Doctor Elm appeared at a blackboard. “What we learned from the first test subject taught us to narrow our commands, and it made us aware of our own ability to add real stress to the subject. We have since added a chemical stress reducer to our formula…” He scrawled out the formula on the chalkboard. Jenny eased back on the couch. Comforted to know this tape was more of a classroom lecture than another experiment of torture.
They watched three more tapes. Enough to reach a comprehensive understanding of the sleepwalking mind control used to manipulate Hal, then discussed potential ways he may be able to reject the mind control. Henry updated Hal and Jenny about his research into the suit. Telling them he put feelers out with friends working for defense contractors like BAE Systems, Skunk Works and DARPA. He was waiting to hear back from them. To Henry, this meant he would never hear anything from them, but he chose not to share that pessimism with Hal and Jenny.
Hal drove home before the sun came up, reflecting on the videos during the drive. Experiencing simultaneous feelings of relief and terror. Relief he had seen the videos before the puppet masters summoned him again. Terror from the power the manipulators still held over him.
Three more sleepless nights passed. Sleepless by design for Hal, who continued his diet of soda-spiked coffee, wondering if they were ever going to call him up again to carry out their dirty work.
Hal hadn’t been in bed for more than twenty minutes — hadn’t even connected his radio earbud when he heard the series of computer notes deep inside his skull. They were so crisp and clear, they sounded better than a concert-quality audio system. He thought they must have implanted a bone phone device directly to an auditory nerve or the skull. Upon hearing the tone designed to wake him, he repeated a mantra in his mind—move quickly and robotic—the instructions Jenny gave him describing how he walked and jogged. Hal rose from bed, went to the closet and dressed himself in the same sweatsuit Jenny described. He rapidly strode through the house. He locked the front door behind him and headed down the walkway, turning the corner on a dime, toward Stealth Canyon.
Hal reached the sidewalk and froze as a familiar voice boomed inside his skull. “Beacon to Ghost One…” The resonance and sound quality was so sharp and clear, it sounded like someone was right behind him saying it. He resisted the urge to look back. The voice continued… “There is a gray truck ahead. Get in the passenger seat and await further orders.”
Hal stiffly power-walked up the sidewalk, spotting the gray truck. He cut across the street on a line, maintaining the same efficient rhythm straight toward the truck. He opened the passenger door, paying no mind to the driver. Making eye contact could blow his cover. He climbed in and stared straight ahead. Frozen, like an android. Waiting and watching.
Douglas drove the gray Air Force pickup truck across the base toward the gate on First Street. He had never been this close to one of the ghosts, and had a hard time keeping his eyes on the road. Hal could feel the driver watching him. Sensing his morbid curiosity. Or maybe it was his own, wondering who exactly was driving him. Do I know the airman? Have I seen him on base before?
Douglas passed through the main gate without stopping. The guards were on orders to let them pass, and they paid little mind to the man in the passenger seat looking straight ahead. The truck turned onto the main highway where they drove a few miles before exiting. Taking a dirt road to the Barrett Ranch and the new home of Project Cloudcroft.
Hal immediately recognized the ranch. He accompanied Henry to a barbecue there earlier in the summer. He remembered the hospitality of the rancher and his wife, who were both old friends of Henry.
The truck pulled to a stop and Douglas radioed their arrival. Moments later, Hal heard the same voice deep in his skull… “Beacon to Ghost One, proceed inside the barn.” He exited the vehicle and marched in a brisk stride through barn doors that were opened a narrow gap, just wide enough for a man to robotically walk through. Hal froze the moment he stepped inside, seeing the RPA crate opened with light spilling out, illuminating the barn. McCreary and Baldo stood by the crate, waiting for him. Hal wondered if his stopping looked unnatural.
Baldo held up a modified Oculus VR headgear like a crown. Hal presumed by the way he was holding it that Ghost One would typically march over and stand beneath it for a fitting. Hal paced over as mechanically as possible, and Baldo pulled the VR headgear over his forehead and eyes. Tightening it down for a snug fit. The view inside was pitch black. For the moment. Hal felt relieved to relax his eyes and look around, abandoning his strict eye discipline.
Baldo lead him to the nearby OmniTrainer, glancing down at Ghost One’s feet. “He forgot to take his shoes off,” Baldo said to McCreary.
“Do it for him.”
Baldo loosened Hal’s shoe strings, tugged his shoes off and guided him onto the metal bowl-shaped floor of the OmniTrainer. Hal heard Baldo scurry away and climb into a chair in the box.
Douglas gaped at the training, fascinated. His first time to witness ghost sims. McCreary wore a headset with microphone, standing between Hal and the box. He nodded for Douglas to take a seat. Douglas sat in his RPA operator’s chair, spinning around to watch.
The CG simulator graphics appeared on Baldo’s screen.
“Mission sim up and ready, sir.”
“Play, real-time,” McCreary ordered.
“Yes, sir. Program playing in real time.”
The computer simulation played on a screen above Baldo. The same program Hal watched in 3D through his VR headgear. The technology amazed Hal. He appeared high above rolling countryside hills at night, plummeting toward Earth. The realism of the VR vertigo made him queasy. More so than an actual night jump.
Hal was unable to tell where he was from the topography details. The computer animation didn’t include any recognizable structures in the glowing city on the horizon.
“Beacon to Ghost One… You’re parachuting. Landing in five, four…”
Do I pretend to land? Hal pondered frantically during the countdown, and ended up feigning a half landing, barely bending his knees.
“Stand by for systems check,” McCreary said as he and Baldo ran down the checklist. Hal patiently waited, staring straight ahead at a digital country landscape bathed in artificial moonlight.
They wrapped up the checklist and a red flashing light appeared in Hal’s view on the horizon. The word TARGET flashed above it.
“Proceed to target,” McCreary ordered.
The order perplexed Hal. Am I really supposed to walk? He had never seen a VR OmniTrainer and had no clue you could actually walk in place.
McCreary exchanged a look with Baldo. Ghost One wasn’t accustomed to ignoring commands.
“Beacon to Ghost One, proceed to target.”
Hal swallowed hard and plowed forward, walking in the same brisk stride he had been practicing around Henry’s house under Jenny’s tutelage. His feet naturally slipped on the slope of the metal bowl — enabling him to walk in place. Wow! Hal thought. Consciously silencing himself from saying it out loud.
The computer simulation moved in sync with Hal’s footsteps as he plodded through a grassy CG plain on the countryside toward a dark river. Trees and shrubs passing by at the speed of his walk. A thought struck him that nearly made him chortle aloud—Why the mind control?! If I knew it was this cool, I might have volunteered for the duty!