The Monolith Murders (32 page)

Once Fred and Maureen had been taken care of, she planned to take care of her partner. There was no way she could let him keep his freedom, but for the present he was still useful to her. He did most of the shopping for her and he had taken care of renting her condo unit while she remained in the background. If I have to relocate quickly, she thought, he can find another site for me while I remain undetected.

Donna had recently added a cane to her disguise, and she had manufactured a slight limp befitting someone of her advanced age and slight arthritic condition.
 

The cab pulled into the circular drive adjacent to the motel’s lobby. She paid the cab driver, including a significant tip. She said, “If I need you again, I want you to come right away.”
 

Looking at the size of the tip, he said, “Anytime at all, lady, I’ll be at your beck and call.”
 

The run-down motel was not one that she would have selected under normal conditions, but these were not normal times. As she entered, the motel clerk noticed her slight limp and offered her a room on the bottom floor.
 

She didn’t care where her room was; her only objective was to pick up mental signals from Fred and Maureen. She had no idea how her brain was able to do that, she only knew that she had to be relatively close to her targets, otherwise the signals would be either too diluted or so weak as to be non–existent.
 

Donna had watched the movie
Ghost
a few years earlier, where Whoopi Goldberg was portrayed as a legitimate psychic. In the movie, Goldberg had attempted to explain how the process worked, but in actuality she had no clue. She had the capability without the knowledge of how or why it worked as it did. Donna didn’t know how hers worked, either; she just knew it did.
 

When she first had the device installed over four years ago, she had trained herself to be more and more effective in its application. At first she could mentally insert herself into others as a vaporous fog would invade an area without leaving any tangible trace of its physical existence. But after awhile, she had advanced to the point where she could literally take over a victim’s higher mental processes, creating false memories and altered values. She knew that not everyone was a good subject and it took her time to find those that were. Some could protect themselves with mental blocks just as a well ordered military could protect its flanks with a refined defense.
 

She had found Maureen to be an easy subject to manipulate; Fred, a difficult one. Before she had been captured four years ago, she could enter Maureen’s mind at will. She had created false impressions and vivid memories of events for Maureen that had never even occurred.
 

Donna knew she had to re-train herself to reach the level that she had previously ascended to. It had been only a short time since she had her insertion operation, and she needed more development time. At her current level she could still enter minds, but she didn’t yet have the sophistication to deposit her special pictures. That will come soon, she thought.
 

Her trip to the D.C. area was to find out where her adversaries were and determine if there were vulnerabilities that she could exploit. She could sense their nearby presence just as a hungry lion could detect with absolute certainty the vivid scent of a nearby vulnerable prey.

* * *

Fred woke up in what was the CIA’s version of intensive care. He had an IV hooked up to his left arm; as his eyes cleared, Maureen came into his vision.

“How are you feeling, baby?” she asked with concern.

“Like I’ve been hit by a truck, but overall not so bad, I guess it must have been a small pickup—maybe a mini-Cooper.”

Maureen smiled; at least, Fred had not lost his sense of humor. “The IV contains some pain medication,” she told him. “They said you will be in some minor pain for a few days, but they can control it.”

“I thought the brain can’t feel pain.”

“That’s true, it can’t; but parts of your head can.”

Dr. Factor entered Fred’s field of vision. He’s an ugly bastard, Fred thought.

“How’s my patient?”

Fred hated it when he was spoken to in the third person.
 

“Your patient feels like he is hurting a bit; was the operation on the patient successful?”

“It went swimmingly; we’ll keep a close eye on you for the next three days. After that you’ll go to a regular room. Late tomorrow we’ll test you to see how the device is working.”

A distant disembodied voice registered in Fred’s mind as a nail would be drawn to a magnet. “
I’m going to be late for lunch with Sally; she’s going to be mad as hell again.”

“Then you should go,” Fred said.

“What?” the doctor asked, “Go where?”

“Go to meet your wife for lunch.”

The doctor might have known how to insert a paranormal device into a patient and fuse all of its critical connections; but he obviously wasn’t prepared to witness the dramatic effect of its operation.

“I didn’t say that out loud!” he said in a shocked tone.

Fred was too tired and too medicated to understand the magic of the moment. He could only mumble, “Well, it sure sounded like you said it out loud.”

And with that, Fred immediately fell asleep.
 

Chapter 52

Fred stirred from a narcotic-induced sleep. Most of the pain he had experienced the previous night was gone. He looked at his arm; the intravenous hookup had been removed.
 

“How are you feeling?” It was a soft male voice from above his bed.

Fred looked up expecting to see the unpleasant face of Dr. Factor. Instead it was Dr. Cunningham, the person who had administered the marathon of psychological tests the previous week.
 

“I guess I’m okay.”

“Good, then we’ll begin the operational testing.”

“Isn’t it too soon?”

“Not at all, Dr. Factor told me that you’re progressing ahead of schedule. He also told me you had picked up some of his thoughts. Congratulations.”
 

“Oh, yeah, something about his being late for a meeting with his wife. I thought he had mentioned it out loud.”

“Not at all; you really surprised the good doctor.”

“Wouldn’t he have expected it? I mean that is what the operation was supposed to be about.”

“The doctor was given a road map of where to implant the device and how to make the necessary connections. He worked on your hardware; he had only a general idea of the details of the software contained within.”

“I see. Now what kind of tests are you going to give me?”

“Not the written type, I assure you. We’re all over that. I’m just going to determine how well the device works. I don’t expect too much from you early on. It’s just like when a patient starts to walk after an artificial knee replacement; your mental processes will have to slowly start making the adaptation to the new piece of hardware and be conditioned to deal with the unique capability you have been provided with.”

“Okay,” Fred said testily. “Get on with it.”

“Fred, I’m thinking of something; I just want you to describe what you see. Give me your best articulated picture of what’s in my mind.”

The stunning image came to Fred immediately. It was a purple eagle with its razor sharp talons extended; it was viciously devouring a small yellow rabbit with forest green eyes. The eagle’s eyes looked like a raging fire escaping from the gates of hell.

“Good Lord!” Fred exclaimed.

“What did you see?”

Fred told him what he was viewing, including the bizarre colors of the animals.
 

“Why did you have to make the scene so damn graphic? I could feel the appalling viciousness of the eagle and the absolute fear from the rabbit as well.”
 

“The test actually had degrees associated with it. You might have not obtained an image at all, or you might have obtained the image of an eagle and a rabbit without the colors. However, you picked up the distinctive colors on each of the animals. So you did quite well. In fact you did as well as possible. To a degree, what you were experiencing was clairempathy.”
 

“What the hell is that?”

“Fred, that’s a type of telepathy to sense or feel within one’s self, the attitude, emotion or ailment of another person or entity. I’m sure that Maureen knows all about that.”
 

“I don’t recall having that capability in the past at all.”

“Well, you had better get prepared, Fred. You will start to experience a rush of new abilities created by that marvelous chip we inserted in you.
 

“However, the test I just gave you was in one sense relatively easy. I provided you with a mental picture that was saturated with emotion; and that should be the easiest type for you to decode. In the future we’ll be asking you to pick up on signals with a more placid, subtle subject area that will be exponentially more difficult for you. I want to warn you. Even though your ESP improvement is positive news, as is your healing progress, we still have to worry about you with respect to your emotions.”

“I don’t get you.”

“Remember we operated on your cerebrum; unfortunately some nerves had to be cut in the process. We don’t believe this will happen, in fact the possibility is—”

“Get on with it. What could happen?”

“We’re not entirely sure. You could become somewhat more—more emotional.”

Fred watched Dr. Cunningham closely. His eyes were directed downward, avoiding Fred’s face. Fred sensed something was not right.

“You’re covering up something—tell me straight.”

“The area of the brain we’re most concerned about is the seat of your emotions. To put it bluntly, you could display uncontrolled hatred, even toward your loved ones. That could happen, if for some reason the control segment of your brain was impacted. You might be comparable to a severe stroke victim where the control of your emotions is, for all practical purposes, gone. In the case of a stroke victim, that might mean he will swear a lot and it could occur during inappropriate times. But in your case, you also have unparalleled mental powers which could be unknowingly unleashed with disastrous results.
 

“I’m sure that won’t happen; but remember, there has been a major disruption of the circuits of your brain. Part of that disruption is caused by cutting parts of your brain; but generally the normal healing process will take care of that. The brain is highly adaptive, and we know that other parts of the brain can take over if one segment is damaged. If the damage is not major, the time frame will be short; if major, it can take considerably more time. Frankly, I’m not worried very much about that issue. Our neurosurgeons have had decades to map the brain and a lot of experience with brain operations. I don’t see that as much of a potential problem.”

Fred said, “But I understand the brain operations they normally conduct is nothing similar to the one I had. What other problems could occur?”
 

“Please realize that the implanted unit does not function independently from the rest of your brain. It’s integrated and, most importantly, it’s adaptive. It interacts and responds. There is a constant encoding and decoding process going on. There is a part of the unit that goes through a learning process, and by doing so there is a physiological alteration of the software component.”
 

Fred was getting nervous from all the medical terminology that was being thrown around. He just wanted the discussion to end.
 

“Fred, we will just have to wait and see. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Fred was no longer feeling optimistic about the operation. What the hell have I gotten myself into, he thought?

Chapter 53

Fred’s physical healing process was moving faster than anticipated. There had been no swelling of the brain, so Dr. Factor felt it was safe to return the small piece of bone he had removed from Fred’s skull. Fred was scheduled to spend the next week in the CIA hospital, and then he could return to his apartment.

Fred was scheduled to meet with the agency’s psychologist on a frequent basis. Those meetings would accomplish two things: to evaluate Fred’s progressive growth in his ESP capability, and to ensure that there were no undesirable emotional lingering side effects from the operation.
 

Fred was not at all comfortable with how things were developing. He was becoming more and more unsettled about his new powers. The convergence of the disturbing images he was witnessing were becoming more frequent; and often he could not discern whether people were talking out loud or if he was receiving their mental communications. To him it seemed to be a confluence of strange sights and sounds. Nor could he any longer be selective in his mental control.
 

Trying to find out just what was going on in his head, Fred asked Dr. Cunningham about the episodic images and voices he was receiving. The response he received was unsatisfactory.