Chapter 30: Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sunday, August 15, 2010

“We’re going to be here for a long time tonight,” Jake said. “We’ll be planning and training. I’ve removed Carol and Julie’s rings for tonight. We may very well need help from both of you before this is done.”

Julie looked pleased. Carol looked ... She looked happy and unusually calm. There was a story there, Jake thought, but he had a meeting to lead.

“I plan to overthrow the Council this week. I’ve been sketching out an operation with two phases. In the second phase, we take control of the Council’s members. The first phase is an information-gathering mission. We will break down into five teams, each of which goes to one of the Council cities and digs up the information we need to ambush them.

“What time frame are you talking about?” Boris asked.

“We leave on the recon mission in the morning. Boris, you will arrange for a charter to drop us off in our assigned cities.”

“Work?” Alice asked.

“This mission takes precedence. You and Ellen are on vacation until we are done. You won’t have any problems with Diana, Alice. Ellen, well, you have your orders. Do what is necessary to make it happen.”

“Yes, master.”

“Anyone else have an obligation that will get in the way of the mission?” Jake asked.

“My doctors haven’t cleared me to go back to work yet, but my editor will expect me to check in occasionally. I can do that over the phone,” Donna said.

“I’ll make sure Diana knows I can’t come in this week,” Shannon said.

“Boris?” Jake asked.

“My first priority is here, Jake. Everybody at my office knows that.”

“Let me give you the team assignments,” Jake said. “This is not cast in stone. If there’s a good reason to make changes then we can. Ellen and Shannon will go to Philadelphia. Alice and I go to New York. Leanne and Donna to Boston. Kara and Boris to Washington. Jan and Julie to Cleveland.”

“You’re matching someone from the first wave with someone from the second or third,” Carol said.

“Right. The team member from the first wave will lead.”

“You’ve got me in charge of Boris?” Kara asked.

“You’re the better telepath. You have more experience and more range. Since you have better tools, you’re the boss.”

“Are you sure about Julie?” Leanne asked. “She’s awfully young.”

“Mom!” Julie whined.

“It’s either her or Carol or Nina. Nina’s not physically ready and I need Carol here. Try not to worry. Jan will take good care of her.”

Leanne nodded, but Jake felt her reluctance.

“I’d be glad to go,” Carol said.

“I have a different role for you,” Jake said. “Do you remember how you coordinated the search for Ellen when she was kidnapped?”

Carol nodded.

“You will run our headquarters. You’ll be the person we report to. You’ll disseminate intelligence, support the teams in the field, and handle emergencies. You’re turning into a fine mind reader, but I need you to use that marvelous brain of yours to keep us organized.”

“I’m always going to miss out on the excitement, aren’t I?”

“I apologize, Carol, but you are too well suited for this job, and it’s critical for the mission.”

“Weapons?” Boris said.

“I don’t know. We’ll make that decision later. I expect this to be a battle fought entirely with telepathy, but it may be smart to be prepared for other possibilities. Let’s hold our questions for a minute while I explain how the ambushes are going to work.

“Leanne and I ambushed two telepaths in the last few days, my father and my grandmother. That’s given me some confidence that this plan will work. It’s also given me a chance to work on technique. In both cases, I installed loyalty controls at the neurological level. I did it that way because I didn’t want to worry about the controls fading out. Tonight I’ll teach you what Leanne and I learned. We’ll practice with intuitive controls, too. That technique is easier and faster and we can replace it with a neurological control at our leisure.”

“We’re going to practice on each other?” Nina asked.

“No, I plan to use the practice dummy in the basement.”

“You mean Wise?” Boris asked.

“Yes. He’s going to get quite a workout tonight. The plan requires each team to find a place where the target is within our range, but we are outside of his. Your job tomorrow will be to find that place. Ideally, each team will ambush its target at the same time. It will probably be okay if we launch our attacks at different times. But I hope we don’t have to resort to different days.”

“Why not, Jake?” Boris asked.

“If something goes bad with the early attempt, the alarm will go out and the rest of us will be facing an enemy who is on the alert. If we attack as one, all of the members will be equally in the dark.”

“On what day do you want to conduct your coup?” Jan asked.

“The first day we can have everybody in place. That’s one of Carol’s jobs. She will collect the intelligence and let us know when we are all ready. If everything were to come together, we could go as early as tomorrow night, not that I really expect that.”

Jake looked around the table. “Let’s talk about range. Mine was about 180 feet the last time I checked. The first wave are all probably within 20 feet of me. The rest of you will be about the same after four supercharging sessions. We might be able to improve on that, but nothing we can count on for this mission. Has everybody been supercharged?”

“I’ve had one session,” Boris said, blushing. “It was a double.”

“Me, too,” Donna said.

“Anyone else besides these two need more supercharging?” Jake asked.

No one spoke up.

“Boris and Donna, you both need a session tonight. And another one tomorrow before we leave, or maybe while we’re on the airplane. I know this could be embarrassing, but get another one on the road on Tuesday. That will give you a range approaching the maximum by Wednesday. Anyone have a problem with that?”

Jake expected to hear squawking, but no one said anything. Donna wouldn’t be comfortable getting supercharged by Leanne. Things might also be a little strained between Boris and Kara. Well, they didn’t have to actually have sex so long as the one receiving the treatment was sexually stimulated. That could be done with telepathy as well as the old fashioned way.

They were all adults. They would do what was required, although he was curious about how Kara and Boris were going to work it out. He had to admit that he was feeling a touch of jealousy about that.

“We’re starting out with very little information about our targets,” he said. “We know the names of the Council members and we have their business addresses. That’s all. That means that our reconnaissance missions will have to start at their offices. It’s my hope that we can get close enough to each office to read the minds of the staff members or even the target directly. Any more questions before we get started on training?”

When there were none, Jake took them down to the basement. They clustered around Oliver Wise who was paralyzed and insensate.

“Now that you know the bare bones of the mission, let’s do some training. Once we are in the field, the highest priority for each team is to look at their target’s neurology and estimate his range. Alice, we worked on this before you got here. Let me show you what we found.”

Jake ran through the range-estimating technique with her. She practiced by comparing Wise, Boris and Jake.

Then they discussed taking control of people, giving special attention to the dangers when the target was a telepath. They practiced on Wise, each mind reader doing it both intuitively and neurologically. After some discussion, they decided to install the control with the same strength that Jake had used on his grandmother. Along with some verbal instruction, that would make their targets tractable but not so sycophantic to alert other mind readers.

“Either intuitive or neurological controls are acceptable,” Jake said. “You can make the argument that neurological is better because it is permanent, but you have to be able to find an object for their loyalty. There was no problem finding one just now with Wise because he knows us already. I think that the members of the Council will all have a concept of me in their minds. At least they will if they’ve discussed me among themselves.

“But we don’t know that for sure. If you can’t find that in your target, you’ll have to go intuitively. In that case, make them loyal to a person named Jake Fielding and his family, and then inject the knowledge that you are members of my family. Whichever way you go, we can fine-tune the control when we have time.”

They spent another half an hour talking about mind-reading techniques that might help during either the recon mission or the ambush.

“I know this meeting is running long,” Jake said. “I’m sorry about that. Now that we’ve finished training, we can nail down the plan. Does anyone have a problem with it so far?”

“I do,” Carol said. “The Council is not the only danger. There are 85 other mind readers out there to worry about. Jake, you’ve got several secrets that would turn the other mind readers against you if they got out.”

“Such as the fact that I’ve got an army of mind readers working in concert,” Jake said.

“And that you can turn normal people into mind readers at will,” Carol said. “And that you can extend their range to many times that of the others. If knowledge of any of those things got out, it would probably mean open war against the entire mind-reading community. They would rightly see themselves as defenseless against us unless they band together and attack us before we can get them.

“You are sending people who have that knowledge into contact with telepaths. Not much would have to go wrong before one of those telepaths gets a chance to read one of us. If that happens, they will start spreading the word with that communications software they have.”

“She has a point,” Boris said. “If all goes well, we win the war with a single successful operation. But what if there’s a problem? You don’t want to risk a strategic disaster.”

Frustration rose up in Jake. He had a lot of effort invested in the plan.

“But the people with the knowledge we need to protect are the same people with the skills we need to carry out the mission. If we can’t go on the offensive, we end up just sitting around until one of their assassination attempts is successful. Does anybody else have an alternative plan?”

“What if, instead of going after the most powerful five, we took control of the rest of the mind readers?” Leanne said. “It’s more work but each ambush would be safer.”

“The sheer number of other mind readers carries its own risks,” Boris said. “If just one those ambushes goes bad we end up with the same problem. I don’t see that that plan is less dangerous than Jake’s.”

“There may be a way we can hide that information if a raid goes bad,” Jan said. “We could program ourselves to forget certain facts if we come within range of one of the bad guys?”

“Let me think,” Jake said. “That might work.” He closed his eyes for about 30 seconds, thinking furiously about mechanisms that might do that. “It could be done intuitively, of course,” he said. “But anything done that way can be detected and undone by the other side.”

“We don’t need to hide things forever,” Jan said, “just long enough to get ourselves out of their range.”

“No, that’s not the only bad scenario,” Boris said. “We can’t ignore the possibility that one of us might be captured.”

“In that case, it would only have to hold long enough for the rest of us to come to the rescue,” Jan said.

“That’s right,” Jake said. “And I’m telling you right now that if any of us are captured we will spare no effort to free him. I won’t have any of you at the mercy of those people.”

“We can add a second layer of protection,” Jan said. “In the event of capture, we automatically shut down our higher brain functions. If we do it neurologically, it would probably hold up for a while even in the face of a talented mind reader.”

“Capture is not enough,” Leanne said. “It would also have to kick in if any attempt were made to install a control.”

“You are talking about a control that doesn’t kick in until a given condition is met,” Jake said. “My father did that once to Jan. He linked it to an unconscious thought. It would only kick in when the thought became conscious. That’s my only experience with doing something like that.”

“But he only did it that way to hide it from you,” Jan said. “I bet it’s possible to modify his approach to fit our needs better. It doesn’t matter if the trigger is installed intuitively. Hold on a second.” Jan’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Now, Kara, push an emotion into Jake.”

Jake felt affection from Kara and then he heard someone bark like a dog. It took him a moment to realize that it was he. Jan started to laugh, followed by everyone else at the table.

“See?” Jan said. “Piece of cake.”

“Very funny,” Jake said. “But very impressive, too.”

“Let’s try it again,” Jan said. “Now the trigger is keyed to only one person. In this case, it will be Leanne.” She paused briefly. “Okay, I’ve set the trigger again. Let’s verify that the trigger is selective. Ellen, send an emotion to Jake.”

Jake felt devotion from Ellen. He flashed her a smile.

“Ellen didn’t trigger it,” Jan said after a few seconds.

“Wait,” Carol said. “An intuitive control works with things in consciousness. Since Kara pushed an emotion into Jake, it makes sense that it was triggered. What if someone attempts to do something to Jake’s unconscious, like installing a loyalty control or changing an attitude that’s not currently conscious?”

“Let’s try and see,” Jan said. She thought for a moment. “Okay. Let’s try this.” After a moment she looked at Jake expectantly.

Jake inhaled sharply. “That’s amazing.”

“Okay, now I’m going to remove it,” Jan said.

After a moment, Jake sighed.

“What did you do?” Julie asked?

“She installed a loyalty control in me. For a moment, it was only right that I do everything I could for Jan.”

“The important point,” Jan said, “is that I installed a neurological control, and it didn’t set off the intuitive trigger.”

“So,” Boris said, “we can trigger this protection if someone attempts an intuitive control but not a neurological one.”

“That’s probably good enough,” Jan said.

“I agree,” Jake said. “My father has always favored controls in consciousness, and ridiculed me for doing so much neurologically. I would expect the members of the Council to have the same attitude.”

“So we can reduce the risk of giving out information by using intuitive triggers,” Boris said, “but there is still a vulnerability. Is there any way to eliminate it?”

“Maybe it’s possible to invent neurological triggers, but that might take a long time. For now, let’s move on. it’s getting late.”

“I have an idea,” Carol said. “What about a hybrid approach. We can’t trigger on a change made neurologically, but what if we trigger on the manifestation of the neurological change in consciousness.”

“What does that mean?” Nina asked.

“I see where you’re going, Carol,” Jake said. He turned to Nina. “It would be like this. Let’s say that a member of the Council installs a neurological loyalty control like Jan just did to me. The intuitive trigger doesn’t catch it, so the loyalty control takes effect. But what if she had also installed an intuitive trigger on my change of loyalty. A change in loyalty happens in consciousness.”

“I see what you’re saying,” Jan said. “Hold on.” She touched Jake’s arm. “Okay, I’ve installed a control. It’s set to trigger if you’re loyalty changes. I’m going to reinstall the neurological loyalty control. Are you ready?”

Jake swallowed. “Yes,” he said, and then immediately began to bark.

“Oh, I’m good,” Jan said. “Let me back out the control and the trigger.”

Jake felt himself return to normal.

“It’s still not perfect,” Carol said. “The other side could read you and find the intuitive control. If he removed it first, he could then install the neurological control undetected.”

“But removing an intuitive control would be a change made at the level of conscious,” Jan said.

“Am I the only one who is getting confused?” Nina asked?

Jan continued. “I can protect the anti-loyalty trigger with an intuitive trigger against any change made in consciousness. That’s something that should be put in place as a matter of course before any of us go into action.”

Jake considered that. “The only trick would be identifying the different ways a neurological control could affect consciousness.”

Jan smiled at him. “Your father is right, Jake,” she said. “You still don’t think big enough about your capabilities when you are working at the level of consciousness. You only need to set it up to trigger on any change to your personality. You don’t have to define all the specific changes.”

Jake smiled wryly. “Et tu, Brute? But I suppose you’re right.”

“I have a question,” Boris said. “Jan’s control triggered when someone pushed a change into you. What about triggers based on someone reading you?”

“I don’t think that’s a problem,” Jake said. “When we install a control or push an emotion, we are changing something in the mind of the recipient. Reading occurs solely in the mind of the reader. Nothing happens to the recipient that could be a trigger.”

“It’s easy enough to check,” Jan said. “Give me a second.” There was a pause. “Now, Boris, what is Jake thinking?”

“He’s considering what might happen if we could be detected reading a Council member.”

“But he didn’t bark,” Jan said. “My control wasn’t triggered.”

“I think we should have another kind of trigger,” Carol said. “We should be able to trigger ourselves, and we should be able to trigger one another.”

“Why?” Alice asked.

“They would be the fallback plan. You would use them if the other side figures out a way to take control of you despite your precautions. If you notice something strange about yourself, you could self-trigger. If your team member started acting weird, we could put him to sleep.”

“Wouldn’t work for Jake’s team,” Julie said. “His partner would have to put him to sleep every time.”

“Ha, ha,” Jake said. “Seriously, is there a downside to these kinds of triggers?”

“What if the enemy reads us and sees that there is a trigger that will disable us?” Boris asked.

“We could limit the ability to invoke the trigger to the teammate,” Jan said.

“Any other thoughts about triggers?” Jake said.

No one spoke up.

“So what action does the trigger trigger?” he asked.

“It could put us to sleep,” Jan said. “They could still find our secrets if they rifle through enough memories, but that would take a long time.”

“We can’t use my trick,” Jake said. “Once energy is removed from the sleep-inducing nerves, the subject can be awakened the regular way.”

“Relying on any one technique wouldn’t be good enough anyway,” Boris said. “We should link the trigger to multiple shut down mechanisms,” Boris said.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Jan said. “There are actually a number of known causes of coma and unconsciousness. For instance, all you have to do is disrupt the signals that come out of the reticular formation. Watch, I’ll do it to Wise. See where I’m highlighting his hindbrain?”

Jan quickly had Wise unconscious. She then demonstrated four more ways to put him out.

“I’d say that five different techniques located in five different parts of the brain should be very secure,” Jake said.

“What about our people?” Carol asked.

“What do you mean?” Jake said.

“We’ve just figured out a defense that prevents their side from taking control of us. What if they’ve installed the same protection in themselves?”

Jake considered the question for a few moments.

“That’s a good question,” he said, looking around at the assembled mind readers. “What if they have?”

“It’s not a problem, boss,” Boris said. “Think about it. Our defenses don’t stop the enemy from taking control of us. They just give us a way to keep them from learning our secrets if we are captured. It buys us time while we mount a rescue attempt. Our soldier will still be under their control. They just won’t be able to exploit it.

“This technique won’t do them any good. They are alone. They don’t have comrades to stop us from taking advantage of the situation. The best they could hope for is that they have some kind of guards to protect them from us.”

“And if it’s us against the guards, we have the advantage,” Jake said. Does anyone disagree with Boris?”

No one spoke.

“Good thinking, Boris,” Jake said. “Does anyone else see any problems we have actually taking control of the bad guys?”

“Not that exactly, but I see one other problem,” Carol said. “What if the other guy reads us instead of trying to take control of us?”

“The plan is to use our superior range to stay outside their ability to read us,” Jake said.

“But things can go wrong. What if we can’t install the control? What if his range is longer than ours? If the Council member reads us first before he attempts to take control, he could learn our defenses. For that matter, he could go ahead and read all of our secrets.”

“She’s right, Jake,” Jan said. “What if it played out like this: My target has the same range that I do or maybe it’s even longer. I’m casting around trying to find him from my hiding spot, but he notices me first. He sees how long my range is. He reads that I’m part of a team and that I have only recently been made a mind reader.

“He runs to a phone at the far end of the house outside my range and calls one of the other members of the Council. Now two of them know. It doesn’t matter if I eventually track down my guy. Pretty soon, our secrets will be common knowledge.”

“Strategically, that’s pretty much the worst-case scenario,” Boris said, “and it’s not outside the realm of possibility. How could we prevent it?”

“Why don’t we just make us forget our secrets before we start the mission,” Alice said. “Didn’t you say that mind readers can’t read memories that are not in consciousness?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “Not without searching neurologically through memory indexes and associations. Alice’s idea should work. Let’s make sure. Jan, would you make me forget that we can condition our nerves to extend our range?”

“Done, Jake. Leanne and Kara, would you scan his consciousness while I ask him some questions?”

“Sure,” Kara said.

“Yes,” Leanne said.

“Jake, tell me what secrets need to keep from the other mind readers?”

“They can’t know that I deposed my father or took control of my grandmother and Oliver Wise.”

“What else?”

“That I told other people about mind reading and that we’ve made ten more mind readers who are all working together.”