Mind Switch (25 page)

Fred had ordered an all-points on Ford under the guise that he was a material witness to a major crime. Of course, if challenged by the chief, he had no evidence of Ford’s involvement in a major crime, or any crime for that matter. He just hoped that the chief didn’t probe into the all-points, or Fred would be in deep trouble.

Jim had problems releasing the all-points. He challenged Fred as to what Ford was a material witness to. “What crime has he witnessed?” he asked Fred.

Fred said, “You just have to trust me,” hoping Jim would not press the point.

Jim said, “Well, I’m sorry but I can’t.”

Fred felt betrayed; his best friend on the force was now deserting him. Fred ordered the all-points himself.

Fred would feel greatly relieved once Ford was apprehended; but at the same time he knew he had no tangible evidence against him. He could hold Ford a couple of days at most, under some trumped up charge. But unless he could find something of substance that would hold up in court, he would have to free him after that.

“Well,” he muttered, “like Scarlet O’Hara, I will have to worry about that tomorrow.” Today he was going to interview additional personnel at AU. Schultz had made all the arrangements.

Fred didn’t tell the chief where he was going. After all, Schultz’s subordinates were not even in the mix of legitimate suspects. He had shown the pictures of all of the personnel in Schultz’s organization to the theater ticket taker who had observed the killer. He also had had the ticket taker look at the police artist’s various depictions of Ford. The ticket taker did not recognize any of them. However, Schultz recognized Ford as the therapist who treated him when he had encountered severe sleeping problems. That revelation made Fred more than certain that Ford was somehow involved in the killings; but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how or why.

Fred’s decision to interview Schultz’s subordinates was a necessary part of the investigation. Even though Fred did not suspect any of them as the brains behind the murders, he had to go through the loop; because although employee involvement was improbable, it remained a remote possibility. To do nothing would be even more depressing for him since it would result in an extended period of inactivity.

Fred had started his interviews with Ron Lyons, who was the temporary division head of the Stealth Division. His visit with Lyons had left him with nothing except a desire not to return to that ominous area. His next objective was to interview subordinates who had worked directly under the two murdered colleagues, as well as the person who had once registered a grievance against his boss. Remote as it might seem, someone might be motivated to eliminate their boss with the prospect of a future promotion to the position of the deceased supervisor. Schultz had told Fred that all future promotions were to be made from personnel already working in the firm; that made subordinates possible but improbable suspects. Harry Ford remained the number one suspect by a long shot.

First in line for Fred’s next interrogation was Michael Flynn. Flynn worked for the Matter Division, previously under the now deceased John Jackson. Flynn had the most seniority of all the employees in that division and was the acting division head, so Fred felt he was the most logical candidate for a future promotion. In addition, Michael was also one of the two employees who had registered a grievance against their boss.

Fred said, as he started his interrogation, “I respect the fact that much of what you do is classified. But without releasing any government secrets, tell me as best you can what each of the divisions in the company is all about.”

“To put it all in context,” said Flynn, “our company divisions have been given relatively simple names. The Matter division seeks to determine influences over matter, whether they be magnetic, gravitational or mental. Of course, mental is the process that we are primarily investigating, the other two are completely ancillary. Our goal is to find out how effective the mental process is in influencing matter and how best it can be amplified.”

Fred was dubious. “Ok, please help me understand the mental process as far as its influence on matter.”

“Well, I think the explanation will be much easier if I show you.”

Flynn took Fred into a large room. The entire room was painted an institutional battleship grey. The room contained two metal reverse pyramid structures with a series of small black and white balls at the top of each pyramid. Two counting machines had been placed to the left and right of each device. The two pyramids were fashioned from similar construction techniques, except one was much larger than the other. At the bottom of each of the contraptions were two deep metal bins which Fred assumed were used to catch the falling balls.

Flynn said, “This small machine is really very simple. It consists of 100 balls held in place at the top by a metal gate. It’s precisely balanced so that under natural conditions, as I release the gate, the balls will follow a random distribution pattern as they fall thru the chute below. We have enclosed the room so that it is free from drafts and other external influences. We also have a simple counting machine that tells us how many balls fell into both the right and left bottom bins.”

He released the balls and gradually they fell to the left and right of the contraption. Fred looked at the mechanical count; it was exactly equal at a 50-50 distribution.

Fred said, “That’s not exactly amazing, is it?”

“No a 50/50 ratio would be the most probable outcome; on any individual release, the distribution of balls actually follows the pattern of a simple bell curve with only a minimal variance from the 50/50 occurrence. But now observe this!”

He returned the balls to their position at the top of the reverse pyramid and released them once again. This time Fred noticed that Flynn was deeply concentrating on the balls as they were being released.

Again the balls fell, but this time it became obvious that a higher percentage were falling into the right bin. Fred checked the counter. It registered 76 in the right bin, and 24 in the left.

“How did you do that?” Fred asked.

“It was simply mental concentration. I just willed the balls to go into the right bin.”

“But 24 of them still wound up in the left bin.”

“True. But that represents the limit of my current ability. When I started here five years ago, I could only achieve an average 55/45 distribution. My skills have materially increased since that time, and with practice will continue to increase in the future.”

Fred was startled by what he had witnessed, but he still didn’t comprehend how this could help national security. “Well” Fred said, “I guess this would make a great carnival trick, but what else?”

Flynn, showing his disappointment with Fred’s indifferent evaluation of the results of the test said, “Come on. Let me show you a couple more things.”

He led Fred to the second pyramid. The balls resting at the top appeared much larger than those on the first pyramid. Fred said, “These balls look larger than the previous ones. But, do they weigh more than the others?”

“These are 1/2 pound each. Each ball in the first pyramid weighed only an ounce.”

Flynn released the balls and again they fell in a natural random distribution of 50 into each bin. Then Flynn repeated the experiment concentrating as the balls were released. This time Fred observed that a majority were falling into the right bin. The final count was 55/45.
 

Fred said, “You were not nearly as successful.”

“No,” Flynn said. “The additional weight of the balls decreases my effectiveness; but the results are still well beyond that of a random occurrence. Now, please witness the next demonstration.”

Flynn called in one of his co-workers, Curt Lee. He said, “We will release the balls once again; but this time Mr. Lee and I will both concentrate on them as they fall. Curt, let’s will the balls into the left bin.”

This time when the large balls fell, 60 of them had shifted to the left bin.

“You see, Lieutenant, this proves two things. The mind does have control over matter. And the more paranormal minds that focus on an object, the greater the ultimate control.”

Fred said, “I understand, and what you have done is amazing to me. But let me repeat; I’m still having a hard time understanding how this can ever help us with national security—or is that classified information?”

“Mr. Schultz called me and told me to give you a demonstration because he didn’t believe you had taken it all in when he talked to you. Here’s an organizational chart of the entire operation that might help you understand the macro aspects of what our company is all about.”

Flynn pulled a chart out of his desk which showed Schultz, as the CEO and President, in bold black letters dwarfing all the other components of the firm. Fred thought he would have expected nothing less than those giant sized letters associated with Schultz. Below Schultz’s name were five divisions. All reported directly to Schultz—Matter, Projection, Stealth, Reading, and Scientific.

Fred said “The divisional names seem to have very simple nomenclatures.”

Flynn smiled, “Yes that’s true, that’s the way Mr. Schultz wanted it. The names vaguely convey the purpose of the divisions without providing any added detail. I guess that’s so if an outsider is exposed to the names, they wouldn’t understand the real intent of the divisions.”

“Let me give you a brief explanation of each division starting with the Projection division. Projection’s role is to determine if we can find a way to accomplish distant viewing, using mental rather than mechanical or electronic methods.”

Fred was somewhat familiar with the concept, since he had talked to Schultz about it. “I see; and have you achieved any success?”

Flynn said “I would prefer you talk to personnel from that specific division about it.”

“OK, what about the other divisions?”

“Sure,” Flynn responded. “The Reading division deals with the ability to mentally uncover the images and thoughts resident in a subject’s mind. Perhaps you heard, a few years back, about a successful experiment with felines. Scientists were able to record numerous scenes depicting that which had moved directly in front of the subject cats.”

“How could that possibly have been accomplished?” Fred asked.

“It was accomplished simply by using the cat’s own neurons. Electrodes were implanted in the cat’s brain and the electrodes were hooked to a computer. The scenes that the cats observed were displayed by a computer screen. Of course, the displays did not have the level of clarity of what the cats saw, but the images were clear enough to roughly transmit the scene. By the way, that experiment was accomplished back in the 90’s. Our reading experiments are much further advanced now.

“But, let’s continue with the mission of our divisions. The Stealth Division deals with the concept of invisibility. They are working on two objectives, one is how to make a weapon system totally invisible from both radar and visual sightings; the other is how to make personnel invisible.”

Fred said, “Yes, I know about that division. Mr. Lyons gave me a briefing.”

“Finally,” said Flynn, “the Scientific Division consists of a neurologist and statisticians, as well as mechanical, computer and electrical engineers. The engineers actually help construct some of the devices we use for our experiments. Our neurologist attempts to identify the regions of the brain where our special capabilities reside. And then as a unit, they attempt to decode the neurological process.”

“That’s a tall order,” Fred said.

“Yes, it is, but long before our company came into existence, the scientific community had created robots that think like man. In fact, in selective areas they reason better than man without all of our emotional baggage. As you know, a computer can now defeat any human chess master.

“Actually,” Flynn went on, “in the broadest sense, the human brain has three components, a segment that supports our reasoning processes, the involuntary system which keeps us alive, and a segment that supports our paranormal abilities. Neurologists have already mapped most regions of the brain and have been successful in reducing parts of our thinking process into a binary logic code. The next step will be to accomplish something comparable with the paranormal component.”

“Wait a minute. Before you continue, I didn’t think machines could think.”

“Of course they can. Do you remember Big Blue, the IBM computer that actually beat the Russian chess master? Machines proceed through the thinking process much as human minds do. They proceed from the unknown to the known and constantly adjust their programs to avoid mistakes of the past.”

“So let me try to paraphrase,” Fred begun, “your company’s mission is to use your organization’s special talents to develop a simple computer code?”

“No, no, not at all! In many cases, such as in remote viewing, we are attempting, through practice and repetition, to strengthen that process in the people that have such a capability. The same is true with mind reading capability. Ultimately we want to decode the process; but I suspect that is a long time away and perhaps impossible. Before we could undertake such a Herculean task, we would have to know a lot more as to how the brain is able to accomplish it. At least that’s what I understand, but of course that’s not my division. In the end, our customers want progress in whatever form it takes. We have to constantly demonstrate that progress to meet our contractual obligations.”