by Gennita Low
Sex. A whole night of raw sex. Helen cleared her throat. “That’s why I want to see Jed McNeil,” she said, avoiding a direct answer. She met Dr. Kirkland’s eyes squarely, trying not to look embarrassed that the doctor might have guessed what happened the other night. “I have something to ask him. Since you can’t tell me, I’m going straight to the source.”
“Do you think he’s the source?”
“Did you give him my message?”
Dr. Kirkland nodded. “I passed it on. Once he gets the message, he’ll be expecting you, but it isn’t easy getting hold of Agent McNeil. He’s a busy man.”
Interesting. When she’d bumped into him just now, he hadn’t mentioned anything about getting a message. In fact, he’d made her ask him personally. Bastard.
“Maybe he can schedule a fifteen-minute break,” Helen retorted. “You know, I’m now part of their group and I still don’t know the protocol in getting hold of them or how we meet or how to call any of them! Isn’t there a set of numbers I can punch into an intercom? Or am I just someone they pull out whenever they need a remote viewer?”
“It’s only been a few days since you passed the test, Helen. You’ve barely been doing anything but training before that. Give yourself the downtime your body’s asking and then you can concentrate on your new role.”
Helen sighed. “You’re right and I’m sorry I vented on you. But if I don’t get pissed off, I get turned on. Sorry, Doc, too much information there.”
Dr. Kirkland smiled. “The more you give me, the more I can help. For example, the anger comes from frustration, and the frustration comes from the fact that you aren’t getting enough of what your brain’s telling your body it needs. It’s a vicious circle, Helen.”
Hell was all for venting her frustration. And she was going to make him admit to her that he was her monitor.
“I want a session in the Cave,” she said suddenly. Jed said he had three consecutive meetings today, didn’t he? “Can you schedule one today, Dr. Kirkland? Like, as soon as possible.”
He’d been testing her, pushing her. It was time to push back.
Secret CIA Testing Facility, Virginia
He was feeling a lot better but purposely kept his eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. Listen in. See what was going on. Mourn. He needed time to mourn. All those memories, stolen in seconds.
“He’s been going through downtime a while now. What’s wrong with him?”
“Standard. We’ve never given him two doses one after another before, so that’s to be expected. He did better than any of the other agents and he seems to be coming out of it slowly.”
“At least he isn’t drooling. That’s a good sign.”
Fuckers. They used him to track down another remote viewer and didn’t warn him that she was different. He had no proof but somehow, she’d snatched all his precious stock of memories, every single one, when he slammed through her during her remote-viewing session. He’d never heard of such a thing before, but it only made sense that if he’d found a way to capture other people’s emotional memories, then some other remote viewer could have found a way to remove another remote viewer’s own private stash. It made fucking perfect sense—why hadn’t he thought about that possibility before? He could have maybe avoided the damn bitch.
“When do you think we can send him out again? We need to know whether they’re on to us.”
“We’ll give him a couple more hours’ rest. Then we’ll have to use him sparingly for a while.”
“Why? Push him, I say. We have many more to replace him if he burns out.”
“You’re right about that, of course, but this one’s been able to stay with it successfully the last few times, so he appears to be able to control the serum’s side effects. I want to use him carefully so we can get some good use out of him. He did find the location of the encryption key.”
“What good is that? We didn’t get it before they did. In fact, he almost got us caught, remember, screaming aloud like that in the van.”
“He was in pain, Stevens. Some kind of psychic attack.”
The other man snorted. “Sometimes I think you’re too into this. Psychic attack.” He snorted again.
Of the two men in charge of his session, he couldn’t stand this one the most. He had obviously never been part of any remote-viewing program before, or he’d be more sensitive regarding subjects such as psychic phenomena and mental blocks. Every time he’d had some kind of problem, he’d noticed the same disbelieving attitude, as if his problem was just an inconvenience.
“Tell me what you need, Agent 51. It’s your downtime. Would you like some coffee? Maybe a cola?”
It’s not 51; it’s Jonah Samson! he wanted to shout at them. He was so tired of being just a number to them. Even his chart at the end of his bed said Number 51. The white coats referred to him as 51. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t heard anyone calling him Jonah for a while now.
But that wasn’t important. What was important was working with them so he could get more of the juice. He had to be smart.
“Cigarettes,” he said. “Can you get me some?”
“Of course.”
“Do you need me to write a report?” That was the standard operating procedure in the old days, when he was in training. But these guys seemed more interested in action than reports.
“No, this is a top secret case, no report’s needed at this moment.”
Just as he thought. An agenda inside the CIA. He didn’t care. He just wanted access to the serum.
He felt empty inside.
He needed these fuckers as much as they needed him. Maybe more. They had the supply of the serum, the only thing more important than his lost “recordings”. Without it, there would be no more emotional memories to record. So he needed to play nice for a while yet. He would be free of them one day.
Chapter Three
Jed didn’t like the idea that she’d been in pain. He’d known it was a possibility, since Armando Chang had complained of blinding pain from his use of the serum. However, he’d hoped that this new version, SYMBIOS 2, would eliminate that.
Pain and paranoia. He’d seen it happening to Armando. Helen was also exhibiting an interesting side effect that Armando hadn’t had. Chemicals and body chemistry, so unique when broken down in individual biological systems.
A complete spy uses everything to achieve his goals. There are no ifs, ands, or buts, once you accept that mission. Focus your mind and body on the target, Conor, and reach your goal before moving to the next one.
Jed heard his CIA mentor’s calm instructions in his head, as if he were eighteen again—still cocky and brash Conor—and being scolded for getting entangled with yet another woman while working in an operation. All the right excuses had been on his side. He was eighteen, after all, with the kind of cocky charm that drew female attention too easily and an upbringing that made him protective about people for whom he cared. He was being groomed in a trade that insisted on detachment first and nobility second. It took him a few years to understand that that meant he couldn’t engage himself one hundred percent to another human being, especially a woman, or else, somewhere along a dangerous operation, it’d be his Achilles’ Heel, be it worrying about saving someone when he should be thinking of capturing his target, or being used by the enemy.
Because of his tendency to get physically, and sometimes emotionally, involved with women in his life and because women were drawn to him, instead of moving him away from operations that involved temptation, the trainers had deliberately placed him in more and more such situations, watching him modify his behavior and attitude. Jed had understood. He was one of their youngest trainees and they had plenty of time to adjust his personality. That was, if he didn’t die in the process.
He’d learned sexual manipulation and what it could make him do at a very young age indeed. Since then, he’d learned to compartmentalize himself. A mission was a mission, no more, no less. If it involved sex, it was just that, no more, no
less. He’d learned to keep his emotions at bay, so much so that he became proficient at seduction for information and had then graduated into the sexual imprint program at the underground CIA labs, and he did so well it’d earned him the nickname of The Ice Man there.
So what are my excuses now? He mockingly saluted his current dilemma. He was certainly not focusing on Helen Roston as if she was a mission. Not by a long shot. It’d been a long time since he’d felt like that young Conor.
He had to back off emotionally and resume control. Right now. Or this wasn’t going to work. He needed to establish a sexual bond with this woman in such a way that he could harness her ability to remote view for future operations in virtual reality, an environment that required absolute control. Having feelings for her would interfere with a mission and endanger lives while he worried about her and didn’t fully focus on his job.
Jed knew she’d spent her free time trying to figure out her mentor’s identity. He’d watched her all these months, knew that she ran things over and over in her mind until she found an answer. He’d deliberately been a riddle for her for exactly that reason.
He had to be extra subtle because he knew she’d smell a rat and pounce on him like the wild cat he’d called her. If she’d been aware of what he was doing, there would have been no way he could have progressed so far, if at all.
Sexual imprinting was the absolute focus of mind and body on the target. No ifs, ands, or buts. No half-ways either.
Helen would ask for a session at the CAVE. Now that she thought she’d identified the man behind the avatar, she was going to turn the tables on him. Take away the avatar and she’d “see” the man in the shadows who had been training her in the CAVE. In that environment, he wouldn’t be her equal because she could remote view and he wouldn’t have access to what she was seeing. Also, he’d told her he had meetings most of the day—a lie—to make her think she had time to prepare herself to remote view on her own.
A very dangerous choice of action for a remote viewer who’d never done it alone, but he hadn’t a doubt she would attempt it. She wasn’t called Hell by her friends for playing it safe when she was out in the field. He’d anticipated it because he needed to gain the advantage by constant surprise.
Jed flipped open the small dictionary in his hand, letting his gaze fall randomly on a word. His lips curled at the synchronicity of it all.
“Trigger,” he murmured. To activate, to set off, to initiate.
Well, nothing subtle about that.
***
The CAVE Ultimate—Cave Automatic Virtual Environment—had been Helen’s first taste of total immersion VR. It was a ten by ten by ten room that allowed multiple participants in a simulated exercise, with one person in charge.
Many of her sessions had meant giving her trainer the ultimate control—the inability to move her physical body, for one, was still stressful for her—as he manipulated simulated situations to fit the lesson for the day. She realized now that most of these weren’t just sessions on loss of control and fear management, but were also part of his mind manipulation game.
Everything he did took her a step closer to where he wanted her. He appeared to her as a shadow. He chose sexual situations that pushed her hot buttons. He ended each session by kissing her—no, branding her.
Helen shook her head. She’d been so caught up with the intrigue of him as she was led along down the path—touching, tasting, thinking about him—that she hadn’t noticed how he’d kept her mind focused on him during their sessions. Fascination and involvement were the first basic steps in mind manipulation. And with the brain entrainment machine that connected them during the sleep sessions at Center, they were even sharing dreams now.
A plan had formed while talking to Dr. Kirkland and she’d gone for it. A session at the CAVE. It was going to be tricky, though. She would have to pretend to swallow the little pink pill, lie very still, and wait for the right moment. Usually, when she came to, the virtual program had already been activated and she’d be caught up immediately in the alternate world, undergoing her training sessions with Hades in his shadowy form. In reality, her trainer would be in another CAVE in control of the session.
Helen smiled grimly. Not this time. The key was in the timing. She’d suddenly realized, while talking to Dr. Kirkland, that she’d done something new. She’d bilocated at her house without any help. She’d never remote viewed on her own; a monitor had always been with her in her sessions, anchoring and guiding her. She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to do so this morning, especially without getting herself into an altered state with a brain entrainment machine.
But she had. She’d remote viewed, or kind of, because she had definitely seen Jed McNeil. However, the experience had been different. She had trouble seeing clearly, still didn’t have any explanation why she’d felt the need to turn and run, and then there was that devastating headache…
Dr. Kirkland was supposed to call her when he’d gotten hold of her trainer and set up the time. She smiled. Take that, Jed McNeil, and see how you’re going to squeeze a session with me in between your meetings.
In the meantime, she would go to her quarters and use the brain entrainment machine. If she could fiddle with it, get to that place her brainwaves turned theta and somehow keep her mind at that state until Dr. Kirkland called her. With the darkness in the CAVE and the way Hades liked to start her out by concentrating on her senses, she might actually be able to jump into remote-viewing mode again, just like she did back home.
It was a gamble. Maybe her experience back at her place was just a fluke and it wouldn’t work again this time.
Then what?
Helen swallowed. She knew exactly what Hades would do if he knew how sensitive her body was and she had no doubt at all about her response. She gritted her teeth. Already, her body was reacting to thoughts about that.
“I can’t let him win,” she whispered.
She had to risk it. Once she had proof that it was Jed McNeil, then she had a fighting chance against letting him sexually imprint her even deeper.
***
Jed slipped his cell phone into his pocket. Kirkland had called. He had an inkling what Elena was up to. He had years on her in the art of figuring out an opponent and hunting him down. And right now, he was her opponent, and she was his prey. It had to be this way.
The mind was like glass. It must be handled with care. Like glass, it could be molded. Like glass, it could also be broken.
He’d accepted the assignment to create a binding mental awareness between Helen and him, so that it could be the bridge for them as she remote viewed in virtual reality. The easiest and fastest way—seduction. The need for, and the sharing of, sexual release created an emotional bond between couples. Add that with the need for someone specific, and there was now a powerful mental focus. Perfect for remote viewing. Perfect for virtual reality.
Keep her focus on him.
Keep that need for release growing.
Then feed it when she remote viewed.
She would be heading for her quarters, thinking of getting her mind ready. Perfect. Gray surroundings. Brain entrainment machine on.
They used that machine to connect while they slept, syncing their brainwaves, getting ready for their virtual exercises. He planned to be at the other end while she was using it. With one exception. Usually, they would be in their own beds, going to sleep. This time, he’d be awake and focusing on her. Here was an opportunity to test the mental link they already had.
Helen took in several breaths. Her clothes were beginning to irritate her, especially her jeans. They felt too tight and bothered her so much she couldn’t even concentrate on the initial state of relaxation needed to start the process. She sighed. She’d better change into something less restrictive. She got up and impatiently walked over to her dresser.
She pulled her tee shirt off and unbuttoned her jeans, inhaling sharply as the clothing scraped her hyper-sensitive skin. It wasn’t as bad as the other night,
but it was there, that edgy feeling, like a mild electric current.
She rummaged through the clothes in the drawer. Tights. No. Jeans. No. Exercise pants. No. Why, oh why didn’t she get a pair of pajamas? She needed something that would make her comfortable enough that she wouldn’t think of her stupid body. There was an oversized shirt made of cotton. That would have to do.
She sat on her bed and put on the ear buds that were connected to the brain entrainment machine. Since she hadn’t done this alone before, she set its clock so that when her brainwave reached theta stage, it would buzz her, and reset itself from there. That way, if she relaxed past the theta stage and fell asleep, the buzzer would get her back on track. Once she fell into that deep alternate state, she’d test herself, see whether she could remote view Jed McNeil’s location. It should be easy, since he would be at a meeting. If she succeeded, it’d prove that the experience earlier today wasn’t a fluke, that she could remote view without the help of a monitor.
There was that awful headache afterwards too, though. Was that part of it? Armando Chang had complained about headaches too. She frowned. She hoped not. That was simply indescribably painful. Perhaps it had to do with the speed she’d gone into theta, causing some kind of brainwave discombobulation or something.
She laughed out loud. Fancy scientific description was never her forte.
She checked the knobs of the brain entrainment machine again. It was a risk she just had to take because she wanted—needed—to know so much. Taking a deep breath, she hit the start button.
Jed watched everything Helen did from his quarters as he put on his sensor suit. Her sensitivity must be bothering her more than she realized. First, she’d forgotten to check whether the micro-eye in her room was blinking, signaling that she was being watched. Second, she’d assumed that the brain entrainment machine couldn’t be controlled from the outside.
