Mind in the Clouds Read online

  Mind in the Clouds

  By Bruce M. Perrin

  Text Copyright © 2016 Bruce M. Perrin

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition.

  Cover Art by Courtney M. Perrin

  Visit the Author at

  BruceMPerrin.blogspot.com

  For my family for their love and support

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  PART 1 Training the Babysitter

  Friday, October 23, 9:32 AM

  Thursday, December 17, 10:38 AM

  Thursday, December 17, 12:57 PM

  Thursday, December 17, 1:57 PM

  Thursday, December 17, 6:43 PM

  Friday, December 18, 2:03 PM

  Friday, December 18, 7:58 PM

  Sunday, December 20, 3:43 PM

  Monday, December 28, 10:17 AM

  Monday, December 28, 1:26 PM

  Tuesday, December 29, 9:07 AM

  Saturday, January 2, 6:45 PM

  Monday, January 4, 7:17 AM

  Monday, January 4, 8:29 AM

  Monday, January 4, 9:16 AM

  Monday, January 4, 9:28 AM

  Monday, January 4, 1:44 PM

  Monday, January 4, 2:06 PM

  Monday, January 4, 6:47 PM

  Tuesday, January 5, 5:42 AM

  Tuesday, January 5, 8:04 AM

  Tuesday, January 5, 8:26 AM

  Tuesday, January 5, 9:02 AM

  Tuesday, January 5, 2:58 PM

  Tuesday, January 5, 6:02 PM

  Tuesday, January 5, 7:17 PM

  Wednesday, January 6, 10:07 AM

  Wednesday, January 6, 1:34 PM

  Friday, January 8, 6:12 AM

  Friday, January 8, 10:17 AM

  PART 2 Fish in a Barrel

  Saturday, January 9, 10:58 AM

  Monday, January 11, 6:33 AM

  Tuesday, January 12, 10:33 AM

  Tuesday, January 12, 2:42 PM

  Tuesday, January 12, 7:53 PM

  Wednesday, January 13, 5:58 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 5:16 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 7:04 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:16 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:22 AM

  Three Days Earlier, Monday, January 11, 8:12 AM

  Three Days Earlier, Monday, January 11, 6:02 PM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:24 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:27 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:28 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:29 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:41 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 8:59 AM

  Two Days Earlier, Tuesday, January 12, 5:27 PM

  Thursday, January 14, 9:02 AM

  Seventeen Days Earlier, Monday, December 28, 2:03 PM

  Thursday, January 14, 9:05 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 9:07 AM

  Thursday, January 14, 9:16 AM

  Friday, January 15, 9:11 AM

  Friday, January 15, 2:56 PM

  Friday, January 15, 3:12 PM

  Friday, January 15, 6:51 PM

  Saturday, January 16, 7:46 AM

  Saturday, January 16, 4:43 PM

  Saturday, January 16, 5:16 PM

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PART 1

  Training the Babysitter

  Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.

  Albert Collins

  Adventures in Babysitting

  Friday, October 23, 9:32 AM

  There he is. Drew did not know how he had moved so far without being seen.

  Tracking in this terrain was trickier than Drew had ever imagined. Large rocks, brush, and gulches littered the landscape, making following someone here as difficult as anywhere on earth. Drew knew, however, that he was more than adequate to the task. After all, he grew up practicing this skill and now, he commanded one of the most advanced hunting machines ever created by man. While there might be times when his quarry disappeared, Drew was sure that there was no escape.

  For more than two hours now, Drew had been following ‘Contact 024,’ as the sensor image was labeled onscreen. He almost felt some kinship with the target. So much so, that he decided to replace the contact number with a name. With a few menu selections on the touchscreen and a few keystrokes, the contact number disappeared and was replaced with ‘Wiley.’ Drew smiled. The name was apropos.

  However, no sooner had the screen updated than Wiley dropped from sight once again. Maybe Drew needed to be stealthier. Something was making Wiley nervous, unless he was always this wary. With a few more commands, Drew increased the distance to target to 1500 yards. With nearly a mile between them now, there was no way Wiley would hear him. And by loitering near the ground, the chance that he might be seen was also quite low.

  After a moment, Wiley stuck his head out from behind a large boulder. Drew was impressed that the quality of the image on his situation display had deteriorated little. He almost swore that he could see the whites of Wiley’s eyes, although he knew this was impossible. But his sense of power over the target was complete. Wiley was his.

  Drew was not surprised that he found it intoxicating to work with this weapon system. After all, it combined his only two real loves in life – the freedom of flight and the exhilaration of the hunt. Growing up in the vast, open spaces of west Texas, Drew had begun hunting at the age of 11. At least, that was the age when he first started carrying a gun. Even before then, however, he had constructed slingshots and had built snares and pit traps. He reveled in matching wits and cunning with the wildlife of the Llano Estacodo plains. By the time he was 16, he had stalked and killed virtually every species of game inhabiting the area.

  It was also at 16 that Drew became acquainted with his second love – the love of flight. At the time, he thought his car was the ultimate source of freedom. At least, he thought that until he witnessed his first ultralight airplane soaring over the open plains. He researched the cost and even devised a plan that would let him raise the $3500 to $4000 he would need to buy one. When he added the costs of storage, maintenance, and operation, however, he knew an ultralight was beyond his reach. So, he drove his car as if it was an airplane, amassing several speeding tickets in areas where such citations were virtually unknown.

  By 2006, when Drew reached the age of 23, he still harbored the dream of flying. He had earned his pilot’s license, but now lacked the time and the extra cash he needed to maintain an airplane and fly on a regular basis. So, he did the next best thing. He went to work for Air Dynamics, a Pittsburgh-based engineering company involved in the design and manufacture of small commercial aircraft and military drones. It was the drones, however, with their low cost and lack of regulatory restrictions that captured Drew’s imagination.

  At the time, the legality of private use of drones was debatable, with the Federal Aviation Administration arguing that non-military use was illegal. However, many hobbyists, including Drew, found loopholes, or just plain ignored the FAA’s proclamations. By March 2016, the courts had ruled against the FAA, and Drew and hundreds of other amateur drone pilots celebrated their victory by taking to the skies more frequently and more openly. Drew had already logged hundreds of flight hours on a variety of aircraft he had built or tested for Air Dynamics. He was well on his way to becoming one of the best drone pilots in the fledgling industry.

  The system he flew now, however, was different from anything he had operated previously. It was so much more than the typical quadcopter that littered urban skies. In Drew’s mind,
those systems had little utility beyond dropping packages for Amazon or UPS. At nearly 4,000 pounds, his current mode of transport was about half the size of an attack helicopter, such as the Boeing AH-64 Apache, but it was so much more agile. In fact, its capabilities so enthralled Drew that when he ran into some personnel issues at Air Dynamics, he left and sought employment at Omega Systems. There, the basic vehicle was married with state-of-the-art weaponry and advanced sensor and analysis technology, creating the Joint Aerial Combat Capability or JACC. It packed as much firepower and considerably more detection and tracking capabilities than any manned combat aircraft. Drew knew that there was no way a human pilot could have tracked Wiley in this barren wasteland without the capabilities that JACC had onboard.

  His time for relishing the duel between Wiley’s cunning and his abilities, however, was drawing to an end. Wiley was nearing the edge of the kill box. If Drew hesitated much longer, Wiley would escape, and this skirmish would go to his crafty foe. Drew’s fingers flew across the touchscreen. His inputs, however, elicited an automatic warning, “Classification inconsistent with target type.” After a few more inputs, Drew overrode JACC’s concerns.

  Everything was now in Drew’s hands. He selected Wiley on the situation display and engaged the targeting system. JACC selected a weapon, one of the remaining Hydra 70 rockets. Drew confirmed the choice. It was the decisive moment. It was the time for Wiley to learn of the dangers that lurked in the clouds.

  Drew launched the rocket. The rush of adrenaline was like nothing Drew had ever experienced before. He knew what he was born to do. And he knew he would have many more opportunities to do so, even in the not-too-distant future.

  Thursday, December 17, 10:38 AM

  I would not say that I was in a panic. No, that would be a bit too melodramatic.

  However, there was no denying that my excitement about the prospects for the future just moments ago had now become a foreboding about what might lay ahead. Just over an hour ago, I thought I had closed the book on a technology that promised to reduce suffering by harnessing the self-healing capability of the brain. Instead, it had delivered an intoxicating sense of superiority and a complete indifference to the lives and suffering of others.

  One individual who had fallen prey to this technology was no longer a threat. However, in the last few pages of notes from the researcher who had developed this device, known as the Brain Hemisphere Blocker, I found the following notation: “R.J. was a 27 year-old male who completed 87 hours of training…” That might well be enough for R.J. to become ensnared by the device and become the second to fall prey to the maliciousness it could produce.

  The problem was that I had no idea who R.J. might be. If his identity was as well guarded as the first person’s had been, finding him would be challenging indeed. However, if I had learned anything from the previous manhunt, it was that the simplest, most straightforward inquiries often provided the best results. So, I called Dr. Jon Huston, the partner of the individual who had developed the Blocker.

  “Hi Jon, it’s Sam Price.”

  “Hi Doc. How’re things at Ruger-Phillips?”

  In many ways, it seemed unreal for someone like Jon Huston, an MD and PhD who was well established in his field, to address me as ‘Doc.’ After all, I had only received my doctorate in Cognitive Psychology less than a year ago. A coworker at my company, Ruger-Phillips, a medium-sized engineering and research company based in St. Louis, MO., had conferred the nickname. Not only had the moniker stuck, it seemed to spread of its own volition.

  “Good… OK, maybe not so well.” I corrected myself, when I recalled the purpose of the call. “I was just packing the last of the research notes to return to you, when I ran across a somewhat troubling reference.” I read the entry to him. “Do you know who R.J. is?”

  There was a delay of several seconds. Finally, Huston replied, “You need to keep this information completely confidential. Can I have your word on that?”

  “Yes, of course.” If the device had infected R.J., his identity would be something law enforcement would need to know. However, Jon Huston and I had been through our own personal hells because of this technology. If Jon felt the situation was under control, I trusted him.

  “R.J. is my nephew, Randall Jenkins. He goes by Randy. He’s a student at St. Louis University and usually works in my lab over the summer. When we needed another research participant for the Hemisphere Blocker study, I asked him if he would be interested. At that point, of course, we knew nothing about the dangerous side effects of the device. But even from the beginning, it didn’t seem to have the same effect on Randy as it had with the previous user.”

  I could easily believe that. Because the organization of brain function varies considerably among individuals, the device might well affect people in different ways.

  “After the possible negative side effects of the Blocker were known, we informed the authorities that Randy had used it. We also had him undergo complete medical testing. Actually, he has undergone several series of tests. And his parents and I are keeping a close watch. I expect that the police are doing the same, and maybe some federal agencies. Who knows?”

  “Jon, I’m sorry. I’m sure this is very difficult for him.” The other user of the Blocker had become a serial killer. To have been attached to the same machine, even for a brief period, would be disturbing to anyone. I could not imagine it myself, always wondering if I might someday spiral out of control.

  “Yes, he was extremely distraught at first. He’s learning to deal with it, but he still worries that some malevolent streak will emerge someday. I’ve told him that the evil we saw before was the cumulative effect from hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours of use, and that it undoubtedly takes this type of intense, prolonged exposure to produce the types of delusions the last person showed. And the effects also showed up immediately. There wasn’t any delay that we know of. But of course, Randy’s still worried.”

  “I won’t mention this to anyone.”

  “Thanks. Other than the authorities and his parents, the only other person who knows is your friend, Nicole Veles.”

  “Nicole knows?” I was surprised by this comment. Nicole Veles is a biomedical engineer from another company who had consulted with us on the Hemisphere Blocker project. As such, she had access to some materials I had not seen, but I had no idea she had stumbled onto anything like this.

  “Yes, Randy’s participation was mentioned elsewhere in the notes, and Nicole found the reference. She too agreed to keep this private, but I have to admit, for a moment, I wondered if she had told you, seeing how close you two are. But I should have known better. She would never do anything like that.”

  Over the several months I had known Nicole, I too had come to trust her judgment and discretion. However, to say that she and I were close was, unfortunately, a misperception. In fact, we had only a handshake, professional relationship, because Nicole had been smart enough to keep it that way. Now, with the Blocker project complete, I hoped that situation would change quite soon.

  “Thanks Jon. I feel better, knowing that the effect of the Blocker has been contained.”

  “I’m glad you called, rather than just ignoring this and hoping it was nothing. If you and Nicole ever happen to be in our neighborhood around lunchtime, please drop in. It would be great to see you both again. Or perhaps you can drop by today?”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep your offer in mind, but I can’t make lunch today. I’m going to finish packing these notes and I’ll bring them to your offices around 4 PM. Will someone be there around that time?”

  “I have a meeting this afternoon in another building, but my assistant will be here until 5 o’clock. Bring them by any time before then.”

  “Thanks Jon. I will. Take care.” I hung up. The thought of facing another person with thoughts twisted by the Blocker had been unsettling, but my peace of mind had been restored by Huston’s assurances.

  Little did I know at the time, however, but R.J. was no
t where my disquiet should lie. Rather, within the month, I was to confront a new mind more focused on murder than any I had faced before.

  Thursday, December 17, 12:57 PM

  With my fears assuaged, I quickly finished packing the research notes for their return to Dr. Huston and ate a hurried lunch. Truth be told, I was quite anxious to get started on my next project, which meant meeting with my immediate supervisor, Ken Waters. The department that Ken headed largely focused on independent verification and validation contracts, often for the government and generally involving training technologies. We were the ‘disinterested third party’ that made sure another company’s research and their training products met the customer’s requirements. Additionally, on occasion, we secured contracts to develop our own products, putting us on the other side of the supply-and-demand equation.

  In terms of headcount, Ken’s department was overwhelmingly composed of researchers and engineers who built or tested simulators. I was not one of them. No, I was part of a much smaller and relatively new discipline at Ruger-Phillips; one involved in the application of cognitive science to improve learning and training. So, where my simulator colleagues could design and test a motion base for a multi-million dollar aircraft simulator, we could determine how much movement was necessary for the brain (the vestibular system) and the body (proprioceptors) to register position and acceleration. Or, where my engineering brethren could develop high resolution, 3-dimensional models for practicing maintenance skills, we could specify the fundamental, visual properties of these displays in order to make the experience feel real.

  At least, that is what we told them we could do, once we fully understood human perception and cognitive processing. Unfortunately, we were not there yet.

  It was not a lack of progress in our field, per se, that was keeping us from providing these inputs. No, the field had grown greatly. But even so, the answers to simple questions sometimes eluded us. Why did motion in a simulator help learning in some cases and hinder it in others? Or why did one 3D simulation work well, while another of similar complexity and resolution have all the users running for bathrooms with cases of motion sickness? We did not always know.