The Persona Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  Kiddrick shot a look at Tony – whether seeking his permission to speak or warning him not to say anything, Bianca couldn’t tell – before replying. ‘There are side effects, yes, but they’re minor and easily managed. Now, watch this.’ He moved to the head of the operating table and positioned the injector against Adam’s neck. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Adam, without emotion.

  Kiddrick pulled the trigger. Adam grimaced, then relaxed. Bianca watched him closely. Though it was hard to imagine how, he seemed to become even more expressionless, as if the little personality that he had expressed was draining away.

  After half a minute, Kiddrick clicked his fingers above Adam’s face. The agent’s gaze instantly locked on to them. ‘Okay, Adam. Does everything feel normal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ He examined the PERSONA’s screen, seeing a ready message. ‘Okay. Here we go.’

  He typed in a command. New windows appeared, one displaying a simplified graphic of a brain. Coloured patterns drifted across it – then flared into brilliant, manic life.

  Adam’s whole body spasmed. Bianca jerked back in surprise, before leaning in for a closer look. His eyes were flickering rapidly from side to side. She also saw that his hands had twisted into gnarled fists. ‘Is he in pain?’ she asked, concerned.

  She expected Kiddrick to answer, but Tony spoke first. ‘No. It’s not exactly pleasant, but it doesn’t hurt.’

  ‘Okay, the transfer is in progress,’ said Kiddrick, looking up from the machine. ‘It’ll take six or seven minutes. That’s longer than a direct transfer would take, because it has to decompress the data.’

  Bianca kept watching Adam. His eye movements, she realised, mirrored the unconscious flicks of a person recalling memories – but at a far greater speed. ‘You know, I have real trouble reducing the sum total of a person’s self to just “data”.’

  ‘Would you prefer if I called it the “soul”?’ Kiddrick replied sarcastically.

  They waited for the device to do its work. The whirlwind of colours on the graphic eventually dimmed and slowed. Kiddrick peered at some numbers on the screen, then nodded. ‘Okay, it’s done. Now, Dr Childs.’ He gestured theatrically at Adam. ‘I’d like you to meet . . . Conrad Wilmar.’

  Adam sat up, blinking. His gaze hopped to each person around the table. ‘Okay, ah . . . yeah, I can do without the whole staring thing, thanks.’

  Bianca was no expert in American accents, but even from those few words she could tell that Adam’s had changed. It did sound like Wilmar’s, but she wasn’t prepared to accept that alone as proof that the PERSONA process genuinely worked.

  ‘The memory check?’ Tony prompted.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Kiddrick signalled for Adam to face him. ‘Okay. What’s your full name?’

  ‘Conrad Mathias Wilmar,’ said Adam, peering quizzically back at him.

  ‘What was your date of birth?’

  ‘June twelfth, 1959. At twelve minutes past six. So, six twelve on six twelve.’ A lopsided grin at the quirky coincidence.

  ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘Bridgeport, Connecticut.’

  ‘Your mother’s maiden name?’

  ‘Schumacher.’

  Kiddrick nodded, then an oily little smirk crept on to his face. ‘Now . . . what’s your most guilty secret? The one that you’d least want anyone else to ever know?’

  ‘I . . .’ Adam’s expression suddenly turned to one of shame, even alarm. ‘I, I mean he, he . . . I’ve been unfaithful to my wife. There’s another woman, Meg, I’ve been seeing. We work together.’

  To Bianca, it felt as though each word was being forced out of him at gunpoint, so clear was his reluctance to make the admission. She looked at the others, to find that the three men were regarding Adam with anything from mild curiosity – Tony – to Kiddrick’s outright amusement. ‘Wait a minute,’ the latter said. ‘Not Meg Garner, surely?’

  Adam nodded frantically. ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  Kiddrick chuckled. ‘Well, that should be fun next time I go down to Carnegie Mellon!’ Adam’s face expressed utter dismay.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ protested Bianca. ‘You just got Adam – Conrad – whichever, to confess his biggest secret, and you’re treating it all as a big laugh? I mean, he’s . . .’ She stopped, unsure exactly what to say. Did she mean Adam, or Conrad? Who was the man in front of her?

  ‘Everything we learn using the PERSONA process remains top secret,’ Morgan said. ‘For reasons of national security. Nothing we discover can be used in a court of law, because we don’t officially exist.’

  If he had been trying to reassure her, it had almost entirely the opposite effect. ‘That implies you’re operating outside the law.’ Morgan said nothing.

  ‘Ah, we have a bleeding heart in our midst,’ said Kiddrick. ‘I suppose you’re going to say we should reach out to terrorists,’ an airy wave of one hand, ‘and try to empathise with their issues – rather than putting Hellfire missiles through their windows.’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to say we should bomb them because “they hate us for our freedoms”, or something equally idiotic,’ she shot back. Morgan was less than impressed, but Tony seemed to have a more nuanced outlook, giving her a small smile.

  ‘We’re not here to argue about politics,’ Morgan said impatiently. ‘Dr Childs, what do you think of PERSONA? The results, I mean – not the ethics.’

  ‘Damn, and I was just about to start a ten-minute rant about that,’ she replied, before turning back to Adam. ‘It’s still hard to believe. I mean, I can’t imagine why you would, but you might just be acting.’ If he was, she had to admit, he was delivering an Oscar-worthy performance. His anguish at exposing Wilmar’s affair had appeared utterly genuine and heartfelt.

  ‘It’s not an act,’ said Kiddrick. ‘To all intents and purposes, right now Adam Gray is Conrad Wilmar. Whatever Wilmar knows, he does. That’s one reason I picked Wilmar’s persona for this test. He doesn’t work in quite the same field as you, but there’s some crossover. Agent briefings don’t go so far as to give them a doctorate in biochemistry, so test him for yourself.’

  ‘If he’s now Conrad Wilmar, then where’s Adam Gray?’

  ‘Oh, I’m still Adam,’ said Adam, swinging himself off the table and standing up. ‘It’s not as if I’ve, y’know, disappeared? Or been subsumed, anything like that. I’m still me, I’m always in control. It’s just that now there’s this whole temporary other me in here too.’ His hands flicked excitedly in time with his words, as if trying to fan them towards her more quickly. ‘So, yeah, test me. What do you want to know?’

  He certainly had Wilmar’s mannerisms and rat-a-tat speech pattern. ‘Okay,’ Bianca said hesitantly. ‘You said you were working on treatments for biological weapons?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Specifically, meningitis?’

  He nodded. ‘We’ve encountered a strain of N. meningitidis that’s a lot more virulent than normal, and resistant to the standard vaccines. Nasty little SOB! Not sure where it came from, but we’ve got our suspicions. Da, comrades!’ He tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘What’s the effect on the brain?’

  ‘What you’d expect; swelling of the meninges, particularly concentrated in the pia mater. It has a tendency to spread to the spinal pia too, but only once the initial infection is firmly established.’

  ‘What’s the treatment?’

  ‘Straight in with empirics, of course, backed up by an adjuvant course of corticosteroids. The doses need to be higher than normal, but at this stage we’re just trying to stabilise things.’ His speech quickened. ‘Then we’ve got a suite of new antibiotics that we can tailor to the exact results of the CSF test – I can’t tell you the specific compositions, though. You don’t have clearance. Sorry.’ He seemed genuinely apologetic.

  ‘That’s okay.’ What he had told her was accurate enough, rattled out without hesitation, but Kiddrick clearly wanted to test her as m
uch as she was supposed to test Adam. She drew on her own memories to devise something particularly probing. ‘There was a paper that came out about two years ago, on the effects of new-generation cephalosporins on brain chemistry, particularly enzyme—’

  ‘Oh, yeah, yeah!’ Adam interrupted, with great enthusiasm. ‘Hartmann and Yun’s paper. Yes, I read it. Helped a lot with the transpeptidation issues of our new drugs. Smart guys.’

  ‘Yeah, they are.’ Bianca was startled that not only had he heard of a decidedly esoteric scientific paper, but also that he had correctly – and instantly – identified its authors based on only a most general description. That was definitely beyond anything she could imagine his having been briefed on.

  Kiddrick regarded her smugly. ‘Convinced?’

  ‘I’d have to say . . . yes,’ she admitted.

  ‘Good. Adam, there’s nothing else we should know about Wilmar, is there? He’s not selling secrets to the Chinese or plotting to release anthrax on the New York subway?’

  Adam shook his head. ‘Nothing like that. Jeez, suspicious much?’

  ‘It’s best to be sure while we have the opportunity,’ said Morgan. ‘Okay, Dr Kiddrick, bring him back to normal.’

  Kiddrick picked up the injector again and told Adam to return to the operating table. Another hiss from the gun, and Adam closed his eyes. Bianca watched in fascination as Wilmar’s twitchiness seemed to dissolve, returning him to the same blank, unrevealing state as before.

  ‘How much will he remember?’ she asked.

  ‘From Wilmar? Only anything he specifically recalled from the implanted persona,’ Kiddrick answered. ‘Other than that, nothing.’

  ‘We’ll check, though,’ said Tony. ‘Adam – what pets did Conrad Wilmar have as a kid? What were they called?’

  Adam sat up. ‘He had . . .’ He trailed off. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The name of his high school?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But he still remembers things like the day Wilmar was born?’ said Bianca.

  ‘Six twelve, six twelve,’ Adam cut in before she could continue.

  ‘Yes, like that. How does that happen?’

  Kiddrick began to remove the skullcap. ‘The same way any memory is kept. Short-term to long-term transfer, if you go by the Atkinson–Shiffrin model.’

  ‘I’m more of a Baddeley theorist myself, but I understand what you mean. If he brings something out of the persona’s memory, it stays in his?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He tugged the cap free. ‘All right, Adam, you can get down now.’

  Adam climbed off the table. Unlike when he had hopped down as Wilmar, his movements were smooth, precise, with no wasted energy. He stood, watching the others impassively.

  Bianca had a question. ‘Adam?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You remember things from Wilmar’s memories – but do you actually remember what it was like to be him?’

  A fleeting look of incomprehension. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you remember his feelings? The enthusiasm when he – I mean, you, were talking about his work, or the . . . the shame when you told us about his affair?’

  ‘Meg Garner,’ Kiddrick said quietly, chuckling again. ‘Who would have thought?’

  Bianca shot him a dirty look before returning her attention to Adam, trying to judge what was going on behind his mask. But she could pick up nothing conclusive. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said at last.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ said Kiddrick, ‘now you’ve seen that PERSONA works as advertised, you’ll need to know how to operate the device in the field. We’ll start the lessons tomorrow, at nine sharp.’

  ‘I think we need to give Dr Childs some time to acclimatise first,’ said Tony, politely but firmly. ‘Considering that she’s just flown here from England with, what, one change of clothes?’

  ‘Yeah, afraid so,’ she replied. ‘I was rather under the impression that I’d be flying back home tomorrow.’

  Tony smiled. ‘I’m sure our budget can stretch to a trip to Macy’s, at the very least. Can’t it, Martin?’

  Morgan was less amused. ‘As I said earlier, Dr Childs, we’ll set you up with everything you need while you’re here. We’ll take care of everything regarding your absence from Luminica as well.’

  ‘That’s work – what about personal matters?’ Tony asked. ‘Have you even told your family and friends about this yet?’ One eyebrow rose slightly. ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘No, I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone,’ she complained. ‘My parents’ll think I’ve gone mad when I say I’ve suddenly gone to the States for no reason I can tell them about. And no, I don’t have a boyfriend.’ The eyebrow rose higher. She tried to hide a smile, feeling her cheeks flush a little at his suggestive attention.

  ‘It’ll all be taken care of,’ Morgan reiterated. ‘Okay, we still have some more points to cover, so Dr Childs, if you’ll come with me?’

  ‘Good to have you aboard,’ said Tony as Morgan led her to the door.

  ‘Thanks.’ She gave him a small smile in reply, then glanced back at Adam.

  His face was completely void of expression.

  12

  The Cube

  ‘

  You really are an utter shit, Roger,’ said Bianca. ‘What the hell have you dragged me into?’ Her tone was humorous, but it had enough of an edge to make it clear she was still angry about the situation.

  Albion laughed. ‘Oh, come on, Bianca. What’s life without a little adventure?’

  ‘Your last little adventure ended with you getting shot.’

  ‘If life were completely safe, it would be very dull. Besides, I’ve struck up quite a rapport with one of the doctors here. I think that once the whole tedious doctor–patient relationship issue is out of the way when I’m healed, I might see if she’s interested in becoming my next ex-wife.’

  She shook her head, amused. ‘You never change, do you?’ The amusement turned dark. ‘And speaking of ethics . . .’

  Albion sighed. ‘Yes, I wondered how soon you’d bring that up.’ He looked at a wall clock. ‘Fifty-three minutes! Longer than I’d expected.’

  Bianca pulled her chair closer to the bed, frowning. ‘Seriously, though. From what Tony and Morgan told me, Persona’s mission seems to be to fly around the world, kidnap people, steal their innermost secrets and then use them so that the CIA can pick targets for its robot death-planes.’

  ‘The targets are terrorists and other deeply unpleasant people. We’re doing the world a favour.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound like an absolute pinko hippie—’

  ‘Too late for that!’

  ‘—but terrorist suspects have rights, like anyone else – and one of them is “innocent until proven guilty”.’

  ‘Things change in war.’

  ‘You’re not a soldier. And I didn’t notice anyone else at STS wearing a uniform either. Not even so-called “Admiral” Harper.’

  Albion cocked his head to one side. ‘Be careful when dealing with him, Bianca. Very careful. He’s not someone you want to make an enemy of. As the saying goes, you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.’

  ‘I don’t like him now!’

  ‘Well, that makes two of us. But really, try to avoid pissing him off. Just grit your teeth and stand in for me, and think about all that money waiting when you get back to England. As for how you stand in for me, we’d better get back to your training.’

  ‘What training?’ she protested, holding up a notebook. ‘It only took you fifty-three minutes to explain everything!’

  ‘Not that part of the training – I meant the part where you make it look as complicated as possible. If it seems too easy, they might figure out that they don’t need me any more and kick me out.’

  She smiled. ‘Don’t tempt me. Besides, I’m surprised they haven’t considered hooking you up to the machine so Adam can load up your persona and work out the doses himself.’

  ‘I’m sure they have consider
ed it. But fortunately – for me, at least – it wouldn’t be practical. We have a policy that a persona can only be imprinted on him once.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We found out the hard way that it causes . . . complications. So we don’t do it any more.’

  ‘What kind of complications?’

  ‘Severe headaches, confusion – and worse. When you only have one active agent, it’s not worth the risk of compromising his readiness.’

  ‘Are there plans to recruit more?’

  ‘People haven’t been lining up to volunteer.’ He adopted a gung-ho voice. ‘“Gee, I sure do want to undergo experimental brain surgery so I can think like a terrorist!” I’m not sure how it would be worded on the recruitment posters.’

  ‘So why did Adam volunteer?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  She was surprised. ‘Really?’

  ‘I know that he did volunteer, but he came to us – well, was presented to us, more accurately – from outside, about ten months ago. Harper had something to do with it. I think Adam used to be with SOCOM – Special Operations Command. Special Forces, in other words.’

  ‘You think? You don’t know?’

  He shifted in the bed, his discomfort more mental than physical. ‘Adam is rather the elephant in the room at the Persona Project. There’s an unofficial policy of, shall we say, limited fraternisation. The team members are discouraged from getting too close to him on a personal level.’

  Bianca made a face. ‘How does anyone have the right to decide who gets to be his friend?’

  ‘It’s a US government black project. Rights don’t enter into things. They can order you to wear different-coloured underwear depending on the day of the week, if they choose.’

  ‘You’ve worked with him pretty closely, though. You must be able to tell me something more about him. And by something, I mean anything. Seriously! The man is a literal walking enigma.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But there’s nothing more I can tell you.’