“What’s next?” Kevin doesn’t ask many questions after successful completion of his first mission. He isn’t interested in details. Lives were saved, he can be happy about that. Or content. He feels that he has a long way to go in regards to redemption and he is as determined as ever to do good.
He and Anish are sitting in an all white conference room, waiting for the colonel to arrive with details of their next mission.
“I guess we’ll wait and see. Last week was a homerun for sure.” Anish is concerned for Kevin. She has tried to engage him socially since the colonel had eased his punishment, but Kevin is still largely a monastic figure around the CIA facility. “We should go out or something tonight…” she starts, but the colonel enters and she and Kevin stand at attention.
“My boy, the magician! We’ve got a hell of a mission for you this week.” The colonel is smiling and talks loudly enough to fill the sterile room.
“Whatever you need sir.” Kevin says dutifully.
“Sit, sit. We’re gonna run through the particulars of last week.” The three sit and the colonel puts a presentation on one of the walls. “You hit a white national group that has been causing a stir as of late. They’re not really affiliated with any big time players or anything, they were a group of knuckle heads who got together to make America great again with guns. One of them has a Neo Nazi biker brother in prison, but it seems that we stopped the possibility of anything from these boys.”
“Sir, if I may? How was the mind reader able to find them?” Anish asks.
“The way I understand it and the way I can explain it, she sensed heightened emotional distress coming from that factory and then she was able to zero in on their thoughts and hear what they were thinking. It’s crazy for sure, but we’ve got confirmation now that this woman’s intel is actionable.”
Kevin thinks to himself that a person with the ability to read minds could be dangerous as a tool of the government. Privacy concerns are a huge deal in a present where the internet is so ubiquitous. But issues of privacy take a back seat in matters of security, Kevin reassures himself. There is no need to protect the privacy of anyone with intentions that would put a large number of people in danger.
“You look like you got something to say son.” The colonel says before continuing.
“No sir.” Kevin says.
Anish asks, “Sir, what do you mean by emotional distress? That could be anything from a murder to a mugging.” Anish is thinking through the implications of a woman with the ability to listen to the thoughts of anyone she trains her mind on. “We just trust her to judge when it’s OK for her to essentially spy on people?”
“Not exactly. It’s complicated, agent, that’s for sure, but trust that she is working closely with our people to make sure we’re targeting the worst of the worse. She has worked closely with one of our doctors for years now and she knows how to feel a person’s emotional state, if they’re angry or murderous. If that feeling is amplified by sheer numbers in a single location, or just by the intensity of a person’s feeling, she can sense it from further away. It’s like an alert. Once they determine that the source is potentially dangerous, she checks the mind for thoughts that might indicate that the person intends to take violent action. Those guys we got last week, she said she could feel a lot of rage and bloodlust. And we stopped something that could have been truly horrible.”
Anish is satisfied with that, or satisfied enough to let the colonel continue.
“We might have something bigger than last week.” The colonel is not grim, but he is serious as he details Kevin’s next mission. “Everybody has something to say about the election, whether they like who won or not. We think we have something brewing in California that could become combustible soon. This would be a good time to explain our threat levels.” The colonel projects the current threat level classifications used to determine when action is warranted in response to a threat identified by the mind reader.
“What is Aliarum?” Anish asks when she reads the name given of the threat level classifications; Aliarum Distinction.
“It’s the name they gave to people with abilities like our mind reader.” The colonel says.
Anish is shocked to hear this. “There are other people that can do this?”
“Not like the Alia. That’s what we call her. She’s unlike any other from what I hear. And she’s sensing something in California that she says feels worse everyday.” The colonel looks down at notes that he has with him. “She says it’s like anger metastasizing and it could be an all out riot soon.”
“How soon?” Kevin asks.
“Maybe tomorrow,” the colonel says, “but the Alia will monitor the situation and we’ll get reports.”
“The Alia.” Anish repeats the name. “How many people are out in the world right now with this ability?” She looks at Kevin and she is legitimately stunned at the new reality she has to accept since she met Kevin for the first time after hearing about his ability but never seeing it in person. “Is this a thing now? People who can alter reality and read minds?”
“It’s a lot to wrap your brain around, I know, but yes.”The colonel smiles at Anish hoping to help her process the information. “There are other people who can do things that make you jealous, or scared. But that’s always been true, even before the magician here came along.”
Kevin doesn’t know how he feels about being called the magician, it sounds like a joke, but he doesn’t protest.
“So we are basically on standby for now.” The colonel says, turning attention back to the threat levels on the wall. “There are four Aliarum Distinctions, or ADs. An AD1 is the mind reader sensing heightened emotional distress. The most we know about an AD1 is general location, like to the east of the mind reader’s location. An AD2 is the point where the mind reader can clearly identify emotional distress related to feelings of ill intent. At this point, the mind reader can more accurately pinpoint a location using a map and if resources are available, we can monitor the position on the ground. The situation in California is currently at AD2. At AD3, the mind reader has permission to probe for thoughts at the source of the feelings. By this point, we are deciding if action is warranted using intel from the mind reader and any information available through other means. At AD4, we are devising a plan for intervention. Questions, thoughts?”
“So many, but I don’t know where to start,” Anish says.
“It’s a lot.” The colonel says as he gives both Anish and Kevin material that they can read on their own. “While you’re waiting around, thumb through this. I’ll update the two of you soon.”
The colonel leaves them in the room.
“Wow.” Anish says. “You don’t seem as astounded by all of this as I am.”
“I can make stuff just by imagining it,” Kevin says. “This isn’t really all that crazy to me.”
Anish nods. “Yeah.” She thinks that he sounds annoyed with her and she watches him focus on the material from the colonel. “You don’t have to shut me out, you know? It’s good to have friends.”
“For some people.” Kevin says. “I’m gonna read this in my room.”
Anish watches him leave.
PRL Serials 