Tell Me a Story

Chapter 25

"So, we're looking for a software that does what now?"

"It's complex. Oversimplifying, it can take away a person's ability to cerebrate properly, particularly when it comes to decisions with moral implications."

"Simplifying, eh? How about you try that once more in English."

"That was English. I'm sorry, did you need it in American?"

"Ha ha ha," I deadpanned.

"The software can make people do horrible things, without them realizing that it made them do it."

"So, the program programs people?"

"Kind of."

"And you think Meera has something to do with it?'

"Her name is all over lots of suspicious financials associated with the company we believe has succeeded with creating the software. If nothing else, she knows something."

"I am guessing you are thinking David's company is involved then."

"Afraid so. We traced activity to Seattle, so finding out that the gaming division is here working on several secret projects makes us think it's here."

"A video game?"

"Yes. Images have been used in mind control for quite some time, so hiding it within a game is not entirely surprising."

I shook my head, sitting back against the wall on the cold floor of the large empty space. Unsure if his apartment had been compromised, and knowing my apartment had, this warehouse space was the only safe place Eli felt we could speak freely.

"Sorry, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. You realize that it sounds completely crazy? Some purple platypus dances around my computer screen and the next day I run out and, what? Rob a bank? Punch a kangaroo? What kind of bad choices are we talking about?"

"Like I said, it's more complex than that. In the wrong hands, in any hands really, this 'game' is at best a lethal weapon."

"And at worst?"

"Absolute chaos." Eli leaned forward, and tried to explain. "Have you ever talked to Red about those meetings she has with her friends?"

"Oh, you mean her crazy conspiracy theorist buddies? Yeah, a little."

"Well, one of the projects I know she has an avid interest in isn't entirely crazy. You see, back during World War II, there were some heinous things going on in concentration camps, unspeakable torture, right? What a lot of people don't realize is that some of those things were done in the name of science. Experimentation was performed using drugs, psychological and physical torture, all with the idea of figuring out what could be done to the human brain to make it more malleable to suggestion."

I sat quietly, hugging my knees to my chest. Eli went on.

"What even more people don't know is that the United States brought some of those scientists over here to work, after the war was over. They experimented on subjects that didn't even know they were being used as guinea pigs. Government employees, children, the mentally ill; whoever they could gain access to. Officially, the project was shut down, but there have always been rumors that they continued, on a greater scale, particularly with the advances in technology since then."

"What makes anyone think this video game even works? I mean, just because there are some crazy geniuses locked up in a basement somewhere tinkering, doesn't mean they figured anything out."

"There have been experiments. Successful ones."

"How could that be? Wouldn't people know about something like that being tested?"

"You probably do without knowing it. Think about it. Any crimes in the news over the past few years strike you as especially awful? Did you find yourself thinking, how could a person do such terrible things and seem so disconnected?"

I thought over every seemingly inexplicable act over the last ten years, the countless times I wondered what made a person completely lose their humanity. I shook my head, feeling ill.

"That's horrible."

"Horrible things happen every day. Logistically speaking, it makes sense for someone to create this kind of weapon. If you can control a person to carry out orders, without question or reservation, who has no knowledge of where the orders come from, and who would go so far as to kill themselves when told, there would be no accountability. No rules in war. Genocide, terrorism, you name it; it all becomes something you can do with the flip of a switch. So to speak."

"And you are here to retrieve the software. The video game."

"Yes."

"Meera is not involved. There is no way."

"'Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.' Not to mention its people. I'm fairly certain Thomas Jefferson was American."

"'For I can raise no money by vile means.' Yeah. That's right, I read a book."

"I'm sure more than a few."

"My point is, while it's becoming clear to me that you view the world as financial transaction, I don't. And neither does my friend."

"That seems unfair. You're assuming that my choice to retrieve the game is solely based on some future payout."

"Is it?"

Eli leaned back against the wall and looked me in the eye. "Right now, what matters for you, I think, is that you clear your friend's name. Right?"

"Well, yes. That's the most important—"

"Then let's get to work."