Origins (Remote) (6 page)

Ruff opened an expanding folder and set a single photograph in front of her on the desk. It was black and white, a long distance shot of three men standing in front of a set of stone steps. One had his back to the camera the other two men appeared in profile. Although not a detailed shot, the men seemed to be in deep conversation.

“I want you to look at this man here,” said Ruff, pointing to the man on the left. He was a short, squat figure, dressed in what looked like a black suit and tie. His right arm was raised and only partly visible, the hand and lower forearm blocked by the figure in the center. He was wearing a hat and for some reason,
Cassie got the impression he was bald or balding.

“Take a good look. Then I want you to close your eyes and relax. Put yourself in there with these men and tell me what you think is happening.”

Cassie studied the photograph. She could see things more clearly now. The bald man was speaking, speaking in hushed tones and he was nervous. If this had been a movie he would have been looking around nervously and now in her mind, he was and she settled back into her chair and closed her eyes, reaching down into the picture.

Cosmos

Session Report

Classified By: Ruff, James (12)

Date: 1973-10-14

Summary Analysis

Remote Viewing Session NO-16

Viewer: Reynold, Cassie (9)

Transcript

1)Viewer was allowed to study a photograph of the viewing target (N356-721) for two minutes.

#12 – I want you to put yourself in this picture as if you were there. This meeting took place a few days ago. If you would, tell me as much as you can about the place and the people in the picture. Take your time.

#9 – It seems cold where they are

#12 - Why do you think so?

#9 – I don’t know it just feels cold…the men are nervous like they’re doing something wrong…..the wind is blowing too.

#12 – Okay, can you tell me what you think they’re talking about?

#9 – I don’t know….I can hear them but I can’t understand what they’re saying…it’s like….weird words or the wind is blowing them away…but I think….the guy is really scared….he’s talking fast and he wants to leave.

#12 – Why does he want to leave?

#9 – He doesn’t want anyone to see him….he’s giving one of them something….some kind of piece of paper….he doesn’t want to, it’s like they’re making him do it.

#12 – What makes you say that?

#9 – The guy with his back to the picture …..He’s mad about something…he’s …not yelling but like….fussing or threatening the short man.

#12 – Okay, can you tell me what the papers are?

#9 – They’re…..like pictures but not with a camera…papers with lines all over them like when you build a house or something or a bridge….like drawings

#12 – Can you tell me anything else? Like names or places or anything else?

#9 – It seems like they’re really far away…the air feels different somehow…smells different…like really really far away and the people walking by are dressed different.

#12 – Different how?

#9 – I don’t know…just different

#12 – Fine, one last thing. Can you tell me anything about the man with his back to the camera, can you see him?

#9 – He’s mean…more than mean….he scares me…a lot….I don’t know why.

Session End

“You’ve got quite an interesting setup here, Mr. Cutter,” Thorne said. “It remains to be seen what you’re going to do with it but it does pose some problems.” Thorne was sitting in an office in a non-descript building in downtown New Orleans. Out the window the Mississippi river rolled by, populated periodically by barges making their way up and down the massive channel. He’d been summoned by Cutter to this meeting and he wasn’t happy about it. He and Cutter were on the same team but opposite ends. Cutter had been assigned to oversee the technical ends of the study, establish the veracity of the remote viewing technique. The next step was to nail down a systematic process that could be used with predictable results. His finding would then be applied to a variety of subjects in a cookie cutter manner. That type of system would allow the program to grow and presented a useful approach to a variety of problems. A system that could be duplicated and used by others.

Thorne on the other hand represented a different aspect of the program and though technically subject to the authority of Cutter, he was beginning to understand that COSMOS had struck gold in a sense. Past experiments yielded marginal results. Both Gilmore and Reynold appeared to be one of a kind strikes, viewers with a singular talent. The search for something compatible to their performance had yielded little or nothing. Virtual armies of evaluators had been sent into every area of the country, into middle schools and high schools, both public and private. Reams of data and results had come to nothing. Why two children from the same school in the same neighborhood had both been gifted with their ability was a question to which an answer had not yet been found.

Air samples were taken, water sources tested. The families were under 24-hour watch, their genealogy studied, samples of practically every surface area in the homes had been obtained by breaking and entering. Even the drains outside the houses had been probed and sampled. In the last few weeks the government had gone as far as to interview the construction workers employed in developing the neighborhood and the nurses and doctors in the hospitals of the children’s birth. Nothing significant had been found. For Cutter, the problem was understanding and duplicating the talent and the subjects. For Thorne, much more heavily invested in the practical and intelligence applications of their talent, the real answer was quickly becoming the protection of what he saw as a national asset. The two views were leading to a conflict on which was the proper path to follow.

A product of academia and a prodigy as a child, Cutter was thrown into the COSMOS project after completing his doctorate at Stanford, a result of his attention to detail and a singular open minded attitude rarely seen among researchers. Given the radical nature of the subject matter, he had spent countless hours applying scientific protocol to what he originally viewed as a statistical aberration. His approach in the beginning carried the air of debunking a myth. It was only after his first set of trials and a careful analysis of data that he began to see results outside the boundaries of mathematical probability. Early studies were primitive but carefully designed to eliminate chance. Subjects were isolated and kept in the dark about the actual science being conducted. He had watched in amazement as a young soldier, given only a number representing an object began to draw a crude but remarkably accurate sketch of a stadium in West Berlin. Further testing had convinced him that it was worth further research and that consistently repeating the established protocols and processes ended up improving results. Like any talent, the ability to remote view existed in most people to a greater or lesser degree and could be improved with practice. But nothing had prepared him for the two subjects he was dealing with now.

Thorne was coming at it from a completely different angle, one to which Cutter was blind. He had been raised in a desperate neighborhood in Cleveland and found his salvation in the military which housed him, trained him, and turned him loose in Viet Nam where he found he had a talent for intelligence work and putting together disparate pieces of information. His loyalty was to one thing and one thing only, the gathering of information which could be used to the benefit of his superiors and the military. He had no sentimental thoughts, no academic bent. His duty was to provide the best intelligence information he could find. He viewed Ronnie Gilmore and
Cassie Reynold as nothing but assets in his work. He was willing to delve deeper into their talent for the moment but he was also a man willing to act immediately on what he knew. If they were what they appeared to be, the time to take advantage of them was now. He was determined to push his agenda. If Cutter became an obstacle, well, he had dealt with obstacles before.

“What kind of problems, Mr. Thorne?” asked Cutter. He didn’t like Thorne at all. Hadn’t like him from the first day they had met. He was forced to take him. Thorne had proven competent at supervising the controllers but Cutter knew the finer points of the project had escaped Thorne. He was more concerned with schedules and regulation than he was with exploring all the nooks and crannies and possibilities. He also displayed a disdain for scientific protocol. He seemed unaware of the vast potential, focused only on the here and now. Besides that he made Cutter nervous. There had been a few times when Cutter had seen something behind the eyes, some element of danger, like an animal. He tried to keep a tight rein on him but somehow never felt completely in control. Thorne was Archer’s man and there was always the feeling that he was working behind the scenes.

“Control,” Thorne said, “and containment. Think of it. You’ve got two people that seem to be able to do something we’ve never seen before. At least not with this kind of focus. What happens when word gets out? And it will get out. There are people out there who see your results and they won’t want to let it slip out of their hands. They’ll fight for this kind of things and we’ll be caught in the middle.”

“What we’ve got right now Mr. Thorne, are two kids who’ve beaten some pretty tough odds. But it could still be a fluke. We’ve got to run a whole string of tightly controlled tests to see exactly what we’ve got.”

“Jesus Christ, Cutter, Thorne said, “the boy picked out the exact spot in a whole goddamn jungle where that flyer was being held. That map had 30 square miles of territory and he put his finger right on the dot. The girl looked at a picture of a suspected double agent meeting his contact and without being told anything, knew he was nervous, knew the guy was passing something along, and knew the guy he was dealing with was dangerous. Are you blind? Do you need lightning to hit you? Think about it. These kids have something and we need to control it before someone else steps in.”

“We run a pretty tight ship here, Thorne. Word’s not going to get out. We’ll keep it under wraps.”

“You can’t keep anything under wraps that long. COSMOS may be running in the black but that doesn’t mean people are stupid. Someone’s going to put things together sooner or later. These kids start spilling information out like this and someone, somewhere, will wonder where we’re getting it. And that’s another thing. How long do you think it’s going to be before these kids catch on that this isn’t a scholarship program and start talking to their parents? What happens then?”

Ronnie Gilmore was pushing his bike down the street, head on his chest, lost in thought. He could have been riding but thought better of it. He was approaching what he thought of as his target, the street on which Cassie Reynold lived. Hopefully he’d find some way of seeing her. He had been making this trek for days now, trying to catch her outside and strike up a conversation outside of school. He saw her between classes of course and outside on the playground but hadn’t worked up the nerve to approach her. Their mutual sessions in the afternoon for their scholarship program offered only the briefest of contact as each headed off to their separate rooms, Ronnie with Farrow and Cassie with Ruff. Ronnie had hoped at first that eventually they’d be brought into the same place at some time for study sessions or something but it hadn’t happened. Nothing was happening like he thought it would.

His efforts at catching
Cassie outside were borne out of curiosity about her experience in those sessions but much more so from a simple longing to be around her. At the very least it offered the chance to talk about something they shared, gave them some kind of mutual experience. Left to his own devices Ronnie knew he would have failed miserably at any attempt at conversation with her. Just seeing her filled him with confusion and a kind of helpless blank mind he knew would leave him looking stupid and awkward. But he had to try. He’d come out of his session with Farrow the last time and seen her walking towards her mother’s car. She’d been dressed in a pink blouse and yellow jeans, her hair woven into a braid in back and swinging back and forth, carrying a pair of books and a notebook under her arm.

If there was ever a boy in love it was Ronnie Gilmore. He’d spent the better part of the last week lying on his bed and trying to think of anything but
Cassie. It was no use though. Even the TV shows he watched with his mother at night didn’t give him any distraction. He watched the characters on the tube play out their lives and comedy sketches and thought of Cassie running after her friends in a game of Catch Me Kill Me. He ate dinner thinking of the way she laughed as someone said something funny when they were passing in the hall. He thought he’d seen her take a quick glance his way, maybe even smile in his direction. He’d ducked his head and moved on burning with embarrassment, his face growing redder every second. It was so wonderful he didn’t want to think of anything more. It was so painful he didn’t want her on his mind at all. But she was all he could think of.

Now he approached her street still pushing his bike down the sidewalk. He’d intended to head down past her house and then make his way to the dime store. The plan was to spend a few minutes there and then reverse his path, doubling the chance of seeing her. It was a good plan he thought, and he’d been adhering to it. It had only one flaw and that was what he would do if the plan worked. What happened after that he didn’t know but he remembered his father telling him “Fortune favors the brave.” so he kept going.

He pushed on down the street. He was thinking of the meetings with Farrow and what they might really be about. He’d been told about the scholarship program but he was beginning to have serious doubts. At thirteen, even Ronnie knew about scholarships and testing for college. At some point he should be sitting in a room with a #2 pencil and a sheet of paper with a column full of lines with little circles next to them and a booklet full of questions. You’d fill in the little circles, being careful not to mark the outside and you’d turn it in and a few weeks later get a pat on the back or something in the mail saying how you did. This was nothing like that. His time with Farrow was spent looking at pictures and making up stories. It was a funny thing though. When he was telling the stories they didn’t feel like stories. They felt like he was describing something he’d really seen, like a trip to the park, or a fishing trip. Sometimes he felt like he wasn’t even in the room. When he’d made up the story about the pilot he could feel the damp heat of the jungle and the burning sun on his shoulders. He could smell things he knew he’d never smelled before. Doing it gave him a going away feeling. He wasn’t sure he liked that feeling. He also knew when he came back he felt drained and tired like he’d been running hard or working with his Dad in the garden.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts of Farrow and stories and the jarring sense of unreality he found when he was in that room he was caught completely off guard when
Cassie came wheeling up beside him on her own bike, pulling him back to the here and now.

“Hey Ronnie.” she said. “What are you doing around here?”

“Oh, I ..uh.. hey, I was just on my way to …uh…K&B,” Ronnie said. “I was gonna get something.” He could feel his face burning and looked away quickly.

“That’s where I’m going. Want to go with me? Is there something wrong with your bike? Why are you pushing it?”

“No, I just…felt like walking. I mean, yeah, I’ll go with you.”
Fortune favors the brave
, he thought, and got on his bike.

The first thing Ronnie found out in what he came to think of as the greatest hour of his life was that as quiet as
Cassie was at school, she could talk like a champion. He could only listen and nod his head or mutter some reply as she went on endlessly about school and the girls at school and teachers and classes and what did he think of Ms. Keating and what was he doing this summer. “I think we’re going to Florida,” was about all he could get in. At K&B, the local drugstore they got Cokes and wandered off to the magazine aisle and he listened as she prattled on about the things in 16 Magazine and one of those fashion magazines. They fiddled around with the machine people used to test their TV tubes and moved on with her dragging him over to the cosmetics aisle where he sat in dumb bewilderment as she tried three different lipsticks and put powder on, which she wiped off almost immediately because her mother wouldn’t let her wear makeup because she was too young. Did he think thirteen was too young to wear makeup?

“I don’t think you need it,” Ronnie said. She gave him a punch on the arm and said “Thank you. That was sweet.” He blushed red again all over and rubbed the place on his arm. They got two more Cokes and went and sat outside on the curb next to the drugstore in the shade, leaning against the red brick wall and watching cars pass on the highway.

“I’m glad I saw you,” Cassie said. “This was fun. I like looking around in stores but it’s more fun if you’ve got somebody with you.”

“Yeah,” Ronnie said. “It was good.” He felt like kicking himself. Here he was with the girl he’d been dreaming about and just spent his first time with and all he could say was “It was good.” He wondered if there had ever been a bigger idiot. They watched as a McKenzies Bakery truck pulled up. The driver got out and opened the door. The smell of cakes and brownies drifted over, sweet and somehow warm.

“I’m glad too, because I wanted to talk to you about something but I didn’t know how to ask you. What do you think about this scholarship thing?” She turned to him and laid her hand on his arm. Now he had two places to remember she touched him. “Does it seem really weird to you? It does to me. My parents are excited about it but it’s not what I thought it would be. They said it was testing but I’m not taking any tests. Not like school tests or anything.”

“Do they show you pictures?” Ronnie asked, suddenly excited. Here was the chance to compare notes. “And want you to make up stories about the pictures? Like not really stories but…I don’t know…tell them things about the pictures?”

“Yes!” Cassie said. “And this guy Mr. Ruff, he seems like he’s nice sometimes but other times it’s like he gets worried or upset or something when I tell him what I think. Can I tell you something Ronnie? You can’t say anything to anyone though.” Cassie was looking at him with a seriousness that confounded him, her eyes searching his and all he could do was nod.

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Ronnie said.

She didn’t say anything for a minute, just took a sip of her Coke. When she turned to him again he could see she was almost crying, not quite, but her eyes were shiny and her face so forlorn that Ronnie almost put his arm around her. He wanted to, badly, but he’d never done that with a girl and he was afraid she’d run off if he did. He just sat and waited.

“I’m scared,” she said. “I don’t like Mr. Ruff and I don’t like going into that room with him and I think he’s lying. I know he’s lying. I don’t like looking at those pictures. When I do it’s like…my head just…I don’t know.”

“Like it’s not a picture?” Ronnie asked. “Like it’s something in front of you and it’s really there and you’re in the picture?”

Cassie’s jaw dropped. “Exactly. It’s exactly like that. But you know what? I don’t tell him that. I don’t tell him everything I see. I always hold things back because I don’t trust him, Ronnie. They’re telling us lies. I know it. I can feel it.”

“I think so too. Do you think we should tell our parents?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie said. “My Dad is really keen on this thing. He brags about it and everything. But you know what it’s like? My Mom has this sister. She’s the oddball in the family, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Ronnie nodded. “My Dad’s got a cousin that has like twenty cats. All she thinks about or wants is her cats. She’s not married or anything, she just works to support her cats. I guess every family’s got somebody like that.”

“Oh man that is weird, but I’m talking about a different kind of strange. My Aunt is really nice but she’s into things like fortune tellers and talking to spirits and reading minds and stuff like that. The thing is she's always been really good to me, kind of treated me special. Once she told me I was different and I wouldn’t know how different until I got older. But I think she scares my Dad too. This one time she called him on the phone and told him to go home from work in a different way, not to go on the Interstate like he usually does. I heard him telling my Mom this. He doesn’t know I know. Anyway, he told my Mom that he was just going to blow her off and go home his usual way but for some reason he didn’t and he drove home the long way. That night there was this big accident on the Interstate and some people got hurt and I think one person got killed and it was right about the time my Dad would have been there. I think it scared him. My Mom said she’d been doing that since she was a kid, telling people things that she shouldn’t know.”

“Weird,” Ronnie said. “But do you think that’s what we’re doing? And why would these guys want us to do that? But you know what? Most of the time Farrow gives me stuff to look at and it doesn’t seem like it’s anything. It’s just stuff. Tell me what’s in this building; tell me what you think about this or that. The last time though, he made me look at a map and tell him where I thought this plane went down and where the guy flying it was and he was really worked up about it and ….and it was like you said, I was there and it felt like I was wherever this guy was and I just knew. I don’t know how but I did. I don’t know what these guys are doing but I think you’re right. This college scholarship stuff is bullsh.....hockey.”

“You can say ‘bullshit’ Ronnie,” Cassie said. “I might be a girl but I think you’re right. So what do you think we should do?”

“We need to find out what these guys are doing without them knowing.”

“How do we do that?”

“I don’t know,” Ronnie said. “But we’ll figure something out. Come on. I have to go, it’s getting late.” He took a chance and asked. “Can I come by your house tomorrow?”

“I’ve got piano lessons at three. I take them from the lady in the corner house. I walk home so if you meet me on the corner you can walk with me,” Cassie said.

With that decided, they got on their bikes and pointed them home. Turning the corner on the Reynold’s street, they stopped to watch two men dig a hole through the concrete, jack hammers blaring. Ronnie stopped in the street in front of the house, reluctant to let this time end.

“So, tomorrow I’ll see you after piano?”

“Yep. See you tomorrow,” she said and rolled her bike up the driveway.

Ronnie watched her as she walked under the carport and leaned her bike up against the wall. He pushed into his pedals and had just gotten moving when he heard her call. “Ronnie, wait just a minute.”

Cassie
Reynold ran from her carport to where he’d stopped, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and ran back to her house calling over her shoulder, “That was for the Cokes. See you tomorrow.” Later that night, Ronnie tried to remember the ride home and couldn’t. He didn’t see the car following a block behind him either.

Thorne was a man open to all possibilities as long as they suited his needs. While his primary task was to obtain and disseminate information he was often called upon to do other things. Sometimes those things involved the protection of people and places deemed important to the Unites States or at least deemed important to the men and women who called themselves representatives of the Unites States. Often it seemed to him, the self- interest of those men and women came before anything. He was used to it and performed his job with ruthless efficiency, an attitude drilled into him over years of service. His superior had placed him in position alongside James Cutter. The unspoken side of it was that Thorne would also be watching from within. Should a situation arise that could be advantageous to the powers that be, or present an opportunity, he was authorized to take immediate action. But he also knew Archer was not a man to be trifled with. The General was known for running a tight ship. Still, Thorne had the feeling that the time to act was coming for a multitude of reasons.