Altered States (30 page)

As luck would have it, I have a theory about this that I prepared earlier. I’d thought about it many times before. It goes something like this. When humans surpassed a certain level of intelligence, when complex societies and cultures began to form, there was one ability that rapidly became essential to their continued success: deception. Whether you wish to accept it or not, deception is an integral and necessary part of our world. Lies are requisite to harmonious existence. Not to mention all our relationships, as they are built not on trust but on private thoughts and well-intentioned, well-judged fibs.

Consider a woman working on the reception of a large corporation. She has recently split up with her long-term boyfriend and as a result is desperately unhappy and confused. A client arrives at her desk. How should the woman greet him? By pouring her heart out all over his business suit? Or with a cheery good-morning and the exchange of meaningless pleasantries?

Masking our true emotions at appropriate times is fundamental to the success of a complex, civilised culture. Deception greases the wheels of our society.

That is why it was imperative to discard any ability to see through it.

To offer a documented proof of principle, it has been shown that people with a certain unsightly skin disorder are less able to identify subtle signs of disgust in other people. This is a specific adaptation in people with the disease to protect their emotions from hurtful reactions to their appearance. It is an extreme example of the general evolutional trend to mute our abilities to read other people. The trend that I had personally reversed.

As my mind reeled, I was suddenly aware that I was now holding the final piece of the puzzle. The picture was now complete, and it was this final piece that bore the greatest revelation. Such a monumental revelation that I was in no doubt that from this point forward my life would never be the same.

It was now obvious.

Pearle was still alive.

Reclaimed Innocence

I knocked on the door and Karla opened it. I didn’t even wait to be inside. I drew a photograph from my inside pocket and held it up to her.

It was a revelation that put a whole new spin on one specific detail that I had not considered relevant before: Gemma’s illness. She contracted a variant of something called encephalitis lethargica. Most people will never have heard of it and I have a pretty hard time saying it. It is a devastating disease that swept through the world in the 1920s, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. The illness was commonly known as “sleepy sickness” because those that survived remained forever in a strange statue-like state. There have been no epidemics since, although there have been some very isolated cases.

Why is all this pertinent? Well, at the time, when I found out about Gemma, I did a lot of research into the illness, as you would expect of me. And now something from that research pinged back into my mind. When the US biological warfare programme ended back in the sixties, a viral form of encephalitis was revealed as one of the standardized biological weapons it had developed.

That was a different era. But the point is that the symptoms of encephalitis lethargica are desirable as a weapon. Maybe less so for mass warfare and more so for covert operations; for assassination or just incapacitation. What this led me to wonder was whether Gemma’s illness was no accident after all. Rather that somebody just needed her out of the way for a few days to orchestrate Pearle’s supposed death of the same disease, which presumably was all smoke and mirrors, all faked medical records after the fact. They didn’t care how ill Gemma became; whether she lived or died even. They just needed it to look like no foul play was at hand, even to medical professionals, and especially to me when I came sniffing around. Otherwise, the game was over.

I didn’t know how they found out about Pearle, or how they knew she was connected to me, but I figured I’d get to that bit sooner or later. Meanwhile I was agitated and fired up. I looked Karla in the eyes.

‘No, Aaron, please.’ She grabbed my arm. ‘When they find out you know they’ll have no use for me any more. I’m dead.’ Her eyes were wide with fear.

She was right of course. I turned to her and took both her hands. Adrenalin was pumping through me fiercely, but I tried to calm myself for her sake.

Okay, so the plan was quite nascent. The objectives were very clear; it was just the method of getting to them that was a bit sketchy. Still, I was fairly confident it would come together when it needed to. I know from experience that as long as the requirements are unambiguous then the implementation will follow naturally.

First objective: Pearle.

I had a hunch as to where she might be. She was too valuable not to be somewhere secure. She would have to be within one of the agency’s facilities. The only one I knew of within the vicinity of the DARPA offices was an unofficial medical research facility a few blocks down the street from the HQ. This place has a number of permanent residents, for various reasons I won’t go into. Suffice to say it has living quarters. Its purpose also nicely aligned with what they would be doing with Pearle. So it seemed like a good bet. But at the same time it was kind of a rash assumption.

What I should have done – what I’d
always
done before – was stand back, take some time, and figure this one out without making a scene; without rippling the pond. But I was done with that. My anger had manifested into acute impatience. From this point forward, every obstacle standing in my way was going to be swiftly addressed with a twenty-pound sledgehammer.

Aaron Braunn was back on the map.

And he didn’t care who knew about it.

In line with this newly-endorsed no-messing approach, I had a cunning plan for confirming whether Pearle really was at the aforementioned medical facility...

I was going to walk in and take a look.

Those of you that have watched too many spy films will be under the impression that these high security establishments use fingerprints and retinal scans and the like to control access. Well on the most part they don’t. They use contactless security passes like pretty much any office in the world these days. Security passes that hang conveniently about the body of their owner, even when they are out in the street.

It was nearing the end of the working day when I started loitering – expertly of course – down the street from the facility, and soon people began filing out through the security gates. I eye-balled a couple of guys who were heavily engrossed in conversation and who looked pretty senior – well they had grey hair which was good enough.

Sliding one of their passes out of its little holder as I brushed past them in the street was like taking candy from a baby – a sleeping baby, that didn’t even like candy. In fact, it was so easy I picked a few more up over the next twenty minutes or so. I didn’t want to spend any longer because I needed to crack on before any of my targets noticed and actually bothered to report their badge stolen.

Casually, I walked up to the front gate and with a soft beep walked straight through. Ditto for the doors at the main entrance. The passes would all have different levels of access, allowing passage through different parts of the building. I didn’t want to be seen fumbling with them at every door, but fortunately, as they employed radio ID tags, I could just stack them all together and wave them past each sensor nonchalantly.

I wasn’t sure exactly where I was heading, but I was pretty sure I needed to get to the west side of the complex. I didn’t want to hang around in the lobby too long, so I headed right, through some turnstiles with Perspex barriers that swished apart at the presentation of my card stack.

The corridor I found myself in led to a dead-end with a few elevators in it. I called an elevator and when it arrived some passengers stepped out. I flashed my best I-belong-here smile and stepped in to replace them.

I went to the second floor, stepped out and headed right. The corridor was flanked by offices and labs filled with people looking important. I kept my eyes forward and my walk brisk. At the end of the corridor it went two ways. I picked one but it didn’t take me anywhere useful so I doubled back and headed the other way.

I’d only been here once before, a long time ago, but something felt right. I passed through a couple more restricted doors with my passes then hit another. This one was different. This one decided to be an awkward bugger and beeped a red light at me – if that was possible. I tried again to the same response. None of my passes had access to this area.

The door sported a small obfuscated window with a grid of reinforcing wires. I didn’t know what was behind it but the mere fact that this was a door that didn’t want to let me past meant it was a door I wanted to be on the other side of. Me being rather like a cat in that respect. And rather like a cat was exactly how I was going to get through it.

I didn’t want to look conspicuous fumbling at the door so I turned around and headed back the other way. This was a big place, with lots of people working in it. I was banking on the fact that everybody did not know everybody else.

I noticed an empty office, stepped in and grabbed a selection of large files off the shelf. Then I found somewhere a couple of doors down to lurk; a small kitchen facility. I busied myself pretending to make a coffee and with every person that passed by I stuck my head out to see if they were heading for my door. After a few minutes I spied a likely candidate – a youngish guy in fairly trendy gear. Quickly, I put one of my pilfered identity cards in my mouth and bundled the large pile of files into my arms. I trotted up behind the potential door opener, scuffing my feet a little to alert him to my presence.

When the man reached the door he was only too pleased to hold it open for me. I thanked him as best I could through pursed lips and made a conscious choice to head whichever way he wasn’t; left, if you’re interested.

The thing about human nature is that on the most part we strive to avoid confrontation and we hate to offend strangers. This is especially true in the US I have found. As such, even in a high security building you will almost never be challenged, as long as you seem to fit in. Consequently you can tailgate through a door 95 percent of the time, unharassed.

I was getting close now. This wing was less officey and more labby. There were examination rooms and hospital beds. I kept on walking. Eventually, I came to another security door, but this time I was on the inside. There was no detector to swipe a pass in front of, just a release button.

I knew that if I went through this door I wouldn’t be able to come back the same way; not without doing the cat thing again. But it was past core hours now and people were thinning out. I had no choice. I just had to keep covering ground until I reached what I was looking for. I pressed the button and pushed the door open for a quick look. The corridor beyond was carpeted rather than tiled. It had a different smell about it. This was it.

I walked through and let the door click shut behind me. I could have jammed it open but that would have set off an alarm after a short time. And I didn’t want any alarms going off. Not yet.

I was getting close now; I could sense it. I walked with greater purpose; glancing sideways through every open door. There was a large kitchen, a lounge room with a TV; a recreation room with a pool table. Then there was a slightly more open-plan area, followed by another corridor flanked with closed doors. The sleeping quarters.

There were a few people around, but not too many. They were here for different reasons. Some were night staff for the subjects next door; some were subjects themselves. I just had to find one in particular.

Suddenly, I was nervous, terrified. Not of being caught, but of meeting Pearle. I hadn’t really considered before what a terrible ordeal she must have been through. Her mum falling ill, then herself being snatched away to live in this clinical place; prodded and probed by creepy scientists. And now another strange man was going to burst in and take her away again. I hadn’t really realised that this could be the biggest hurdle of all. Screaming children were a real nightmare to conceal when escaping from high-security government establishments. That was a hurdle I wasn’t going to be able to deal with by sledgehammer. I was just going to have to handle it when I got to it; which was suddenly very close.