122 Rules

by Deek Rhew

  He had taken courses on the physiology of the body; humans were, after all, kaleidoscopes of chemical and electrical chain reactions. But the lessons on the inner workings of the mind and techniques for making human beings tick had been the most fascinating. For all people’s complexities, and activists shouting about the diverse and unique needs of the individual, humans as a species acted and reacted the same given a particular set of circumstances.

  The gray matter at The Agency had boiled it down to what they called the 122 Rules of Human Psychology. In every feasible situation, Dr. Wergent had shown Sam the proper execution of these rules. They always applied. After months of practice, Sam had become a maestro and could strum the emotional and mental chords of everyone around him.

  He’d read the police reports on Monica and perused her impressive college transcripts—straight A’s, well on her way to a law degree. No partying, few friends, no dating, no indication of any social life at all. A true nose-to-the-grindstone introvert.

  Sam had visited NYU, following her movements as he believed them to be on her final days in college. He’d struck up conversations with people that would have been in her classes, claiming he had recently divorced and wanted a second career and a second chance at life. What was campus life like? How hard was the curriculum? He had little to no money to live on thanks to the recent departure of his ex-wife—the bitch got everything except his underwear and his dignity; how would someone live on next to nothing? One thing lead to another and Sam met a man, Tom Philips, who just happened to have a spare room recently come available.

  Though Tom proved to be useful, it had been Angel—best friend since childhood and the one constant in the hell that had been Monica’s life—that proved to be the key to unlocking the missing girl’s whereabouts.

  He could never force Angel to betray her friend’s trust. But given all the raw material, a simple yet believable tale of love and hardship would make the oyster open up and hand over its pearl.

  The story.

  First, create a character. In this case, cast one Sam Bradford as love-struck Tom Phillips, the underdog, someone to root for. A good story always blends the perfect balance of emotion, truth, and “fake but believable” crap.

  Rule #1:

  Keep it simple.

  “Complex stories, ones full of intricacies, are not maintainable. It simply isn’t possible to keep a copious amount of details consistent. However, if the story is too vague, it isn’t relatable. Told with just the right blend of emotion, passion, and angst, people will write the story for themselves, filling in much of the details on their own.”

  —122 Rules of Psychology

  Second, keep it short. As a manipulative storyteller, Sam knew better than to give the receiver time to think things through and process the details. Had he lingered, had Angel talked to him longer, she very possibly would have smelled a rat. For instance, she forgot to ask him how he had come by her unlisted phone number.

  Get in, get what’s needed, and get out.

  Sam had honed and perfected his craft to hit that sweet spot between too much and not enough. He could get anyone to write then buy their own tale, paying a premium for it in the process.

  What had he told Angel, really? She painted the nooks and crannies in his rough sketch, adding splashes of color with the palette of her imagination and dreams for her friend’s happily ever after. Sam could envision her still working on the canvas, adding in nuances such as wedding rings and rug rats.

  People like Angel made his job child’s play. He had the training, but his occupation mostly required patience and the ability to get the details right.

  Most people wandered through life creating a path as wide and easy to follow as a two-lane blacktop. Those that “went underground” still left a trail, but theirs tended to be subtle—more like following a series of stepping-stones through the forest. Some stones sat right on top and were easy to spot, while others were covered with moss and lichen. Still others lied buried just beneath the surface of the Earth, requiring some digging and a bit of sweat to uncover.

  But the path always existed. Always. Sam didn’t rush the process, uncovering one stone at a time to expose his target. Every single time.

  Since Angel had been so kind as to provide an email address to “Tom,” Sam had his next stone. He turned his attention to the Agency-issued Blackberry.

  It looked like a million others of a similar model, yet every circuit and bit had been reworked, modified, or replaced, making it anything but ordinary. Unlike cell users the world over who had to worry about such trivialities as coverage, dropped calls, and the other pitfalls of being a major network customer, this one always worked. An encrypted satellite link ensured a consistent four-bar signal.

  The camera rivaled that of the best Nikon on the market, and an advanced embedded solar cell meant it never needed to be charged.

  The phone’s search capabilities, rooting out then filtering information, made the ones provided by Apple and Google look like they had been designed by ungifted school children. He could type in a name or take a picture and zip it off to the central computer. Within minutes of sending in a query, the system returned a complete dossier including DMV and phone records, credit card and banking transactions, personal history, and medical records. Anything.

  Yes, there’s an app for that.

  Walls of security protected most of these systems, but nothing prevented The Agency from gaining access to confidential information. For them, limits did not exist. No boundaries or security could keep them out. Nothing was ever unavailable. The Agency had quietly embedded resources in all corporations and branches of the government, gaining access to the most sensitive and classified areas.

  Sam opened a hidden menu and entered the email address Angel had given him. A minute later, the little device beeped. He studied the screen and frowned. The road to becoming the third-ranking officer in a drug cartel would be fraught with scrapes with the law. He’d expected a major blemish—drug dealing, sex trafficking, stealing. But other than the incident as a kid and a single, small-quantity drug possession charge, she appeared—at least on paper—to be on the straight and narrow. Something didn’t add up.

  He entered a number he knew by heart. It rang once, then a terse but familiar voice said, “Josha.”

  Sam gave a 30-second update on his progress.

  After he finished, the man replied, “Good. Do you need anything?”

  Standard operating procedures prevented him from querying further. Do as you’re told, and don’t ask questions.

  In the ten-plus years he’d been working for The Agency, he’d never broken protocol. Never asked the questions that lingered and plagued him. He knew that sort of information—in this case, the missing link to becoming a major player in a crime organization—sometimes stopped well above his pay grade for reasons he couldn’t be privy to. The system had been built by those who had more insight, more knowledge, and served a higher purpose than he did. He understood and accepted his position within the hierarchy. The best he could do was check in for updates. “I want to verify.”

  Josha sighed, a hint of exasperation in his voice. “Hold on.” Sam waited while his handler did whatever he did. “There’ve been no updates, retractions, or holds. We are still green. Find and eliminate. Now, I’m going to ask you again: do you need anything?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” The phone went dead.

  14

  The morning after his call to Angel, Sam received the text he’d been waiting for. He put on his black leather jacket, collected his few things from the dingy hotel room where he’d been staying, checked out, and mounted his bike.

  As a professional vagabond, he only travelled with the bare minimum. He fit his clothes, netbook, toiletries, and essentials in the Triumph’s black travel bags. The Agency offered to fly him, but he preferred to take the bike. He relished the monotonous vibration of the motorcycle’s deep-throated e
ngine and the feel of rubber on blacktop. Riding kept the central cortex occupied while giving the rest of his mind the freedom to wander and ponder.

  He had a small apartment back in California but hadn’t seen it in months. The 1200-square-foot flat had become another vacant address for the likes of Comcast and J.C. Penney to pander to. Had the time arrived for him to give it up? A P.O. Box would be a lot cheaper. Not that he needed the money. He almost never spent any of the generous wages provided by The Agency, and the job kept him traveling and busy—exactly the way he preferred it.

  Sam had set up a tracer on the email address. As soon as someone, presumably Monica, had logged onto the account, the little app set up shop on her computer. It sent him her usernames, passwords, and physical location plus allowed him full control of her system.

  He entered the address into Pocahontas, the GPS on his bike, whose female voice did not in the slightest resemble that of the Native American she had been named for. She told him to head north on I-84 for 15 miles, then east on I-405 for 885 miles. If he bent a few speed laws, he could make it by nightfall.

  His destination, the little city of Walberg, sat near the edge of Arizona’s southern border. Why hide out in a tiny town where Monica would stick out like a man with gigantism at a midget festival? She should have faded into the anonymity of a large city.

  Perhaps he worked for the wrong team. He could do a hell-good job hiding people who, for the most part, made the same mistakes over and over. People were so predictable.

  As he guided the bike onto the highway and got up to speed, the unease he’d felt earlier returned.

  Something isn’t right here, Chet said in a quiet, ominous voice.

  More than mere instinct, Sam’s inner voice played the role of devil’s advocate and conscience. Chet represented the raw processing of thoughts and feelings, unfiltered by what interacted with the rest of the world.

  Sam didn’t have schizophrenia; he knew this voice and personality to be his own. His primal instinct, most referred to it as their gut, had simply evolved. Whatever the label, Sam had developed an unwavering faith in his alter ego. Chet’s personification interfaced directly from a crude but cunning nub of the brain that hadn’t changed since the days when sloped-headed Neanderthals drew elk and buffalo on cave walls.

  During the war, Chet had warned him of danger long before his physical senses had detected anything. Listening to his gut had saved Sam’s life, as well as the lives of the men he commanded.

  At some point—he didn’t remember when or why—he’d nicknamed his inner voice Chet. By allowing it to evolve, he could volley with it—tussling over the most difficult decisions, morally controversial situations, and complex but subtle tasks.

  Yes, but what isn’t right about it? Sam asked.

  I don’t know exactly. It just feels, wrong. Different than the other jobs… Chet’s voice hesitated, very unlike his usual self.

  The Agency isn’t exactly forthcoming with information. We probably just don’t have all the facts.

  Of course. The explanation didn’t satisfy either of them.

  My job isn’t to wonder the whys, Sam informed him. Those decisions are above my pay grade.

  Right. Yes, sir! How high, sir? Jesus, this isn’t actually the military, and you aren’t a soldier anymore. They don’t want you, remember?

  Sam ground his teeth. The people we find are enemies of the state. We don’t know what they’ve done, only that we need to find them. That’s all I care about.

  Well, then, G.I. Joe, you’d better stop thinking so much and do your job. Moron. Just remember, I warned you. Sam could almost see his inner voice, huffing and folding his arms, pissed off.

  Sometimes he wondered if Chet could actually be his dead twin brother, Jake, a charming, confrontational, and charismatic pain in the ass.

  Unlike Chet though, Jake had developed an affinity for mind-altering substances. The recreational hobby had grown teeth and wicked-sharp claws, becoming a demon that took control of and eventually claimed the man’s life. The spiral had seemed long and arduous at the time, but it had only taken the monster a couple of years to eat Jake’s essence, rotting him from the inside out until nothing existed but the chaff of the former all-star athlete.

  In spite of Sam’s conviction that he hadn’t gone crazy, conversations like the one he’d just had with Chet made him wonder if his brother had decided to haunt him, continuing his mockery from within Sam’s own mind. Whoever or whatever Chet turned out to be, Sam had never breathed a word of it to anyone. Not his handler, Josha; not the military; not his ex-wife when they were together. No one.

  As he flew down the macadam, the feeling of wrongness didn’t go away. But he trusted Josha, who had never given him a reason not to, so he would, as always, do the job.

  15

  Sam had planned to spend his life serving his country. But during his second tour in Afghanistan, a single bullet changed everything. Several surgeries and months of rehabilitation hadn’t been enough. Of the dozen men that had gone out on the routine patrol that afternoon, two of them had returned on gurneys, and only one of the injured had returned to service. The Marines no longer wanted Sam. The truth of his insignificance had hit him like a hammer, and he’d fallen into a routine of disheartened listlessness.

  Forced retirement left Sam with nowhere to go and nothing to do, so he spent hours a day in the gym, working the injured muscles of his leg. During one of these marathon sessions, a tall, reed-thin man in a dark suit approached.

  “Hello, Sam.”

  Regarding the intruder, Sam continued working the leg extension machine without reply.

  The suit-wearing man appeared nonplussed by Sam’s indifference. “I am aware of your circumstances and have been authorized to offer you a position in my agency.”

  He loathed being treated like an invalid. He didn’t want their handouts. He didn’t want anything except to be left alone. “I don’t need your pity position. I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure you can, but this is not some half-rate middle management job in the bowels of a government agency. We are looking for men and women with your background who are still interested in serving their country.”

  Sam finished his set then sat up. He studied the man’s face as he wiped his neck with a grimy towel. The man looked to be in his fifties. His face, long and drawn out, was weathered and hard. Slicked-back, almost shiny silver hair—like the follicles hadn’t lost their color due to age but instead retained their natural hue. His midnight-black suit appeared to be custom tailored, wrapping his gaunt frame like a second skin. Sam met the arctic, steel-colored eyes boring into him from a wan complexion. A miniature, malignant serpent slithered and coiled between the vertebrae of Sam’s neck. The apparition before him looked like Death without the flowing robes and razor-sharp scythe.

  A low lump of fear, as cold and merciless as cancer, formed in his gut. His nerves unraveled, and he had an almost overwhelming urge to flee.

  “By my ‘background,’ you mean someone who’s been damaged and deemed unworthy to hold a weapon?” Sam put as much sarcasm into the words as possible.

  Sam waited for this doppelgänger of the Grim Reaper to back down, like everyone else who had approached him with similar offers. Instead, the piercing steel eyes flared with anger. “Are you through with your little pity party?”

  “Look, I don’t know what your angle is, but my plan is to be back on the front lines in a few months. I should have recovered enough—”

  “We both know that isn’t going to happen.” The rail-thin man leaned in, his eyes blazing. “You are getting stronger, but you’ll never be the man you once were. And once you’re cut, that’s it. So knock off the bullshit, and give me your attention.”

  Sam glared at him but refrained from further comment.

  “We need good men like you to do jobs no one else is qualified to do. You will be back out in the field, working for your country, s
till fighting the enemy, just from a different perspective.” The man didn’t wait for a reply but instead reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a business card. “Give me a call.”

  Only an embossed phone number blemished the card’s pristine, white surface. Sam looked up to ask the stranger’s name, but he had vanished. Impossible given the open floor plan of the gym, but as Sam looked around, perplexed, he could find no trace of the odd, steel-eyed man.

  The heavy ball of dread deep inside him shifted. After a few troubling minutes, he tucked the card in his pocket and continued working out.

  * * *

  A month later, Sam emptied the storage unit his ex-wife had rented in his name. She had not included any furniture in the little ten-by-ten space with the large roll-up door, having kept all of it along with the house. He went shopping to fill the emptiness of his new apartment. Using the stipend from his injury, he bought a bed, couch, dresser, TV, a simple dining set, essentials such as dishes, and general whatnot from the local big box store. He hadn’t realized how much time and energy it took to set up a new place from scratch.

  For the next two weeks, he unpacked and washed dishes, wiped down cupboards, ran loads of towels and sheets at the local Laundromat in between workout sessions. By the end of each evening, he collapsed into bed, exhausted, his leg throbbing as if medieval blacksmiths had used it to quench their glowing irons.

  His physical therapist pronounced him as “healed as he ever would get.” In spite of the grim diagnosis, Sam could run five miles and had regained some of the speed of his former athletic years. He went to see his former commanding officer about reenlisting. But the man Sam respected gave him a pitying look he detested, confirming the truth: Sam would never again follow this, or any other soldier, into combat.