Virtually His (13 page)

That was very reassuring, Helen thought. But she had to agree on one point—the brain was the power behind all mysteries. How else would one explain away a phenomena such as remote viewing? “What can I look forward to once it’s in me?”

“It increases your pain threshold by producing analgesia that blocks your pain receptors. It’s antianxiety. It acts on the limbic system, thalamus and hypothalamus of the CNS to produce hypnotic effects. It also blocks serotonin and motor neurons,” Dr. Kasparov explained.

Did they talk like that when they were in bed with their lovers? “In other words, I feel less pain, less fear, and need less sleep,” Helen stated. She checked Armando’s hands again. They were empty. She glanced up quickly. His eyes mocked her silently.

“Hypothetically, yes.”

Oh, great, it was back to theorizing again. “Do you have a success rate?” she asked. Remote viewing had success percentages depending on how advanced the viewer was.

“We have had certain success with SYMBIOS 1. I must also add that I have had the opportunity, while under two other agencies, to study their chemical work. They’re working on different recipes and producing different results with synthetic serums.”

“This is SYMBIOS 2, Helen,” T. said. “Everything depends on your chemical and biological reaction to it. Dr. Vaughn and Dr. Kasparov have double-checked your charts.”

When they were discussing whether to take on the contract, Helen had gone through all the precautionary medical tests to make sure she didn’t have any unexpected allergies. GEM had outlined all the possible scenarios that could happen to her should the drug fail.

Another intuitive flash zinged through her mind. She glanced around the table and caught many pairs of eyes covertly watching Armando Chang as Dr. Kasparov gave another dry summary of the medical dangers that could affect her mind. If he was aware of the attention, he didn’t show it. He was staring at the pad on the table for his notes. Helen looked at it and was startled to find some sort of sketch on it. How the hell—she hadn’t seen his hands on the table. Okay, time to end this.

“My question, then, is what happened when the V-Program commandos took SYMBIOS 1? And I understand Agent Chang is going to explain about SYMBIOS 2.” Helen swirled her chair to face Armando Chang. She chewed on her gum and snapped it noisily. “End of science part.”

He rubbed the stubble on his jaw as he studied her. He then nodded. “And now we talk of the magic part. What it did. Specifically, to me.”

He stood up and walked deliberately around the table to stand in front of the video screen. He turned and somehow managed to fit the profile of his face in front of a section of the brain on the screen, giving a very absurd and yet, telling, image. Helen looked at everyone carefully. They seemed to be holding their collective breath as if they were waiting for an explosion. After a moment, Armando turned and pointed to several places on the dissected image of the brain.

“Abracadabra. Just words. They tell you it’s going to affect this and that, here and there.” He tapped his forehead. “Magic. Illusion. You see and feel its effect, yet you keep telling yourself there’s a trick in the whole thing.”

Armando opened his hand and a small fiery ball appeared to glow in his palms. He blew on it and it went out immediately. He stared at his empty palm fiercely for a few seconds. Someone coughed nervously. Helen was beginning to see what T. was talking about.

“I don’t think Miss Roston wants to see any illusions right now, Armando,” Dr. Vaughn said. “We know you’ve had some trouble with SYMBIOS 1 and then we switched to SYMBIOS 2, but as long as you don’t go into Psych to deal with it, we can’t help you.”

She hadn’t imagined it, after all, Helen thought. There was some kind of tension in the room, hidden behind the relaxed discussion, and the man causing the uneasiness was Armando Chang. Even T. was watching him very carefully.

“I’ve been to Psych,” Armando said. His wry grimace was dismissive. “A waste of time. First they play with your brain, then they play with your thoughts. Besides, I passed all their tests, minus a few headaches. I apologize, I forgot to behave. Miss Roston, ask your questions. Although I’m relatively new among my peers, I assure you I know what I’m talking about, or they wouldn’t have wanted me here. The two words to fear—synthesize and assimilate. However, now that I’ve met you…I don’t think you can be frightened away that easily, can you?”

“No. Is that what they fear you would do?” Helen asked.

“They fear I would make you disappear.” His face unexpectedly broke out into a smile of pure amusement, transforming the cynical bad boy expression for one unguarded moment. It was gone before Helen could release the surprised intake of breath in her lungs. He put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Quickly, quickly, before
I
disappear.”

The man was walking a fine edge, although Helen had yet to figure out what the two points of that edge were. He was obviously ordered to show up here. His reluctance was very subtle, but she felt it. T. had a lot of explaining to do.

“What did both the serums do for you? Specifically SYMBIOS 2.” Since she would have that injected into her….

“For me?” Armando straightened up, steepling his hands under his chin. His eyes were hooded. “Well, for me, once I had the misfortune of being in the way of a bullet which left me with a severely bleeding leg. I didn’t feel the pain I should have. Instead I was able to carry on with the mission without limping, or if I did limp, I didn’t notice. I should add that the operation included a five-mile hike.

“Then there was the time when I was caught between two warring hostile parties fighting over a shipment of illegal arms. My job was to destroy the shipment, but you can imagine the fireworks flying around me while this was happening. For me, that moment to make the decision as to what my next step was…”

Armando closed his eyes. With his hands still clasped together under his chin, he looked as if he was praying. “It was perfect. Like executing a perfect three and a half somersault dive.” He opened his eyes and gazed directly at Helen. “Like making everyone believe you sawed a girl in half. Like making a perfect two-hundred-miles-per-hour pass of a rival race car for the checkered flag. It’s a high that’s quite memorable. I’m sure it will do similar things for you.”

Helen didn’t blink. Yet another racing reference for the day. She chewed her bubble gum thoughtfully, ignoring the avid attention that was on her now. “I read the possible adverse reactions—headaches, dry mouth, disorientation. Did you suffer from these side effects?”

“There are always side effects to drugs.” He lowered his hands.

“I know that. But did you have any that you would like to share with me?” She lowered her voice a notch, arching one brow mockingly, as she touched his notepad lightly, suggestively.

Standing there in his black T-shirt and jeans, thumbs through the loops of his belt, he didn’t seem so strange. It was only when he moved, or when he spoke, that somehow jarred with that bad boy image. It gave Helen the odd feeling that his mind wasn’t totally there.

Armando looked at her hand lying on his notepad. “The effects vary.
Alice in Wonderland
had Alice taking pills. The first time, she went very small. Later, the magic pill made her huge. Yet she was never fearful of her situation or was aware of how disorienting her sudden change in size was. I think she was on the SYMBIOS potion myself, but saying it was magic simplified the procedure.”

Helen relaxed in her chair. “Thank you. Your answers helped tremendously.”

“That’s all? Dismissed already by the High Priestess? The mantle has been passed on, just like that?” Armando mocked. “Don’t you want to know more? There’s always more.”

She shrugged. If she wanted direct answers, she had to find another way to get to Mr. Chang. He wasn’t going to share in front of an audience. “You’ll be around for questions later, right?”

“Affirmative. Later can be better.”

“Thank you, then.” She gave the group a smile in an attempt to break up the awkward silence. She had a feeling they were playing audience, keeping quiet as they watched the two of them. She caught T.’s eye an instant longer before moving on. “Is it my place to just get to the operation specifics themselves so we could end this meeting earlier? I need some time to myself. Can I talk to someone to move the Psych session?”

Helen had too many questions to feel like being questioned herself. Everyone seconded her motion.

“Okay, can I ask who the operations chief is for this particular mission? In fact, no one has told me who’s in charge of the future operations,” Helen said.

“I’m operations chief for the test session.” It was Drew De Clerq. A quiet man, he was in charge of assigning new operatives to their different branches within COMCEN, and as such was one of the first people with whom Helen became acquainted when she first arrived.

“We’ll wait till after this operation to decide the future OC,” T. chipped in. “Right now, we don’t even know whether there is a future one.”

“Don’t you think I can do this?” Helen asked.

T. shook her head. “I know you can, but it’s up to those department heads to sign off on the project. The contract with GEM is very specific. Training through the various departments, followed by a test session.” She paused. “You have two choices. To be successful and make them think they can duplicate the whole process with someone they want. Or, to be impressively successful and make them want to continue to use you. As you can see, some of these men’s future jobs depend on you.”

Helen grinned at them. “Be nice to me and I’ll think about it.”

They laughed at her joke. Someone mentioned that with the thousands of dollars invested in her already, the chances of them not continuing if the test session proved successful was low. Besides, they still didn’t have their new VR machine.

“Don’t be too sure,” Armando said quietly. “They’re all watching your every move. They want to duplicate the process and be in charge of their own candidate. And why not? Every department had their own covert group, so why should they depend on one outside their domain, especially one as independent as Center? We’d gone through this with the V-Program.”

“So you think they’re working on a VR portal themselves?” De Clerq asked.

“You tell me. The other labs had tested the Solarbot program using similar simulation systems. Flyboy was the model for the Sim-Flight-Control Systems in Florida a while ago,” Armando pointed out. “We watched them. Don’t you think they’re watching us?”

“Then what’s the point of using COMCEN? Especially if every agency isn’t cooperating fully,” Helen asked. The man might act eccentric but his mind was sharp as a tack. She still wasn’t sure what the whole story behind him was, but she intended to find out. Another thing on her list, she thought wryly.

Armando scratched his stubble lightly as he regarded her with those intense dark eyes. “The possibilities are endless. Why don’t you remote view and find out yourself?”

The mockery was intentional. He seemed bent on trying to set her off. Helen refused to take the bait.

“That kind of remote viewing has a price,” she said. “It’ll take more than one remote viewer to go through so many departments, anyway.”

She didn’t add that officially, she hadn’t gone past Phase Two of the CIA program. There were things that she still hadn’t learned.

“Imagine that. A coven of remote viewers,” Armando said in that low voice, “sitting around creating reality. No wonder these departments might want you to fail.”

“They already have them in the CIA,” T. pointed out.

“Of course,” Armando acknowledged, lazily clasping his fingers on the table. “Underground programs such as mind control and psychic research are held in such high regard by the brass.”

“They had wanted their own V-commandos,” De Clerq said. “It makes sense that they would want their own V2 version.”

“COMCEN has never shared their secrets with them, and I wouldn’t use the V2 term to their faces, if I were you. Might make them even more anxious,” Armando said. He turned to Helen. “Magicians never share their trade secrets, you know.”

Helen shrugged. “They all have a little piece of me. I’m sure they aren’t sharing what they taught me with everyone either.” Her lips twisted. They were talking about her as if she was some machine that could be copied. “You think they would ever duplicate another me, if they fight over one candidate so much?”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” De Clerq spoke up. “Right now, it’s you and Dr. Kirkland in the front line. I’ll coordinate the details. Our liaison will call Center as soon as they’ve set the coordinates and when the envelope is secured so no one can tamper with it. Then you and Dr. Kirkland will handle the remote viewing part of the operation.”

Helen nodded. Every contract agent understood how government departments never seemed to share relevant information, even when they were supposed to be working together. It had happened to GEM several times while they were on an operation—different government departments at odds with each other and putting lives at risks. COMCEN, with the help of an influential admiral, had set up a liaison system a few years ago to avoid any more blunders.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to take me for the remote session. Sometimes it can go for hours.”

“The med team will wait,” Dr. Kirkland said.

“Good remote viewers are usually useless after their sessions,” Dr. Kasparov said. “Are you sure you can handle the serum so soon after your session?”

Helen shrugged. “That’s the test, isn’t it? They want to see how all this comes together in one mission.” She wasn’t totally sure what would happen herself. That feeling of weakness after a tough session was a problem but her many months of training was meant to overcome this exhaustion. “The drug is supposed to make me feel less tired, right? That’s part of it.”

“Yes, but certain CIA records revealed their tests had been a bust,” De Clerq said. “What happened to the test subjects, Dr. Kirkland?”

“The CIA have their own version of the serum. What interested me most was the difference in dosage and timing they use on the subjects. They still haven’t shown all their classified records to our side. It’s highly probable that the subjects have been released from the program, but we don’t really know.”