The Persona Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  They ran to the street. Adam almost seemed to be dancing as he crossed the road, dodging and weaving through the cars. Bianca followed with rather more apprehension. They reached the other side and ran down the next block.

  ‘Stop, stop!’ Bianca gasped as they rounded a corner. While she tried to exercise as often as she could at home, the sheer unexpectedness of the chase had caught her unprepared.

  Adam slowed to let her catch up. He was almost buzzing with energy. ‘Damn!’ he said, laughing. ‘That was fun.’

  ‘That’s your idea of fun?’ she complained. ‘Being chased by – okay, I don’t want to call them “goons”, because you work with them, but . . . by goons?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have hurt you.’

  ‘I don’t know, they seemed pretty angry.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have let them.’ There was a matter-of-factness to the statement that made her very glad he was on her side.

  ‘Won’t that cause you a lot of trouble at STS, though?’

  He shook his head. ‘Those two overstepped the mark. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Are you okay?’

  She recovered her breath. ‘More or less. Oh!’ She twisted to check her trousers, and found a dirty mark across her buttocks. ‘Bloody hell. I landed in some mud.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll take you somewhere you can get cleaned up.’

  She was about to suggest her hotel, when impulsive curiosity took over. ‘Your place?’

  Adam appeared briefly surprised, but then nodded. There was not a trace of lascivious intent, though. ‘Sure. We can carry on our conversation.’

  ‘About?’

  Another smile, but one tinged with disquiet. ‘About why that was literally the most fun I can ever remember having.’

  23

  The Impossible Dream

  They took a cab to Adam’s apartment. He received three phone calls en route, all of which he ignored. Once there, he watched Bianca’s reaction as she looked around the living room.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked. It was not the tone of someone awaiting praise for their taste, more that of a patient expecting the worst.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said.

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘It’s very . . . minimalist.’ She felt as if she had entered some sort of avant-garde art installation. The room was almost completely devoid of colour: white walls and ceiling, black furniture, the carpet a nondescript grey. Even the Apple laptop on a desk was monochrome aluminium.

  There was something else unusual, but it took her a few seconds to work out what. When the answer came, it was startling in its obviousness. ‘You don’t have a television?’

  Adam shook his head. ‘I don’t have a radio, either.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just never occurred to me to buy one.’

  ‘It reminds me of the Cube, back at STS.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. And that’s something else that hadn’t occurred to me before – at least, not until you started making me think about it.’

  She peered into the kitchen. It was as plain as the lounge; no mess, no clutter, everything neatly stored. ‘Did you choose this place?’

  ‘No. After I joined the Persona Project, they arranged it for me. All the furniture was already here.’

  ‘And you didn’t bring any of your own stuff with you?’

  ‘I didn’t have any stuff, now I think about it. Just clothes.’

  ‘Nothing else? No books or CDs, anything like that?’

  Another shake of his head. ‘Now, I’m fairly sure that’s not normal.’

  ‘Not unless you’re secretly a Trappist monk. And I can’t picture you in a robe.’

  ‘Maybe on a mission . . .’ His phone rang again. He checked the screen. ‘Tony.’

  ‘You’re still not going to answer?’

  ‘Not yet. I want to see how panicked they get about all this.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Probably not.’ He cocked his head towards her. ‘Well, there’s something we’ve found out about my personality. Apparently I’m reckless.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d go that far,’ she assured him. ‘Maybe you like to test the boundaries, though.’

  The ringing stopped. ‘I’ll get something so you can clean yourself off. Please, have a seat.’

  She sat in a black leather armchair as he went into the kitchen. ‘This apartment, then – have you ever done anything here except eat and sleep?’

  ‘No. And you’re actually my first social visitor.’

  ‘In how long?’

  ‘In, ah . . . seven months. That’s when I moved in here.’

  ‘Really? Wow. And you haven’t felt lonely?’

  ‘Like I said, it didn’t occur to me.’ He came back into the lounge, bearing a cloth. ‘Here.’

  ‘Thanks. Damn, I shouldn’t have sat down first, should I?’ She stood and rubbed the dirt off her trousers, then turned to wipe away the marks she had left on the chair.

  ‘Leave it,’ said Adam. She looked at him, questioning. ‘Maybe this place could use some disorder.’

  ‘I still have to sit somewhere,’ she pointed out.

  He gestured at the couch. ‘Over here.’

  ‘Okay.’ She took a place on it. He sat beside her. ‘I suppose the question that has to be asked is: what do you remember about your past? If you think back, what’s the first thing that you can specifically recall?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He stared at the wall, but not in the blank way Bianca had seen in the Cube. He was making a genuine effort to probe his memory. ‘I remember the first time I went into the Bullpen at STS, for sure.’

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘Roger, Kiddrick, Martin, Tony . . . some of the support staff too. Holly Jo, Levon, Kyle, a few more. There weren’t many other people there, though. The project was suspended after Tony took medical leave – they were only just gearing back up to operational status.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About seven months ago. After I’d recovered from the surgery to put in the PERSONA implants. Then I had five months of testing and training to make sure everything was okay, and after that we started warm-up missions. Low-level intelligence-gathering, to bring the team up to speed.’

  ‘So what do you remember before that? Do you know how you actually joined the project?’

  Another long moment of deep thought. ‘No,’ he finally said.

  ‘Not at all? Roger told me that you volunteered for it.’

  ‘I volunteered?’

  ‘You didn’t even know that?’

  ‘Looks that way.’ A resigned shrug. ‘But I remember . . . I’m not sure what, actually. Bits and pieces. They must have been after the operation, because I was in a hospital. Kiddrick was there, and Roger. Tony, Harper . . . I think John Baxter, maybe?’

  ‘But coming into the Bullpen is the first thing you definitely remember?’

  ‘Yeah. Before that . . .’ He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Bianca. ‘It seems as if they deliberately affected your memory as some sort of conditioning for the PERSONA process. But they didn’t do that to Tony. Unless they thought it would stop . . .’ She paused, remembering that Tony had asked her to keep the details of his breakdown to herself, and not knowing how much Adam knew. ‘Maybe they thought it would make the process work better.’

  He frowned deeply. ‘But why would I volunteer to have literally everything I knew about my past erased? Your memories make you who you are, so if you take them away, what’s left?’ He noticed her reflective expression. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s funny – I said pretty much exactly that about the reason I went into Alzheimer’s research.’

  ‘So you’re saying I’ve gotten artificial Alzheimer’s?’ He let out a sardonic huff. ‘Maybe you were right – maybe I don’t have a personality, because it got wiped.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ she told him firmly. ‘What I’ve seen of you in the past hour proves that. The real
Adam Gray is definitely in there.’

  ‘It still doesn’t explain why I’d agree to go through with it. Unless . . .’

  Whatever thought had occurred to him was clearly not one he liked. ‘Unless what?’ she asked.

  ‘Unless there was something I didn’t want to remember. But that would mean there was something that . . . that I couldn’t face up to. And that would make me a coward.’

  She put a hand on his arm. ‘No. No, it wouldn’t,’ she insisted. ‘Besides, you don’t even know what might have happened.’

  ‘I guess not. Although . . .’

  ‘Do you remember something else?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s . . .’ He seemed troubled, even worried. ‘Okay. I have this recurring dream. Only I don’t know how much of it actually is a dream.’

  ‘You think it might be a memory?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some of it can’t be real, though.’

  ‘Why?’

  He took a deep breath, working up the resolve to reveal some great secret. ‘All right. I haven’t told anyone this before.’

  ‘It’ll be just between us,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks.’ Another long breath. ‘Okay. It’s always the same – I’m in a street somewhere, but I don’t know where. Something bad’s happened – there are people running and screaming all around me. Then I see a body on the ground.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  He looked at her, distress in his eyes. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m . . . I’m lying dead in the street. That’s got to be a dream. Hasn’t it?’ His tone was almost pleading.

  ‘It must be,’ she said, trying to reassure him. ‘I mean, you look very much alive to me.’

  ‘Yes, I’d figured that much out,’ he said, briefly sarcastic. ‘But the rest of it feels . . . well, like a memory. And it’s always the same, every time I have the dream.’

  ‘How often do you have it?’

  A grim look. ‘Every night.’

  ‘Do you remember any details about the street?’

  ‘Not really. I don’t think it’s in America, but there’s a lot of smoke in the air, so I can’t really see. It might be somewhere—’ He broke off, suddenly irritated. ‘I’d wondered how long it’d be before they did that.’

  ‘Did what?’

  He pointed at his right ear. ‘STS are trying to call me through my earwig. The transceiver’s off, but there’s a beeper they can use to alert me in emergencies – and somebody’s holding down the button. I guess I’ll have to answer just to shut it up.’ He tapped at a spot behind his ear. ‘Yes, what?’ Several seconds passed as he listened to the message being broadcast directly into his skull. ‘Yeah, okay, Holly Jo,’ he said with annoyed resignation. Another tap switched the earwig back off.

  ‘What is it?’ Bianca asked.

  ‘Tony’s on his way over. It seems that business with Fallon and Spence put a fox in the henhouse. Mad panic, everyone wants to know what’s going on.’

  ‘I can imagine it might worry them. I’m sorry if I’ve got you into trouble.’

  He managed a half-smile. ‘I’m not. It’s been an interesting evening.’

  ‘It certainly has!’

  The smile widened. ‘We should do this again sometime. Assuming they don’t put me under house arrest.’

  The doorbell rang. Bianca looked round in surprise. ‘When you said Tony was on the way, you weren’t kidding.’

  Adam stood. ‘I’ll get it.’

  It was indeed Tony, looking rather more harassed than when they had last seen him. ‘So much for not doing anything crazy, then,’ he said as he entered. ‘Want to tell me what happened?’

  ‘Spence and Fallon overstepped the mark,’ Adam replied, becoming businesslike. ‘They were aggressive and threatening, and when Fallon was about to manhandle Bianca, I stopped him. He overreacted, so I shut him down. With minimum force.’

  ‘You probably won’t be surprised if I tell you that’s not how their version of events goes.’

  ‘It’s what happened, though,’ said Bianca, getting up. ‘We were just chatting when they marched in like the Gestapo and said they had orders to take Adam back to STS.’

  ‘They did have orders, though,’ Tony said.

  She gave him a cold look. ‘From you?’

  ‘No. From Admiral Harper.’

  Adam’s eyes widened. ‘Harper?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Tony. ‘Kiddrick complained to him directly – and Harper gave the order to bring you back. Then, after you both ran off . . .’ He sighed. ‘You know how two minutes doesn’t sound a long time? Believe me, when you spend it being yelled at by the Director of National Intelligence, it’s a goddamned eternity.’

  Bianca shuffled her feet guiltily. ‘Oh. Sorry . . .’

  ‘It’s okay, it’s not your fault. I just didn’t think Kiddrick would do an end run around Martin – or that Harper would back him up.’

  ‘Why did he back him up?’ asked Adam.

  ‘Beats the hell out of me. But the upshot is that everyone at STS is going to get an email tomorrow reminding them of the rules on after-hours fraternisation – which,’ he added to Bianca, ‘are normally overlooked by supervisors because they’re ridiculously restrictive. I don’t agree that it’s necessary, but it’s not my call.’

  Adam turned to Bianca. ‘Sorry I dragged you into this.’

  ‘No need to apologise. Like you said, it’s been an interesting evening.’

  ‘Unfortunately, you’ll have to call it a night,’ said Tony. ‘Adam, Martin wants to see both of us tomorrow at eight sharp. Bianca, I’ll take you back to your hotel.’

  ‘You don’t have to act as a chaperone, Tony,’ she said. ‘We were just talking.’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ Adam told her. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.’

  After what he had told her, though, she knew it would be hard not to.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Bianca snapped at Tony as he drove her through Washington. ‘Since when has going for a drink with a colleague been a matter of national security?’

  ‘Hey, I agree with you,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know why Harper made such a big deal of it. But he did, and he’s in charge, so . . .’

  ‘It’s still idiotic. Paranoid, even. But I suppose I should expect that by now.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Speaking of paranoid, how did those two know we were at that bar? And how did you know we were at his apartment?’

  ‘Adam’s comm system has a tracker built into it. So long as he’s not too deep underground or in a shielded building, STS always knows where he is.’ He caught her appalled look. ‘Yeah, paranoid is only the beginning when you work in US intelligence.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Another, more worrying thought. ‘You don’t listen in through his earwig when he’s off-duty, do you?’

  ‘Why, have you been trying to persuade him to sell secrets to the Chinese?’

  ‘I’m being serious, Tony. He might be a government agent, but he still has rights. You know, privacy and all that. I’m not even American and I know that’s supposed to be one of the Amendments.’

  ‘The fourth. Although when it comes to national security, rights get a bit fuzzy. Hey, I didn’t say I approve,’ he added, seeing her darkening expression. ‘That’s just the way it is. Trust me, it isn’t any better in England. Or any other country.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it right.’

  ‘Maybe not. But just to give you some reassurance that we’re not all cogs in an Orwellian surveillance machine; no, we don’t listen in on Adam. When he turns the earwig off, it’s off.’

  ‘Except for the tracker. And the beeper.’

  ‘Hah! Don’t get me started on the beeper. I just hope they toned it down for Adam. The damn thing was like an airhorn going off in my ear.’

  ‘You had one too?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve got the same implanted gear as A
dam. They deactivated the earwig – and the beeper, thank God – but it’s all still in there. It would have needed surgery to take out, and since it wasn’t causing any trouble we decided, hey, just leave it. You never know, I might need it again some day.’

  ‘After what you said PERSONA did to you, I really hope you don’t,’ she said. That thought took her back to what Adam had told her. ‘Tony?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What happened to Adam when he joined the project?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ There was already reticence in his voice.

  ‘Why did they wipe his memory? They didn’t do that to you.’

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘You don’t know, or you can’t tell me?’

  He gave her an apologetic look. ‘Some from column A, some from column B. What I do know is as much as you’ve obviously figured out for yourself – they did something to him that they didn’t to me. What they did, or why they did it, I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Who’s “they”?’ she asked, already suspecting she knew the answer.

  ‘Kiddrick. And Roger Albion.’

  She had been right. ‘Roger . . .’

  ‘Yeah. If you want to find out anything more, you’ll have to talk to him.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ she said, setting her jaw.

  24

  No History

  Albion shifted uncomfortably under Bianca’s stony stare. ‘I don’t suppose playing the helpless invalid card would get me any sympathy?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said.

  ‘I thought not. Still, it was worth a try.’

  A lengthy silence. ‘Well?’ Bianca prompted.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what happened to Adam before he joined the Persona Project, and why you and Kiddrick wiped his memory and brainwashed him into not thinking about it?’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  Another long pause. ‘Roger,’ Bianca finally said, exasperated, ‘I told Adam yesterday that if you didn’t tell me what I wanted to know, I was going to poke your bullet hole until you started talking. I was joking then, but now I’m starting to consider it.’

  ‘Look, what can I say?’ Albion protested. ‘That whole part of the project is classified as need-to-know, and you don’t need to know.’