“When?” He was getting exasperated, and hoped it was obvious in his tone. Caleb could hear it, and he hoped…
Wait… I do hear it.
He cocked his head and Boris leaned forward. “Ah…there it is. Your other senses, finally you’re using them.”
Caleb closed his eyes and in the ensuing void of voices, he heard it: a gentle tap-tap-tap noise that sounded like it was coming from outside. He frowned and turned his head slightly toward the noise.
Tap-tap-taptaptap. Louder, then a pause, then again.
“Got it?” Boris asked.
And Caleb snapped his head around, eyes wide, saying the word even as his mind clicked into gear, like a search engine pulling up something that at first held no relevance to anything.
“A woodpecker?”
Boris clapped his hands together. “Here we go, bright boy. Now put it all together.”
Caleb rubbed his forehead. “What was the question? How are you doing this to us?”
Boris wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve. “Yep, that’s the one. Let’s see how you do. I’ve heard your love of a good conspiracy theory and your attention to historical let’s say, fringe science, has been legendary in your successes, toning your objectives and the like. So…what am I trying to tell you here with this clue?”
“Apart from revealing you can cause auditory hallucinations as well?”
“Well that should have been apparent already. The human brain is simple once you get down to it, and how we perceive one sense over another is just a matter of what synapses you jigger one way or another. Smell’s just as easy as sound, by the way.” He yawned and leaned back. “So come on, regale me with your brilliance! Prove how smart I was to throw you a simple clue and have you run with it to the shining truth!”
“Hold on, I’m thinking…”
“Don’t do that, remember? Your gut. First instincts. Just answer and go with it. Despite what I said before, we really don’t have all day, and as much as I’m beginning to not hate you so much, I really don’t want to spend more time with you than I have to. More important shit’s calling my name, so let’s go.”
Caleb sighed. “Fine. First gut instinct answer? The Woodpecker Program was a Russian initiative. In the late seventies, if I recall.”
“Getting warmer,” Boris said, teeth flashing in a smile. “At least you’re out of the freezer.”
“KGB and their scientists claimed to have modified technology…”
“Whose?”
Caleb opened his eyes and stared back at Boris. So this is what’s important. “Nikola Tesla’s. His tech, claimed to have been first collected and hidden away by the CIA after his death.”
“Natural, or murder?”
“Whatever it was, some of his patents and papers fell into the hands of Yugoslavian nationals, some say for a private museum collection of their famous — and much maligned native. But of course, these patents were stolen or copied by the Russians, who took some of his more fringe possibilities to the extreme.”
“Such as?”
“The possibility of using extremely low frequency waves in such a way as to impact not only terrestrial forces, such as causing earthquakes and weather disturbances…”
“A la the HAARP facility in Alaska, which… hey didn’t you spend some time there a few years ago?”
Caleb glared at him. “Yeah, and busted up your precious Tablet there, right?”
Boris’s expression darkened. “Yes, that. But you lost all that ancient knowledge. Which was worse?”
“Fair exchange,” Caleb responded quickly, “to keep it out of the wrong hands.”
“Like with the Russians?” Crossing his legs, Boris leaned forward. “Now, you were saying, and we were in the glorious seventies?”
“Yeah. The same technology, they found, could be fine-tuned to interfere with biology. Human brain waves, for example.” Caleb frowned again, thinking, extrapolating. “Something about matching the frequencies of targets. Much in the way earthquakes could be caused by directing the scalar wave form, traveling at the precise frequency of the Earth’s magnetic field, toward the intersection of tectonic plates. Or how the Star Wars Defense program might work by detecting and interfering with the signals of missiles entering the shield…”
He looked up again, searching Boris’s face for a clue.
“Don’t get off target. We all know how you like to get sidetracked. We’ll get to where you’re going a little later, but first… finish it off. You were saying something about biology.”
“Yeah. Brain waves. Theta patterns have their own frequency, and the Russian program, termed Woodpecker, may have been an experiment to use these wave transmitters to basically jam US brain waves. Alter our thinking, cause changes in mood and temperament, possibly even cause feelings of rage, anger or even induce surrender. Rumors were it was effective on captured agents in place of truth serum, causing feelings of compliance and eagerness to answer honestly.” Caleb accessed all of what he recalled now, and cursed himself for not seeing it sooner.
“Got it?” Boris asked.
“Yeah, now. One last bit. There were claims this tech could also be used to cause hallucinations, visions in select people — or entire populations even, depending on the range of the transmitter and the cone of the wave pattern. There have even been theories that most UFO sightings were just this — projections by either a foreign power or our own government in tests of this technology to cause people to see and experience the extraordinary.”
Boris clapped his hands again. “Fantastic. All good theories. And hell, we may never know, but it’s great food for thought, discussion at the dinner table or the subject of a new History Channel series, but for now — you know it’s possible, the science works.”
He leaned forward. “Now you just want to know how little old me does it?”
Caleb tried to stay calm. “Yes. I don’t think you’re using technology. Although…” He glanced around the room again, at the walls, the tiled ceiling.
“Looking for transmitters, cameras or other giveaways? Don’t worry, we’ve got you watched for sure, but the technology to cause visions?” He stood up slowly and then stretched his arms into the air and beamed like a kid winning a trophy. “That’s too old school. This? It’s all me.”
“Congratulations, then.” Caleb faced him. “I guess you can focus your thoughts and project them at frequencies to interfere with those of others, and stimulate the sensory receptors to receive your thoughts, much like…” He eyed the TV, where the same news program kept playing the scenes he didn’t want to see. “Much like this set receives data over a frequency and translates those bits into sound and image.”
“Bingo.”
“What’s your range?” Caleb studied Boris, as if he could see inside the man’s skull, into the inner workings of his components to figure out how they worked.
“Oh, it’s gotten larger with practice and…teaching.”
“So, you’re not really one of them are you?”
“Them?”
“You know who I mean.”
“What do you call them? The ancient Shining Ones? The Others, the Annunaki? The Nephilim? Custodians?”
“Whatever their names, I don’t think you fit the bill.”
“Why not?”
Caleb shrugged. “I heard they’re usually…less intrusive. Unless their human loyalists are — how should I say it — overzealous? Like the late Senator Calderon.”
Boris made a face. “He was a toad. Arrogant megalomaniac. Also, he had some bad halitosis, I hear.”
“You have better hygiene?”