BrainWeb

by Douglas E. Richards

  He studied the clean-cut olive-skinned man strapped to a steel chair bolted to the floor.

  The man, Jibril Awad, was an American citizen, but despised America and its culture. He had joined Islamic Jihad three years earlier and had rapidly risen through the ranks, due to his ruthlessness, passion for the movement, and a native’s ability to speak unaccented English and blend into American culture seamlessly.

  Awad wore a triumphant sneer that belied his helpless position.

  Hall nodded at the four lean, hardened men who had brought Awad to the facility with such great urgency. He reached into their minds and confirmed they hadn’t recognized him behind his beard and glasses, and then pushed deeper to get a sense of their backgrounds.

  Images rushed into Hall’s head as though he were watching the trailer of a big-budget Hollywood commando movie. But these scenes of highly classified operations weren’t generated by teams of special effects experts. What flashed across his mind’s eye was very real. Images of these men and their comrades rappelling down ropes suspended from helicopters, parachuting into the dead of night. Images of assaults on heavily fortified buildings, of explosions that were temporarily blinding, and of machine gun fire. Of friends and enemies alike, missing the better part of their faces or heads.

  Hall couldn’t help but shudder. “That will be all for now, gentlemen,” he managed to croak out. “Please wait outside until further notice.”

  The men did as ordered, but all were wondering what the fuck was going on, and all assumed this was a secret torture facility—a secret they had sworn to keep. And while they bristled at having to take orders from someone they assumed was a sadistic civilian, they had been instructed to do so by both the Secretary of Homeland Security and the head of Black Ops, so they managed to keep their resentment to themselves.

  As usual, however, their inner thoughts, on full display for Hall to read, told a very different story.

  Hall waited for them to leave and faced his prisoner, who coughed up thick sputum and spat it toward Hall’s face in one smooth motion. Hall read the intent and dodged the disgusting missile easily. He had thought this was something that only happened in overly dramatic movies, but perhaps there was more realism to this move than he had thought. It was the only act of absolute defiance open to someone affixed into immobility in this way.

  “Are you receiving this?” thought Nick Hall, and the electronic implants buried in four precise locations in his brain picked up these unspoken words, converted them into digital audio information that sounded remarkably close to his own voice, and transmitted them via the Web to a distant cell phone. His four implants represented the smallest, most sophisticated computers known to man, rivaling the best supercomputers available just years earlier.

  General Girdler, at his office in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, heard the words coming from what he thought of as a cell phone inside of Hall’s head, and responded in the affirmative, a response that was transmitted back through the Internet to Hall’s implants, which were tied into both his auditory and visual cortices.

  In a hidden room behind him, Megan Emerson responded as well, but not through a phone. Instead, she responded directly into his mind, the telepathic connection between them perfect, as always.

  “Do your thing, Nick,” she thought at him supportively.

  While he could read the vast majority of minds in a range of six to ten miles, Megan was a very rare exception, for reasons that still remained unclear. But although he couldn’t read her thoughts, they were able to communicate telepathically, up to a distance of about five miles.

  Hall had been trained as a marine biologist, and a year earlier had been onboard the Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s seagoing vessel, the Explorer, when it disappeared. Not a single body was ever found and the Explorer was presumed to have sunk.

  But this was not the case. Instead, Hall and twenty-six other scientists and crew, were kidnapped and imprisoned in a warehouse in Fresno, California. There, over a period of many months, they had been used as unwilling guinea pigs by Kelvin Gray, the CEO of a company called Theia Labs, to perfect a technology that Nick Hall now possessed. Each of their brains had been the subject of numerous surgeries and experiments.

  The scientific progress Gray was able to achieve in this way was as spectacular as it was merciless. A subject would be chosen and repeatedly violated over many days and weeks until he or she finally died from the trauma.

  After which the ruthless, but brilliant, Kelvin Gray would dispose of the body, digest what he had learned, and start anew on the next prisoner. He had zealously turned the brain tissue of innocents into Swiss cheese in his quest to determine the precise placement of four advanced electronic implants, and to perfect a lexicon that mapped electrical brain activity to individual words.

  His goal was to perfect a system that would allow an implant recipient to surf the Web with his or her thoughts alone. Since the implants would also be tied into the auditory and visual cortices, Web content delivered by the implants directly into the brain would appear to be seen and heard normally, through eyes and ears.

  Alex Altschuler, who was now the CEO of Theia Labs, headquartered in Fresno, had been head of research at the time. He had been blissfully unaware that his boss had become a mass murderer, churning through innocent people like they were so many lab rats.

  But he should have known. It was the only possible explanation for the perfect data he was being fed. Miraculous data—to which Altschuler had applied his unparalleled genius to develop complex algorithms and perfect the technology.

  It had long been known that individual thoughts could be ferreted out and used to control video games, artificial limbs, and the like, but Theia’s achievement was as big a leap over these rudimentary capabilities as a supercomputer was over an abacus. Gray’s shortcut of savagely using humans as lab animals had accelerated progress by at least a decade, and probably more.

  Twenty-six subjects had paid for this progress with their lives.

  Nick Hall was the twenty-seventh. The lottery winner.

  Not only did the experiments finally result in implant placement, and software, that allowed Hall to surf the Web with his thoughts, but as Gray had repositioned Hall’s implants numerous times in search of the eureka coordinates, the resulting neuronal stimulation, damage, and re-wiring had resulted in an unexpected and truly remarkable side effect.

  Nick Hall became able to read minds. Perfectly.

  Not only surface thoughts, but all memory and experience. He could access and mine the brain of a stranger as though it were his own. Nothing could be kept secret from him.

  But while mind reading enabled Hall to survive and escape, it was a curse he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. He could suppress most of the incoming input, but he couldn’t entirely shut it off. Whenever he was in the presence of others, he had a constant buzz of their thoughts swimming in his head. And although he could transform much of it into a white noise, which was still maddening, being near a large crowd could be debilitating.

  Worse, the most powerful or emotionally charged thoughts were most likely to break through the noise. Which often meant those that were hateful, vitriolic, graphic, or sexual. He thought he was well aware of the enormous diversity and endless perversions of human sexual preference and fantasy, but he hadn’t known the half of it. There were any number of disturbing sexual images and desires he had read from others that would haunt him the rest of his life.

  And Homo sapiens learned to lie at a young age for good reason. The thoughts of most people, if totally exposed, were judgmental and often cruel.

  Hall had barely managed to stay alive and elude mercenaries hired by Kelvin Gray. While doing so, he had crossed paths with Justin Girdler, who learned of his ESP. When the story of the Scripps Explorer and the Hitlarian way the implants had been perfected had made international headlines, Nick Hall became perhaps the most recognizable figure in the world.

  But while the public knew of his Web
-surfing capabilities, his mind-reading ability was only rumored. Girdler became convinced that knowledge of this ability would ignite an international ESP arms race, since no government could chance that other countries would learn how to unlock this game-changing capability. And he also believed, as did Hall, that if ESP were ever perfected, the human race would self-destruct in months, if not days.

  If mind reading became widespread, what would protect secrets? Identities? Passwords?

  Theft and cheating would be rampant. Children would learn what their parents really thought of their third grade art projects. Spouses would learn of infidelities, both thoughts and actions. Of perversions. Bosses would learn what employees really thought of them. And so on. Society would break down almost instantly.

  With Hall alive, governments and powerful private players were sure to pull out all the stops to capture him to learn what made him tick. So Girdler decided he had to discredit rumors of Hall’s ESP, and remove him from the grid. So he had faked Hall’s death. Megan Emerson’s as well, although this hadn’t really been necessary, since he had already made sure no one knew that she was connected to Hall in any way.

  Girdler had then set up a secret facility in Palm Springs where they could study Hall’s mind-reading ability, and try to learn the secret of Megan’s immunity. If they could discover a way to nullify Hall’s ability, civilization could protect itself if it ever came into widespread use.

  Only Girdler, Mike Campbell, Alex Altschuler, and Heather Zambrana, Altschuler’s fiancée, knew that Hall and Megan were still alive.

  Although Hall’s first and foremost priority was finding a defense against his own abilities, he had also agreed to conduct interrogations in certain emergency cases. And the man immobilized in the steel chair before him, Jibril Awad, was just such a case. Not that reading critical information from a prisoner’s mind like it was a glossy graphic novel could really be called an interrogation.

  Awad had no plans to spit again, but his mind was consumed with hatred. And with triumph. “Torture me all you want,” he barked. “But you won’t get shit!” A malicious smirk came over his face. “Not that it matters. You and the entire world will have your answers soon. Very, very soon.”

  Hall sifted through Awad’s thoughts as if they were his own. The prisoner, while fluent in Arabic, had grown up in the States and still thought in English. Which made Hall’s life easier, but wasn’t a requirement. Alex Altschuler had solved this issue the first time Hall had run into a language barrier.

  Hall’s implants continuously monitored his every thought, ignoring any that weren’t direct commands to the system. But the implants could also pick up the reflected thoughts he read from others. So Altschuler had programmed the technology to instantly translate any foreign languages encountered into English at Hall’s mental command, allowing him to navigate within any mind, regardless of language.

  Awad’s thoughts turned to the new explosive Islamic Jihad had developed, and if a mind could drool, his would have. He ran through a myriad of possibilities for the use of this new weapon, which he had obviously spent considerable time imagining, and his thrill at the mass destruction and panic it would bring about was so powerful and pure it seemed almost sexual.

  The imminent use of this explosive was a test cruise. A spectacular test cruise, to be sure, but only phase one. When the world was reeling from this event, Islamic Jihad would use this weapon in dozens of simultaneous terror acts, each perhaps less glamorous and psychologically debilitating than the first, but with even higher body counts.

  “What you’re about to witness is only the beginning!” said Awad with a sneer. “You’d better grab your ankles tight and apply some Vaseline. Because you and the rest of the West are about to be totally fucked in the ass!”

  4

  Hall made no response to the prisoner’s taunts and his face remained impassive, which he could read annoyed the crap out of the deranged, sadistic asshole before him. Good.

  Hall thrust deeper into Awad’s thoughts, although this was hardly necessary. The man didn’t have complete operational knowledge of the coming terror attack, but what he did know was at the very top of his mind. He was fantasizing about it. Replaying it in his head. Relishing it.

  The more layers Hall peeled back, the more horrified he became. His face whitened and he began to feel lightheaded.

  It was a terror scheme that could only have been hatched by Satan in the bowels of Hell.

  It would commence in mere minutes, but could well last several days. While the aftermath of terror attacks in the past had been long, the attacks themselves had been quick. But this would be different. This was an act of terror that could not be prevented, and one that would command the world’s undivided attention for a period of time that would seem an eternity.

  And it was too late to stop it.

  Any efforts in this regard would blow up in their faces—literally. The operation had been set up like a sophisticated timer on a bomb, one that would immediately jump to zero if any tampering was detected.

  Awad didn’t have enough operational details for Hall to know if anything could even be done to lessen the full impact of the attack. The only thing Hall knew for certain was that if a way did exist, he was the only person alive with any chance to find it.

  He rushed through the door, leaving Awad behind to wonder what kind of interrogator left the room without asking a single question, or uttering a single word.

  “Megan!” he shouted telepathically as he was leaving. “Major emergency. No time to explain now. Meet me outside.”

  Hall all but ran over to the ranking member of the commando group that had just left the interrogation room. “Captain Briarwood,” he said, not caring if the man wondered how he knew his name, “we need to take the helo to LA. Immediately!”

  As he spoke Megan joined him. Without waiting for a response from Briarwood, the two civilians climbed into the helicopter that was parked on a slab of concrete beside the small interrogation room.

  Briarwood glanced at his second-in-command and raised his eyebrows. This order was totally unexpected, as was the presence of the petite young woman now making herself at home in the helo.

  “No time to check with others, Captain!” barked Hall, reading his mind. “You were instructed to follow my orders. And this is very much an order. Let’s move!”

  The captain’s eyes narrowed for just a moment before he nodded. “Yes sir,” he said, and less than a minute later the helicopter lifted from the ground. As it did so, Hall began to regret taking Megan along for this ride. It was selfish. While he didn’t think she’d be in any danger, why take any chances?

  Megan Emerson was absolutely critical to his work, and to his sanity. And this would have been true even if they hadn’t fallen in love.

  The moment they were airborne, Hall put this out of his mind. Too late to second-guess himself now. Instead, using his implants and telepathy, he described the imminent terrorist strike to the general and Megan as quickly and efficiently as he could, and let Girdler know he was even now en route to LA to attempt to minimize the damage.

  “Minimize?” said Girdler. “Are you saying we can’t stop it?”

  “No. If we try, we make things worse. They get a single whiff of us and they blow it early.”

  Hall paused, forcing himself to ignore the thunder of the chopper blades whipping through the air and the potent thoughts of the men next to him. “The four commandos who delivered Awad are with me. But scramble two other four-man teams to LA, just in case. And if I do discover a way to disrupt their plans, I’ll need you for support and to get clearances.”

  “Roger that,” said Girdler.

  Hall had become so facile at using his internal Internet connection that he had called up the distance to LA from the Web, and the nearest heliport to their destination, without being consciously aware that he had. The information hovered in crystal clarity, displayed in vivid color in the corner of his visual field. The Internet had become an
extension of himself, like a trillion-page encyclopedia that could be accessed as easily as his own memory.

  “I’ll contact you when I’ve reached ground zero and managed to get more intel,” finished Hall, ending the connection with Girdler.

  “Nick, just remember, you’re a marine biologist,” cautioned Megan telepathically beside him. “Not a commando. You’re one of a kind. So let the trained professionals take the risks,” she added, trying to keep even the slightest hint of panic from entering her telepathic thoughts, but failing to fully hide her fears.

  Hall frowned. They both knew that he was the only hope of averting a disaster of spectacular proportions. “Don’t worry, Megan,” he broadcast back at her, trying his best to lighten the mood. “You know how hard I am to kill.”

  “I know,” replied Megan. “But a curtain of bullets or a massive bomb isn’t going to spare your life because you can read minds.”

  Hall nodded, but said nothing. Because she was right. His abilities, as extraordinary as they were, still didn’t make him bulletproof.

  5

  Abdul Hakim led his men through the tunnel silently. When they reached its end, he removed a tablet computer and flexible video scope from his bag. He forced the tiny camera at the tip of the thin snake through a hidden hole in the trap-door and then slowly worked it under the closet door.

  Hakim glanced down at the images the camera was sending to his tablet. As he had expected, the office was uninhabited.

  The seven jihadists emerged from the closet single-file with practiced quiet and quickly removed their gray jumpsuits. Hakim shoved the garments into a small nylon bag, dropped them back down into the tunnel, and replaced the trap-door.

  They had entered the theater each night for some time now, using this same method. As for the rest of their mission, while this would be their first time, they had rehearsed and rehearsed until they could do the complex choreography of the attack in their sleep.