20 -Shep
20 - Shep
W e’re just exiting the church when I ask Collin the obvious question. “So do you have a plan? For how, exactly, we’re gonna kill this puppet master? Because he could be anyone.”
Collin pans his hand down the driveway towards his house and we head that direction. “Well, they wouldn’t go to all the trouble of buildin’ some secret speakeasy in the middle of the fuckin’ woods if it wasn’t some kind of home base, right?”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You wanna send in a team?”
He shrugs. Like putting together a hit team to take out a shadow-government honeypot is just another one of his available services. “Why not? We’ve got an army. If I can’t use everything I have at my disposal to save my baby sister, then what is the point of all this?”
He’s not wrong. And if I were him, and I owned a private security company that amounted to a small army filled with damaged killers, I’d be thinking the same thing. If you can’t save the ones you love, what’s the point of any of it?
“But first,” Collin says, “we need to call up Penny Rider and you need to give her permission to tell us what she found.”
I scoff. “You need my permission?”
“Penny’s on the up and up. She doesn’t break the rules for us. She doesn’t break the rules for anyone. She’s just very good at working within them so we can get the information we need. She pulled you aside because she never had any intention of telling me about it. In her mind, it was none of my business. I asked her to find a way to tell if you were lying. She did that. You weren’t. And that was the end of her commitment to me. So, do you have a problem with giving this permission?”
“With her telling you? No. I can’t say for sure what this brain wave shit was, but it’s got to be residual. Leftovers from the programming.”
“Programming,” Collin sneers. “Nice.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, stopping at the bottom of his porch steps. “You think you weren’t programmed? Because Disciple, West Virginia, is a cult if ever there was one.”
“Maybe.” He doesn’t disagree. Not outright. “But it’s a pretty fuckin’ innocent one compared to this CORE shit. My childhood was spent pretending to be a happy, old-timey son of a preacher man whose life revolved around a tourist-attraction tent revival. What these people did to my sister once she left Disciple was flat-out mind-control.”
Again, he’s not wrong.
“So are you in, Shep? Because I get it. You’ve got no loyalty to us yet. You’ve been here two weeks. If you don’t wanna come?—”
“I do,” I say, cutting him off. “I’m here now.” I look around a little. At all the men, and the dogs, and the houses. Then I look back at Collin. “It’s pretty much the nicest place I’ve ever seen in my life.”
He smiles and looks down the driveway. “Good. That’s the vibe we were goin’ for.”
“So I’m in. And anyway—” I hesitate here.
But he catches this hesitation. “Anyway what?”
I shrug. “I like her.”
“Olive?”
“Yeah. I like her. She’s… well, let’s just leave it there.”
Collin side-eyes me. “Yeah. Maybe we better. But listen, I need to go make some plans. Can you stay here and watch Olive? We should really keep an eye on her until we know what’s goin’ on.”
“Sure. I can do that.”
“Good. I’ll text you Penny’s number. Call her up and just give her permission to talk to us. Then I can get all the details from her so we know what we’re dealing with. Do not mention Olive. Do not mention anything about what we’re doin’ here.”
“Won’t say a word.”
Collin nods his approval, then he shakes my hand and walks away.
I don’t go back inside the house. Not right away. I just sit on the porch steps and wait for the text as I watch the goings-on around me—the dogs, the men, and everything in between. And as I do this, I find myself wondering what time Cross gets off school. Because he’s gonna be mad at me if I haven’t checked a single thing off his damn list by the time he gets home.
Just thinking these words in my head makes me smile.
Two weeks. That’s how long I’ve been here. That’s all it took for me to want it. This life that Edge is offering me. It’s a real second chance. Something I never thought I’d have. Something I probably don’t even deserve.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I fish it out and read the text from Collin. It’s short and to the point, which is typical of him. Here’s the number, call her up, give her permission to talk to me.
So I stand up and make the call.
Penny picks up first ring. “I don’t recognize this number, so state your name and business and be quick about it.”
“Uh… Penny? This is Shep—I mean, Ean Shephard. We met on Saturday when?—”
“I might be old, but I’m not senile, Mr. Shephard. Of course I remember you. It was five days ago. What is it that you need?”
“Well, what you and I were talking about on Saturday? Collin told me to call you and give you permission to tell him all about it.”
“Hmm.” She pauses here after her little hum. “So you’re in.”
“In?”
“You’re going to be one of them. The Edge.”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
“Well, Mr. Shephard, this is not a conversation for this phone line so I’m going to take some precautions.”
“OK. What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m going to send a courier to deliver a package. You’ll know what to do once it arrives.”
“How long will that take? Just so I can tell Collin?”
“Few hours. Talk then.”
The call ends and I let out a breath, feeling a little more stressed than I was because I wasn’t expecting her explanation would require end-to-end voice encryption, which is obviously what she’s talking about.
I text Collin, letting him know what’s up. He texts me back a thumbs-up, but nothing else.
So now, I wait.
But I decide to go back inside Collin’s house to do that, even though it feels a little strange to be alone in his personal space. I look up and around, wondering if there are cameras in here. Probably? I would assume, actually. But then again, he lives here with his wife or whatever she is. Women get funny about cameras, so I’m not sure. I don’t see any, but this operation isn’t called Edge because it’s behind the times. Whatever cameras Collin and company are using, it is highly likely that they’re nearly invisible.
Which means… eventually, he’s gonna see what Olive and I did in that guest room of his.
This makes me blow out a breath. But it’s done. There’s no take-backs. So I put these thoughts away for another time and walk down the hallway to check on Olive.
She’s asleep, but under the covers now. Which means at some point she woke up, put herself under those covers, and then went back to sleep.
What is going on with this girl?
And how does it involve me?
Because it most certainly does involve me. In some way, at least. It cannot be coincidence that I walked into that bar and she was the first person I met. It’s just not.
I haven’t thought about CORE much since everything went sideways. In fact, I put the whole thing out of my mind while I was in prison. I liked it there. I mean, eventually I’m sure I would’ve seen it for what it was. But for me it was a timeout. It was permission to think. To figure things out. To be left alone. To pick apart what I could remember and fit it in to what I already knew. To heal, if that’s possible. Five years was long enough to get my head right.
People have cell phones in lock-up. There’s internet, even if the prisoners aren’t always allowed to access it—the wireless is everywhere now. But it wasn’t in every corner of every space in the prison. It wasn’t like the SCIF with the vacuum feeling when the door closed. But it was better than being in a fuckin’ city where the electromagnetic waves are pretty much everywhere. There’s no way to get away from it and I’m kinda sensitive to those waves.
They bother me.
That’s why I was in Wyoming to begin with. At least I think it was. It’s hard to recall what it was like to be me back then. I was insane, I think. I’d been institutionalized twice for erratic behavior. But there’s no real will to keep the insane separate from the public these days, let alone the desire to get them some help. So I was let go after a seventy-two-hour hold both times.
But Wyoming is… empty.
And unless you’ve lived there, you can’t really imagine it. Probably Alaska is like that too. But Wyoming is just about the only real place you can go in the lower forty-eight where the wireless can’t really get a hold of you the way it does in crowded places.
I would not say I liked prison, but I needed it.
And this brings me back around to Olive, still sleeping in the bed. I think she needs some silence. So I close the door, go back outside, and sit on the steps.
I like her. I would like to help her, if I can.
And maybe get a second chance with her as well.
She comes off as vulnerable. Innocent. Which is a hard thing to pull off after begging an almost-stranger to literally choke an orgasm out of her.
It’s a deception. I know this. I know people like her. I know CORE. But even so, and knowing what I know, she still comes off in all these ways.
Which is dangerous.
I chuckle, looking around at all the even more dangerous men and their K9 partners. I guess, if you’re a young woman who’s been handled the way she has, this is definitely the place to be if you wanna get right with yourself and not be all alone in the process.
Every ten minutes or so I go inside to check on Olive, but each time she’s still sleeping so I come back out to the porch and wait, just watching all the activity on the compound. After what seems like hours, I finally see Collin making his way back to the house. Amon is with him and even from this distance I can tell they’re having a conversation, which is cut off as they approach me.
I stand up and let out a long breath as they come up the steps.
“How is she?” Collin nods his head towards the front door to indicate Olive.
“Sleeping,” I say. “I’ve checked on her every ten minutes or so since you left. I guess she’s tired.”
Collin nods, then looks at Amon, who holds up a medium-sized white envelope that has already been opened. “Let’s do it then,” Amon says, his drawl matching Collin’s almost perfectly. He pulls out a burner phone and powers it up as Collin and I lean in, trying to get a better look.
An empty blue screen becomes a logo of sorts. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to it.
“Penny,” Amon says plainly. But that’s all the explanation I get because he’s pressing buttons and the logo disappears to reveal a contact menu with a single option: Call.
Amon looks up from the phone and directs his gaze to Collin. “Ready?”
Collin nods.
Amon taps the screen.
There are a few seconds of silence and then a low, distinct ringing that reminds me of what it sounds like when calling overseas, but not exactly. There’s a click, then another click, then another.
After that, there’s Penny. “All right, who am I talking to?”
“Collin,” Collin says. “Amon and Shep are here too.”
“All right. And just so we’re clear, you’re OK with me revealing some of your history to Collin and Amon, Mr. Shephard?”
I don’t like that Collin and Amon are on a first-name basis and I’m still Mr. Shephard. So I start with that before answering her question. “It’s Shep. You don’t have to call me Mr. Shephard. And yeah. You can say what you need to say. I don’t mind.”
“Very well, Shep. Collin?” she says, redirecting. “How familiar are you with the Covert Operations for Research and Espionage?”
“Well,” Collin says, “I’m pretty sure that’s where the acronym CORE comes from, but other than that, nothin’.”
“Hmm,” Penny hums. Then takes a moment to think. There is a lot of clicking on this line to indicate that software is running in the background for the encryption, so while it’s a pause, it’s not a silence. “Sorry for my delay in response. I’m just trying my best to come up with a plausible reason why no one ever mentioned CORE to you. Especially when you were an ancillary part of it. But that’s a mystery for another day. Today I’m going to focus on Shep and Olive.”
When I glance at Collin, there’s some tension in his forehead and he looks a little worried. “OK,” he says. “Should I be sittin’ down or somethin’?”
“No. I am not in possession of the kind of details that would require you to sit, so feel free to stand. I’m going to say some things and you need to take it all at face value. I will not be providing proof of any kind, I will not be naming any names, and I will not be divulging anything that is not directly related to Shep or Olive.”
Collin looks like he’s got questions about these stipulations, but Amon says, “Sounds fair,” before he can ask them.
“All, right,” Penny replies. “Let’s get into it.” What comes next is a history lesson in liars. “JFK once warned about the dangers of secrecy in a free society. But what we’re dealing with here goes far beyond secrecy, Collin. It’s about control.” Her voice is steady and strong. Not loud, not soft. She’s very practical. Almost emotionless. When I met with her at the hospital she came across as knowledgeable, competent, and discreet. And this is how she comes off now too.
“And when I say control,” Penny continues, “I’m not just referring to controlling the justice system, the military, the economy, or even the highest office in the land. Those things are very easy to control. It doesn’t take much for certain forces to mold these systems into anything they desire. There are many ways to control the power of others and make it your own. Bribes and blackmail, just to name two. But there’s always been a gap between the people in power and the people they hold power over. Are you following me?”
Amon and I both look at Collin as he nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I get it.”
“I’m sure you do,” Penny says, and I can almost hear her smile. “Well, there’s always been a sort of bottleneck in regards to this control over people. Well, I take that back. Always is much too strong a word. Let me just be plain here. They’ve solved the issue of how to control people. With the masses, they do it with propaganda. Pop culture, music, art, film, books, advertising. You get the point. But that applies mainly to groupthink. Controlling groups is fun to them, but not as useful as controlling individuals.”
I let out a long, involuntary sigh. Because I see where this is going. Collin and I were just talking about it this morning, but I only have access to so much information. Personal experience, mostly. Everything I said about Olive was a guess. And I didn’t tell Collin anything about me. Not because I couldn’t put it together if I really tried, but because I don’t wanna know what happened to me. I really don’t.
Penny doesn’t care about what I want, so she just keeps talking. “They’ve been working on ways to control and influence the minds of individuals since the late 1700s when mesmerism became popular. From there, the focus switched to hypnotism, then psychoanalysis, then behaviorism and conditioning. These days, it’s much, much more than suggestions. It’s neuroscience. It’s technology. In fact, modern mind control is about neural implants and quantum entanglement.”
Collin, Amon, and I are all looking at each other as Penny finishes. Amon blinks. “I’m sorry, Penny. What the fuck does that even mean?”
“It’s very complicated, Amon. But what I’m getting at is that Shep is a part of this program.”
Amon looks at me, his brow all furrowed. “You’ve got a brain implant?”
Before I can answer, Penny says, “No. He doesn’t. And we know this for sure because we scanned his brain last weekend.”
“So,” Collin says, “it’s the other thing. The entanglement.”
“That’s right, Collin,” Penny says. “He and his partner were one of the first to go through the program. I won’t go into details about the principles behind the science, mostly because I don’t understand it myself. But the takeaway is that… well… it didn’t work. Shep can fill you in on the specifics of that because I don’t know, to be honest. What I do know is that evidence of the procedure he went through is still in his brain. That’s what they found, Shep. Proof that you were a part of that program.”
All of us go silent for a moment. Thinking.
Then Collin asks the obvious. “Penny, do you have any information about my sister, Olive?”
Penny blows out a long breath and doesn’t immediately answer. I get a bad feeling in my stomach, even though I already know what she’s gonna say. But still, when it comes out, I’m floored. Because she says, “Collin, I’m sure there’s a reason for this question and I’m sure you’ve already got your suspicions, so I’m just going to cut to the chase. Olive and her partner were the first successful results of this entanglement program and they were both released into full active duty about six months ago.”