Shielding Instinct, page 20
“Now?” Hawkeye asked.
“Right now,” Petra said. “When the ship arrives to vacuum him into the sky, he can take only X number of people with him. People he cares about. People who are part of his extended family.”
Hawkeye lifted a brow. “To go where?”
“Back to the friend-alien’s planet.”
“Where humans can exist on—air, water, food, gravity?”
Petra shook her head. “I suppose. I mean, how could you do that research?”
“Without becoming enslaved or a Guinea pig in some lab somewhere?”
“At a minimum, those would be my questions,” Petra said.
“But no one’s asking.” Hawkeye’s tone made it a statement, not a question.
“They depend on their leader, who has been there and is offering them Nirvana.”
“In exchange for…”
“Well, just like in death, you can’t take it with you. He’s counseled everyone to divest themselves of their worldly goods. They’ll accumulate it all in a central account, and the money will be meted out as needed.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” she asked.
“Why divest?” Hawkeye put the comb down and pulled the towel from her shoulders. “Why put it in a single account? Who has control over that account, and under what circumstances will there be a withdrawal? What does ‘as needed’ mean?”
“You’re so rational. And that shows you think there’s a future on Earth when there isn’t. They live on a farm in a barn turned into a dorm. They grow their own food. They’re just waiting for the specific date and coordinates to show up for the great vacuuming—my term, not theirs. And as to your questions, they’re good questions, but no one is asking them since it doesn’t matter. They’ll either be flying through space to their new home planet, or they’ll be killed by lizard people—I’m making up the last part. I don’t know what kind of alien they think is coming to destroy Earth.”
“Isn’t this against the law?” Hawkeye asked, pulling her back until he had her cradled in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder.
“People are acting from free will to the extent that the law defines it. We don’t have brain security laws in place.”
“But the leader is stealing all their money.”
“Not stealing, Hawkeye, not even being gifted the money. It goes into a trust that the charismatic controls. He has declared it a religion or spiritual endeavor and jumped through all the hoops. In the eyes of the government, they have the right to assemble and the freedom of religion. They can believe whoever or whatever they like.”
“And the other piece,” Hawkeye pointed out, “is the leader gets all the money and doesn’t even pay taxes on it.”
“Bingo.”
“So why is the FBI getting involved if it’s not illegal?” Hawkeye asked. “Why are you studying it?”
“I’m studying it to understand how rational everyday people—educated people with no underlying pathological issues like paranoia or schizophrenia—fall under his sway. The FBI is interested because crimes are becoming ever more in the realm of mind manipulation and psyops. Breaking into houses with a gun and a money bag is so old school. With the right kind of manipulation, people just hand you everything they have with a smile on their face and a grateful, hopeful heart. Though, sometimes, with AI, it is much more of a cudgel. I’m talking about extortion.”
“They already do that, don’t they? They get teens to do something sexual on video for example.”
“That’s the old way to do that crime. With that method, many more variables could go wrong, which is much more dangerous to the criminal. Before, they had actual videos sent by the actual teens. Now, they don’t need a child to manipulate. They can just pull a picture off someone’s social media, put it through an AI photo or video generator, and boom. Not only that, but child porn is only child porn if a child is exploited. What are the laws to stop people from creating child porn with AI? Who is harmed by it if the child pornography is merely an artificially generated image?”
“Shit.”
“Exactly. We don’t have the laws. We didn’t know we’d need the laws. Here’s another one that’s shown up. Imagine a porn of you and your boss's wife. Someone sends it to you. They don’t ask you for anything. You just see the images. What do you do? Are you in fear of losing your job? Your reputation? Your personal relationships? It’s not illegal to make those images. It’s not illegal to show them to you. It’s only illegal if there’s an ask or a threat. But, you may already know the ask, and you obviously understand the threat. That information exists in your brain. Is there a law that protects you from this kind of weapon?”
“That makes me feel oddly vulnerable. At Iniquus, for example, reputation and integrity are paramount. They hire people with those characteristics, so it’s an intrinsic drive rather than an external fear. Yeah, this isn’t a sensation I’m particularly used to.”
“Confidence comes from a sense of safety. You present as confident,” Petra said as she scrutinized his face. “I bet women like that because when they’re with you, you represent safety.”
“That’s a sidestep, Petra. I’m going to have to go back and think about that later, think about my female friends, and if my presence makes them feel safe. My size and fighting skills are meaningless when up against an electronics crime. So, I’m going to put us back on AI manipulation. How does one protect oneself?”
“That’s what I want to figure out. What makes people vulnerable, and how can it best be countered? I told you that I spent some time in Finland and Estonia. And that because they abut Russia, their populace needed to be inoculated through education. They need to make sure their citizenry isn’t going to fall prey to Russian psyops games meant to destabilize their countries. It was interesting to learn about and take some of their findings into my own study of cults.”
“Alien Doomsday Cults.”
“Exactly. I like to study alien doomsday cults because UFOs are particularly useful for gaining power and manipulation. Since UFOs are such an unknown quality, they represent an existential threat. When it comes to UFOs, folks are more likely to trust the leader with his special channel of information and do what they’re told to do. Fear plus obligation plus guilt, and you have the tools you need to manipulate another human being.”
“That’s a narcissist’s tool kit.”
She canted her head, “That’s right. How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen a friend date a narcissist. It’s frustrating as hell to watch.”
“You wanted to save the other person from something you saw plain as day. It’s the same with families who see their loved ones getting sucked into cults.” Petra laughed. “When all their loved one wants is to be sucked up by a spaceship.”
The smile fell off Hawkeye’s face. “But Rowan, he’s coming down here.”
“Yup.”
“And you don’t know why.” Hawkeye didn’t like this at all.
“I do know why. Rowan’s coming down here because I saw something. I don’t know why what I saw was so significant that he’d jump on a plane. I thought it would be a phone call to a random analyst in the basement somewhere.” With a frown she reached out to rub her hand over Copper’s soft fur. “I guess I’m about to find out.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Petra
Petra woke up to find that she had weaved her limbs with Hawkeye’s.
He smiled at her. “Good morning.” He dropped a kiss into her hair then started to untangle himself. “Hey, I need to get up and take Cooper out. Would you like me to bring breakfast up like yesterday?”
She nodded not wanting to talk until she’d had a chance to brush her teeth.
So she waited until Cooper and Hawkeye were out the door before going to pee.
It was nice to have some solitude to get dressed.
Once she was ready for the day, Petra had gone down to the desk with a sob story about the Johnson family she had met and befriended at the tidepool. When she’d checked in per the hotel’s request last night, the Johnsons hadn’t yet come in. “They have three small children,” Petra continued. “When I came in from the hospital, it was late. I just want to make sure my friends are safe. Or if there’s anything I could do to help.”
“Johnson?” the staffer asked.
“Herb and Jenny Johnson? Room six-forty-two? I think I’m remembering that correctly.”
“They didn’t check in with the front desk. But that doesn’t mean that they’re in danger. Checking in was voluntary. And it was already late in the day when we started collecting the information.”
“Okay. Yes, well, hopefully they’re okay, thank you.” Petra left the desk and found a bench away from the traffic flow.
When Petra dialed Rowan, he picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?” she asked.
“Miami. We’ll be there in a few hours.”
Petra scowled. “Wait. Who’s we?”
“Finley and Prescott. We already had an iron on the stove. It just made sense for the three of us to come down to move our objectives along and get back faster.”
“This is important enough that you left an unattended iron heating?” Petra scuffed her foot on the shiny granite.
“Timing was good. Let’s leave it at that,’ Rowan said. “What’s this call about?”
“I talked with the front desk, and they said the Johnson family never checked in after yesterday’s event. I saw the family on the cliff, away from the waves. I saw them go up toward the vehicles. My driver and Jenny’s driver were helping me with Terry. I don’t know how they got to their next place.”
“What are your thoughts?” he asked.
“Three choices. Criminal. Innocent. Deadly.”
“Okay,” he said. “Take me through each.”
Petra put one hand on top of her head. “Criminal—this was planned, and it went very well. Timing was excellent because everyone was caught up in myriad emergencies. The family had rented a boat and said they’d be out overnight to see sunset and sunrise. They’re late, there’s some worry. At some point, the Coast Guard would find the boat, but the family is missing. They fear the worst. There’s a search. The family is possibly assumed to have drowned?”
“But in this scenario, what was playing out?”
“They met with a secondary boat and switched over.”
“Left their belongings?”
“In this scenario, they left some belongings in the hotel. Pocket litter kinds of stuff. Stuff that they put out to convince anyone looking that they had planned to be back. But they took the basics they needed, passports, a change of clothes, and the kids’ favorite toys—in a single bag. They climb from boat to boat, leaving the other adrift while their escape boat takes them to Colombia. Everyone believes there was an accident at sea. The family drowned and no one is looking for them after several days of failed Coast Guard efforts And that narrative makes perfect sense after the coincidence of the seismic events yesterday.”
“That’s a lot to arrange even without the coincidence,” Rowan suggested.
“Versus arranging to be gone from society for a decade plus and coming back to grown children and limited job possibilities.”
“Here’s some information I was able to gather. Ready?” Rowan asked.
“Maybe.”
“One of the notarized letters in their file that went to the judge is from Herb’s sister. She described her brother as someone whose whole personality changed in the last eighteen months. In her letter, she said it was like watching a bad actor on the screen who was trying to play the role of a saint in a movie. Herb talked about finding the light and living in the rays. The sister was worried enough that she went to the police before Herb’s arrest to see if there was anything she could do because she thought that he might be having a mental breakdown.”
“On the surface, that would make me think cult behaviors,” Petra said.
“I checked their home address,” Rowan said, “and it was recently sold. I checked with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Their cars were sold, as well. But all of that is what anyone would do knowing that they are going to prison. The only reason your antennae are up is that the mother didn’t look at the child with bittersweetness. She could be on the autism spectrum.” Rowan said. “She may be feeling the feelings and not expressing them in a neurotypical manner.”
“Possible, sure,” Petra agreed. “I could be very wrong. But you asked me how I’d play it out if this was their criminal actions.”
“Okay move on to the next scenario, innocent.”
“Yes, back to a boat scenario because I don’t have one for them not signing in at the hotel if they’re on land. So boat—they could have been having trouble with their boat. They needed help for some innocent reason, and they’re dealing with the issue. That one doesn’t make much sense to me at all, and I’m not even able to invent a good scenario to make it work, sorry.”
Rowan sucked in a lungful of air. “That leaves deadly.”
“It was a traumatic day in the islands from Puerto Rico down. The Christmas Winds, the rogue waves—granted, not tsunamis by any stretch of the imagination, but people got in trouble all over the island. The water was treacherous. Sixteen known dead as of the last count I heard.”
“The deadly, then, is something like the kids got swept over the side, they weren’t wearing their life vests, the parents jumped in and were able to grab the kids, but the current pulled them too far from the boat, and they never made it back.”
“There were two seismic events and so two sets of giant waves. Why you’d go out on a day like yesterday, I have no idea. But, yes, that was exactly how I could see that working out.”
“Great minds,” Rowan said.
“You know, when people use that phrase, I can never tell if they’re complimenting the person their speaking with or themselves.”
“Both. But okay, how about birds of a feather flock together.”
“That’s a stretch to make that act as a synonym for great minds, but I get the gist. What do we do?”
“We do nothing,” Rowan’s voice lost any levity. “I told you not to play. I’d like to discuss it with you when we’re back in D.C. That file is classified for the moment. I’m working on getting permission from Frost to read you in back at the Bureau.”
“Rowan, this has to do with the pendant, right?” Petra asked. “Do I want to be read in?”
“That I don’t know.”
***
Dressed in hiking clothes with her boots tied firmly in place, Petra sat down in the Cerberus conference room with a cup of coffee in front of her, a pad and pen.
Petra wasn’t sure how she could be helpful. Honestly, she hoped she could do something sitting in front of a monitor. Adrenaline strength was a gift while she was helping Terry. But now, her muscles were tender, and her sinew felt too stretched. Being neurodivergent, she had to be careful of her hyper-mobility. And Petra wondered if the sensation was something to be worried about.
Sitting would be good.
Hawkeye was beside her, and Cooper was under the table with one of his paws draped over the toe of Petra’s boot. It felt like they were holding hands. And it was very sweet.
As the men filed in with their dogs, Petra leaned to the side and asked under her breath, “Why do dogs smell each other’s butts? There has to be a biological maybe chemical reason, right?”
“Well, yeah, dogs have apocrine glands back there. You could think of it like a social media profile. Their pheromones are like a post. The scents tell the other dog, for example, where a bitch is in her cycle, age, and how a dog is feeling that day.”
“Feeling cute, may delete later.” Petra reached under the table to scritch Cooper. “Is that why the dogs like to smell human crotches?”
“Checking our status. Humans have those glands in our armpits, too. But for most dogs, the crotch is more convenient.”
“Helpful to dogs, but now I’m wondering if we used to smell each other for a status update. I mean, our tears change based on the why. Could we smell the difference at one time?” Petra asked. “Did we lick the tears off someone’s face to taste them? Curious minds…”
“Wait. Tears aren’t just tears?” Levi asked as he sat down. “Morning, Petra.”
“Hey, Levi. We’re talking about dogs sniffing butts. In human tears, laughing, lubrication, and self-cleaning from eye irritation are chemically different from emotional tears; those shed from sadness have high levels of stress hormones.” She lifted a hand and waved. “Good to see you, Ash. All’s well?”
“Good to go,” He said as he settled Hoover. “Thanks for asking.”
Reaper stood in the front of the room. “I have a list of potential assignments. When we’re in the field, we’ll let emergency services know which one we’re tackling. The top two suggestions were a wellness check on a commercial boat owner and a search of Buck’s Island. I’ll go over the background of each case. First, Buck’s Island. There is a tourist operation that takes visitors to Buck’s Island where there is a national underwater park. Visitors snorkel along the marked trails to learn about the variety of coral and undersea animals and so forth. The boat went out as usual. The captain said that the current had been unusually strong even before the seismic activity. He encouraged everyone to stay near the pontoon. However, free will is what it is, and not everyone complied. After the first set of waves hit, the tourists were all over the place. It took him some time to gather everyone on his roster before he started back to the main island. The second seismic activity hit them hard. Luckily, he had everyone in a flotation vest. The pontoon was flipped with one wave and righted with the next. His roster was lost, the captain doesn’t have the names of those with him anymore. He knows he couldn’t find three.”
“Were they within swimming distance of land?” Halo asked.
“They were a hundred yards from Buck’s Island. They’re either,” Reaper held up a finger, “floating in the water on debris like our survivors from yesterday’s boat accident.” He held up a second finger. “They made it to the island.” He held up a third finger. “They were picked up by another boat, or,” his fourth finger went up. “They’re deceased.” He lowered his hand to the table. “A citizen boat is being lent to us so we can search the island to see if we can locate any survivors.”
