"An example, a guy is making love to his sex doll with VR. His wife walks in and starts abusing him, which makes him angry. He is angry because his good time has been ruined. He is also angry because his wife doesn't want to fuck him. His whole world is anger, really, and the sex doll was the one thing that relieved this energy. Now it all comes back, and this tide of emotion breaks down all the implanted suggestions. He finally sees the thing for what it is... a rubber doll.
"But then stage two arrives. The emotions pass, he gets depressed. He wonders why he woke up. He much preferred dream-land and his rubber girl to this world. A part of him retreats back into the projection, he picks her back up, and this time the connection is even MORE powerful. He is addicted, all he wants is this. The wife can go to hell in a handbasket for all he cares.
"This is when Stage Three can completely subsume his frontal lobe. The rational circuits are no longer in the loop. His anger becomes aligned to the love he desperately needs, and he cannot stand the thought of that wife being there to ruin it. A simple suggestion that she gets done away with is then very easy to implant. This crap about a hypnotized person not ever doing something they would not do normally is absolutely wrong. If his mind perceives that killing the wife is good for his relationship with his doll, he will kill her."
Terry just nods. He had read the manuals, but he still found it hard to believe. "So what you are saying is that we can take perfectly patriotic Russian and soon enough turn him or her into a spy who will sell out their country, believing as they do so that it is the right thing to do. Is this what you are saying?"
"It is exactly what I am suggesting."
"Still no answer to the question of how do we deal with him keeping the hat on in public and maintain the ink?" Terry can see how this can work in a controlled environment, but out in the wild? Too many variables.
Tommy has an idea. A light bulb moment! He laughs, "I got a crazy notion that just might work."
"Out with it."
"Well, it seems little crazy, but what we need to do is stop people asking the mark questions about why he is wearing the hat we have told him to forget he is wearing, yes?" Tommy is fairly rolling in laughter as he speaks.
Terry knows these creative types. Just roll with it. "What's the idea then?"
"You are going to think it is completely insane, but I tell you, it will work. All we do is put a pair of HANDS onto either side of his hat. We make them active, so if anyone pays any attention to it, he subconsciously pulls a string that causes the hands to clap."
"This makes no sense at all. You want to draw MORE attention to the hat? I don't get it."
"Yeah, reverse psychology. They all see him wearing the hat, they see the ridiculous hands, they see the stupid clapping thing happen, and they want to ask what it is all about, but we had an embroidered message on the hat... " Tommy is laughing at the stupidity.
"Go on man, out with it. This isn't a comedy festival."
"Well, we just embroider the words, 'Stop looking at my Handy Cap?' and people will WANT to say something, but all they will do is either be embarrassed or break out into laughter. No one is going to ask him why he is wearing the hat because it is obviously a gimmick to get attention."
Terry nods. It just might work, and it is crazy enough to make sense. "So the mark is puzzled why people react in strange ways to him. But no one asks him why he is wearing the damn hat, because they think they know. Could just work."
He signs off on the development funds to get the project underway. "And how long before you can subsume their rational mind and supplant belief structures to make our mark believe whatever we want him to?"
"Couple of weeks and we have rewired his entire thought process."
"Can we use this for interrogation as well? As in, can we run our projection alongside the mark's current mind, and have him open up and tell us secrets?"
"It is the natural thing to do. The mind can be fooled on one level, but at the deeper super-conscious level, it KNOWS this is all BS. It is the same reason why Positive Thinking doesn't really work. If you have to SAY to yourself you are great, brilliant, happy, etc. then the deeper part of the mind asks WHY you are saying this, and sets up a counter routine.
"This is why a shock will wake the subject up, a part of the brain knows it is false, and it uses this opportunity to effectively slap the subjective mind back into line. But despite this, given the opportunity to return to the dream a person's imagination is more powerful than their reason, so imagination wins the battle and the subject goes back into the illusion."
Terry nods, "A little like people who believe in a church and keep giving it money despite the fact it is dripping with wealth and raping their children. They believe in a loving God, despite the fact that this 'God' will send them to pain and suffering in hell for eternity if they misbehave."
"Precisely. So the rational part of the mind is still intact and can be contacted, despite the fact that the irrational part believes in the myth we have given it. In practice, we get someone like a fanatical Muslim terrorist and give them the illusion they have reached heaven. They already have their forty-two virgins, or whatever it is, they have made it! All we have to do is ask them about the details of how they got there and they will reveal to us every tiny little secret in their heads."
Tommy then smiled a strange, crocodile smile, and added, "But that's not the real thing you are interested in, is it?"
"How do you know what I am really interested in?" Terry snapped back. He hated impertinence.
"Take off your hat, Terry," Tommy commands him with surprising strength.
Terry is confused. What hat?
"Take off your hat, Terry. Do it, take off your hat!"
Without really knowing why he reaches up and discovers he is wearing a hat. He takes it off and finds he is standing in a grimy cell, dripping with mold and stench. There, on the other side of the bars, stands Senator Florishem with the rich Saudi who caused him all his problems.
Eric Blgins was not dead, he had been taken under a rendition order. He was not some chief in the CIA, he was a miserable prisoner with absolutely no hope of release. Both the men outside his prison are laughing.
"I got to say," Senator Florishem says in his Southern drawl, "I just never get tired of watching that face when the dream ends. It is priceless."
"But this technology will genuinely work on terrorists?" the Saudi prince asks.
"Oh yes Sir, it will. And the best part is we can use Bilgins here, while he is in his CIA persona, and have him believe he is interrogating them. Then you can wake him up at the end of every day and watch that wonderful look of shock and disappointment on his face."
The Saudi Prince smiles. Revenge is sweet. "Time to put your hat back on Mr. Bilgins," he says.
A part of Eric wants to resist. A part of him is screaming, "Don't do it!" Yet that 'other' part, the part that always wanted to be a secret service agent cannot wait to get that hat back on. Despite him doing a Doctor Strangelove with his arm, despite one hand trying to stop the hat going back on his head, despite everything, he takes the hat, and places it obediently back in place.
"So, we should try this project out on a test subject," Terry says, forgetting completely the small glitch in his reality.
Tommy smiles. He loves this part. "Yeah, let's get to work!"
Curse of the Monsoon
Lonliness and depression can do strange things to a person. Life can place you into positions where there seems no solution, no way out, yet you must survive. And we do, but disease and circumstance can change things. When driven to the edge, which way do we jump? Do we turn to fight back, or just fall into oblivion?
A Dying Englishman
It arrived in the last days of October. A mercy in some ways, it meant the relentless work schedule ceased, yet the Englishman lying prone in his bed was barely aware of it. He had gone completely insane, lying there for god knows how long. Rain dripped from the thatch on the workers' hut. The trail of dr
ied mud on the reeds put down outside the open door showed an inconstant round of visitors. A rubber plantation, outside Rangoon, was no jewel in the crown of Empire, yet the revenues these ragged fringes of the Queen's Bounty brought in paid for more than a few of them.
This was no special place, nor any special time. It was just another bleak day on another unimportant outpost, one of thousands just like it all over Malaysia and Burma. They represented the epitome of the grind that made England great. Against the backdrop of everything that made the Victorians wealthy, inside that damp hut lay a dying Englishman, Eric Johnson. No doctor came, no one tended him, because he was just a bound worker in a minor position on a small plantation.
As he lay there, half-mad, the insignificance of his life rang like a bell in his head. He was no one, nothing and should he die here, the best he could hope for were some pleasant words from Constance at his funeral. He dreamed of her in his fever, the young wife of the Plantation manager that he was secretly in love with. Perhaps he should send the cleaner over to ask for help? She came once a day, but her English was non-existent and the effort to make her understand what he wanted would exhaust him. He needed a doctor, really.
Eric laughed, as if he could afford luxuries! He was there because of debt, a bonded worker they called it. Rather than jail, he opted to work under the good grace of Mr. Goodyear, the rubber tire manufacturer, for two years, a virtual slave on one of his plantations. The white poor of England had become a form of legal slavery in this age of Queen Victoria. At least here he had some sort of respect, the simple fact he was white meant he was someone to the locals. A small scrap of dignity in a lifetime of humiliation.
He received a stipend, basic rations, and a note every month detailing the level of debt he still had to meet. Slavery of a kind, but a kindness compared to the slums of London, or worse, a debtors prison. All things considered, dying here was far preferable to living in that squalor. Soon, the Angel would come, his name would fade from the memory of the few friends he had, and this misery would be done with. Living in squalor, betoken to the whim of the bastard that ran this place, this all made death a gift.
Even should he survive this, there was no future worth visiting. Come the end of the Monsoon, the slavery would start again, along with the daily degradation from the pig husband of Constance, Winston Godfrey, with Eric being prodded and beaten like one of the natives.
Winston Godfrey did not deserve that wonderful creature. Eric knew she hated him, he was a brute, a cad, a womanizer of the worst sort. He hated that a bully. The one thing he felt might be worth living for was revenge, some sort of payback on that monster. As he dreamed, the bitterness burned within him as he fell back into fever: visions of humiliation and abuse welled up, choking him. He had never known a disgust like this, he could taste it, like bile in the back of his throat.
Disgust in himself for being so weak. Disgust with the world for its cruelty. He wanted to burn it all down - all of it.
The cleaner came in and saw the delirious Englishman tossing, muttering words she did not understand. He would die, she knew this. This white man was kinder than the rest, he was not cruel like so many others. He deserved better so, out of compassion, she called over one of the young boys who was running around outside, seemingly immune to the mud. She says something to him, and he runs off. She knows the signs, he will die unless he is given help, and perhaps he will not be so proud as to refuse the local medicine man.
oooOOOooo
Constance Godfrey glanced out from the shutters as the curious looking native went into the bonded man's hut. Odd to see a black from the bush here at the Plantation. She wondered why … Normally she would tell her husband, but he flew into fits of rage so easily in the wet season. Fortunately, he was away in town, talking to the Goodyear rep, so nothing need be said to disturb him.
She did not like her husband overmuch, how could she with all his whoring and drinking? She hated this backwoods dump she had been placed in. Maybe if he hadn't beaten the natives in Malaysia quite so much he could have gotten a better posting, but as it stood, the muddy slopes of Burma were their lot for the next two years.
The Londoner they had sent in had saved them a lot of trouble. Poor man, Winston beat him instead of the natives, but it made her life better. Having someone else responsible for keeping production up seemed to help him relax. To this end, he wasn't so bad when he wasn't completely drunk and soaked in his misery. "Why did I draw the damn short straw!" he used to moan. But they both knew it was a punishment. Goodyear were concerned about bad press. The reformists and anti-slavery people had been cheering the end of the American Civil War, but now were looking to the Orient for stories. Plantation managers treating natives like slaves made good press.
"Nothing so DAMN infuriating as a reformer," her husband would say as he read the six weeks old London Times. "They are as bad as those horrendous Suffragettes!" He would smoke his cigar, drink his morning port, and proceed to take his temper out on what amounted to his personal slave, the poor Londoner. The sad creature just whimpered “Yes Boss”. She wanted to say something but it was not her problem. People who sell themselves to Goodyear to recover debt have only themselves to blame.
She had been writing letters to people that mattered. Her uncle knew one of the people in management in Penang and had written her about a possible opening near him in the Coffee industry. Constance was working her husband to come around to coffee as a good option. They needed to get away from Goodyear and into a decent position in an industry that was growing. It came down to money, of course, coffee didn't pay quite as well, but the benefits were a retirement pension and they were closer to civilization.
Anything was better than this godforsaken wasteland.
The maid curtsied at the door. She supposed the girl was here because morning tea was ready. But what's the point? There are no visitors, especially during the Monsoon. But no, it was news, a visitor! Thank God, an end to this utter boredom! A sulky pulls up out the front, it is the neighbor, an older woman, just an Irish, but who really cares about social standing out here?
Constance quickly dressed and came down to the waiting room to greet Mrs O'Shea. "My dear Audrey, what a JOY, what a simple JOY to see you. How on earth did anyone convince you to come out in this misery? You are SO brave, come through, please. We have some tea drawing in the library."
Audrey O'Shea was acutely aware of what loneliness did. Her husband was also in town and the madness of the Monsoon, that damn constant rain, it depressed the hardiest of Souls. The effusive welcome warmed her heart, though she knew what it was that really drove poor Constance to drop her standards like this. She was a fragile thing, not well equipped for such an atrocious husband. "We might be needing a little more than just tea, wouldn't you be thinking my dearest, Constance?"
The girl laughed for the first time in weeks. "You are correct Mrs. O'Shea!" Constance waves at the maid, "Some brandy for myself and Mrs. O'Shea. Warmed."
They settled in, downed a few balloons, and became firm friends for the day.
"I saw that strange feathered man going into the bonded Londoners hut, I swear I did. I was passably strange." Constance was half drunk and just rambling.
Audrey had lived in Burma for over a decade. Her husband owned his land and, while not betoken to the company, they still owed their living to Goodyear. She knew what the local witch doctor meant. "Is he sick?" she asked.
"How would I know," Constance exclaimed! As if she would know anything about the farm workers, or care. "I will send a boy to see." Which she did. He came back, wide eyed, saying, “The English he is very ill. People say to stay away.” His broken use of the language made it difficult, but Mrs O'Shea spoke Malay, and so they discovered what had happened: A local had sent for the witchdoctor, but apparently the man, unsurprisingly, could not help him, and the rest of the workers were nervous for some reason. They were talking about "Monkey Sickness" or something like that
"I think maybe you had better b
ring up Doc Saunders. A local witch doctor my dear, who knows what he gave the poor man, and if your bonded worker dies, it reflects poorly on yourselves. Remember, we are talking about people that will use a snake to poison you in order to cure a cold."
"Really?" Constance was amazed. "A doctor you say? My husband may not appreciate the expense."
"In the case of bondsmen, the company will cover the cost. The good Doctor understands these things. Goodyear does not want their indebted workers to die from Malaria or any of the thousand pestilences these tropic hold, at least not until their debt is discharged. Perhaps we should be good Christian women and take him some soup?" Audrey suggested.
Constance thought that was a marvelous idea, and who would have ever thought the company would cover medical expenses? Of course, it would probably be tagged onto his debt. She sent a boy to town on a horse, to talk to her husband, and then asked the maid to prepare a soup for the bonded man.
With their rubber boots and umbrellas in place, both of the women made their way to do their charitable deed, and they went see the poor fellow. The Maid seemed concerned and said they need not trouble themselves, that she would take the soup, but the women brushed her aside. Full of Brandy and the spirit of the good Samaritan, arm in arm they went to see the fellow.
oooOOOooo
Godfrey got the note in town, thoughtfully send by his wife with the lad. "Please Darling, apparently the bondsman is sick. Audrey O'Shea was over. She assured me the company covers the cost of the medical bills for bonded workers, and suggested that you send Doctor Saunders right away."
What did he care if that idiot died, but the Irish woman was correct. He checked with the local representative, had the matter approved, then organized for the doctor. They were all there drinking at the Strand anyway, so it was no great effort. As chance would have it, Doc Saunders had a trainee with him from Cambridge, doing the rounds of the colonies, and thought this an excellent opportunity for the fellow to 'get some experience'. Another way of saying it was far more pleasant to stay there drinking, while the poor young recruit could learn what old fashioned doctoring in the tropics was all about.
Witch Hunters and Other Stories (2018-2019) Page 10