Controller

by Stephen W Bennett

  He sent other helpful thoughts. If we work for the same people, we can work together. Who sent you? I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.

  Molina looked around nervously. “I’m not supposed to bother him, just let him do his job. I’m only supposed to find out what he looks like and point him out to someone else that will watch him.”

  Stiles nodded as if he understood, and in fact, he did. Either the Commission sent this klutz to identify their new independent contractor, or one of the five families was freelancing, trying to gain an edge over the others by securing independent direct access to a powerful new asset.

  They wanted to turn him into their Tool! It was offensive to have anyone think of him that way. He needed to complete this contract to prove his value, but he wanted to find out if he needed to punish everyone on the Commission, or let them know who on the council went freelancing in violation of the agreement he had with them.

  “I believe the person you want is already inside the courtroom. She’s a journalist that got on the plane in Louisville. She shouldn’t be hard to identify when they adjourn for the day. She’s wearing a picture ID on her press pass with her name.” Stiles wondered if there was a female journalist inside and if she was from Kentucky. It was an amusing thought, but he didn’t give a shit.

  You got what you want, tell me who sent you.

  The name he whispered meant nothing to Stiles when he heard it, so he asked softly, but with mental force, “What family?”

  “Oh. Bonanno.”

  You need to tell your Bonanno family contact who they’re looking for, then return to sit on this same bench. Forget you ever spoke to me, or what we talked about when you return.

  Molina got up and walked down the hallway for a short distance and pulled out a cell phone and made a call, speaking softly with his face to the wall.

  While they had chatted, the last of those with visitor passes had re-entered the courtroom after the lunch break, and the afternoon session was about to start. Stiles implanted an auto-suggestion to one of the bailiffs before he closed the outer doors to the hallway. Now he only had to wait for the arrival of Ralphie boy, and implant his more complex auto-suggestion when he knew his invisible target was within range.

  Molina returned and sat on the other end of the bench when Stiles sent another person to the men’s room with a weak bladder. The detective didn’t glance his way, or speak to anyone.

  It was less than thirty minutes before the bailiff opened the outer doors and looked up and down the hall and reclosed the outer double doors. Stiles now knew Ralphie Mancuso had entered the courtroom and was in range. He had taken pains to rehearse the kind of things Mancuso was to say when he was asked to describe what he knew about his former boss, a Captain in the Genovese organization. Stiles was free to interpret the favorable words he’d implant however he wished because those that hired him had no idea how he planned to achieve what he guaranteed he could do.

  That vile mafia member was about to achieve near sainthood in the words of Mancuso, considering that he was a “made man” who had ordered and had personally committed, multiple gruesome murders, some of them with Mancuso present and who was a co-participant.

  Today the man would be a charitable man with a generous disposition, and when challenged by the prosecution team about his changing testimony from prior depositions, Ralphie would deny any outside influence. He would claim that tremendous pressure from the prosecution had forced him to say what they wanted him to say, and they had made outlandish promises to him that he knew the government would never keep. He had received a final implanted command, that would trigger when a bailiff opened both sets of the double doors at the rear of the courtroom, showing Mancuso his path. He talked for a half an hour, with the prosecution objecting to their own witness, and forced to try to impeach his testimony. Stiles had implanted a command in the mind of the judge to allow the witness to keep talking and to overrule the government lawyers. Then it was the turn of the defense.

  The opening of the outer doors by the bailiff was the indication that a delighted lead defense attorney was about to question the witness. That signal sent Stiles strolling down the hallway and around the corner, just before he ordered the bailiff to open the inner doors. He wasn’t there to see what happened, but his crowd control commands kept those seated in the courtroom rooted in place and the bailiffs unable to react. Mancuso suddenly leaped out of the witness chair, raced past the shocked but frozen assistant prosecutor, through the low swinging gates of the rail behind the legal teams, and down the empty aisle towards the open doors.

  His moment of freedom as he fled down the hall ended when an off-duty police officer leaped up from a bench where he sat in the hallway. Molina fired eleven rounds of his semiautomatic service weapon at Mancuso’s back. Then he walked up to the prone figure to fire the last two bullets into the back of his head. The hero shooter became less so when he confessed to having been sent to kill the star witness by the Bonanno crime family. He had contact information on his phone and a recent call to back his assertion that he was working for a high-ranking member of that crime family.

  Stiles needed to use his Control ability to get the officers enforcing the lockdown of the courthouse relaxed long enough for him to make his exit, then he ordered the officers to forget him. He waved at a slowly moving limo to pull over to the front of the building to pick him up, and it then drove him to the airport. He’d not even needed his carry-on bag in the trunk since there had been no unexpected legal delays. He’d have to bump someone out of first class to get aboard the next available flight home, but that was trivial. He seldom made reservations in advance of arrival at an airport. There was always a first-class seat that suddenly became available, and he had his preference of whatever meal was available.

  He’d be home later than his usual bedtime, but he had little interest in visiting New York City anyway. He thought the speech patterns and mannerisms of many people in New York sounded rude to him. He might leave more bodies than was easy to cover up if he stayed very long.

  Chapter 5: Family Psych

  Grayson was permitted to call his wife. “Babe, you already know what I told you about Stiles. The federal agents I spoke to today are from a federal organization dedicated to guarding the country against his sort of threat. They know about his ability make people do what he wants. In fact, I’ve been offered a job to work for this new agency because I’m immune to what Stiles can do to control people. It’s how I got away from him at the mall. It would be a huge raise in pay for us. What do you think?” He knew this was nothing less than a family bombshell, so he waited to hear an explosion. I was merely a soft pop.

  His announcement wasn’t the first thing she addressed. Although happy he was OK, Barbs words proved her main worry was still there. “Dan, Stiles came after Roger and Gil, and he killed Maureen in the process. You told me what happened to another investigator’s family. How is some government agency in Washington going to stop him if he comes after us to get to you? He behaves like a vindictive, homicidal maniac, and he can make people do what he wants. He might not be able to control you, but you can’t be with us every hour of every day.”

  “Barb, they promised to provide security for you and Stacy, and you can stay in seclusion until his threat ends.” He wasn’t about to tell her the BII was considering recruiting the bastard for overseas deployment, for disruption of hostile governments. If Stiles agreed to work for the BII under pressure and for a ton of money, even if Brogan sent him out of the country no one could stop his return if he used his ability to sneak back.

  He let Barb think protection would be needed only until the capture of Stiles ended the risk. This omission made him feel like a heel, but he didn’t think Stiles would consent to work for the BII anyway. He was used to being in charge and probably wasn’t going to accept any restrictions on his actions.

  Hector and James had driven to Jeffersonville to work with the other two agents, all four of them with the ability
to compel rumored Stiles flunkies to cooperate with them, and then command them to forget they had done so.

  In the meantime, he learned that the four agents he’d met had visited his home an hour before they found him at his office. They had quickly searched the house and had gathered a few items that he might have objected to their taking without a warrant. Although he now knew they largely operated without such a need.

  Agents had already collected combs, brushes, and cups from the bathrooms belonging to him and Barb, and toothbrushes, cups, and a hairbrush from the half-bath next to Stacy’s bedroom. Brogan had told him he’d suspected Dan was an Immune, that these traits are usually inherited, with the genetic mutations appearing in families over multiple generations. He intended to test samples from Barb and Stacy, so he didn’t want to wait to collect cheek swabs as he’d done with Grayson.

  Warrantless intrusion in this national emergency gave the BII what amounted to secret and very unconstitutional powers in certain matters that were defined and restricted, Brogan said, by a list of “parameters” the agents knew and followed. That’s just terrific, Grayson thought.

  To be honest, aside from his indignation, Grayson wanted to know if his daughter had inherited his ability. Immunity wasn’t an obvious trait if it was active, unlike the gene to compel others when it was active. He learned that agents with compulsion ability had almost universally been unaware of anything but an exceptional ability to convince other people to accept their point of view, they could sell merchandise better or teach more effectively than other teachers. It had taken recognition of their capability, and a brief stint of training, using Immunes that could sense their thoughts as a feedback source before they learned how to focus and direct their ability at others. It was Stiles, who was untrained but had demonstrated a more powerful ability, which hinted at his having two active copies of his genetic mutation.

  Having waited weeks or months for DNA evidence processing before Grayson had retired from the LMPD, he expected to wait weeks for his test results. He expected wrongly.

  Brogan turned away from a console in the command post that he’d manned personally. The big vehicle was quiet inside after the other agents had departed. A phone chime had informed him he had a text, which when read led him to log into one of the computers to read Grayson’s test results.

  He’d explained earlier that except for his small Washington Bureau office, with a cadre of career staff with experience gained from working for other intelligence gathering departments, that the BII had near parity of agents compared to support personnel, despite the limited number of people with psych ability. That meant it was the smallest federal agency by far, because of the rareness of the individuals with their capability.

  With a grin and a satisfied expression, after he read the report, Brogan said, “I was right. You’re a double Immune. But that isn’t all, my exceptionally rare friend.”

  Grayson, already half convinced by his ability that he’d likely be a double Immune, was curious. “What else? They discovered I also have a double appendix?” He spoke facetiously, but he was amazed they had results so soon. “Where did you send my swab that they processed it so quickly?”

  “To one of our twenty roving mobile BII labs that happened to be in Cincinnati, a short flight from here and met by a courier. We didn’t examine your entire genome, which would take far longer, our technicians check a short portion of your DNA that was clipped out of the full strands, to examine the short area where the genes we want to identify would reside. The technicians use a specially designed portable lab that uses the new CRISPR technology that’s been in the medical news recently.”

  The blank expression told Brogan the former police detective wasn’t exactly conversant with the publicity surrounding an ongoing revolution in genetic research, and the new therapies it made possible.

  “No, it isn’t the produce section of your damned refrigerator, as that acronym makes everyone think.” Not that Brogan was an expert either, but he knew how to recite from memory what he’d read for himself.

  “CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. A mouthful of jargon I’ve memorized, just to sound brilliant. It’s a technology that uses a system to edit out and isolate a DNA sequence that matches a specific sample sequence, and the technique can also be used for gene therapy to fix defects.

  “For our purpose, I use it to find people like you. A small DNA specimen that the geneticists call a spacer, and what I call a sample, was used to find and extract millions of matching segments of human DNA from your cells in that swab. That first spacer can be provided by any human male, or a female if that’s who we’re testing, to isolate a section of DNA where the mutation will be if it’s there at all.

  “Next, they edit the still over-large sections for the small DNA sequence where our mutations will appear, looking for a match to a precise sample of the genetic mutation that my agents and I have. The tests show if the mutation is present in a DNA sample or not. If found, we’ll know which of the two variations is present. With further tests for protein production controlled by these genes, we can also determine if the gene is expressed or if it’s recessive.”

  “OK. Then I guess you confirmed what you suspected for me.”

  “That, and more. Not only are your two copies of the Immune gene active on your X and Y chromosomes, but you also have a copy of the other variant of that gene complex on your X chromosome, which is recessive.”

  “Uh. You mean I also have the Compel version?”

  “It’s inactive, but yes, you have one copy. You just became more valuable to us, as if being a double Immune wasn’t enough.”

  “It’s inactive, you said. So, what good is it?”

  “I told you CRISPR was also being used for experimental gene therapy to fix defects. If we learn how to do it, we can insert copies of the mutation where we want them in someone’s DNA and reinsert the tissue in the donor to replicate for few months. That isn’t useful unless we learn what it takes to activate the new genes. Active genes of either variant will trigger the growth of a small organ in the brain that provides us with the means to send out thoughts to other minds or renders us immune to their effects but able to detect them. You are one of six people we’ve found that have a copy of both variants, and the only one with two active Immune copies. You and I and all BII agents have that small brain organ already in our heads. I can’t pronounce the damned Latin name for the organ, but generically we laymen call it the Psych gland, just to annoy the scientists since it isn’t a gland. I suspect your Psych gland is larger than mine.”

  He saw Grayson’s smug expression, and added, “Before your ego runs away with that knowledge, kindly note that there is no relation to sexual dimorphism.”

  “Say what?”

  “Your schlong isn’t any longer than ours as a result.”

  Grayson laughed at the bad joke, but said, “I thought sexual dimorphism was about male-female differences.”

  “Killjoy. You’re like the humorless scientists I tried that joke on, who pointed out the term didn’t apply between same genders. It’s funny if you don’t know that.”

  “If you say so,” Grayson tactfully agreed.

  Brushing aside the failed attempt at humor, Brogan continued his explanation, “Yours and mine give us Immunity from inserted outside thoughts that we will obey, if strong enough, and for a Compeller they can send their controlling thoughts a short distance. It’s a modulated weak electromagnetic signal, and a person’s entire nervous system comprises the receiving antenna. A Compeller generates less power than an electric eel, but the signal is measurable.

  “You have what we hope to find in more people in the population, an active Immune gene, and even one being active is extremely useful to us. We also look for active Compeller genes, but when it comes to defending our leaders, the Immune gene is more useful. We also seek to identify people with recessive genes of either type. If we learn how to activate recessive genes, you might als
o become a Compeller. Our first double threat.”

  “Sir, what’s your long-range goal? To insert genes to create more agents to recruit?”

  “Hell no. Well…, I mean yes, in the short term, but in the long term, we want to embed an active Immune gene in every US citizen that wants them, if that’s possible on such a scale. We need to figure out how to reliably activate the genes first, before solving the insert problem.

  “We’re using Compellers as part of our nation’s defense, but if everyone is an Immune, a foreign Compeller would have no power over our population. I’m working to eliminate the need for the BII in my lifetime.”

  “Do you have enough of a sample from my wife and daughter to test? I’d like to know if they’re Immunes.”

  “You’d be surprised how much DNA is in a hair root for our tests. There’s nothing usable from cut hair or hair you shed naturally, but brushing hair often pulls some out with root cells. Hector sent the items we collected from your house to Cincinnati before he and Jason drove to Jeffersonville. Even a toothbrush has usable DNA. I’d be surprised if your wife carries a copy of the genes, because of the rarity. Your daughter is a good bet to carry at least one Immune copy she inherited from you and considering she’s eighteen, and beyond puberty, it could be active and as unnoticed as your ability was. She might also have your inactive Compel gene on one chromosome.”

  Brogan’s phone chimed again, and caller ID told him who it was. “What have you found Mike?” It was one of the agents Grayson hadn’t met, a Compeller. The Superintendent listened for a few minutes, asked a few questions, and ended with, “Bring back what you’ve collected. I want to read over his old notes. He may have been forthcoming in what is essentially a private diary, written after he first discovered his ability. Tell the others to continue to try to track down any of his so-called Tools or Shields, especially the latter. Interesting terms he uses for them, and what he calls himself, and the rest of the population.”