The Siren Project

by Renneberg, Stephen

  I am conditioned! How?

  Somewhere to her right, she noticed an electrical whirring noise grow louder, then a short rectangular machine on four wheels passed under her bed, polishing the floor with a telescopic arm fitted with a swirling brush. Other sanitation devices were fitted to the small robot, only their telescopic arms were fully retracted while the floor polishing arm did its work. The robot made several passes under her bed as it automatically cleaned and disinfected the floor, then the whirring slowly faded away as it moved out of ear shot. Absently, she thought the robotic cleaner was confirmation of their dependence on automation, rather than people, then she heard footsteps as more people entered the room.

  “She’s still sleeping,” the unseen nurse informed the new arrivals.

  The visitors walked toward her, while the nurse activated the small electric motor that tilted the bed, lifting her head. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax, feigning unconsciousness as the straps pressed against her, taking her weight, preventing her from sliding off. When the bed was at forty five degrees, it stopped moving.

  Christa felt a familiar telepathic presence probe her mind, then her mother said, “She’s awake.”

  “Of course she is,” Dr Ralph Nautern, the Chief Surgeon declared. “I timed the anesthetic to the minute.”

  “No last words?” McNamara asked.

  Christa opened her eyes, to see McNamara, General Gray, her mother, and the surgical team standing before her. “Am I . . . conditioned?”

  “Not yet,” McNamara replied with an amused smile. “We had to remove that first.” He nodded toward a small glass jar containing a tiny metallic sliver, with three hair thin wires leading from it. It was Christa's implant, and she realized her headache was a result of the surgery that removed it. He picked up the glass jar and looked at the implant with interest. “You didn’t think your mother would forget to tell us about this insidious little device, did you? I’m told it’s crude, but effective.” McNamara put the jar down, and turned to Christa. “We just need to ask you a question before you go in for your . . . improvement.”

  Christa ignored McNamara, focusing instead on her mother who looked on with disconcerting remoteness. She concentrated her mind, transcending the dull post operative pain as she sensed the strictures imprisoning the free flow of her mother’s thoughts. Caroline’s faculties were undamaged, but her free will was gone.

  Yes my dear, our abilities are strangely unaffected by the process.

  There was a disturbance in the pristine quality of her mother’s thoughts as she projected a meaning that appeared in Christa’s mind, not as sequential words, but all at once, the trademark of telepathic communication.

  Oh Mama, she thought, instinctively projecting a wave of heartfelt anguish and love in response to her mother’s plight.

  Caroline’s face remained impassive, but Christa sensed a deep emotional shudder within her, an involuntary response to her daughter's love that even her conditioning could not suppress. Feelings and memories, isolated by the conditioning process, resonated with her daughter’s pain, momentarily warping the artificial boundaries imposed on her free will. It was the last remnant of the love of a mother for her daughter, bound behind a subtle, yet seemingly impenetrable barrier. A moment later, invisible mental chains swept Caroline’s response aside, leaving an indifferent stranger in its place, shocking Christa.

  McNamara leaned closer. “Where is Mitchell?”

  Christa couldn't pull her eyes away from her mother. “I don’t know.”

  McNamara looked at Caroline. “Well?”

  Caroline sensed Christa’s mind. “She’s telling the truth, she doesn’t know.”

  The double doors were bumped open by a wheeled trolley bed guided by two orderlies in green surgical pants and trousers. As the orderlies wheeled the trolley past Christa’s bed, she saw Mouse lying unconscious on it, his head shaved and marked with perfectly symmetrical vertical and horizontal black lines, segmenting his cranium into a pattern of squares.

  The orderlies parked the trolley in an empty corner, then one of them turned to the group of doctors. “He’s ready for capping.”

  “We’ll do his procedure after we’ve finished the girl’s neural patterning,” Dr Nautern said. “Have the technicians unsealed the node?”

  “They’re doing it now, sir. Node 783. The life support diagnostic tests should be finished in about ten minutes,” one of the orderlies replied as they left.

  General Gray glanced at Mouse uncertainly. “Are you sure it’s wise putting him on the Neural Net? Isn’t he a computer genius?”

  Dr Nautern shook his head unconcerned. “We’ll permanently disable that part of his brain that allows self directed thought. The remaining computational and creative power will be fully available to the system, with no adverse risk.”

  McNamara returned his attention to Christa. “How did you find out about this facility?”

  “Don’t you remember? You told me.”

  He smiled, amused at her defiance. “We know there’s a traitor. We know someone has been feeding you information, and we know it came from this facility.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Caroline sensed a ripple of deception through Christa’s mind. “She’s lying.”

  General Gray stared thoughtfully at Caroline. “If you can tell she’s lying, why couldn’t you identify the traitor?”

  Caroline looked confused. “I don’t know. I checked everyone on the base. Perhaps the traitor has some way of concealing his mind structure from me, but . . . that would require an extraordinary gift.”

  “Hmm.” General Gray looked doubtful, then turned to the doctors. “When will she be ready for questioning?”

  “In a few hours,” Dr Nautern replied. “We completed the sub atomic brain scans while she was unconscious, after the implant was removed. The computer has already calculated the adjustments required, however, because you want us to be especially careful with her, we’ll be allowing a longer stabilization period between each neural sequence.”

  “We don’t want to risk cerebral damage with this one, General,” McNamara said.

  “Very well,” the general replied, suppressing his impatience. “Have your security team on alert. As soon as we know who the traitor is, arrest him for immediate interrogation and conditioning. I want to know if anyone else is involved and what information they’ve leaked. This facility remains locked down until then.”

  “I’ll be glad to have the communication blackout finished with,” the third doctor declared. “It’s been days since any of us have spoken to our families.”

  “Once we knew there was a mole, I had no choice but to cut communications with the outside world.” General Gray turned to McNamara. “Have you been able to decipher the computer disks you took from Mitchell?”

  “Not yet. The computer staff are using the latest NSA code breaking tools, but so far nothing. It must be something we’ve never seen before.” McNamara glanced curiously at Mouse's unconscious form. “I don’t know how Szilinsky could get access to encryption like that. I doubt he could write it himself.”

  “Add that to the list of questions for Szilinsky,” the general said. “Where this super encryption system came from. Sounds like something we can use.” He turned to Caroline. “The National Surveillance Organization didn’t have a code breaking section, did it?”

  “No, the NSO only monitored government agencies and black projects. We relied on the NSA for code breaking.”

  McNamara smiled, amused. “Too bad they missed us, the blackest project of all.”

  The general scowled. “Siren was never an official government project.”

  “The government paid for it,” McNamara retorted, “Even if they didn’t know it.”

  “Call me as soon as she’s ready to talk. I want this matter resolved ASAP.” The general started to leave, then turned back to McNamara, “And you! Find Mitchell!” The general stormed out, leaving McNam
ara in no doubt, the security breach was his mess to clean up.

  He turned back to Christa. “You’re lucky. The general took a lot of convincing to let you be conditioned. He wanted to eliminate the lot of you. After Mitchell spoiled the big show in New York and killed Bradick, the general became quite intractable where Mitchell was concerned. At least we managed to save you and the computer geek.”

  Christa glared at him, but said nothing.

  “You know doc,” McNamara said thoughtfully, “When you’re rewiring her brain, make her a little friendlier.”

  “You'll find this will be a relatively painless procedure,” Dr Nautern said to Christa. “For someone with your unique characteristics, and based on our experience with your mother, we can guarantee you a perfect transition. You'll retain your full memory, but you'll have no personal attachment to it. You will, of course, be fully committed to following orders, and you will derive some satisfaction from doing so.”

  “Does my mother have any feelings for me now?” Christa asked, studying her mother's face.

  Dr Nautern shrugged vaguely. “We focus on the logical centers of the brain involving personal will and decision making. Emotions, being erratic and unpredictable, are more difficult to control directly. Does she love you? Yes. Can she act to aid you, if it is acting against her imperative to follow orders? No. You may find, once you’re both acting under the same directives, that you’ll share each other’s affections, as there will then be no contradictory forces at work.” He looked thoughtful. “We should conduct some tests on that after the procedure. It may prove interesting.”

  Christa stared for a long time into her mother’s eyes, seeing impersonal detachment, but sensing something more. She reached out with her perception, feeling a deep inner conflict in her mother's mind, locked away within an invisible mental prison. Christa projected memories of shared moments, of happy times and sad, trying to break down the artificial walls, but to no effect. In the end, she simply radiated her love for her mother, tinged with the sadness of knowing that this was the last time she'd ever be herself.

  “The nurse will administer a preop that will put you into a light sleep,” Dr Nautern continued, “And then we'll give you a full anesthetic prior to the procedure”

  “I thought I had to be awake during the . . . procedure.”

  “It can be helpful doing research for the subject to be conscious, but it is more dangerous, and we're not taking any risks with you. If you have no more questions, it's time to scrub up. Nurse, you can prepare the patient now.”

  The nurse left the recovery room, followed by Dr Nautern and his team.

  “Will you know if he’s out there?” McNamara asked Caroline. “Sense his mind?”

  “Perhaps,” she replied uncertainly.

  “He is coming here, isn’t he?” McNamara asked Christa, but she didn't answer.

  “She’s concealing her thoughts from me,” Caroline said, “Indicating she believes he will come here. She knows he'll come here for her and . . .” Caroline hesitated.

  “And what?”

  “Kill you,” Christa said.

  “Now she's telling the truth,” Caroline said in a disinterested tone.

  McNamara suppressed his irritation. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get here until tomorrow morning, and then he can have her.” He turned to Christa. “After you've answered all of the general’s questions, your first assignment will be to eliminate John Mitchell.” He grinned humorlessly at the irony of his plan, even as Christa’s face reddened with revulsion, then he motioned for Caroline to follow him outside.

  When the room was empty, Christa calmed herself, gently focusing on Mouse, hoping he might be brought out of his sleep. She quickly realized he was unconscious and unable to help either of them. A few minutes later, the nurse returned and activated the motor that lowered Christa’s table back to the horizontal. She pulled Christa’s gown aside and injected her with the preoperative tranquilizer, then replaced the gown and left. In the minutes that followed, the drug began to take effect, easing her into a relaxed, drowsy state. Christa lost track of time as she fought to remain conscious, but the quasi sleep forced itself upon her.

  After an interminable dream, Christa heard doors opening and footsteps approaching. She tried opening her eyes, but lacked the power to command her eyelids. The rumble of wheels on tiles sounded distantly through the fog of her drug induced half-sleep, as a trolley table was rolled to her bedside. Numbly, she felt hands at work, releasing the straps and struggling to lift her. Christa rolled sideways, then immediately felt a hand guiding her head gently, guarding the base of her skull where the implant had been removed. She tried to reach out with her inner sense, but her power to concentrate in that way was gone. Her mind floated like a feather on a breeze, drifting aimlessly through an endless cloud. She tried to speak, but could not form words. Christa felt herself forced upright to a sitting position, then slump forward into embracing arms. A wave of love, tinged with sadness, flooded into her mind. Through her drug induced stupor, she recognized the presence of her mother, and the effort Caroline was making to release her feelings from their mental chains, if only for a moment. Christa tried to respond, but her focus was too diluted to impel thought. She felt herself lifted from the surgical table and gently placed on the trolley with a pillow carefully positioned under her head.

  Caroline placed a small bag at Christa’s feet, then wheeled the bed cautiously to the doors and stole a quick look into the darkened corridor. This late, only the surgical team was active in the medical section, and most of the corridor lights had been powered down. Seeing only a robotic janitor monotonously scrubbing the floor twenty feet away, Caroline pulled the trolley through the doors. The robotic janitor rotated slowly, directing its optical sensor after her as she wheeled the trolley bed toward the deserted laboratories. It retracted its floor polishing brush and followed Caroline from a distance, speeding to catch up when she rounded a corner, but always lurking in the shadows.

  Caroline removed a key from her pocket and unlocked a plain white door. She wheeled the trolley into a narrow room filled with odd pieces of surplus and aging equipment, the legacy of years of experimentation. She knew the storeroom was barely ever used these days, which was why she'd selected it. Caroline closed the door behind them, took a moment to strengthen her self-deception, scarcely realizing how firmly her teeth were clenched, or how white her knuckles were from gripping the trolley.

  She is more use to them unconditioned . . . more use to them unconditioned! . . .

  She repeated the deceptive thought like a mantra. When its influence weakened, she switched to a new, more powerful mantra.

  I am incomplete. I am a danger to them. I must be fixed! Fixed! Fixed!

  She kept the thoughts moving through her mind, concentrating on how she would serve the Project better by what she was doing. She used her telepathic powers to deceive herself, not venturing to think about the need to protect her daughter or about the maternal love imprisoned in that unknown place. She turned her back to Christa, not daring to look at her, and undressed quickly. Naked, she removed an electric shaver from the small bag at Christa’s feet and shaved her head, letting her hair fall to the ground. When finished, she left the shaver on the floor, took some white tape and an antiseptic pad from the bag and made a duplicate of the dressing that covered the base of Christa’s skull. Carefully, she taped the dressing in place, then pulled on a white theater gown that was a copy of the one Christa wore.

  Caroline wanted to turn and kiss her daughter goodbye, to say the words that were locked away inside her mental prison. They were words she feared, once formed, would allow her conditioning to overrule her self-deception. Somewhere deep inside, she knew the very qualities that made her unique from all others save her daughter, gave her an exceptional capacity to deceive the artificial strictures on her mind. She'd always known the conditioning process had never been designed for one like her. While the conditioning seemed perfectly adapted to her
mind, her mind was more than they realized. They'd never understood her difference, just as they would not understand Christa’s difference.

  I must be fixed!

  Caroline felt herself tiring, the peculiar emotional-mental-intuitive effort required was not something she could long maintain. Knowing she must hurry, she removed the powerful sleeping pills from the pocket of her shirt and swallowed them, hoping they would duplicate the effects of the preoperative injection. They'd been prescribed in case she suffered headaches after the conditioning process, but had never been intended to be taken all at once. Caroline had suffered no headaches, but had kept the pills.

  Not daring to look back at her daughter and dressed only in the theater gown, she stepped into the darkened corridor and locked the door. It was then she noticed the robotic janitor parked beside the wall, its optical sensor directed toward her. She was struck by the feeling it was watching her, but she knew that was impossible. Its sensors were designed to allow the automated cleaning system to guide the robot through the building, not to conduct internal surveillance. For an instant, she wondered if it was the same robot she'd seen as she left the recovery room with Christa, then discounted the thought, knowing they all looked alike. She slid the key under the door, then ignoring the squat little machine, hurried back through the maze of corridors to the recovery room where she climbed onto the bed, telling herself with diminishing certainty she was complying with the artificial compulsion that fought to dominate her mind.

  I am incomplete ... I am a danger to the Project ... I must be fixed!

  Only by submitting willingly to the treatment, could she avert the danger. She tied the straps loosely, then slid her legs and arms into place, before lowering her face onto the pads which would conceal her identity. The gown covered almost all of her body and the bandage covered the top of her spine and most of her neck, concealing the lines of age. Only the top of her shaved head was visible, which of itself did not reveal the switch.