Leaning against the wall the man tried to raise his gun, but with more time to react, Grayson shifted his aim from the center of mass, and shot the man in the head, dropping him like a poleaxed steer.
A sound on the grit of the roof brought his attention back to the first man, who swung the mop handle at Grayson’s right arm from his crouching position. It connected with a bruising impact on his forearm, and his gun went flying away. The weapon skidded to rest fifteen feet away, and the other man, instead of moving towards what would be an equal race to the weapon, pulled a slender object from his high-topped right work boot and moved towards his much closer opponent.
The stiletto blade slid out of the handle when he pressed the release, and he rose to his feet, blood flowing from a cut on his right temple where the door had struck him. He smirked and said, “Look at you, a dumb ass who brought fists to a knife fight. You son of a bitch. I’ll gut you.”
Grayson glanced toward his gun, as he rose to one knee, the overall’s legs now tangled around his shins.
The knife-man paused and looked significantly at the gun and said, “Aww, it’s too far away ain’t it?”
That brief distraction was what Grayson need as his assailant started his rush, the deadly blade tip weaving in a gleaming threat as the man assumed a practiced knife fighter’s posture. The loud gunshot seemingly startled him as a red dot formed on his forehead, and the expression was still there when he planted his face into the grit of the roof.
Slipping the other man’s revolver back into his waistband, Grayson corrected the dead man, “No, the old expression is you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. Idiot.” The silence in reply was eloquent.
He untangled his legs and removed the overall as he retrieved his gun. His only regret was he didn’t have anyone to question now, assuming they would have been cooperative. Making them immune to mind control didn’t turn criminals honest. Unlike a Compeller, he couldn’t break them free of embedded mind control instructions from Stiles, nor reverse the effects of the loyalty broadcast they’d been exposed to at close range for a half day.
Now that he was no longer concerned with safely reaching the rooftop, he turned towards the signal source, located less than a hundred feet away. That was where Stiles’ warm and cozy mental indoctrination originated. It was a twenty-foot long pole, with a short antenna at the top. A coax cable ran down the pole and over the roof to where it vanished down a recently drilled hole. The puckered-up roofing material showed the cable was pulled up from below.
He muttered, “Damn, I thought I’d see the transmitter up here too.” He looked at the two men he’d killed, aware that what he sought, the transmitter, was somewhere below his feet. Of course, he’d not be able to locate that without seeing where the cable went through the roof. Hindsight wouldn’t bring them back, and they had tried to kill him. He paced off the distance from the hole to the door he’d passed through, for reference when he went below as an estimate.
He collected the fat man’s gun and went down the stairs, with a final look where the cable was before he closed the door. On the next level he followed the hallway towards the cable entry point, but at the end of the corridor he was forced to turn and walked past the machinery and access panels above the six elevator shafts. He turned another corner, and there were two sets of double doors on the right, helpfully labeled for him. One had the word Electrical; the other said Telephone. The latter sounded like something he should check first.
He tested the lockable door handle and surprisingly discovered it wasn’t locked. He pulled both doors open revealing a short corridor with wall panels covered with wires and terminals, several closed wall cabinets, and down the center of the aisle was a long rack with electronics mounted in it from floor to head height. There were dozens of lights of various colors on equipment stacked vertically and mounted side-by-side in four adjacent racks, some lights steady, some winking on and off randomly.
There were cable runs overhead, suspended from the high ceiling, and when Grayson spotted sawdust and metal filings on the floor, he saw where a single black cable from the roof entered this small compartment. It hung loosely down the side of one of the electronics racks. There was a nearly empty rack with a flat metal shelf at waist height that held an open laptop and what looked like a rather conventional tunable transmitter and receiver. There was a folding chair like the one he’d seen on the roof, leaning against the wall. The antenna cable connected to the rear of the transmitter. A USB cable from the right side of the laptop connected to one of several USB ports on the front of the transmitter for input sources.
He checked the rear of the laptop, which had a dark screen. Aside from the cord from its power brick, there was an Ethernet cable, and two more USB ports on the left side. There was a flash drive inserted in one port, and what slightly resembled a cell phone connected to the other USB port by a short cable. The Ethernet cable ran to the front of one of the pieces of equipment in the adjacent stack, which from labeling appeared to be for an internet connection.
Grayson assumed the laptop was sending the looped mind control signal to the transmitter, which presumably was in a file on the laptop. Or perhaps it was fed remotely via the internet to the laptop, and output to the radio. Stiles probably had the means to alter what he sent and didn’t need to be near this setup. He could be anywhere if he caused a riot with the appropriate mind control messages and ordered the citizens to destroy the city.
What now? He thought.
Simply smashing or taking the equipment didn’t seem the best courses of action. Grayson put the tip of a finger on the laptop’s touchpad, and the screen activated. There was a window showing a menu, and his answer, after a bit of study.
MENCATS
(Mental Capture and Transmission System)
Options:
Send live thoughts.
1) Record thoughts to a file.
2) Send thoughts from a file.
3) Upload/Download recorded files.
At the bottom of the screen below the menu window was smaller widow that said:
Running: 3) File – Trust Me
Mode: Looped Play - 164
As Grayson watched the screen, the number next to Looped Play increased to 165, and he sensed the increase in the emotional intensity of the repeating mental message. He’d experienced the roughly two-minute Control message many times since reaching Louisville, and it had faded in his perception, like white noise in the background. It was on repetition 165 now.
He pressed the number 3, and new menu options appeared, and the location of the currently selected file name appeared as residing on USB Drive (D:), as Trust Me. When he glanced at the thumb drive, he saw the flash of its blue light, showing it was just accessed.
Other selectable file names were on the same flash drive, such as Attack Police, Block Roads, Fight Neighbors, Get Guns, Kill Tin Men, Set Fires, and Collect Money.
Stiles obviously had various options prepared to use for particular contingencies, while he stood apart from the action generated. Grayson assumed the Controller had the means to remotely connect to the laptop via the internet and select these files, or to upload new files. Option 1 suggested he could remotely connect live to direct the population in specific actions.
He had an idea. He moved the cursor to the Return to the Main Menu option and tapped. Then pressed the number key for “Send live thoughts.” A new window appeared, and a picture of the attached cellphone-like device appeared, with new options.
Those options told him the phone-sized device was how Stiles captured his mental commands and sent them to the laptop for recording, or for relay directly to the transmitter, where he could broadcast his thoughts immediately. It also cautioned him that a Live Send would terminate the looped play of “Send thoughts from a file.”
He decided to call Stacy.
She sounded greatly relieved. “Dad, it seemed so long. I was afraid to call you to make your phone ring if you needed silence. Did you find the transmitter? I
t’s still sending. Was Stiles…,” Grayson cut off his daughter’s rush of concerns.
“Stop. I’m fine, and I found a laptop and a transmitter. Stiles isn’t here, but he had a fully remote system set up, with two men protecting it if the BII sent anyone snooping. I’m with the equipment right now, and I want to use the transmitter myself. If I cut off the signal he’s sending it’s possible he’ll detect that, and it’s also possible I don’t know how this crap works.
“I want you to tell me if the signal changes. I can sense if it stops so I don't mean that, but I probably can’t tell if what I’m going to do is being transmitted when I try that.”
“You’re going to broadcast your Immunity, aren’t you?”
“Yep. Clever kid. Without a working detector and transmitter, we never tried this in Washington before I flew here, and I only know what others tell me about how it feels when I do this with them. They don’t sense my thoughts, but they suddenly experience when external thoughts are present in their minds, and they know they were not their thoughts all along. Immunes don’t feel anything different since they already sense external thoughts that way.”
“Uh, Dad would anyone you call a Susceptible be able to feel the change?”
“I think so. We did that in our lab tests when I blocked them from being Compelled. They had no directionality, but they knew when outside thoughts were in their minds.”
“Could Carl be your guinea pig?”
“I don’t want to wait for you to get him. He’s in school, and I hope your aunt and uncle are gone.”
“Nope. Carl’s here in your car with me. When I didn’t pick him up this morning for school, he called a friend to drive him to Aunt Jan’s house before I was ready to leave. He wanted to check on me when I wouldn’t answer my phone. I tried to leave him out of this, I swear.”
“OK. Fine. Carl will be the test subject. Explain to him what will happen.”
“Hi, Mr. Grayson. I heard.” It was Carl.
He sighed. Stacy had been on speakerphone.
Great. Dan thought. Glad I didn’t mention the two men I killed.
“Carl, this will be done in two parts. I’ll stop a loop signal going out now, try to broadcast my Immunity, causing an effect that should last for some time for you if that works. The length of time partly depends on the strength of the signal, which I don’t know. Then I’ll restart the original loop signal. Stacy, if Carl is temporarily immune, the resumed message will seem different to him, as it was for your Aunt and Uncle.”
“We’ll be waiting, Dad.”
When he selected the “Send live thoughts“ option and clicked on Start, the lower window changed to show that Send was now Running, the previous file stopped sending, and a timer started counting the minutes and seconds. He focused on the attached device that presumably picked up the electromagnetic signal from his internal brain organ.
Ignore thoughts that are not your own. Clear your mind of outside thoughts. You control your mind.
He wasn’t sure the words he mentally used mattered. He’d done this in tests without trying to use any words but found that for him it was nearly impossible to do. Words came to his mind every time he tried. The test equipment monitoring what the technicians called his “carrier frequency” was essentially a flat line without a modulation mode detected, no amplitude, frequency, or pulse modulation seen. The carrier signal itself came and went, and varied slightly in strength based on how intensely he tried to project his thoughts to increase his output power. The scientists monitoring him asked that he not strain to increase power because the transmitter they were designing would take his signal and amplify it anyway. It would be thousands of times greater than he could generate organically.
“Dad, the looped signal is gone now.”
He didn’t answer her on his phone and kept sending. He finally clicked the Stop icon for the Send, and the lower window for Running now said “None.” The timer of his Send effort had reached thirty seconds before he quit. That would be his benchmark time. He’d been successful in lab tests with only five seconds of effort.
“OK. Carl, tell me if or when you sense some outside thoughts you think are not yours.”
Grayson selected the third option again, and scrolled to the Trust Me file, and was about to press Send when Carl spoke.
“Sir, I’m not sure what I should feel, I don’t notice a change…. Oh. There it is. That’s a strange feeling.”
Grayson had hit Send while Carl talked, and the “Oh” came nearly simultaneously with activation.
“What do you sense, Carl?”
“Not words. But it’s like someone is trying to calm me, making me feel good about them, but it doesn't feel honest. It’s odd, but I know now that I was feeling this before, all morning, but it wasn’t obvious to me, and now it is. I liked it then, but not so much now. It isn’t sincere. It feels phony. Like somebody telling me to believe them, or trust them when you don’t think you should. It didn’t seem that way before you turned it off a minute ago. I could feel when you did that, but the warm sense of comfort stayed behind. When you restarted the signal, it didn’t feel as nice, or believable. It’s like being confronted by a salesman I don’t trust to be honest with you, even if he isn’t talking.”
“Good analogy Carl. How about you Stacy? Did you sense when I sent my Immunity signal for about a half minute?”
“I don't think so, Dad. But the absence of Stiles mind was such a relief. Now it’s back. Can you shut it down?”
“Let’s wait to see how long my thirty seconds of Immunity transmission lasts for Carl. It went out for everyone else in Louisville too, you know. I wonder how that will play out?”
The wait to find out was short.
I know that was you trying to block me, Grayson. I felt what you did. I know where you are too, and I could point to you. That’s a neat capability. Since you used my transmitter, I’d know where you are anyway. No other BII agent could home in on my system that fast. I expected you to come, just not so soon. I drew you to Chicago as a test of how long it would take for the BII to come. You beat that time by a lot, and we didn’t see the C-17 land anywhere. You’re getting faster and sneakier.
As Stiles thoughts formed in his mind, Grayson had multiple thoughts of his own. He now knew that a Controller could sense a broadcast of external group thoughts, and like Mike Gorka, Stiles had temporary use of Grayson’s directionality and ranging ability.
It took a moment for Grayson, inside a room without windows, to orient himself to think of where north would be. When he did, his directional ability told him Stiles was still in Jeffersonville and north of the Ohio River by at least four miles.
It was also going to be a one-way mental conversation since an Immune couldn’t send a signal modulated with their thoughts. At least that’s what he expected before a more conventional technology intruded.
Stacy was still on the phone, but a second call started to arrive, no caller ID showing. He needed to confirm his suspicion.
“Stacy, Stiles knows I’m here, and I think he’s calling my phone. I’ll put you on hold.” Without waiting for her reply, he flashed to accept the other call.
Grayson said, “I’m coming for you, Stiles.”
“Likewise,” was his reply, and the man didn’t seem intimidated. Instead, he had a question and offered a mystery with a hint.
“Don’t you wonder how I got your cell phone number? I got it from someone close to you.”
Grayson felt a stab of fear at the taunt, but he knew Stacy was safe, as was Jan and Casey, but he didn’t know about Barb’s parents in Elizabethtown. He was an only child, and his parents were dead. This bastard had killed his wife and Dalia, and no BII agents were missing, so he had no idea where he obtained his unlisted number. Then it came to him. Stiles had taken Barb’s purse, along with her body and minivan. Her cellphone was with her, so he knew what the answer was. He resisted the impulse to reply because it would feed the psychopath’s desire to torment an adversary, to r
emind him of how he got the cellphone.
Impatient, Stiles continued. “You also seem to have made my delivery driver able to resist mind control just now. He’s a Tool that was always well paid, so he did what I told him to do anyway. I’ll admit that was a clever use of my equipment.”
Grayson wondered if that driver was the person that drove to the house by the park, a command to a Tool he’d sensed earlier, just before his plane landed.
He did have a reply now. “I’ll make everyone immune, you ass wipe. Nobody will have to fear you.” It was a bluff, counting on Stiles not knowing the conferred Immunity was temporary. The man promptly called the bluff.
“That’s bullshit. Dear dead Dalia knew that trick only worked for a short time.”
“Not if it’s continuously repeated, jackass.” He said that as a new idea came to him.
He intended to record a file of his own to send on a loop, but when he looked at the laptop screen, he saw a menu option was active, and the cursor was moving to a different file name to send. Stiles had remotely accessed the laptop while he was distracted by the phone call. He hurriedly reached around and pulled the Ethernet cable from its socket before one of the extremely violent sounding files could be selected. Stiles had remotely logged into the system from Jeffersonville.
Grayson, now in manual control, selected Option 2, Record thoughts to a file. Ignoring the curses from Stiles on the phone, who was now aware that he’d lost his remote access.
He sent this: No one should ever control your mind, so ignore outside thoughts. Your mind belongs only to you.
He knew the words he used didn’t matter and wouldn’t be sensed precisely, only the intent. He saved the file to the hard drive, not the thumb drive, and used option 3 to Send it, selecting Loop for repetition. Then he removed the thumb drive, slipping it into his pocket.
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