I, Human

by John Nelson

  After a brief break, Musgrave got down to specifics. “The town you’ll be going to is Jerome, Arizona, halfway between Sedona and Prescott. It’s an old copper-mining town, on top of a hill that’s some 1800 feet above the surrounding area, one road up and down that can get dicey in the winter. A veritable fortress. A hundred years ago it was an artist community and tourist spot, but after the economic turndown or depression, it was deserted yet again and then taken over by a series of religious communes of various beliefs. About ten years ago, after some infighting, most of the others left, leaving the community to a group formed around a messianic figure, Maria Fria.

  “And she’s a threat … why?” I asked.

  Musgrave told me, “Let’s wait until the afternoon session to go into that.”

  “Your cover stories did take some time to flesh out. Jean, who will take the name of Brenda Howell, is an heiress from Chicago, whose family was a food manufacturer of organic and healthy food products. The family and their history are real, as is Brenda, who’s Jean’s age and looks a lot like her, but has been a recluse all her life, educated by her eccentric mother, a former university professor, and a series of foreign tutors. She has few electronic footprints and we’ve been able to alter all of them. Brenda’s parents are retired and have agreed to work with us for a price, and Brenda, who’s always wanted to travel to Europe, has been given a new identity and a credit card and will be escorted around by one of our agents.”

  “Why go to all of this trouble; why not just create a fabrication, which we’ve used in the past?” I asked.

  “We’ve tried infiltrating this woman’s inner circle, but she’s spotted every one of them—she’s very psychic, whether you believe in that or not—and we feel that Jean playing a real person, with a history, might sustain the illusion, and being an actress of sorts will help.” Musgrave paused for a moment. “But, for Alan, who we want to be discovered, we got a little more creative.”

  “So, I’m using Brenda and her history to hide behind and slide in on her coattail?”

  “And she’s so in love with you that she can’t see she’s being used,” Musgrave said.

  “I can’t wait to hear whom I’m playing.”

  “Lewis Hargrove, an eccentric author of messianic novels that are quite popular on the Internet, but who has no electronic footprint and no available picture, bio, or location—just a name that most considered a pseudonym. He can’t be found because the guy cold-drops hard copies with his e-book publishers and the proceeds are donated directly to various charities. We located the author, who lives with his mother in Maine, and all of his activities are being closely monitored.”

  “So you want them to discover I’m a fraud and a freeloader, living off Brenda.”

  “You ingrate,” Jean teased.

  “No, we want them to discover that you’re an undercover agent, spying on them and using Brenda as a cover.” Musgrave paused. “But, you’ll have to read this guy’s novels, uploaded to your portable, and be able to spout long passages, which can be programmed into your neural processor.”

  “Hope he isn’t into purple prose.”

  Musgrave laughed. “I think we’ve covered enough for one session. Let’s break for lunch and we’ll meet back here at 2:00.”

  The cafeteria was small but had windows looking out into the wooded landscape, and the food was healthy and excellent. It has always interested me, how the new techno man had incorporated some of the practices, such as healthy eating and yoga, from past generations of seekers and adapted it to their own mental mindset. While theirs was integrative, ours is more of a segmented approach, and utilitarian—exploit anything that’s useful and gives you an edge to dominate self, others, and nature.

  After coming back from the buffet line and eating for a while, I got the distinct impression Jean was studying me, or my mannerisms. I assumed she had studied method acting and its new school of thought, adapted from the 20th-century behaviorists, who were generally discredited, but the method still had some “useful” features. So, I started to cut my salad vegetables with exaggerated intensity. At first this caught her attention, but soon she was on to my ploy.

  “Okay, so I was studying you; give me a break.”

  “You’re not going to play my role, so I assume you’re looking for inroads into my soul,” I said, with a smirk.

  “Well, at least you have one; it’s part of your … charm.”

  I stopped eating for a moment and stared back at her. “And you’re afraid you don’t?”

  She avoided the question. “Got a feeling that’s the subject of our afternoon lecture and I was just … pinging the depths, you could say.”

  “We’re too mannered to reveal much in this setting; probably need to wait until somebody points a gun at me.”

  Jean smiled. “Or, handcuffs you.”

  I laughed self-consciously. “Well, there’s always that.”

  The other diners started filing out of the room, and we took our last bites of food and stood up and left. In the conference room, we took our seats but Musgrave was the only other person in the room. He looked over at us. “This next briefing will be by an undercover asset for one of the local universities, a religious specialist. As with all deep-cover assets, the less exposure the better, so it’s just going to be the four of us. You can call him Mr. G.”

  He picked up his portable and texted a message. A moment later, a side door opened, and a man entered the room and stepped over to Musgrave’s table. He was tall and thin, close-cropped dark hair, and dressed in black. His eyes, his most distinguishing features, were small, dark and intense. I figured he was a priest, maybe a Jesuit who taught at Georgetown.

  He set down his portable and flashed a picture of a rather large, big-boned woman of mixed ancestry, but definitely with some Native America blood, on the screen. She appeared to be in her fifties, with black hair streaked with gray, but in contrast to Mr. G. had eyes that were clear, light, and you could say … bouncy. I kept staring at her, which drew everybody’s attention.

  “Yeah, she’s a real looker,” Musgrave added with a sneer.

  “This is Maria Fria. While she grew up in Santa Fe, her father was from the Jemez Indian Reservation, and her mother was mixed Anglo and Hispanic. As a young girl she spent her summers at the reservation and came under the influence of a Native medicine man there,” Mr. G. paused, and then flashed a dated black-and-white photo of an old Indian medicine man, in full Native attire, squinting his eyes. The picture must have been taken in a sunnier era. “Benito Cochiti. He recognized the young girl’s … mystical bent, and helped develop it, but she was too willful to be confined to any one tradition. She quickly developed her psychic ability, earned a living as a psychic in her 20s, and then suddenly dropped out of sight about twenty years ago. She probably traveled to Central and South America, where there’s less tracking in the smaller, indigenous groups and further developed her … psychic reach. The only picture we have of that stay comes from the CIA.” It showed her, younger and much thinner, standing outside a medicine hut with native women. “And then, ten years ago, she showed up in Arizona, as a mystic leader with a following, and soon moved to Jerome and took over the place.”

  “Strong-armed tactics?” I asked.

  Mr. G stared at me for a second and showed just a touch of annoyance. “No. Her followers are totally nonviolent but she has a very powerful … energy and those coming into contact with her seem to align with her or leave.”

  Musgrave said, “What caught our attention is that she trains healers and sends them out across the country, and many of her students have had spectacular results. Prominent people, some politicians and their families, with debilitating diseases have been cured, and of course this only adds to her influence and sway over people.”

  All three of us turned and looked at Mr. G. He shook his head. “Well, don’t expect me to explain it. We know enough now about energy medicine, chakra alignment, and hands-on healing to know it’s totally le
git.”

  “Yeah,” Musgrave added, “our doctors have analyzed the medical histories and post-healing recoveries, but they can’t explain how 4th stage cancer and bone disease and whatnot can be so completely … healed.”

  “Have you detected any … energy cords between her and her patients?” I asked.

  Mr. G. glanced over at Musgrave who nodded his head. “Well, we’ve used a slew of advanced imaging technology to detect anything along this line, but haven’t turned up anything … yet.” He paused. “But then, that’s the point: what she and her students do is undetectable, outside of its effect.”

  “Nobody’s getting brainwashed, if that’s what you’re asking,” Musgrave said. “This isn’t a cult, in the old twentieth-century model.”

  “Then what’s the threat?” Jean asked.

  Musgrave smiled and looked over at me. “Tell her, Alan.”

  “It’s how this energy affects neural processors and chemically maintained psychological functioning, especially if people start healing themselves.”

  Musgrave added, “The advances in all areas of our lives over the last fifty years, including safety from aberrant individuals and their harmful use of technology, are largely based on our neural processors and how they bestow increased intelligence, psychological conditioning, and …”

  “Allow for surveillance and monitoring,” I added.

  Musgrave frowned. “Well, we can’t read your thoughts, as you know, but we can read brain-wave frequencies, and the new models are harder to flush, so hacking the devices can reveal a lot.”

  Jean looked over at Mr. G. “So she’s not some messianic religious leader with a cult that threatens us politically?” Jean asked.

  “No. She has followers and the ranks are growing, but she’s shown no tendency to exert such influence.”

  “Which would be a relief, since we could then discredit her, or compromise her in any number of ways? But this …” Musgrave said.

  “Is far more insidious,” I added.

  “Yes, Alan. But, fortunately, it’s still early on and something can be done to determine its effects and if needed, stem the tide, as it were.” Musgrave paused again and turned to Father G. “But now, we need to cover the ins and outs of her group, and the broader unity philosophy she espouses and which you, Alan, need to be familiar with.”

  Jean yawned. “Boy, I’m going to … sleep well tonight.”

  Mr. G. didn’t know how to handle this remark and so he ignored it; I just wondered if I’d packed my bluies.

  15.

  When we returned to our cabin after dinner, Jean wanted to go for a walk in the woods before dark. I told her that the trees were probably bugged. She laughed. “Well, I wasn’t thinking about a covert conversation, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Okay, I’d like to get out into nature, clear my head too.” We put on light jackets and headed out. There were some good trails and the one that we took, wound up the side of a large hill in a switchback pattern. I was hoping that the top would afford a clear view of the countryside. Jean talked about a family trip she took to the Southwest when she was a teenager. I didn’t pay much attention, only giving her a nod now and then. I was still preoccupied with our assignment, or so I told myself, but it was clear that the image of Maria Fria and her “bouncy” eyes was hard for me to shake.

  “Alan, where are you?” Jean finally asked.

  “A little distracted by our last briefing and just mulling it over.”

  She looped her arm through mine and snuggled up to me. “Don’t worry. I won’t let her get to you.”

  “Well, I doubt if sex alone will be enough of a countermeasure but, with Emma, it did keep me grounded.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t Emma that concerns you, or her popping up here, and not this Indian babe?”

  I had a good laugh. “Talk about retro slang, as Sherry would put it.”

  Jean raised her eyebrows. “Oh, so we’re talking about your wife now.”

  I nodded my head and picked up the pace. “Yeah, it’s the intimacy issue, not that this woman … attracts me.”

  Jean had a good laugh and snuggled closer. “There are all kinds of attractions, Alan. You know better than most about that.”

  We reached the top of the hill, and there was a gorgeous sight of the sun setting behind the Appalachian Mountain range to the west. The clouds were painted in red and orange hues. It was breathtaking. I could’ve stayed until dark, but Jean reminded me it was time to head back or we’d lose our way. I felt safe; I doubted that Jean ever lost her way in any terrain—part of her charm and her great lack.

  Our first sexual coupling was intense and quite exploratory. Jean had few inhibitions and liked great variety, the scope of which kind of intimidated me. After we fell asleep, I woke an hour later and slipped out of bed and into the other bedroom. I didn’t want to mesh with her this evening and I quickly fell asleep. Of course I dreamed about Maria Fria—my psychologist would dismiss the dream as a trouble daytime obsession working itself out, but there was something very “present” or real about the encounter. We were sitting in the living room of a large Southwestern house on a mountaintop, with a twenty-foot ceiling and a spectacular view of the surrounding terrain. I had to wonder if this was really her house in Jerome, which was revealing and might indicate the ability to monitor our briefings as well and know our plans. Of course this could have been my fear working itself out, given Musgrave’s insistence on her psychic reach. In the dream I kept looking toward her bedroom, which seemed to amuse her and finally she said, “You can’t handle my energy yet.” I didn’t react to her statement or feel diminished in any way, but we just sat there across from each other and stared, and pretty soon I had a waking dream, or a dream within a dream, which made me think of Christopher Nolan’s classic film, Inception. I just couldn’t get a handle of what was transpiring, but at one point I was looking down at the previous scene from above.

  I suddenly woke up with Jean straddling me and making love. It was perfect timing, or an unconscious counter to Fria’s dream intrusion, if that was what it was. Jean was really taking her assignment seriously, or was this just her own programming unconsciously protecting me? Either way, I thought that if the genders had been reversed, and I was a man making love to my sleeping girlfriend or wife, I’d have hell to pay but guys are supposed to like it any way they can get it, as the old retro song goes.

  Well, my timing was also perfect, since Jean was having a shattering orgasm, which was telling in that it was a solo performance, as they say. She collapsed onto me, her blond hair covering my face.

  “Well, I’m glad it was good for you, my dear.”

  She sat upright. “Oh, I woke you.”

  “You think.”

  She actually looked guilty, which was something I’d never expect from her.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to … take advantage of you. But I woke up and you were gone and came in here and saw your absolutely gigantic erection, and I couldn’t let it go to waste.”

  She rolled off of me and cuddled up next to me in bed. After a while her alarm went off in the other room. We lay there for a moment, letting her heavy breathing slow down. Jean slid off the bed. “Well, at least we can shower together, now that you’re awake.”

  We quickly showered, since we had to pack our bags as well. Just one more morning briefing and we were heading back to New York. Musgrave was alone when we entered the conference room. He had a smile on his face; it occurred to me that our rooms were being bugged and probably videoed. The room darkened, and a video began to play on the scene. Jean glanced over at me, thinking the same thought and waiting to see our private moment going public. But, I was the one caught short. What played out was a blurry reenactment of my dream: it wasn’t very clear, other than the image of Maria Fria. Jean let go of my hand.

  The short clip finished and we all sat there in silence for a moment. Finally, Jean asked, “Was that a dream of some sort, and that was Fria, right?�
��

  Musgrave stared at me almost apologetically. “Sorry, Alan. But this is why we’re up here and not briefing you in D.C. Your cabin is wired—one of the few labs in the world with this kind of technology—for dream recovery.”

  This took a moment for both of us to compute. “So, you figured if she can plant dreams, she can remote-view this compound?” I asked.

  Musgrave nodded his head.

  “Aren’t you afraid …?”

  “No. This entire room is encased in a psychotronic field that’s impervious to remote viewing or any other kind of psychic reach.”

  “But this suggests that she’s seen me here at this compound and must know what that means,” I said, and then added, “if it wasn’t my own dream, which given my fears about her influence does seem more likely.”

  Musgrave nodded his head. “But hypothetically, let’s assume it wasn’t and she did implant it.” He paused. “So, what would that mean, Alan?”

  “She would know that I know she’s aware that I’m a plant, if not our strategy, and if I still show up, it means that I’m personally compelled to go through with this, so I’m susceptible to being turned.”

  Jean shook her head. “This game strategy is way over my head.”

  Musgrave smiled. “Tell her Alan.”

  I tried not to sound too condescending. “It gives her power over me and makes turning me an easier proposition for her and her crew.”

  But again, I had to wonder, what if this was my dream and she was innocent of such manipulation? Then what? She’d be compromised either way.

  Jean nodded her head at my explanation and Musgrave smiled. “Unless of course, Alan is really turned, and this is where Jean comes in.”