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The human was a variable. I had not foreseen Lomax bringing her aboard. I swiveled in my chair, watching him on a monitor as he urged his hostage along the passage. He peered into and rejected a couple of cabins. They’re all the same. What is he looking for?
Finally, he pushed the female into a stateroom. To my shock, he ran horns first at the comm unit, ramming into it. My monitor screen went blank as the comm unit died.
I clenched my four hands into fists. He was still a work in progress. Switching cameras, I watched the hall outside the cabin. It took several minutes before he emerged. He sealed the door, but then, instead of leaving, he leaned against the wall.
No, I did not like being thwarted.
I sealed off the bridge. Then, squaring my shoulders, I hailed Commandant Huavon.
On vid, the Aurelian’s glowing green face appeared in the underground bunker from which he now directed the GJW. After the government raided and destroyed the township where the GJW had been headquartered, Huavon had escaped Aurelia and gone into exile. I was one of a rare few who knew of his location.
“Peace through chaos,” he greeted me in his singsong language.
“Peace through chaos,” I replied.
“I have recovered the asset,” I reported without preamble. The founder and leader cared little for polite niceties, desiring only relevant information. “I’m in the process of clearing Nomoru territorial space.”
One of my antenna-eyes flicked to the monitor. Lomax hadn’t left the corridor outside the human’s cabin. What is he doing? Why is he still there?
“No problems?”
“None I can’t manage,” I replied, preoccupied by Lomax, then cursed my slip when Huavon’s black eyes narrowed to slits. I shut off the monitors to avoid further distractions. I could deal with Lomax later; I couldn’t afford any more slips.
Huavon owned me. If he doubted my ability or veracity, he’d have me neutralized. He’d turn me over to the Mnemonian Council of Elders, who would execute me. The elders and the Galactic Justice Warriors punished infractions similarly—by death.
I’d been a fugitive on the run, barely a step ahead of the authorities, when the GJW had approached me with an offer I couldn’t refuse—help them indoctrinate high-value assets, and they would protect me from prosecution by the Council of Elders.
“Start at the beginning,” Huavon said.
“The reinforcement went well. I deepened the HVA’s adherence to our goals and principles and strengthened the triggers and anti-triggers previously implanted. The partition is rock-solid now.” Except for the one little glitch.
“Good. Time is running out. We can’t afford to lose him again,” he said.
I could read between the lines. Any additional mistakes would be fatal—to me.
“We won’t.”
There’d been a gap in the partition, allowing remnants of respect for the king’s advisor to bleed through. That caused Lomax to hesitate to execute him, which had led to Lomax’s capture by the LOP and the apprehension of dozens of our foot soldiers. Nadir was a glorified servant. It never occurred to me a past association with a servant could pose a problem.
There were two forms of brainwashing. In one, the personality, beliefs, and values were supplanted by a new set of ideations, turning the individual into somebody new. His former self was erased completely. We employed this method with low-ranking recruits. Well, other programmers did. I didn’t waste my time on lowly foot soldiers.
The more complex method, requiring greater skill and effort, involved splitting the asset’s personality so that two individuals resulted. One we indoctrinated with GJW ideology; the other we left alone.
We constructed a mental partition separating the personalities to prevent cognitive dissonance in which opposing beliefs clashed, resulting in stress, discomfort, and dysfunction. The mental wall allowed both personalities to coexist unaware of the other. The side that dominated depended on the triggers and anti-triggers.
We used the partition approach in brainwashing high-value assets like Prince Lomax.
HVAs were too well-known to just disappear from their home worlds. Kidnapping led to a galactic manhunt, rendering the individual useless to us. So, they had to be able to remain on their planet and pass for normal until we needed them.
When we acquired a prince, a planetary leader, or a high-ranking LOP officer, we used them for propaganda, to subtly coerce an entire populace. When an HVA publicly supported our mission and message, they yielded tremendous influence over opinion and recruitment.
Surrounded by security, HVAs couldn’t just be nabbed off the street like a low-level recruit. It often took months, sometimes years, of careful planning to get close to one. So, we couldn’t afford to lose acquisitions. Sometimes, like with Prince Lomax, we sacrificed them for the greater good, but we never wanted to let one slip away as a result of a stupid mistake or a glitch like a partition breach.
To prevent an asset from revealing our secrets or plans in an interrogation, we implanted anti-triggers, words authorities would likely utter upon “rescuing” the individual. Anti-triggers caused the individual to revert to their former state, with no memory of what had gone on before. They couldn’t reveal what they didn’t remember existed.
And then we tried to bring them into the fold as soon as possible.
I had my career and life staked on Lomax.
