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Wish Shift: Chapter Thirty-Eight Standing At The Road's Fork Year 1 A.S., Day 193 Afternoon Dr. Warren looked at Agent Matthews in the chair across from him. Jenny had already left with Danny and the two other agents. Derek was sitting outside in the waiting room. Usually he was against involving others in his therapeutic method, especially those who were romantically involved. He disliked relationship counseling, there was always the feeling in one of those kinds of sessions that he was crawling through no man's land, naked, with a giant, illuminated, shoot me sign pointing down at him when he did that. But the circumstances in what had happened with Jenny made it necessary for him to speak with Derek after he spoke with Agent Matthews. He started by asking her if she had switched or not. It seemed that something like that should have made little difference with so many people having been switched, but with no one being able to take for granted anymore that the person you were speaking with had always been that way, it had become a common addition to the ritual of meeting new people now and was looked at by most as uncontroversial as the questions where are you from or do you like dogs? He knew that Derek was also unshifted because Jenny had told him so and he planned on strongly suggesting to him that he start sessions of his own with another colleague of his when he spoke with him afterward. The mental stresses of being the same person in a world full of changelings was an overlooked aspect of this study in his opinion and when it was being organized he had urged that more of them be included. But that would have to wait for later. What he had to speak about with both of them today was far more important. Agent Brandy Matthews also was of interest to him because of her background with the persons who were responsible for this. She had knowledge of what they were like before from her personal experience and after from an investigative standpoint. The insight that she could give to him about them would be invaluable as he tried to determine just what was possible for him to do to try to reverse the clumsy assault on Jenny's psyche. "Agent Matthews, first I want to tell you that after I spoke with Jenny at length that we made what progress we could in trying to uncover what it was that had been done to her specifically. I asked for her express permission to break doctor-patient confidentiality to speak with you about this. I felt after starting to identify the nature of what was being done to her that you needed to be alerted to my findings. And that I would need access to information that you may have from similar cases if I were to develop a successful program of treatment to reverse the damage. She has given me her consent that I do this, although in good conscience I would have to have spoken with you anyway." Agent Matthews looked at the man sitting across from her. Agent Kellerman had already been in contact with her and had already authorized her to release some specific details. "I can tell you what I personally know about this right now doctor, but as far as sharing any other information you would have to speak to my superior about releasing that data to you," she said. "What you know will have to be sufficient for now," he said. "We know that this drug suspends the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction and that the method they use is based on tying false ideas to true ones in order to bend people against their own choices in how they view and respond to the world around them," she said. "We know that those who are subjected to it over the long term end up having their individuality, in effect, crushed in favor of what these people have implanted inside of them." "We also know that they favor a very simplistic view of what people should be, both men and women, but particularly women. Our profilers have suggested that the majority of the leadership do not really view other people as being real and thus there would not be anything wrong with doing this to them." "And that matches what I have found in my initial examination of what has been done with Ms. Minton," he said. "And what do you think about this? What is your professional opinion?" she asked him. "In my opinion the people behind this are clumsy amateurs," Dr. Warren said. "They are so focused on imposing their own agenda onto the people that fall into their hands that when they go too far and cause serious damage to people's minds the way they have that the only thing that they have in common with human beings is appearance." "Clumsy amateurs?" she asked. "Interesting that you say that. That is the opinion of several of our deprogrammers as well." "Yes clumsy amateurs," he said. "Agent Matthews, my profession is the study of the mind. How it works, how it's organized, how people interpret their experiences and how they integrate that into forming what is that makes up the building blocks of what people believe about everything. And I would not even venture to say that members of my profession truly know even a tiny fraction of what the mind is capable of. Only broad outlines at best. These people seem to think of the mind as nothing more than a chalkboard to be wiped clean and rewritten on with little or no consequence." "Now part of my study of how people form beliefs did involve researching what others have done in the past using artificial methods of changing people's beliefs in regard to both individual and entire systems. And compared with those methods what they have done here is akin to hitting a nail with a brick. I do not think that they have a single person in their group who knows what they are doing in more than the most basic destructive manner." "In this session alone, the instructions we uncovered that they have placed in her mind are so crude and ham-handed that frankly I'm surprised that her mind didn't reject them sooner than it did," he said. "And why is that in your professional opinion?" Agent Matthews asked. "From the beginning of the moment that Ms. Minton became female, she has had to face the reality of having to forge a new identity for herself as a woman. She has struggled with and constantly had a strong fear of becoming exactly the sort of woman that these people were trying to shape her into being." "She has labored with self doubt and interpreting what it is that she is experiencing and how she should move forward with that knowledge under the additional pressure of having her entire experience as a woman overshadowed and defined by her pregnancy. And until today I was confident that she was meeting this challenge in a healthy and positive fashion." "We do know that once a person under this drug is cut off from regular dosage that the implanted directives seem to lose their effectiveness over time, if that is of any assistance to you," Agent Matthews admitted. "And that is part of her reaction to this," he said. "When her mother triggered the implanted commands and didn't allow her to ingest the drug that would submerge her awareness of the directives manifesting, her mind was fully aware of the alien nature of them and she reacted with rage." "That matches what we have seen with others that we have been able to deprogram to some extent. Rage is the first reaction to what has been done to them," she said. "I think that there is more here than that," he said. "The people that you refer to have gone through a deprogramming method and she has not." "Her reaction seems more like a natural consequence of a healthy mind rejecting an infection. Beneath the framework of the woman that they were trying to shape her into being, her sense of self, the female identity that she has forged is still intact." "But doctor, she has also not been subjected to what they do to people in those camps. She told us that she and Derek were supposed to go to the camp yesterday," Agent Matthews pointed out. "And that is the main thing that gives me hope that this can be undone in her case," Dr. Warren said. "What you described with how her two relatives have returned from a similar experience tells me that a good deal of what has been done with her stands a good chance of being undone, because right now it's like dirt and rust on the outside of a tool. It may be there and it may have left its mark, but it can be removed before it eats too deeply into the tool and renders it worthless." "And that is why I say that these people are clumsy amateurs as well. They are so focused on imposing their will, that the sheer weight of the commands that they place on their victims eventually crushes the mental framework that a person creates as an individual. Like kudzu growing and covering a building. Eventually the weight of it collapses the building." "I don't think that they intended for this drug to mentally destroy the people that they give it to, but in their fanatical ignorance I'm also sure that they look on it doing that as an asset. I think that they prefer their victims to become a blank slate that they can write what they wish on rather than dealing with the complications of a healthy mind. In a way their ignorance worked against them. Someone who knew what they were doing would have done this in a much more insidious way." "You can be sure that they do view it exactly that way doctor," Agent Matthews said bitterly. "They may be ham-handed amateurs as you call them, but they are perfectly happy with turning people into just exactly what they have succeeded in doing. They never had any use for free will even before the Shift and this just gives them a tool for what they wanted all along. Bastardized fanaticism like theirs is the real zombie apocalypse." Dr. Warren spoke about the specific triggers that he had uncovered thus far and what he had attempted to try in his efforts to neutralize them. So far he said that it was like trying to play whack-a-mole using a wet noodle for a mallet, but he had made some progress even if it was only a scratch on the surface of the rust. He told Agent Matthews that it was critical that Jenny see him every day, both for her own recovery and for the impact that this held on the research project that she was participating in. Agent Matthews assured him that she would make certain that was possible. After they had finished speaking he asked Derek in. What he had to tell him was not the best of news, but it was not the worst either. The first of the unpleasant tasks he had, was informing him that Jenny was not the only one who had been subjected to the effects of this insidious drug. While he had been probing her responses in their discussions, he had discovered that she had been the unwitting agent who had delivered it into his own system as well on a number of occasions. Derek responded as Dr. Warren expected he would, but he did not direct his anger toward her. That was an extremely positive sign to him. Derek asked him how many times that he had ingested this drug and thankfully Dr. Warren could tell him that it appeared that his own mental alteration was still minimal at this time. He did not think that Derek had been subjected to it more than a handful of times in total. Just to be sure he wanted to do a brief session with him. Derek readily agreed. Dr. Warren didn't use hypnosis very often in his methods, he thought it to also be a clumsy method and prone to too many unintended consequences, but it would be useful here in a limited fashion. He regressed Derek during the session and tried to identify how many times that his thought patterns had radically shifted and was gratified to find that there were very few instances of that present. When he brought him out of it he detailed to Derek what he had found in his examination and as he expected, the reaction was rage. Derek had a deep seated hatred already for these people. It can't have been easy for their clumsy efforts to force him to go against the strong fortress wall of that part of his self-identity. Indeed it had barely been successful at all. After they spoke about how this had impacted him personally, he felt that he had to tell him at least one other thing. After he calmed down he told him that during his session with Jenny she had, at first, still held him to a degree responsible and was struggling with deep feelings of betrayal. This was not like her previous mental conflicts he pointed out. This was actually, oddly enough, healthy in Dr. Warren's opinion. Her feelings initially were those of a woman who felt betrayed by someone that she had deep emotional and romantic attachment to. There was nothing present of the conflicts, that becoming a woman due to the Shift had wrought on her psyche, as her previous crisis points had brought out. This was the crisis of a woman who had established a firm sense of self and was, until this moment, at peace with who she was and who she wanted to be. He told him that as they had gone deeper into what she had done as well and spoken without anger flavoring her reasoning he found that she started defending him. Obliquely, at first and then directly as more understanding of the nature of what had been done to them both manifested. He told him that her increased understanding did not eliminate that feeling of betrayal that she had experienced, but it was no longer focused on him as its source. He cautioned Derek about trying to press her during this time and Derek readily agreed that he would not. The last thing that he insisted on doing was giving him the card of a colleague of his and strongly urging Derek to contact her as soon as possible. He insisted that Derek should immediately undergo regular sessions of his own. Derek asked him why he could not see him instead and Dr. Warren told him that it would not be ethical for him to treat them both under these circumstances. Derek accepted that and told him that he would do as he suggested. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Year 1 A.S., Day 207 Day 252 of Jenny's pregnancy Agent Matthews left about a week after the trucks started rolling. She had stayed with them probably much longer than she had needed to. But Agent Kellerman agreed with her assessment that due to the petty nature of Brother Paul there was a serious credible chance that he would attempt something, some kind of retaliation if he could do so. When she was sitting in the booth at Bob's listening to Danny and Derek, she had already known that the order had been given to move out against Brother Paul's organization. It seemed like coincidence that it had occurred when they were making their attempt to retrieve Jenny, but it was just that. A coincidence. It hadn't been that the church had become any more dangerous or that the AIC felt that their efforts couldn't be concealed or delayed any longer, because of what had happened when they entered Derek's home. The trigger for the order being given was the camera images that focused on a small property that had been recently identified as being owned and controlled by the church. It was an innocuous parcel of ground a little over seventeen acres. And if they hadn't been clear cutting some of the forested area on it then it would have probably been overlooked or ignored. The parcel had a fence around it. Mostly an old chain link that had been there for more than a few years, it sagged in some places and in others bright new fencing replaced sections that had been damaged, mostly by tree falls. There were only two buildings on the spot. One was a small mobile home used as an office. That building had been there so long that the tires that brought it there were flat and time had long ago seen the folded, flattened rubber buried under a thick mat of weeds. Rust streaked some of the panels and it seemed completely ordinary if a bit shabby. The other building was a newer pole barn with an open overhang built on one side. From the equipment stored there it looked like it was mostly used for tools and machinery and would have not attracted a first glance, let alone a second one. According to the records the church had acquired the property in 1974 when one of their members deeded it to them in his will. For the most part they had used it for church fairs and tent revivals in the summer and fall. There was a stand of hardwoods, mostly oak, on the property that they occasionally harvested a small amount of timber from. It was more of a thinning out, rather than clear cutting for some purpose when they did that. The rest of the vegetation was mostly scrub oak and loblolly pines. That was the area that drew the attention of those investigating them. After the Shift this patch of land had stood empty and unused. Like so many other areas elsewhere, it existed in a state of limbo while mankind paused to sort out their confusion and come to some sort of terms with what had happened and what would come next. There had only been one meeting that the church organized here and that was a few weeks after the Shift. It lasted only a couple of days and then the tents were taken down, the trash was cleared away and the land returned to silence. It was the clear cutting of that one section in the northeast of the property that drew the attention of the agents who were checking it out. Maybe the church needed the tall loblolly pines for their wood, for some temporary project, maybe they were preparing the initial stages of some other plan and just forgot they needed them there intact. Maybe they didn't think anyone was looking and it didn't matter. But the activity here didn't go unnoticed. And after it was noticed it didn't take long for patient eyes to begin counting the graves the stand of trees had shielded from any prying eyes above. They didn't move in right away. But once they had their eyes on this place they moved it from just a place on the list of properties owned by this group to something much more of a priority. Drone operators started seeding the property with small cameras and wireless microphones. When the panel truck pulled up and backed into the woods as it had done so every week since they had turned their attention to this place, the agents watching followed it with a high-flying drone and didn't say anything while the high definition camera captured every detail. The truck first drove around in a circuit around the property for over an hour before it finally stopped in the trees. To the casual eye it appeared that whoever was in the truck was just checking the fence line. They would follow the dirt access road along the chain link fence. They would stop and get out while the engine idled and nothing seemed out of place until it pulled into and then stopped in the newly cleared section of pine and started unloading the bodies that had suffocated from the exhaust fumes piped into the back of the truck. The men unloaded the limp figures into the scrape that had been made with the small bulldozer when the stumps were cleared and then fired up the machine and pushed earth over them. The agents monitoring them watched and did nothing to alert the men working that they were being observed. They didn't even contact anyone until the men had finished unloading all fifty bodies and covered them with earth using the bulldozer. The men there stood and smoked afterward and talked a while before they left. It was just an ordinary day on the job for them. That was the trigger that was pulled. The orders that had already been prepared were issued within minutes of the men leaving the site of the mass grave. The agents contacted their superiors and once it sank in what they had uncovered the trucks started to roll. Agents fanned out and went after their targets. National Guard troops piled into trucks and APC's, guided by the already issued, sealed rules of engagement and their operations orders. They moved against their targets swiftly in a highly coordinated assault. People who were blindsided when martial law was re-imposed over the area even more strictly than before just watched the trucks and other vehicles roll by and were gripped by confusion and fear at the sight. Most of them had gotten used to the easing of martial law over the last few months and were looking forward to it being lifted altogether after the election scheduled in a few weeks. The new officeholders were supposed to be sworn in immediately rather than wait as had been done before. It was all part of the plan intended to return things to normal as much as it could be done given the changes that had occurred. The announcement of the reinstatement of the curfew and the full occupation, by not only local troops, but by additional units brought in from other areas was a bombshell. Agent Matthews credentials easily got them through the many roadblocks that sprung up like weeds and past the patrols swarming throughout the area, but once they were home she advised them to hunker down and wait for this to be over. Danny knew what it probably was, but he still felt a good bit of fear and anxiety as he watched the troops moving with deadly purpose all around them. He, at least, had some idea about why this was happening and he felt extremely agitated about it, so he had a good idea what those who were ignorant of why this was happening would be feeling right now. The radio and television repeated assurances that what was happening would be over shortly and for everyone to remain in their homes while the situation was stabilized. If there had been phone service or internet access, there would have been, no doubt widespread chatter, especially of a conspiratorial bent. For three days Agent Matthews and her other agents remained with them. Danny figured right away out that it was not to protect them. They were being used as bait. On the fourth morning just before noon, Agent Matthews gathered them together and told them that Brother Paul and the majority of the leadership of the church had been taken into custody. It had been a tremendous undertaking, but they were fairly sure that at least eighty percent of the rank and file were in custody and ninety percent of the lower leaders were as well. The higher level leaders were almost entirely in custody with only two or three still at large. Brandy told them that while control would not be lifted over the streets and the strict curfew would still be maintained for a while longer, most of the danger seemed to be over for now and she and the other agents were going to be withdrawn and reassigned to assist in mopping up. Danny asked her about what they would do now that this was still going on. He wanted to get back home, and he really wanted Jenny to come with him. Derek had already voiced his intention to stay here for the time being. Brandy countersigned a pass for them that Danny could use to leave the secured zone before she left them. Derek spoke to her as well. Danny didn't ask him what it was they spoke about. If Derek wanted to share that with him, he would in his own time. After the agents departed for good, it was just the three of them for the first time in days. Jenny had been slowly come to terms with what had happened to her and that Derek had been a victim, to a lesser extent than she was it was true, but a victim still. She was still extremely quiet about it. It wasn't like her to withdraw into herself, the only times she really did that was when there was something of the greatest import for her to consider. That she was doing this was not lost on Danny and he advised Derek to hold back and wait once more. He would do that, but Danny could tell that it was getting to him, even though he had already demonstrated that patience was something he had in abundance. Jenny again refused to leave when Danny brought it up. Danny mentioned it, not because he thought that she and Derek should not remain together, but because, even though Brandy had said it was safe, he still would feel better if she was away from here and in a place that someone working for Brother Paul would not know to look for her. Jenny listened to him and said that it made a good deal of sense, but she didn't want to leave. Danny told her that he would return as soon as he could and kissed her goodbye on her forehead. Derek and Danny walked out to the car slowly. Danny told him that he intended to only go back home long enough to gather what family members he thought should come with him and to return. He asked Derek if it was all right if several of the family was staying here with them for a while. Derek looked at him and only told him that he needed to get back here as quickly as he could, preferably in a matter of hours. He said that both of them needed them here now and preferably as many of them as possible. Derek was very firm in saying she needed as many of her family around her as she could have with her right now. Danny put his hand on the younger man's shoulder and told him that he would be back as soon as he could be. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jenny watched the two of them talking through the window. She had asked them to put a chair beside it to sit in while she did so and they had done it without demurring. She saw mom put his hand on Derek's shoulder before he got into the car and pull out of the driveway. As Derek walked slowly back into the house she hoped that he would not come back to speak with her just yet. After she had told mom that she intended to stay, mom told her that he had something to tell her that she needed to think about before she made any serious decisions about what it was that she was going to do now that her head was clearer and she was puzzling out who she really was after having this happen. He asked her to really think about the two of them and what they were like before their minds and relationship had been interfered with. Danny spoke in quiet steady tones and drew her into speaking about it in a deep and honest way. Regardless of how others had tried to twist her, he reminded her that, at the base of this was what she was and who she had already been becoming. The thoughts and attitudes that were alien to her in her mind were not the things that she needed to consider. It was the things that were already part of her that had been exaggerated and twisted that she needed to face and come to terms with. Now that her anger was spent and she had spoken with Dr. Warren and she had time to sort it out herself, Jenny was piecing herself together again. She had already started to feel a lot of regret that she had not even given Derek anything more than the sharp edge of her rage. Danny reminded her that even with how she was submerging herself into their relationship, that what she had done then was her choice and she had embraced it of her own free will. If she hadn't, then that part of the conditioning would not have been possible in the way that they had done it. Jenny told him that she understood that now. Dr. Warren had made a point of showing her how those were so deeply intertwined while they were talking during their marathon sessions. But the thing that stood out to Jenny in her conversation with mom was not what had been done to her, but what she had done to herself. Danny had startled her by proclaiming that she was married to Jake. That immediately jarred her out of her mental track and she had rushed to deny it. Derek was nothing like Jake. Danny repeated that she may not see it, but it is there and whether she liked it or not, that she was Kim in this story. It took some more talking and some argument in some places, but Jenny finally got what Danny meant when he told her that. "You asked me once, why Kim was the way she was around Jake and I gave you an answer then. But I knew that you really didn't understand what I said. Maybe you will now. Derek is your Jake. All you have to do is look at how you are and how you choose to be now that you have let him into your life like this and maybe you will understand that now. He's your Jake and that's not a bad thing. You were happy with him taking that role to a large extent. You fell into being his Kim in how you chose to be a woman with him in your life." "And that's what Kim did. She was the woman she let herself be because she wanted to be with him. She made adjustments, just like you made adjustments to be the woman you let yourself be with Derek. When you started talking about your attraction to him I wondered if it was just part of you. If it was something that came with your body. Derek is a lot like the kind of man that you were and maybe it was inevitable that since you ended up in Sonya's body that you would have her taste in men as well. And maybe that was what pushed you to him when you did recognize it, but that really doesn't change anything." "You know who you are now and you know what it was like for you both before those others interfered with what you two have. And if you can get past this and stop letting them destroy the two of you this way, maybe you can look at what this is with really open eyes. If you stay with Derek now you'll have to do it without blinders. You have to know that if you do that, you are going to have to accept that you were happy being that kind of woman with him and make your choice without being afraid. But if you stay with him and be that woman you were going to be with him or you walk away and be some other woman, either way the family is with you." Danny leaned over to her. "Personally I think you should stay. Derek is a good man." Jenny listened to him and didn't answer right away. Then she told him that she had already been thinking along those lines, but there was also something else to consider. She told Danny that just after Derek had left for Asheville, when he had dropped her off back at her trailer she had gotten a pair of phone calls. Both of them had been from schools that she had applied for ESL positions with and she had been told that she would have to be put on the waiting list. They wanted to know if she was still interested in the position she had applied for and if she was available that they could begin discussing contract details. She told them that as much as she would like to do so immediately that she couldn't. She explained to them that she was heavily pregnant and was also participating in the research at the institute while she was here. Both of them told her that they were disappointed to hear that she couldn't accept a position right now, but that they understood given her circumstances. They had agreed to call her again in the fall if another similar position opened up. Danny asked her what the problem with that was then. It sounded to him like it was a positive development in his opinion. Jenny explained that one of the schools was located upstate near where the rest of the family lived and the other was in a local district. The thing that she had to really consider was which one she would take. When she was under Brother Paul's influence she had completely dismissed the idea of taking these jobs and resuming her career entirely, but now that she was somewhat free of that, this was another choice that was facing her. Danny listened and again told her that this was not really a choice that she needed to worry about. But instead, something that she had to support herself with no matter what her choice here was when she made it. It all came back to this Jenny told herself after they said goodbye and he left. What was she going to do? Do you stay here and be the woman you were becoming with Derek or do you leave and find out want woman you will become out there without him? It should have been an easy choice, but she still couldn't make it right now. And she didn't know why that was.