“Is this Paul Sanchez?”
“Yes…”
“Young man, I hear you are the hottest technical project manager on the planet, and I need you on my team.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Barry Jones, as in THE Barry Jones, the medical electronics billionaire.”
“Right. Barry Jones is calling me. Mom will be so proud. Who is this really?”
“Seriously, I can prove it. My assistant is at the door of your apartment right now.”
Startled, Paul nearly dropped his cellphone when he heard the rap on the door. Opening it, he saw an enormous man in a tailored suit, holding a tablet with the streaming image of none other than Barry Jones.
“Peek-a-boo” said Barry.
“It really is you.” Said Paul as he flipped his cell phone shut.
“You bet. Can my assistant, Percy, bring the tablet into your apartment? We have some business to discuss with you.” Once in, Percy set the tablet on the coffee table, so Barry and Paul could see each other.
Paul stared hard at the image of Barry Jones, trying to find some evidence of fraud, but there was no mistaking the man he’d seen many times in the media. Barry’s eyes had a half-crazy, half-visionary light that one pundit likened to the eyes of a six-year-old Charles Manson on Christmas morning. Those eyes now looked directly into his.
“OK, bottom line.” began Barry, “You bring your projects in on time, you understand what technology really means, and not just what it does, blah blah blah, so we need you to manage a project for us.”
Since this constituted the entirety of Barry’s sales pitch, Paul tried to gain some level of composure and find his voice, “I’m blown away by all this, obviously, but I can’t take a project right now. I’ve already got a contract…”
Barry continued, “Yeah, yeah and your sense of integrity won’t let you break the contract even for me. It makes me want to pinch your cheeks it’s so cute, but Percy has a notarized letter from the chairman of the bank cancelling your contract for that project.”
“You killed my contract?” blurted Paul.
Barry sighed, “You aren’t hearing me Paul. Do you want to balance other people’s checkbooks, or do you want to change the world? So get a grip and try to concentrate. “
“I’m doing my best, but this is a lot to take in.”
“You know how I made my money, right?”
“Yes of course; it’s legendary. While in college, you modified a medical scanner with adaptive software that isolated individual cells in the body. It made cancer cells light up like a Christmas tree and killed them with a particle accelerator, without damaging the surrounding tissue. The Mediscan System saves a lot of lives. The best part is that you had originally developed the software as a game program you were hoping to market. Instead of zapping imaginary aliens though, you put it to work zapping real cancer cells. Very cool.”
“Please, you’re making me blush. We got very lucky–right place, right time. Mediscan is a good thing, but our new project will dwarf that by comparison. We have found the key to virtual reality, and we want you to head up the team that is developing it into a viable product. But before we go any further, Percy has a non-disclosure contract for you to sign. You understand this is all very hush-hush.”
“How could anything be more important than Mediscan?”
“Please Paul, I can’t tell you more until you sign the document. Percy, would you walk him through it? Paul, don’t be intimidated by Percy’s size. He is one of the best lawyers ever produced by an Ivy League Law School. Sure he can practically bench press a minivan, but he’s also a nice guy. He’s here to illuminate, not to intimidate.”
Seeing Paul balk at the contract, Barry said, “Oh, did I mention that I’m paying you $500 per hour plus living expenses?” Barry chuckled and even phlegmatic Percy smiled as Paul quickly signed the contract. The massive lawyer smoothly folded the contract, and tucked it back into his coat pocket.
“OK, so I’ve signed. What is this mystery project?” asked Paul.
Barry explained, “It’s amazing, even if I say so myself. A lot of companies are trying to perfect virtual reality. Whoever gets there first owns the gaming, education, training, and entertainment markets among others. Fortunately our competitors are going at it all wrong. They are struggling to perfect their imaging, modeling, immersion, artificial intelligence, feedback and sensor technologies. They fail every time because the human brain adapts. If you remember the first time you saw a new gaming console, you thought you were watching a real football game; the realism just blew your mind. But now, your brain has adapted and the images look cheesy. This is the big flaw in virtual reality; no matter how good your simulation is, the brain will quickly learn to differentiate it from reality.”
“We, on the other hand, have an entirely new approach. We use Mediscan to target a magnetic pulse on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is the region that facilitates belief. Bottom line– we can make you believe stuff.”
“So rather than trying to perfect virtual technologies, we have figured out how to tell the brain that what it is experiencing is true, and the brain believes us. The Brain then does all the work filling in the gaps, and the experience is perceived as real. We still provide excellent graphics and all that jazz, because there is a belief threshold. The brain will reject any experience that deviates too far from its model of the world. A bigger magnetic pulse can overcome that resistance but it can also cause serious damage to the individual’s sanity. Sanity is, after all, just a good mental model of the world. We call our technology Mindwarp Virtual Immersion Technology, or MVIT for short.”
“Mindwarp?” asked Paul
“It’s an homage to one of our team’s favorite TV shows.” said Barry “You are going to have to bone up on several cheesy science fiction shows from the sixties and seventies to fit in with this bunch.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Paul.
Barry continued “Obviously, in order to bring MVIT to market, we need somebody to organize our little band of mad scientists into a team. These guys are really smart but they couldn’t organize a birthday party, let alone a major development project. That is where you come in. You are a geek at heart who happens to be very good dealing with people, and that is a great combination.”
“Please, Barry. You’re making me blush.”
“Touché. You know the old joke Paul, managing techies is like herding cats, and our cats have really big egos. You have demonstrated the ability to be our cat wrangler on this project.”
Paul sounded weary as he said, “OK Barry, I’m in.”
Barry continued, “You won’t regret this. We’re going to change the world together and get rich in the process. You need to be at our corporate research facility here in Minneapolis by 8AM tomorrow. Don’t worry about your stuff; we’ll ship it. We have a furnished apartment here already set up for you right across from our offices. Barry out.” For a brief second the streaming image froze and then disappeared.
Paul moved his stunned stare from the screen to the gentle face of Percy. “I have to be there tomorrow? Is he kidding?”
The slightest smile passed Percy’s lips. “Things tend to move pretty fast with Barry. Don’t worry, the limo is outside and there is a private jet waiting at airport. Getting there quickly will be no problem at all.”
Being a consultant, Paul lived out of his suitcase and was ready in about fifteen minutes, and so he and Percy quickly stepped into the hallway, closed and locked the door, and walked down the stairwell into the waiting limo. During the flight, Percy left Paul to his own thoughts.
#
Paul awoke alone in the airplane, on one of the leather couches. He shook off the thin blanket some thoughtful soul had placed on him, and sat up. A quick look around revealed that the plane was on the ground and the sunrise was well in progress. Paul stood up and stretched. He grabbed his carry on and headed to the lavatory to shave, brush his teeth and try to talk some sense into his disheveled hair. When he came back into the cabin, Percy was waiting for him and looking as unflappable as ever.
“Just in time”, Percy said. “We have a limo waiting at the bottom of the stairs. You can have breakfast in the car on the way to the facility.”
In the limo, Paul found a tray with eggs, toast, bacon, orange juice, milk and coffee waiting for him. The food smelled great. While Paul ate, Percy filled him in on the day’s agenda. “When we arrive, Barry will meet you in the lobby and we both will accompany you to the core team meeting. Having Barry meet you personally should be some indication of how important you are to the success of this project. Once at the meeting, you’ll have a chance to meet the key players in the project’s leadership, and listen in on the team’s status. It will be a lengthy meeting, but we’ll try to get you to your accommodations by five. Although you are full of adrenaline right now and feeling great, your strength will fade as the meeting wears on. We’d prefer to give you adequate time for rest at the end of the day.”
As promised, Barry met Percy and Paul at the entrance to the research facility, and the three of them strolled to the Executive Conference Room. When they reached the conference room door, Paul was surprised to see that two uniformed guards armed with short-barrel shotguns guarded the door.
“Don’t look so surprised Paul, there is a lot of money at stake,” Barry laughed, “and besides, those guns shoot non-lethal bean bags.” When the three came closer, the guards opened the double-doors to the conference room.
As they walked in, Paul quickly scanned the room, taking note of the large mahogany table, high-backed leather chairs and several video conferencing monitors distributed around the walls.
Five men sat at the table in animated discussion. All five wore light blue jumpsuits and sneakers. A fit, bespectacled man who appeared to be in his thirties took over the conversation as Paul took a seat.
“We have to be very careful about how we modify the test subjects’ core beliefs because they are the glue that holds the subjects’ identities together. In early trials we pushed too hard to make the original subjects believe ideas that were contradictory to their core beliefs, and their minds rapidly disintegrated. We managed to halt the process before any real damage was done, but it took a while for the test subjects to get their mental balance back. This time we are going to have to pulse the subject’s brains much harder and faster, and there will be no turning back.”
A big man with wild, unkempt hair, an enormous pot-belly and an untrimmed beard that still had a few crumbs from his morning donut shifted in his seat, and every eye turned toward him. Clearly this was the Alpha Geek. His entire persona was carefully designed to say, “I’m so smart and indispensible that I don’t have to zip up my pants.” Paul realized that if he could convince the Alpha Geek of his credibility the rest of the team would fall in line, so Paul paid particular attention as The Alpha Geek began to speak.
“The human mind needs continuity; it really has a tough time with gaps in experience, memory and thought. Young children, as an example, don’t have enough information stored in their minds to maintain continuity in their daily lives, so they have powerful imaginations to fill in the gaps. As the child’s mind develops, it constructs a more thorough working model of the world, and has to rely on imagination less and less. Eventually the child develops into an adult, and imagination becomes almost vestigial.
The Alpha continued, “An adult can become very threatened if the mind’s mental model of the world turns out to be faulty. This threat could be caused by a change of identity in the loss of a job, a death, a divorce, going to prison, a severe economic downturn, or having one’s core beliefs challenged. When a large discontinuity occurs, the adult may try to maintain continuity through a dysfunctional form of imagination like denial, paranoia, delusions, alcohol or drug abuse, or become depressed and even violent. When threatened with discontinuity, the mind will cushion itself any way it can. This is important to remember because the change we will induce in the test subjects at the prison facility will cause a fast and brutal discontinuity of belief in their minds. We are going to have to cushion them from the impact of having their fundamental allegiances shattered or we will destroy their minds.”
Barry jumped into the conversation, “Hey guys, this is Paul Sanchez. He’s the new project manager I’ve been telling you about. Great credentials, IQ of 180, blah blah blah. He’s a good guy.” The men sitting around the table looked at each other and then at Paul. Each one made a slight nod in Paul’s direction. “Come on guys, “ chided Barry, “play nice.”
“Welcome aboard Paul, we really do need you on the team to manage us, but we can’t promise to like it,” joked the Alpha, and the rest of the men softened, smiled and muttered greetings.
Paul could not focus on the greetings, because a single word had struck him like a lightening bolt, “Prisoners? We never discussed anything about performing experiments on prisoners! You must be joking, right?” sputtered Paul. “What is this, Nazi Germany?”
The Alpha continued, ignoring Paul “When faced with a dangerous or threatening situation that their mental model doesn’t adequately cover, people normally pull together in small social clusters. You see this quite clearly in corporate re-organizations. Most corporate leaders make the mistake of keeping everything secret. People aren’t stupid though, and they begin turn to the grapevine for information and support. The rumor mill becomes sort of a group imagination to provide people with information, usually false, which serves to maintain a kind of dysfunctional continuity. Continuity is king, so even bad information is better than no information at all when you are in distress. This isn’t people behaving badly; it is wired directly into our brains. The only way for an organization to get past this is to over communicate with the people who feel threatened, but it seems like they never do. But I digress.”
“Yes you do” laughed Barry, rolling his eyes.
Alpha continued, “All of our test subjects were proven to be part of very dangerous social clusters known as terrorist cells. Terrorist cells occur when people feel that there is a big threat to their core beliefs. The terrorists generally create a shared imagination or mythology that protects their mental continuity, and then they act upon it. The cells members also perpetuate this mythology in each other as a way to keep their core beliefs intact. Since we are trying to break down that mythology, we must keep them completely isolated from each other. Isolation facilitates our process but makes them much more likely to suffer adverse psychological effects during conversion. Making matters worse, the test subjects have a high degree of dedication to their cause, and a cause is just another word for a shared mental model. So, we are going to have to push their belief centers hard and do so quickly. If we introduce new beliefs too slowly, the test subjects will simply integrate the new beliefs into their deviant mental model and syncretize the two, defeating our purpose. Since they are already psychologically damaged from their long captivity and will need to be isolated, this conversion should yield a casualty rate as high as 50%.”
“Casualty rate? Prisoners? What are you talking about?” blurted Paul, “I thought this was about video games!”
The Alpha calmly and carefully answered, as if talking to a backward child, “We expect at least 50% of the subjects in this study will suffer catastrophic psychological damage resulting in suicidal, despondent, detached, and possibly catatonic behavior patterns. Of the test subjects for whom the process will be a success, we expect about 10% to undergo some degree of recidivism and return to their old belief system over time. This is all very experimental.”
Paul objected, “And we’re going to put this technology into a video game system and sell it to kids? Are you kidding me?”
The fit man with glasses answered, “Well, obviously the video game system is very different. It just provides a low-level pulse that makes the user believe the sensory input being given. It does nothing to penetrate into the deeper parts of the individual’s belief structure. At our off shore test facility, we are attempting to radically repair the minds and belief systems of some of the most dangerous men on the planet. It can be done, but it takes a massive intervention with total control over the individual in a clinical setting, and the use of drugs and other change agencies to achieve the desired outcome.”
Paul’s speech was becoming increasingly loud and fast as he was edging toward panic. “I don’t think I can do this. America isn’t supposed to force beliefs on people; I mean, that is why the country was started in the first place, to free people from state controlled beliefs. I won’t participate.”
“That’s where I come in.” Percy answered gently, “you signed a contract stating that you would not only keep this project secret, but bring it to successful completion. It is all here in black and white.” Percy slid a copy of the contract with Paul’s signature, across the table. Certain key paragraphs were hi-lighted.
As Paul read over the paragraphs, his mouth suddenly went dry and he felt panic rise in his throat. A single bead of sweat drizzled down the left side of his forehead and hung in his eyebrow. In no uncertain terms, Paul was legally on the hook for this project. The remedies if Paul breached the contract, as listed in a later paragraph, were staggering. Sweat dripped into his eyes and his hands shook as he read the key paragraphs again.
“My God.” Paul breathed out.
“It is very strict Paul, and we will take legal action if you breech the contract, delay the project or lessen its success in any way.” Percy continued. “I was in the process of explaining the contract to you, but you were so stunned by the generous financial offer Barry made, that you signed without fully reviewing the contract.”
“As you knew I would.”
Barry put on his most reassuring smile and jumped into the conversation, “Look at the bright side Paul, you are going to make a lot of money and become a big player in a new industry. And it will be doing those poor prisoners a favor. They are being held in a secret off shore prison for terrorists. It is a terrible, terrible place, and they are never going to be released, not ever. First of all, no friendly country wants them because they are too dangerous. Their own organizations will not take them back because they suspect we’ve turned them. We are giving them a chance to once again have a life, and that is worth the terrible risk we are taking. If this attempt at rehabilitation works, we might be able to expand its use to America’s prisons and mental institutions. What if we could make people with deviant mental models truly believe what is right? We’d be doing humanity a huge service. We might end the need for prisons entirely someday.”
Paul knew he was thoroughly defeated, but he felt the need to press a point. In a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone he said, “You can’t force people to repent, to change. You can’t change their hearts and minds without their consent. It just doesn’t work that way. People have been trying to do that to each other since the beginning of time, and all it has brought is misery, oppression, warfare and death.”
“That is where you are wrong Paul, we really can change their minds. By the way everybody, this project has government oversight and is considered very secret. As a result, you will all be sequestered here at this facility until you can be transported to the off shore testing facility. You will not be allowed contact with anyone outside this project team and a few support personnel. We have comfortable apartments set up for you right here. Percy will make sure you are all assigned.”
“Which part of the government is driving these tests?” asked Paul.
“A part you have never heard of and doesn’t officially exist. Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to know,” said an irritated Barry. “Let’s just say we gave several key players in government a stunning demonstration of our MVIT educational technology, and it blew their minds.”
Suddenly Paul realized why they chose him. He has great credentials and a high IQ, true. More importantly he is young, gullible and has no family; he is the perfect patsy. Paul even wondered if his sole real contribution to the project was not to manage it, but to be blamed for it should anything go wrong. He was, after all, the project manager of record for this bizarre, dangerous and undoubtedly illegal project. If the project tanked he would be the one held accountable. After all, there was so far nothing much to manage—why else would he be here? Cat wrangler indeed! Try ‘sacrificial lamb.’
The meeting continued for several more hours, with detailed descriptions of the technical components involved, how the equipment was transported to the test facility, dossiers on the test subjects, the drug protocols to be used to soften the psychological blow, a profile of the replacement beliefs that would be “installed” in the test subjects’ minds, and the post-process psychometrics used to verify the results. Paul stared blankly at the table in front of him and absorbed almost none of the meeting. He occasionally caught key phrases like “precision toroidal superconducting array,” “post-process psychometric evaluation,” and “Virtual Reality helmet and gloves,” but they slid right off his mind and into a vague memory space reserved for dreams. His face ached as his mental turmoil slowly wore him out.
#
Paul’s distress must have been evident on his face, because immediately after the meeting Percy led him to his room in the sequestered area. A nurse showed up and gave him a strong sedative to help him sleep off his shock. The nurse explained that the room was configured like a private hospital room because this facility had been used for early MVIT tests. It was comfortable enough, with a hospital bed, a reclining chair and a private bathroom. Paul slipped quickly into the deepest sleep of his life.
The meds he took must have worked wonders, because he awoke the next morning feeling thoroughly refreshed. A glance at the clock revealed he had been out for at least fourteen hours! Granted he had a slight headache behind the eyes, and had some muscle stiffness in his shoulders and back, but yesterday had been a very stressful day. Now yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago. He felt a surge of determination and excitement to live up to the contract he signed, and make this project a success.
Paul was a little surprised to find that his clothes were missing and had been replaced by a sky blue one-piece jumpsuit and pair of sneakers. During breakfast in the common area, he had a chance to make small talk with some of the resident geniuses on the project team, and even joked with Percy about checking his contracts more closely next time. Percy looked very relieved that there were no hard feelings.
Everybody was excited to know that they were scheduled to fly to the test facility this very day. They’d have the weekend to get settled in and get everything set up. Testing would begin on Monday.
#
A week and a half later, Paul sat down with a cup of coffee at the little conference table in Barry’s office. “The tests exceeded expectations Barry.” began Paul with a smile.
“That is great news Paul, great news. So if I remember right, of ten test subjects one had a heart attack and died, one is an emotional basket case, and two were immune somehow to the process entirely.”
“Yes Barry. That leaves us with six successful conversions. They are now true believers in American Democracy, freedom and religious tolerance. They even thanked us for healing their minds; it is all quite amazing! I do feel badly about the four test subjects who failed the conversion process though.”
“Don’t feel bad. I consider this test to be a huge success. This was just a pilot project, and we will learn from those mistakes. Also, we needed to know if you and the team are truly converted to our cause.”
Paul smiled and agreed “No hard feelings, Barry. I imagine it also helps that we have all now been documented as participating in a highly illegal act, a war crime in fact.”
“You got that right, my friend.” Said Barry, “You are now solidly part of this team. So now that we are absolutely sure that you are our kind of guy, we are going to bring you on board with the real project we have in mind. This is absolutely huge buddy, and you are critical to its success.
“I can’t wait to hear about it.” Said Paul.
“We have a contract with the Department of Education to install MVIT in all of America’s schools. Isn’t that great? We will have the opportunity to nudge the students a little bit each day, so we don’t have to resort to all this crazy drug protocol stuff. They just play their games and won’t know we are shaping them. Who knows, we may finally be able to get everyone in this great country of ours on the same page!”
“Great news Barry, now that is a mission I can believe in.”
- END -
© Mark Ragar Schneider, 2011 All Rights Reserved