I lie on the floor staring at the legs of the table.
My eyelids flicker but want to stay closed. I have to will them to stay open.
How I ended up here I’m not sure. I don’t remember falling off the chair. I was inside the target’s head, then moments later I found myself curled up in this fetal position on the floor.
I’m stunned, I know that much. I never imagined my first assignment would be like this. I don’t know what to think. My mind is a marshmallow; one that’s toasted until it’s so molten it’s hardly hanging on to the fork.
That was a nightmare.
I’m completely frazzled.
It’s difficult to gather my thoughts about what I’ve just experienced. But I need to. My handler will expect a full, detailed debrief. I must show him how professional I am.
I hear the lock click and the door open.
There’s not enough time for me to get to my feet.
The handler sees me on the floor but doesn’t rush over to help. He saunters towards me, stopping a few feet away, and looks down his nose at this curious situation.
“You okay?” he asks. But there’s little concern in his voice. He expects the answer to be *yes.*
“Yes, I’m okay.” I push myself up to a sitting position while the handler takes a seat at the table. I shake my head as if in the throes of a boxing match, one that I’m losing badly.
“Do you want a coffee?” he asks.
“Yes, please.”
The answer seems to annoy him, but he gets up anyway and leaves the room.
This gives me time to take some deep breaths, to massage the back of my neck. I’d hate him to see me do this. It would be a hint of weakness, a hint that I’m not up to the job in hand. In WOCO, appearance is everything.
When he returns I’m sitting at the table on the chair opposite his, making a conscious effort to appear unfazed, but trying to hide the effort. If there was a spirit level to hand it would show that the line of my lips is perfectly straight. There’s nothing like straight lips to show seriousness of intent.
The handler sits down opposite me, takes a sip of his coffee and asks, “How was it?”
I think of sampling the coffee but wonder if my hands will shake when I lift the cup from the table. So I let it sit there, taunting me with its recovery powers.
“Informative,” I eventually reply — a word that could mean anything, which is precisely what I want it to mean.
The handler’s head tilts to one side as if considering all the ramifications, all the possible meanings, connotations and implications of the word “informative”.
“You were remote viewing for three hours,” he says. “Did you know that?”
“No.”
He writes this down. What could the length of time indicate?
“Let’s start at the beginning. Did you have any trouble locating a viable target?”
“Yes. It took a while.”
I wonder if our conversation is being recorded on either video or audio file. How do WOCO balance the need for secrecy with the need to monitor the effectiveness of this new tool?
“But you found a viable target?”
“Yes, I found a viable target.”
He stares off to the side until he’s thought of the next question. “Did you meet with any resistance on entering the target’s head?”
“No. None at all.”
“Is it a man or a woman?”
“A man. Definitely a man.”
He pauses, then quietly he asks, “Did you find any thoughts about the leaking of the immortality secrets?”
“Yes.”
He leans back in his chair, astounded, I think. “What was the first thought you came across that was significant?”
“I can’t remember the exact wording of the thought, but the target told himself not to worry. He thought there were several people who could be blamed for the leaked documents.”
“That was the thought? The exact thought?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure these leaked documents were the ones about the immortality experiments?”
“Yes.”
“Did he mention immortality in his thoughts? Explicitly?”
“Yes, he did. He was going to meet somebody to discuss the immortality documents.”
“Who was this person he was going to meet?”
“I don’t know. He called him ‘John’. But he had no thoughts about this person’s surname.”
The handler taps his pencil on the table. “The target himself. Did he mention his own name in any of his thoughts?”
“No.”
“Did he give any clues to his identity?”
“There was something about preparing notes for a class. He was worried that meeting this contact wouldn’t leave him time to prepare notes for his class. I think he’s a teacher. I definitely got the impression that this target is a teacher.”
The handler and I spend the next hour or so examining every thought the teacher had while I was inside his head, trying to pin down his identity.
The teacher felt thirsty. He had a cola. Which brand?
The teacher put on a coat. What kind of coat?
The teacher went for a walk. Did he think about the buildings he was passing? Were there any significant landmarks?
I had to remind the handler that I couldn’t see through the target’s eyes, couldn’t see what he was seeing, only hear his thoughts.
But by the end of the session the handler is quietly confident that the target is a teacher in the United States, more specifically San Francisco.
I have to agree. I’ve visited San Francisco, too, several years ago.
I pity all the teachers who live in San Francisco. I have no doubt that they will all receive a visit from members of the WOCO Protection Force. Their houses will be ransacked in the search for clues. Their every movement will be closely scrutinized, their friends will be interrogated.
The handler congratulates me on a job well done. I do my best to hide my overwhelming feeling of sadness.
