by Gennita Low
“We’re giving you another dose and then we’re flying to Frankfurt.”
Another dose! He’d never taken two dosages in a session before. “We’re going to get the key, aren’t we?” he asked. “I can’t speak German.”
“We won’t be holding any conversation. We just want the key.” His monitor looked at the camera and spoke into the intercom. “Did you get everything?”
“Yes,” the person from the other side replied. “I just received a call that the other remote viewer had the location, too. It’s going be a race.”
“That could work in our favor,” his monitor said. “We can see this new toy for ourselves, maybe even acquire her.”
“Yes, good idea.”
“And if we can get the key before they do, we’ll kill two birds with one stone. Wouldn’t that be a good way to end COMCEN’s little project?”
“I’m calling in the ride. Get ready.”
The man on the VR chair frowned as he listened in on the conversation. There was more to this session than competing with another remote viewer. He watched as his monitor prepared another shot. Another dose…He thought of the woman and her memory with her man. He smiled in anticipation. There was going to be some free time on the plane.
“Can I go to the restroom after the shot?”
“You have fifteen minutes. If no one’s here, just wait. We’re going to be making some calls to verify procedures.”
“Yes, of course.”
Oh, that was plenty of time. He needed to jerk off. Then he would do it again on the plane somehow. He couldn’t wait to replay the images he’d captured from the ether. Usually he’d be wiped out, but with a second dose, he was ready to go off and play again. That woman…he needed to find that woman in the building.
Ten
Helen sighed. So many questions, not enough time. “When I get out of remote viewing, there’s a period which we call downtime. Sometimes it takes hours to get back to normal. I feel weak now in virtual reality, so I can imagine how bad I am when I get out of here.”
“Yes.” Hades massaged her neck. “SYMBIOS 2 will take care of that.”
“Have you tried it before?”
“A version of it. It affects different people differently, but it cuts down on pain and exhaustion. Different versions of it have been field-tested on the military.”
She noted that he didn’t really answer her question. Of course, it would be inside her soon enough for her to know how it affected her. What, me worry? Her lips twisted mockingly. Too late for that.
“How will I communicate with you while on mission?” she asked.
“I’m your monitor at VR, not in field operations,” he replied. “You’ll just have to make do without me this one time.”
Helen looked up sharply. “How will I know you won’t be there?”
His gaze was amused. “You won’t.”
“I’m figuring out how this is supposed to work, you know.” She cocked her head. “As I’ve told you, locating anything in RV is very tough. A trailer park looks like a million other trailer parks after all, and a building vault like the one we’ve been in looks like any other, too. It takes time to be specific. I’d have had to really explore around to find clues and even then, I wouldn’t be too sure if I had gone off somewhere else in the ether. Yet, with you present in my mind, we have a twofold perception, me on my senses and you on the big picture. How am I doing so far?”
“That’s what any RV monitor does,” he pointed out.
“No, there’s a difference. You can actually sense my thoughts and feelings, so you have an advantage over a normal monitor, who would have had to really push me to find some kind of recognizable symbol. A monitor just asks questions to guide me to sense different targets, and from there, we draw our conclusions from my descriptions. Yet, you knew exactly how to confirm the location. You told me to go to the lobby, remember?” Helen tapped him on the chest. “You said you’ve been inside Deutsche International before. Your knowledge saves a lot of time and makes our target more precise. I might be the star of this show, Mr. Hades, but I have a feeling you’re the vehicle driving the whole getup.”
The slow smile he gave her gave Helen a hint of the real personality behind her avatar. It was not just a smile of amusement but of acknowledgment of her conclusions. Deep in her gut, she knew that she was right.
This was no simple trainer. This was a man who had a whole lot of experience with certain targets, who had probably walked among these same targets so he would be able to recognize many of the places and people by sight or sound.
Hades wasn’t only her guide or monitor, but also her partner. He was, in fact, here to make sure she didn’t fail: he was her data bank of knowledge when it came to the places and experiences. Her awareness of him vibrated even as she spoke, as if the words and thoughts helped her feel out the real entity behind the avatar.
There wasn’t a doubt about the warning ringing through her being either. Never mind that he was giving her a killer massage, the slow kneading of his hands making her remember how good he was with them. She stopped herself from thinking about that, scowling at him as she watched the sensual tug of his lips widening. She was dealing with a very dangerous man. And he was enjoying himself way too much.
“How’s that for insight?” she pressed on.
“You’re close,” he said simply.
“Okay, I see we have lots of talking in the future,” she continued, “with me asking the questions and you answering them.”
Are you sure you want to talk all the time? You’re very stream-of-consciousness, you know, with your thoughts jumping from passwords to speeding to…pleasure.
Helen pulled at his hands and took a step back. “I bet if I could sense your mind, I’d feel all kinds of sexual deviant stuff.”
His brown eyes lit up with mischief. “Yes.”
She sighed. “And this mind reading only stays between us if you satisfy me with your answers.”
Satisfaction guaranteed. Good luck on your mission.
She could even hear the wickedness in his voice. She felt the familiar buzzing behind the back of her neck and bright light filled her sight. Hades had ended the session.
She began to feel the others helping to take off the components attached to her body. Her body felt a bit numb, as if she had been running very hard. Remote downtime could take hours, sometimes days, depending on how long the viewer stayed out in the ether.
“How long was I in there?” Helen asked, leaning back in the seat. She needed a minute…maybe two.
“Three hours.” Dr. Kirkland was busy checking her stats. “How do you feel?”
“That’s it?” Surprise mingled with disbelief. “I feel like an elephant had walked all over me. Usually that means I’ve been out for at least six hours.”
Dr. Kirkland smiled at her attempt at humor. “I’m not surprised. Projected studies point to the fact that Total Immersion Virtual Reality Remote Viewing will put a lot of stress on the mind and body.”
TIVRRV had just been a term in Helen’s head as she had gone through the stages of training. But now that she’d undergone the first experience of combining all those stages, she was suddenly aware of the significance of what she’d achieved.
Stress indeed. Not to mention having someone else talking in her head and other things she would rather not tell these scientists. She couldn’t focus properly as she tried to recall every detail. “This is good, right?” she asked, rubbing her neck absentmindedly, remembering a warm, sure hand. “Then we’ll know for sure whether the next phase actually works.”
The next phase was SYMBIOS 2, the drug that would cure all fatigue generated by remote viewing, thus enabling her to complete the mission. This was the tricky part. She was in charge because only she knew what she had seen. A whole group of operatives now depended on her version of what truth was, and if the operation failed, it meant she’d failed.
The world of remote viewing was a strange one. Helen knew that many
incidents had been summarized and filed away—world events and secrets—that the government hadn’t taken on because no one department was willing to send out a team on the word of a viewer. Millions of dollars could go down the tube. Lives could be lost. No one was willing to jeopardize their teams just to prove one person’s vision.
But a remote viewer, trained to spy and trained to go where no one had dared—that was the grand experiment. And Helen was it.
“We don’t have much time,” the assistant said to Dr. Kirkland.
“We’ll give her a few minutes.”
Helen shook off the fatigue, sitting straighter. “Get De Clerq.”
She stood up slowly and felt as if she was carrying fifty more pounds on her. Whoa. This was totally different from all the other sessions. She scowled at Derek when he proffered a hand. No. She would walk out of here without any help.
Gingerly, she took a few steps, willing her leaden feet to move normally. She found it easier to walk if she stared at each foot, moving one in front of the other as if she were robot-controlled.
“Sweetheart, at this rate we’ll never get started.” It was Flyboy at the doorway. “You’re going to need my help.”
Helen scowled. “No, thanks.”
He came forward just as she stumbled and scooped her into his arms with one easy swing. “Pride goes before a fall, haven’t you heard?”
“And what will it look like if you carry me into that meeting with all the brass looking on? Sure, that’d have their confidence in the mission soaring, wouldn’t it?”
Flyboy continued walking. “You’re right. But you can’t walk in like you’re Tim Conway impersonating an eighty-year-old either.”
Helen frowned. “Tim who?”
“You know, Carol Burnett’s sidekick from her show. The one that shuffles his feet when he impersonated…” Flyboy shook his head. “Never mind. It’s not funny when I have to explain his act.”
“You watched The Carol Burnett Show?” Helen asked incredulously.
“With my mom,” he told her, smiling down at her. “Here we are.”
Helen turned her head, startled that she’d forgotten that she’d been arguing about walking on her volition. Flyboy had taken her to the restroom.
“This will give you a few minutes while I go get a wheelchair,” he said, setting her back on her feet.
“A wheelchair isn’t going to give a good impression either,” she pointed out. She fought for balance. Dammit, she was having a lot of difficulty trying to coordinate her movements.
“Not if we have all the medical stuff attached to it as if we’re readying you for the drug. We’ll make it look okay.” Flyboy tilted her chin. His blue eyes were serious, searching hers. “Hey, the most important thing’s you being okay. Can you do this?”
Helen nodded. “You don’t think I’m going to back out at this stage, do you?”
“No, you don’t seem the type, although I question your sanity.”
“Didn’t I hear you say you put that stuff in you, too?” she asked, arching a brow. “Oh wait, you’re playing protective male about it being okay for you to do it but not me?”
His thumb teased the bottom of her lip. “You’ll know when I play protective male,” he told her.
She smiled at him. He really was so cute for being so concerned about her. “Does Tim Conway do his act in a wheelchair?”
Flyboy dimpled back at her. “When this mission is over, I’ll invite you over to see some great Carol Burnett classics. You’ll understand what I mean. Now go get refreshed. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“All right.”
Helen walked slowly into the restroom. He was right. She needed to refresh herself and get herself ready for the next phase. Her mind was still on Hades, wondering what he was doing now, wondering whether he was as numb as she was, even though she was the one doing all the work.
Her body still tingled when she thought about him. Her mind felt strangely fragmented, something she’d never experienced after an RV session. She still couldn’t quite believe what had happened in virtual reality. For two months, he’d prepared her in the CAVE, mentally pushing her boundaries and testing her, and she’d never once suspected he’d been readying her for that moment when he’d used her body’s reaction to him as a trigger. After all, it was all virtual reality in her mind.
A dangerous man. She was going to find out who he was, somehow, some way.
Helen looked around quickly as Flyboy wheeled her into the conference room with Dr. Kirkland and Derek behind, holding on to tubes and IVs attached to the chair. Her group was there, along with T. Watching from above, not unlike one of those surgery rooms, was another group of mostly men, some in uniform, with rows and rows of medals for decoration. Presumably, those were the designated representatives from the different agencies such as DOD, Army Intel, and NSA who had sent in their candidates. She could feel their skepticism and curiosity as Flyboy and she approached her group.
Helen decided to go straight to business. “How do we start?” she asked.
De Clerq nodded, then looked up into the gallery. “You can send in your man with the envelope.” He turned to Helen. “They have complete control of the envelope to ensure noncontamination. It contains the specific target they had set for you. We’d agreed that once you’ve written down what you deem is the target, then we’ll open and read the contents of the envelope. If your answer is the same as the information in there, then they’ll let us handle the rest of the operation our way.”
“You mean I get to play Jeopardy?” Helen asked dryly. “Write my answer and hope the question in the envelope corresponds?”
De Clerq smiled. “Something like that.”
“Do they have any say over the operation?” She eyed the group above them again. They were listening in, of course. “Or are they just my cheering and adoring fans?”
Flyboy pulled out a chair and sat down. “As you can all see, our girl’s sense of humor is still intact.”
“May I ask why she can’t walk?” a voice said over the intercom. They looked up and a tall man signaled that it was him asking the question. “I’ve seen remote viewers going through downtime and they fared better than Miss Roston.”
“Our program is more intensive,” Dr. Kirkland replied. “The effects of biotechnology are unpredictable and since I’m monitoring Miss Roston’s vitals and reactions, I wanted her to stay as still as possible after her session so I can get a clearer chart of her physical condition before and after drug administration.”
Oooh, good cover. Helen managed not to grin at Flyboy who winked. She was going to behave. After all, she was on contract and worth…oh…millions to these people.
“I see,” the voice said. “Then let’s proceed.”
Someone else entered the room. Helen assumed it was the person with the envelope.
“Miss Roston, ready?” De Clerq asked.
“Sure,” Helen said. She picked up the pen by her pad. Make it simple or go into details? She decided simple. The brass just wanted confirmation that she was for real. She handed over the piece of paper to the nearest person to pass, and added, “This is the target, along with location. If you want to know more, just ask questions.”
“Thank you,” De Clerq said. He took the piece of paper and read it out loud. “The target is an electronic key card that appears to be used to find passwords. It is currently in the possession of two people. The key is now at a building called Deutsche International. Your turn, Mr. Su.”
The man tore open the envelope in his hand and read, “The stolen data transfer key, SEED. Where are the thieves, Jack and Julie Cummings? Here are the photos of the two of them.”
Helen looked at them. They were the couple she saw in the RV session. Yeah, the names resonated. So, they stole the key. That explained the electronic bank transaction before the key was handed over to the other men.
“I would say that’s as close to a hundred percent accuracy as one could get, sirs,” De Clerq sa
id.
“We still don’t have possession of the key to prove that her information is correct. How long will part two of this operation take? How will she know what it looks like?”
“It starts as soon as Miss Roston is ready. A plane is on standby for Germany and you’ll be informed when the operation is completed,” De Clerq said.
“And if Miss Roston fails to return with the key?” another voice added.
Helen looked up, trying to guess who the speaker was. It was tough since they all appeared to have a microphone button by their seats. “I know where it is.” She addressed all of them, since she couldn’t identify the person. “If it’s still in that building and I can get access to that room, I’ll get the key. I know what it looks like. It’s getting to it that will be the problem.”
“So how do you propose to get it? We can’t have our people storming a building overseas,” a high-ranking official pointed out. “That’s the problem with these experiments. We can’t risk lives and reputation for something that depends on one person’s say-so, especially when the information isn’t gotten through accountable means. This looking around in some kind of altered state smacks of bad science fiction, if you ask me.”
This must be one of the men who had decided not to do anything about the Intel the CIA remote-viewing program had provided the military. Generals and commanders didn’t want to be held responsible in case the information turned out to be nothing. After reading the documents to which she’d been given access, Helen had understood. Who would want to explain through the chain of command that they were sending out troops and million-dollar equipment because of something a remote viewer said?
“I’m not here to argue with you, sir,” she said quietly. “The government funded this project to train me, so take your beef to the president. And right now, it appears to be my life and reputation that’s on the line.”