“I find remote viewing specific only in certain details, Agent Sullivan,” she said. “The previous mission gave very obvious clues. Foreign language usage, among other things.”
“Perhaps we can only up our remote-viewing percentage with foreign locales,” Armando suggested. “Like a worldwide game of hide-and-seek.”
“Isn’t that what this entire mission has been?” Jed asked. “Everything on our list is spread all over the world and hidden by different hands. I believe you’re familiar with how the weapons game’s played, Armando, seeing that you moved them around for your family at one time.”
Armando smiled humorlessly. “Yes, I’m extremely good at making things disappear.”
“Things don’t just disappear. They’re hidden,” Jed countered softly, “but we’ll get back to that in a bit.”
Helen looked down at her notebook. Armando was in trouble, all right. In spite of what Heath had told her about punishment being for school, she had a feeling Jed had his ways of reining in those around him.
“Let me just start from the beginning,” she said. She gave a brief account of the first place, the bars in the windows, and the person curled up on the bed surrounded by the doctor and two other men. She told them she recognized the man as one of her few rivals during the inter-department contest for SSS. “Since we were looking for my attacker and my bilocation led me to him, it’s a fair assumption that this man is being used as a remote viewer by another group to either spy on us or take me down.”
“The first attack on Hell in Munich,” Flyboy interrupted. “I traced that van to a CIA ID, remember?”
“It’s CIA,” confirmed Jed. “I’ll get more into the details in a few minutes. Go on, Hell.”
Helen then described how she and Jed decided to try jumping locations by adopting the other remote viewer’s universal agreement. “It seems his handlers are more ambitious because I kept bilocating from one place to another instead of returning to Hade...Jed back in the Portal.” She paused. “I know it all sounds like bad science fiction, all this jumping from one location to another. I didn’t even know it could be done. During training, my CIA monitor told me multiple universal agreements weren’t conducive to operations because most viewers become spatially confused. In other words, the more times one bilocates during a session, the more the brain is deceived that what the viewer is going through is real.”
“That’s why your vitals were fluctuating so wildly,” Shahrukh said. “Even after the one time when you stopped breathing, yourreadings were never truly stable. The only reason Dr. Kirkland never shut it down was because Jed’s remained steady after that one incident.”
Helen shrugged. “Well, my monitor wasn’t having his brain served with a side of Twilight Zone crazy.”
They chuckled at her attempt at nonchalance. She couldn’t tell, from a quick glance at Jed’s direction, whether he found that amusing too.
“When I bilocated that second time, I landed in total darkness. Normally, I’m not afraid of the dark, but this was also in a confined space and it took...ah...a little adjustment, shall I say, before I realized that I was inside a crate, or rather, my bilocated self was. My brain was totally deceived and Jed had to help me out of my initial panic. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, to sum it mildly. Even though physically you aren’t there, bilocation is so real to the brain you feel the tight confines of being in a crate. I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t really there, that I could do physically impossible things.”
“Yeah, I can relate,” Flyboy said. “The newest experiments with virtual reality in flight simulation are so real some pilots got air sick when they tried top warp speed.”
“That’s exactly how it affects me in the Portal,” Jed agreed. “What Helen was seeing and experiencing in her remote viewing, I was able to experience as if I was going through a virtual reality simulation, except that, with our form of deep immersion techniques, Hell and I have found a way to communicate while she’s doing her thing. And yes, I felt the trapped feeling of being locked in a small space, just as she did.”
The others were intently listening.
“But why did you both stop breathing at the same time?” T asked. “I know training should have prevented you from panicking so quickly in the dark or being locked up. That’s just so not like you, darling.”
“Maybe I have agoraphobia,” Jed said, amusement creeping into his voice.
“Do you?” T challenged. “Did that make you lose control?”
“Our brainwaves are in sync during immersive RV, remember,” Helen said, not sure why she felt the need to defend Jed. “My believing that I was being buried alive triggered the panic attack, which then brought on a similar experience for him. Jed realized quickly what was happening and brought me out of it.”
“So you both sensed each other’s feelings too. How incredibly interesting,” T observed. She looked pleased, as if she’d finally gotten an answer to some question.
Helen could see her operation chief’s mind racing with obvious questions. What other things did Jed and she share? The others had the same expressions she’d seen on their faces a time or two—disbelief, discomfort, intrigue, paranoia.
“It’s not a constant thing. It was just this one-time experience, probably because it was totally unexpected.” She looked around. “RV isn’t about reading minds, even though I teased you guys about it. It isn’t as simple as that. As humans, I believe we automatically block our thoughts off from each other anyway, but during an unguarded moment, certain safeguards get knocked out temporarily.”
“Like a psychic crash,” Armando said suddenly, leaning forward. “Listen to this theory. In the hallway yesterday, if indeed there was a remote viewer and somehow we both became aware of his presence, and if it was that man you saw on the bed, he first crashed into you in Munich, but this time, I crashed into him.”
“Well, actually, you crashed into me,” Hell reminded him, pointing down at her leg.
“Yes, but I had to run into—okay, through him first—before crashing into you.” He frowned. “All I know is the pain in my head was suddenly unbearable and then—” he gestured with his hand, as if he was performing a magic act, “—run, run, run, my mind said. Before I knew it, I was running to where you and Jed were standing. I knew something was there. I don’t know how, but I did.”
“Good theory,” Jed said. “We have many questions about that incident which we can’t answer now. We have certain weapons that need to be located first. Sieve these questions through the back of your mind while we work on our more immediate concerns.
“One, why did they send their remote viewer here? Was it to attack Hell again, or for something else? Two, why was it part of his universal agreement if he was also looking for weapons? It’s the third question that is most relevant to the motivation behind all this. That certain elements in the CIA are involved isn’t in doubt here, but if they were the same people who stole the weapons from right under the government’s nose in the first place, how come they don’t know where they are now? Why are they racing us to get to each item?”
Helen jotted down the questions. Jed in computational mode was formidable to behold. She couldn’t help but admire how he could take each clue and work it into the big picture. The conference/debriefing could have descended into a long discussion about science fiction, remote viewing and psychic attacks, but with a few questions, Jed had led it all back to the mission. It was true, whether there was anything woo-woo going on or not, certain CIA rogue operatives were after the same specific weapons that were on the list.
