The Captain, Esmeralda and Rona could hardly draw themselves away, seemingly awestruck by the way Six, Charlie and Fetch interacted. Matt popped up to look in their direction and asked to lower the room temperature. Then Matt asked Josh whether it would be ok for us members of Six to touch him physically. He did not explain why and no explanation was requested. The Captain motioned for my attention and I slunk away during a pause. He said, ”I thought you needed to know that two more people were killed this morning as you were driving over, right here in Pommerose as they were coming out of their autos in a parking garage seemingly by a drone that was incapacitated a few minutes later by a Securinet drone. Those individuals were injected with poisons from the drone shooting it into them. They’ve got the video feed and an eye-witness too. The drone was retrieved after a directed laser disabled it, and only when it was being examined at the scene was it discovered that they had been lucky to retrieve it, as it had been designed to self destruct. The police folks hope therefore to get some clues as to who handled it and modified it. This is escalating daily it seems.” I told him thank you and went back to the group. Of course the others in Six all knew the information through mind talk from me by the time I sat down.
The authentication process took place with Josh in his headset and eyepiece with headphones built in. Fetch sat there immobile during that part with the computers that he was hooked up to revving up their fans. Then Fetch’s fingers came alive flying over the buttons of his handheld console and his hands making smooth swooping and swaying movements through the air. Mader who had laid one finger on the bare shoulder of Josh as he signed in ran a constant commentary on his mind. We knew from that, that there was some kind of initial likely visual conditioning started as he signed in and his body sucked that up as if it were a drug. The brain patterns were no different than an addict getting a hit and then there were periodic jolts auditory and visual that seem to be instructing his brain, conditioning his brain. It was very bothersome to see someone’s brain being manipulated that way without them really truly being aware of it. Those folks certainly had not gone onto those programs to get that done to them. We were very hopeful that Fetch would get this all fully documented and we along with the scientists, would be able to come up with an antidote to neutralize the effect. We, as promised took Josh offline as soon as we had established with confidence what was going on and left Fetch to gather and collate the patterns.
We all now got our hands on Josh who was now shaking with obvious tremors and barely able to speak. Again this was just like an addict who had already put the needle in his arm and was about to get the high of the drug being injected , only to have someone pull the needle out. He was shaking in a combination of rage, anticipation, excitement, disappointment and the disgust of knowing that he didn’t want this for himself. We now totally understood the intensity of emotions involved with this reprogramming of these people’s brains. We could calm him down; we could feed off his energy and do some minor rearrangement of his neuronal and synaptic condition as a group, but he would need more eventually. We were coming to the realization that he and those like him would need a more substantial brain restructuring. Motioning to the Captain who looked so distressed to actually see his son in such a state, I said, “Please bring a reclining lawn chair quickly so that we can work on him.”
The Captain and his wife both ran off down the hall and we heard a door open and then close. Within two minutes they returned with a lawn chair and a cushion to go with it.
Matt, Mader and I physically lifted Josh off his chair and placed him on the lawn chair then slowly reclined it. Then Mader who had made the first connection with him, placed his right hand on Josh’s sweaty forehead and we all locked in. It only took a few seconds as we drained that energy off him and started to probe those abnormal brain patterns, breaking a connection here, building healthier ones there, a hasty cool down and repair job. We spent about five minutes in total concentration and with the Captain and his family looking on, they would have seen all of Six’s face totally relaxed just sitting there like frozen statutes. The damage in the guys mental architecture was substantial. At the end of the session, we knew that he would be ok at least temporarily, as long as he did not go back to get more illicit programming. This was the time to get Jongi and Breecher in the picture. Cherese broke off from the session to attempt a mental telepathic connection to Jongi. During our training we did that pretty much daily but particularly since our successful return from our first interplanetary mission, we connected on as needed basis. We had already demonstrably absorbed her training to her satisfaction.
Josh’s eyelids fluttered open slowly and we could see that his Mom desperately wanted to just rush over and smother her boy, such was her concern. But the Captain held onto her physically just watching the dynamics and looking for a signal from us. Mader spoke out aloud first but very softly, “You are now in a better place Josh, but we have not been able to completely deal with all the effects of your negative programming. Let Fetch do his data harvesting, so that we can use it as a basis to deprogram folks who have been through this brainwashing. We are contacting the authorities who will set the ball rolling.”
Mader looked at Josh’s sister and said, “Rona would you please bring Josh some water.”
She ran off and reappeared with a three quarter full glass and handed it to Mader who lifted the recliner into a sitting position before handing the glass to Josh. Josh took the glass and seemed to look at his own hands in amazement before putting it to his lips and slowly downing all of the contents of the glass. He now seemed able to get words out, “It feels like a long time since I could hold a glass so steady. Thank you all. All I know is that my mind was like a confused kaleidoscope of flashing lights and sounds and confusing thoughts none of which I liked and yet I could not pull away; I could not back out. Now I feel almost back to my old self. I do remember you Mader in my head, calm and steady, telling me it was going to be ok and to just hold on, hold onto a solid thought. And I held on to my Mom and my memory of her looking down on me with that loving caring gaze. I held on and the confusing images and urges were just swept away. I saw you too Matt, Cherese, Jessi and Jonah. I don’t know what you did, but I thank you so much. Whatever you advise me to do, I will. For one, I will change my occupation, no more video game sales period. It almost destroyed me.”
His Mom came rushing over and kneeling down grabbed him up in a tight embrace. As his sister and Dad started to come over, Six as a group got up as a unit grabbing Charlie with them and bolted out of the room straight out to the garage and the driveway. Their security system softly said, ‘garage door open guests departing’ after us. We needed to give the family some space and fresh air was essential to us too. We had just come across one truly sad fried human brain. The others who did not resist as much probably had not suffered as much damage we surmised, but because he had fought valiantly against the impulses that had been piped into his head, he probably suffered more. There was going to be a lot of damaged, mostly young people out there, all needing repair. We now felt confident that we had a grasp of how this carnage in our society was inflicted. It was not different than the old days of human pandemics, though those were usually of viral origin. There truly ‘was nothing new under the sun’- an old human saying. However the question was ‘which sun’ since there are now many different ‘suns’ shining on the human race all at the same time since humans had spread across this tiny portion of one arm of the ‘Milky Way’.
Cherese head-spoke to us to inform us that Jongi was in the loop and that as soon as Fetch could suck up usable data, the top AI people would get on the job. Jongi was working to liaison with Breecher and Buenafe already to find all the tentacles of the games and their origins. There would be tons of other games to be reviewed. Teams of technicians using Artificial Intelligence AI could use the templates discovered by Fetch to scan them. It seems that Buenafe had just gotten a call from our friends Martinette and Munchin asking for Six to come hel
p them with a wave of murders on Baclet and even Threeme too. So at least we knew this was a far reaching crimewave and all three planets would have to make concerted efforts to rip this abomination out by the roots. Six might possibly yet have another interplanetary trip coming up!
Charlie was pacing outdoors with Six milling about too; he clearly was nervous about not being close by to his baby Fetch in case there was a glitch. Of course, if anyone asked Fetch directly, the story would be different. Fetch would certainly protest his independence and you’d think that he Fetch was the only thing keeping Charlie from committing imminent disaster. The ‘self’ confidence oozing out of Fetch is sometimes more than one can stand! Anyway after ten minutes or so, Charlie couldn’t stand it any longer and headed indoors. They mentally talked among themselves wondering whether the Captain and his family would have had enough time to commiserate with Josh. Mader could sense a much calmer mind inside Josh and they all hoped that the little bit of mental patching that they had done to his haywire synapses would hold long enough to allow the scientists on the Council to program a more durable solution to his and lots of others’ video induced derangements. Six tramped through the gardens and out back to look at the Captain’s covered swimming pool and gazebo. The Captain and Esmeralda really did have a nice place here with lots of space. They thought that most likely it was his wife rather than the Captain who cared for a little hot house, where they seemed to grow a few veggies during the cooler months. They were just coming out of winter and there was already a lot of good stuff growing inside it. They noticed that their tomatoes, sweet peppers and squash plants were beginning to even bloom and that was very early in their season in this area. There were neighbors, but with some nicely placed tall shrubbery for screens on the 3/4 acre plot, it was easy to ignore the little peek of a roof outline here and there. That always pleased Jonah the farmer. Charlie came back out to find the group about an hour later.
They reassembled in the garage and after wiping their slightly soiled shoes carefully on the mat one by one, filed into the house and back to the recreation room. The air conditioning was now cranked way down as they went down the hallway but in the recreation room, it was still hot. Fetch was standing with his headphones and goggles on, moving back and forth on his feet and with his arms sinuously moving like what he was- a robot. He was obviously in the throes of a video game and truly into it. Gosh, Charlie was certainly genius. Very few robots could have attained such mastery, Jonah thought. Of course, Jonah was definitely biased since Charlie was his friend and he had been integral in helping with the build and troubleshooting of Fetch. Resting his hand on the stands with the stacks of computer equipment, he sensed no electrical problems and he prayed that Fetch was collecting the brain programming cues from those videos. He looked at Charlie who sat gazing intently at one of the monitor screens. Charlie nodded and gave him a big thumbs up sign. He took that to mean that detective Fetch was doing a great job. It would be nice indeed if all the effort would prove fruitful. Charlie flashed his ten fingers and it was a relief knowing that he was expecting a decent conclusion shortly.
Fetch had played three video games on VidDarknet and amassed a tremendous amount of data and already after only twenty minutes the room was finally beginning to feel cool as the air conditioning made its presence felt here. The computer module cooling fans were still working at full tilt despite the processors going from working in ‘overdrive’ to a more normal level of functioning. Charlie was busy making multiple copies of the recorded visual and auditory stimuli that Fetch had flagged as likely, to in some cases be definitely subversive programming sequences.
7. ANSWERING RONA’S QUESTIONS
Rona, Josh and their parents had rejoined us Charlie and Six in the recreation room. It was obvious that Josh’s Mom was having a hard time to not be clingy with her ‘lost young man’ who seemed to be back with her. Rona piped up with an honest question, “So can someone really explain to me what really has been happening here?”
Her Dad said with a chuckle, “Now my dear daughter surely you can’t expect Six to tell you all about their secrets and believe me when I tell you that they have a lot.”
She said, “Well no, I don’t expect them to divulge their methods to me. There are lots of criminals who might want to torture me to get it from me. So I’d rather not know too much of the details. What I want to understand is how could playing videos have so changed, no worse, actually damaged my brother?”
We all looked at Mader, Mr. Tall dark and handsome! He looked at her and her family and he said, “Rona we are programming ourselves constantly by what we feel, hear, smell, see, taste and through other more instinctual primal senses that vary among species and individuals within the same species that some call secondary senses. So all those inputs go into our brain computer and stimulate vertical and horizontal and oblique plus other weirdly oriented mats of cells via their interconnections called synapses. There are vibrations and reverberations of electrical energy within those mats and these form patterns. When these patterns become established in either fleeting or more long term formats, we form ‘memories’. These can sometimes be deliberately recalled when we command them to be or they can be buried within our brain but recalled only with certain associations like those brought on by a certain smell or a particular voice. Only then do certain memories pop back into the conscious realm. When we learn certain reflexive movements like riding a bike, driving an auto, we are depending on memories too.”
Mader continued, “Other memories we never actually recall directly as such, but they becomes embedded as a trigger for fight or flight response. A close call with a vicious animal that ate your friend on an ill fated trip and you just happen to hear that animal roar or smell it or even think of it and your hair stands erect, you’re sweating, your heart races and you are ready to run. Advertising has worked on human populations for more than 50,000 years that we have records starting back on old earth, leading to certain predictable behavior. Ten thousand years ago, based on the work of neuroscience, people took this to a new level and started programming deliberately, smells, sounds, sights that starts out as written computer code through the medium of computers and games to command responses from people at will. So that type of programming was a much stronger form of mental ‘arm wringing’ than just simply influencing people’s minds like in prior human soft advertising and before that by social pressure, threats, bullying.”
Charlie took over, “So when Jonah called me last night, I simply pulled up all the data available on that era from ten thousand years ago because it was easy to still get it from the search engines and I figured that whoever is doing this stuff would likely not be trying to reinvent the wheel. They likely went back to those old data from that period before such ‘mental arm wringing’ was made illegal. There truly is nothing new under the sun you know. Even though there are different suns in different solar systems. So I defined some parameters for Fetch to look for. I have him set up to very adroitly use his AI capabilities to detect the patterns used back then among the stream of code within the video games. Those coding patterns had been very effective at embedding and influencing human neurons. Fetch worked on it for most of the night and got some thirty million recurring combos clarified. All he had to do today while playing these video games was therefore to hunt for those and any other patterns that bore the hallmark kinds of ‘brain penetrating and sticking sequences’ for lack of a better term. You see there is a certain type of stimuli that seem most effective at getting our brain cells to interact with each other in certain oscillating ways to effect memories that would trigger certain behaviors. So if you want to consistently evoke anger you do this; jealousy - you send that pattern into the brain and on and on. Fetch now has, based on what I see here picked up on another forty million pieces of code. Those when imbibed within a video by our brain gives instructions like ‘go here make this weapon in a shed in your backyard, find this profile person who is successful and working as a Vice President a
t this type of company and zip them out of here and you will be powerful’ after your mind has already been primed to the suggestion that it’s ok for you to kill people. Who is sitting behind a console somewhere pulling strings to make this happen and getting a power trip doing so is the big question. Is it man or less likely super intelligent machine and why would someone undertake this? Is it to paralyze government, or whole planets and then show up and be the savior? We don’t yet know. Such megalomaniac folks have existed all through man’s history.”
KILLER GAMERS Page 5
