Embedding had its limitations, and it didn’t always work. Complex commands—things that required multiple steps or complicated reasoning—were out of the question because they would confuse the subject. Sometimes, too, the subjects fought back and resisted the impulses, especially if the suggestions weren’t in some way connected to their personal experiences. You couldn’t ask a plumber to fly an airplane, or, for that matter, a pilot to fix your toilet. It didn’t work that way.
Afterward, most of the subjects didn’t remember anything specific about the embedding process—just the urge to carry out the commands and a sense of having awoken from a dream. Those that did would describe vivid out-of-body experiences, or the sensation of being split in two. It was like I was seeing and talking to my twin, one of them had later said. Some reported buzzing sounds, and feelings of unease. Confusion. Dizziness. Vomiting. A few had had seizures.
And one other thing: You could transmit the persuasion signals only in brief, concentrated bursts. Otherwise, you risked scrambling the subject’s brains to jelly.
In the videos, this had happened more than once, when the interrogators had intentionally bombarded subjects with suggestions. Just to see what would happen.
The results were always the same: pain, and screaming, which sometimes lasted hours, then silent, openmouthed stares. Sebastian couldn’t decide which was more disturbing: the screaming or the staring, the subjects’ eyes fixed on something beyond the camera lens that only they could see. Those men had all died a few days later, still staring, and no one figured out why. Their autopsies had showed zilch.
Sebastian had made himself watch every one of the videos. He hadn’t had to do that. He sure as hell didn’t want to. He’d seen a lot of disturbing shit over the years, but it didn’t get any more goddamn disturbing than this.
But he was a professional, and he always acted like one. So he’d watched the videos and learned everything he could about the device. He’d studied all of its components, specifications, capabilities, and shortcomings. Alfonso had always insisted Sebastian was good at tinkering with things. And now he knew just as much about the goddamn thing as Finney.
Hell, he thought. Maybe more.
He checked his watch again and tried not to think about the teenager, twitching, curled up on the floor in her cell.
Yes, there were plenty of bad guys in the world.
When did I become one of them?
RITA
“Operate on Mrs. Sanchez? You mean … with the auto-surgeon?”
Rita stood up. It took a surprising amount of effort. She fixed her eyes on the ceiling, as if Finney were lurking somewhere around up there, in the crawl space above the ceiling tiles.
“Yes. I want you to perform the auto-surgeon operation. This morning. As scheduled.”
“That’s … it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
Every neuron in her brain was screaming at her that operating this morning was the wrong thing to do.
“I don’t think … I’m not sure I’m up to operating this morning. I was going to, uh, cancel the surgery.”
Finney didn’t say anything.
“I just—I want to be safe,” she added.
A long silence followed. Eventually, he said, “What about Jenny? Were you worried about being safe with her?”
Her throat tightened. She bunched up her fists and drove them underneath her glasses and into her eyes.
She would not cry.
Not with him around.
But the problem, of course, was that he was always around.
FINNEY
Studying the readouts on his tablet, he denied himself, once again, the satisfaction of a smile.
She’s ready for embedding.
He’d prepped her long enough. Plowed the rich soil of her mind. Now it was time to sow the seeds and convince her to operate on Mrs. Sanchez, and to set the main part of his plan in motion.
Dr. Wu hadn’t been that far off the mark when she’d guessed that the device was a cochlear implant. It was, of sorts: conceived by a small, innovative start-up focused on curing deafness, which he’d happened across several years ago. He’d invested a healthy amount in it. Now the company was on the verge of revolutionizing the treatment of deafness and netting him tens of millions in the process.
Long before he’d met Jenny, Finney had also conceived of the device’s other uses and quietly moved the development of these offshore: to locales under the authority of wealthy and powerful clients who’d made up in discretion what they’d lacked in scruples. He’d been aware of the medical experiments they’d conducted for him. It was unpleasant, to be sure, but necessary; he’d looked the other way because business was business, after all, and the international market for this would be huge.
After Jenny’s death, he’d had to rush the device’s final development, to ready it for the field ahead of the original timetable.
Now, here they were.
Ironically, Jenny had worked with deaf children in college and had delighted in the cochlear implant concept.
“You’re making the world a better place, Morgan,” she’d said when he’d told her about its (legitimate) application over breakfast one morning, and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m so proud of you.”
He’d given serious thought then and there to ending the offshore program, had even taken a few preliminary steps to divest himself of it.
But then she’d gotten sick a few days later.