortified with the sensory portion of your programming.

“At the same time, you may have experienced brief reminiscences of your own true past coming to you as flashbacks. Those pieces of memories that were for some reason not erased by the drugs and hypnotic suggestion were mostly overwritten. If these fragments come to you, they will be like the cracked and distorted film, fuzzy around the edges, yellowed so badly they’re barely
discernible. They will most likely happen as dreams or separations from reality that you will not find credible due to the stronger memories which have been implanted or programmed over them — replacing them.

“However, some fragments of your true past might have been ingrained too strongly to destroy, due to traumatic experiences you may have had. These memories might flash like lightning through your thoughts.

“For Xiang’s purposes, we wanted to make you as much of an average American as we could. That way, you would not rouse suspicion when you were let out among others of your kind. You did not need to think like a terrorist, or a sniper, or a warrior. There would be no reason and no evidence you did the things we would have you do. Nor would there be a way to trace you or your deeds back to us. And with the Brainistorm project in place and fully operating, anyone in the way would soon perish and only those who were thought beneficial would be in positions of power.”

I selected the file called
Clean
.

It showed a man sitting in a metal chair again. This time, he was completely naked and unconscious.

Harvey said,
Now, this guy is definitely you.

I frowned, looking closer. Harvey was correct, at least, it did look
like
me.

In the video a man in a blue lab coat jabbed a hypodermic needle into my arm. I rolled my head and slowly my eyes fluttered open. Still in the video, the lights in the room dimmed and Dr. Xiang stepped into view. He held a small flashlight and shined it into my eyes. Dr. Xiang began speaking softly. He gave his hypnotic suggestions. He instructed the terms of allegiance with me, in a familiar, gentle tone. He made me repeat, “True blue, trust them, do,” and “We’re lucky to have such a caring doctor, don’t you think?”

Another file directly following the one I’d just viewed was labeled
UnexpectedInteraction
. This one was oddly out of place, and its contents piqued my curiosity.

Inside the file, it showed me still in a white hospital gown while sitting in a chair. My head was still bandaged, but my face was no longer bruised. At my feet, a small animal skittered around. It stopped by my slipper and sniffed at me. It was a gerbil. Even though in the apparent vegetative state I was in, my eyes shifted downward to the small mammal. The scene cut to a new one of me eating. As I ate in a somber robot fashion like the rest of the blanks, I stuffed a cracker into my pocket.

In the next scene, I was back at the chair, bandage no longer on my shaved head. The gerbil was below me on the floor. I slowly reached for my pocket and pulled out the cracker. Without apparent emotion or facial expression, I broke the cracker into small pieces and dropped it at my feet. The gerbil had a feast.

The progression of the relationship between Mickey Gerbil and me was recorded in six scenes that proceeded. The camera apparently followed our contact throughout my time of programming. In the last scene, my hair had grown out and the rodent was on my thigh, resting back on its haunches while munching on a piece of cracker, and I was smiling.

“This was unusual,” Yumi said. “We found this interaction extremely interesting, exceptional. You were the only one who had any sort of mental reaction outside of the programming. That is why the gerbil became an important tool later.” Yumi pointed to a file.

I clicked on it. The subfolder
PracticalApplication
,
Initial.avi
seemed blank. After a few seconds, a light came on to a split-screen scene I recognized as my bedroom and master bathroom. The time in the upper right hand corner said 06:00 AM.

In the video, a woman I did not recognize entered the unoccupied bedroom. She wore a blue jumpsuit and carried a linen-filled basket to the foot of the coverless bed. She pulled a sheet from the basket and spread it on the bed. Soon several other people entered the bedroom, one pushing a wheeled coat rod filled with clothes on hangers, one with a hand truck loaded with shoeboxes. One came in with several bags, went to the dresser and began loading the drawers with socks and underwear.