“We can move on the kid,” Trace told them, “but without Desmond. Despite what the spooks may think of his sanity, he put himself in another league when he got drunk and babbled to that foreign agent. From now on, whenever there’s a security breach at the base, his name will come up on the usual suspect list. Besides, sharing info with foreigners is not what we’re about.”
“I don’t think I should work the kid alone,” Jimmy said.
“We’ll develop a plan later,” Trace told them. “Right now we’ve got more immediate items to discuss.”
“What’s the latest word on Skyles?” Rebecca asked.
“Leave of absence,” Trace answered. “But he’s not at home.”
“You sure those spooks can’t get to us through Skyles?” Jimmy asked Rebecca.
“There’s always the chance. But I used my own hypnotic suggestions. If asked, he shouldn’t call us anything other than poker buddies.”
Once Trace and Rebecca felt they had an understanding of the psychological technology being used on certain base workers, they tested it. Their first attempt on Ben Skyles ended in failure. Rebecca had hypnotized Skyles using procedures she learned in the Stargate program. She knew something was hidden in Skyles’ mind, but couldn’t get to it. The experiments backfired, forcing Skyles into a psychotic state, disorienting his contact with reality. The condition was minor at first, but deteriorated, propelling Skyles into a state similar to multiple personality disorder: he bantered about objects in space, became assertive and authoritative, then jovial and at times catatonic.
To better understand the procedure, Rebecca had to see it in action. Jimmy and Teneil bugged Skyles’ home in the hopes of learning something that might help them. They never dreamed the spooks would remotely carry out the procedure, but it was all on tape. That alone was enough to start congressional meetings on the subject, but Trace wanted more. He wanted to know what the technology was hiding — the secret behind the secret.
“I hope the hypnotic codename is the only missing piece,” Jimmy said. “I don’t want to mess up another man’s life.”
“Man, forget Skyles and think about us,” Teneil said. “We scramble another guy’s brain and those spooks are going to definitely know something’s going down, and come a-looking.”
“I’ve listened to the tapes from Skyles’ house a hundred times,” Rebecca said. “The password was the key. I put Skyles under hypnosis, but only made it halfway, and somehow left him walking around in a trance, stuck between reality and his subconscious. They also used drugs, which I suspected, but couldn’t verify until after the session when I analyzed the blood we drew. I used a mild sedative on Skyles, which in hindsight wasn’t a good idea. His blood showed traces of lithium, which increases deep sleep associated symptoms. Lithium can also cause severe side effects — like sleeplessness and sleepwalking — if not administered properly. I now realize the sedative I put in his drink to help hypnotize him had an adverse reaction with the lithium.”
“So, if I understand you,” Jimmy said, “these people at the top-secret levels are working in some sort of induced sleep state?”
“Something like that. There’s a condition called a parasomnia-disorder of arousal from deep sleep, which results in confused arousals. I think we’ve caused something like this to happen in Skyles’ mind. I’m not surprised by any of this though. One of our objectives in Stargate was telepathic hypnosis, planting agents with no conscious knowledge of programming so they could be controlled remotely. I think static interference on the Skyles tapes had something to do with ELFs, low frequency signals used to instruct the brain. We called it a biological transfer system.”
“Trace saw this mind-control technology in use before your Stargate team made its discoveries,” Jimmy pointed out.
“Remote viewing was our primary field of research, but as we progressed so did our discoveries and understanding of the mind. Apparently we were on track to discover what other top secret government projects already knew, and had gone to great lengths to keep secret. So they fired me for being successful.”
“So how do the ELFs work? How do they program them?” Trace asked.
“The ELFs mimic brain waves. It’s called bioelectric entrainment. I don’t know the specifics — I never got that far.”
“So are you going to try and program Liebowitz?”
“No. We’re just going to prep him for that stage. Hopefully he’ll tell us what’s already been programmed. What’s hidden in his head.”
“Watch your step,” Trace bellowed from atop the staircase.
The bashful Aaron Liebowitz barely made eye contact during the introductions. He gave everyone a limp-fish handshake and retreated to his predetermined seat next to Rebecca. He associated with few women — not by choice — and had trouble listening to Trace explain the game of five-card-draw poker once he caught a glimpse of Rebecca’s skin, just above her knees, before it disappeared under her skirt.
Liebowitz’s instant obsession with Rebecca was obvious to the table, especially when he cranked his eyeballs to the far right, trying to get a look at something else; Rebecca’s breasts weren’t enormous, but they were there, peaking out above her slim waistline, and Liebowitz could see the round curves they created in her blouse. He hadn’t been that close to a woman’s breasts since last month when a lady bumped into him exiting a convenience store.
Despite not paying much attention to Trace’s explanation, Liebowitz caught on quickly to poker and was enjoying himself. While Trace dealt a new hand, Rebecca asked, “So, where’d you go to school, Aaron?” She knew the answer, and a great deal more, but wanted to make it appear otherwise.
“School was never my thing. My thoughts always drifted elsewhere while I waited for the other kids to catch on. I was the smartest kid in high school, but had a terrible GPA. My only collegiate option was community college, with some of the same souls who made high school intolerable. So I enrolled at a trade school.”
Liebowitz quit talking and picked up his cards, leaving his educational background at that, not telling them how he had mastered computer classes. Upon graduating, the career center arranged an interview for him with the Navy. Nothing exciting: a low-level civilian job programming and managing databases. He got the job, placing his talents in Big Brother’s realm where his existence, performance and talents were more readily visible to supercomputer tracking than had he stayed in the private sector.
Jimmy, Rebecca and Trace folded out of the next hand, leaving Liebowitz and Teneil to battle for the pot.
“Looks like Aaron might win his first hand,” Rebecca said jeeringly.
“Tshhh!” Teneil said in disgust before adding more chips to the pot. “This is my hand to take.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Liebowitz argued in disbelief. “Aren’t you paying any attention? You can’t win this hand.”
“What?” Teneil asserted, taken aback by his candor.
“Unless you’re cheating, you can’t win this hand.”
“He’s bluffing,” Rebecca explained. “It’s part of the game.”
Frustrated, Teneil insisted, “I’m not cheating or bluffing. I’ve got me a damn good hand, and I’m bout ready to throw it down and clean your trade-school ass out.”
“What’s the point of bluffing when I know what he has?” Liebowitz asked Rebecca.
“How do you know what I have?”
“I saw the cards.”
“You didn’t see my cards. I’m holding these mothers in tight.” Teneil flapped the cards against his chest.
“I didn’t see them in your hand,” Liebowitz explained. “I saw them after the last round. We all did. I guess you guys weren’t paying attention to their order, or that Trace didn’t shuffle the cards. He just picked them up and cut the deck. All I have to do is look at my hand and I know how they were dealt. The best you could have is three jacks.”