BRAINSTORM

by Gordon Kessler

  As she went on, I remembered how Mr. Banks had recalled my name by the brown clothing I was wearing. Her comment “the first to live” was bothersome.

  “In you,” she said, “we have found the most promise. Your potential ranks high across the entire gamut of psychic abilities, from telepathy to telekinesis. Your thought projection skills are incredible, as are your remote viewing capabilities. When Captain Vanzandtz defected to us over ten years ago, it became quite a coup for our Brainstorm project. She brought with her hundreds of names of the people, mostly students, she’d tested over the years and a database of thousands from other Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency projects including Grill Flame, Sun Streak, Star Gate, Thousand Eyes. Your name topped her list. Added to a list of thousands from around the world, Xiang began gathering them—abducting the more gifted when the opportunity arose.

  “Many of the subjects were either too weak or the drugs and mental stress they were subjected to were too strong. Most before you either died or were disposed of. Some were only useful in limited ways. We learned through trial and error the best combination to fit our needs. You would be interested to know Subject 375 was your friend Mike Wu—Colonel Wu. He volunteered, seeking the power our project could unlock. In fact, his implant is a new and improved version. He has a stainless-steel covered, copper plate imbedded in his forehead to help direct his power. You must avoid him at all costs.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I believe we’ve already had one of those my-magic-is-better-than-your-magic sort of run-ins at the store.”

  She continued, “The rest of the subjects—blanks, we call them—are here and in various stages of programming. They come from all walks of life. All races and not only Americans. However Xiang had chosen to use mostly super-power nationalities such as English, Russian, French.”

  When the file Subject 374 appeared in the computer window, it showed four folders. PhaseOne contained Acquire and Arrival. PhaseTwo contained Clean, Program, Personal, and Sensory. PhaseThree contained PracticalApplication. And PhaseFour held Surveillance.

  “Open PhaseTwo, Program,” Yumi instructed.

  When I did, a long list of movie files opened.

  Yumi told me, “Pick one.”

  “There are so many.”

  “Nearly ten thousand hours worth. During programming the subject is only allowed four hours sleep per day.”

  The one I selected was labeled TVCommercialsModern9.avi. A Dentisol toothpaste commercial began playing. It spoke of “Nothing is better than a clean mouth.” Next came a Norelco commercial, then Chevrolet. I fast-forwarded through Downy, La-Z-Boy, Goodyear, Sears, Wal-Mart, Doritos, MacDonald’s and countless others.

  “Try another folder,” Yumi said.

  I clicked on MotionPicturesModern4. In this file were subfolders—everything from MyBigFatGreekWedding, all three LordoftheRings, Something’sGottaGive, TotalRecall, Scanners, and ThePassionofChrist—even The Davinci Code, as well as over a dozen James Bond movies and more. I clicked on one.

  The movie GangsofNewYork came on.

  In MotionPicturesClassic7 I found Mr.DeedsGoestoWashington, GonewiththeWind, TheManchurianCandidate, TheSandPebbles, Dracula, and surprise, surprise, Harvey.

  Yumi said, “Perhaps you’ve noticed when you see something that seems familiar to you, many times your mind will access the memory of a movie or television commercial? At times the thoughts come to you inappropriately humorous or perhaps the opposite.”

  I stared at the screen. “Yeah,” I said flatly.

  “That is because these are all your mind has to associate with reality. This is what you were programmed with.”

  I scanned the list of folders and subfolders. There was a huge News file with hundreds of subfolders including ones named Challenger&Columbia, PanAmflight103 and WorldTradeCenter. Another huge file was titled TV and its subfolders contained titles like Soaps, Games, SitComs, Series, and Documentaries. Inside were files called Survivor, GeneralHospital, Friends, Jeopardy, DiscoveryChannel, and CrocodileHunter.

  I tried the Personal folder. Inside it was a file called HomeMovies, and a subfolder called SixthBirthday.avi. The camera shot was of a birthday cake with a crowd of children around it. In the background were a couple of adults I recognized as my parents. I remembered this movie as my sixth birthday and I watched it, astonished. On the screen, the children and my parents were looking at the camera, singing Happy Birthday to it. However, there was something odd about this movie. A child’s hands and arms reached out from the camera toward the table, and I realized the camera must have been on the child’s shoulder, or perhaps some sort of a helmet cam, like I’d seen occasionally on televised car races and football games—like I’d probably watched in a room like the one before me.

  Yumi said, “Those are no more your parents than they are mine. The memory of your true parents has been washed away.”

  The thought of it made me grimace.

  There were a number of other Birthday files. I skipped them and went to the Wedding.avi one.

  As I suspected, the film was shot from the groom’s perspective as if he also wore a helmet cam. Michelle was the bride. She looked slightly younger. Mike Wu wore a tuxedo and stood beside the cameraman. The camera came in real close to Michelle’s face for the wedding kiss. Her lips and eyes so close. My eyes began to tear.

  I clicked on a different file.

  This one was of Will. He wore a Little League Baseball outfit. He stood with a bat over his shoulder. An arm came out from below the camera and pitched a ball to him. He hit it and the camera followed the ball until it bounced and rolled to a tree.

  In another file was the view from a walking person, this scene looking familiar. It was of the same route I had taken to work the day before. It also showed the same route from a driver’s point of view in what I remembered as our Buick. There was a scene from the viewpoint of a person walking from room to room through our house. Then came the scene from bed. The viewpoint was of a person lying there, looking toward the make-up table where Michelle sat, naked, as she brushed her hair and rubbed on lotion.

  “At this point,” Yumi said, “an assistant would bring in the lotion and other olfactory prompts to give the memory more depth and realism.”

  Then came a similar scene of the hardware store. It took time as the viewer inspected a number of different products on the shelves. The viewpoint went to the cash register and went through its operation.

  Yumi said, “A narrator accompanies this portion as well as most of the other scenes during actual programming.”

  I clicked on another file, this one labeled FootballGame.avi.

  The video was shot from seats in a football stadium. It panned around at the people filling the seats. Below, the Denver Broncos played the Oakland Raiders. People were cheering. The camera panned back to the seating and as it came up to the seat next to it, the video jumped as if something had been spliced in. The surroundings were similar, but not quite the same, more like some sort of studio shot scene. Mike Wu looked into the camera smiling big—looking back to the game, cheering the Broncos.

  Yumi said, “Go ahead and take a couple of minutes to browse.”

  I did as she suggested and found video labeled Sentimentality—which included ordering of Will’s snow skis. There were audio files, one was of my voice repeating, “Doc Xiang is a big man with a big heart. We’re lucky to have such a caring doctor, don’t you think?” Then, Michelle’s voice saying, “Very lucky. Dr. Xiang is a good man and a good friend.”

  On the last of the Personal files labeled SenatorAvery was the exact morning show interview I’d watched with Michelle the morning before—Senator Avery discussing his thoughts of running for President and his views on China.

  Yumi said, “He was to be your first target.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “We have an entire apartment complex in Washington DC devoted solely to the Brainstorm project. Within the next three months, Xiang hopes to ha
ve over a dozen psychic assassins such as you there, each with their own targets. Along with them will be several dozen support personnel including new family members. As much of your old information as possible has been either altered or deleted on numerous U.S. government databases including CIA and FBI fingerprint records that we have been able to hack into. Many of the records were easily altered by psychic persuasion of critical government computer information systems employees—basically accosting and hypnotizing them to alter data without realizing it. You were to have been given your new identification complete with social security number, credit cards, birth certificate and even school transcripts—we’ve been cultivating the many paper personalities for over twenty years.”

  Now, I’d finally come to the point that I doubted who I thought I was. Up until this, nothing they’d told me made much sense. I chose not to believe most of it, not to consider the possibility it was true. Now, I wondered who I really was, but I wasn’t prepared to ask her now. The information Dr. Yumi had already given me was overwhelming. I asked, “What would happen if someone from my past ran into me? How could that be explained?”

  “Very rarely would you leave the secure apartment. You would only think you had left after daily hypnosis sessions in which it would be suggested to you that you had visited your son at Bethesda, went to a restaurant, to a shopping center. On the rare occasions it was necessary for you to leave, you would be tasked with your assassination mission. During those times you would be watched, a team of troubleshooters always prepared to, let us say, fix any problem. All you had to do to complete your missions would be to make visual contact with your targets.

  “Because of an implanted, hypnotically suggested dislike for the person—for example because of the target being against funding that could mean the difference between having a normal son and a paraplegic one, your subconscious brain would go into a defensive posture. With your telepathic abilities, your subconscious mind would reach out to the target’s own brainwaves. The enhancement device we developed works like an automobile coil. It amplifies your brainwaves and helps direct them with greater force to the target. Your brain then tells the target’s central nervous system to shut down. It tells the target’s brain to stop all involuntarily commands to the heart, lungs and other bodily functions, and the target dies instantly.”

  “Like the people I’ve already killed.”

  “Yes. Exactly. Your subconscious sampled their thoughts, found them harmful and considered those people threats to your well-being. The only ones safe from you were the ones you weren’t threatened by or those who were wearing the copper-lined helmets. The copper protects the wearer from outside electronic fields and signals of all types. That is how the brain functions—through electrical signals. It sends commands in the form of these electrical signals through the body’s nervous system to perform all tasks and operations. The brain’s constant electrical communication with the body actually causes an electronic field—some people claim to be able to see it as an aura. In your case, your brain defends you through its enhanced telepathic powers which are transmitted much in the same way, however, more like through a directed surge of power from that electrical field.”

  “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, bein
g 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.”