Extracted - Chapter 19 – Friends and Lovers – Part 2 of 2

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 19 – Friends and Lovers – Part 2 of 2

 

In Philadelphia, the doorbell rang and Agatha hurried to answer it.  When she opened the door, she was shocked.  “Melody.  What are you doing here?”

“I came to see Stephen, and he’s not going to put me off any longer!”

“Melody, I told you, Stephen is not himself.  Seeing him is not a good idea.”

“I don’t care!  I love him and I’m going to see him.  Now where is he?”

“Melody, I promise you, if you see him, Stephen won’t know you.  He doesn’t even know who he is.”

Melody pushed her way inside.  “I’ll make him remember me.  Now where is he?”

Against her better judgement, Agatha pointed towards the back of the house.  “In the backyard right now.  But Melody, I don’t recommend that you go anywhere near him right now.”

“Ha!” Melody exclaimed as she made a beeline for the backdoor.

Stephen was out in the backyard, totally bored with his new life.  With nothing better to do, he was trying to throw a basketball into the net attached to the basketball backstop set up against part of the patio.  He wasn’t exactly being successful.  Still, he was bored out of his mind.

He heard the backdoor open and turned in that direction.  But instead of seeing his new mother, he saw a girl coming out instead.  Who was this?

“Stephen!” Melody called to him, then she waved.

Not having a clue who she was, Stephen just stood there and stared at her.

“Steve.  It’s me, Melody.”

Melody?  Didn’t someone say he was supposed to have a girlfriend named Melody?  Was this her?  He didn’t have a clue.

Shaking her head, Melody literally stomped her way over to him.  “Stephen Marsh.  Don’t you ignore me like that.  I love you!”

“You love me?” Stephen asked.

“Of course, you idiot!”  With that, she grabbed him, pulled his head down and planted a huge kiss on his lips.  Stephen, being Nancy inside, was immediately offended and scared.  He jerked his body away from her.  “What are you doing?” he demanded as he wiped his lips with his hand.

“Stephen, don’t you go telling me you don’t remember me, ‘cause I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe,” Stephen told her.  “I don’t have a clue who you are.”

“I’m Melody, idiot.  Melody!  Your girlfriend.  Now give me a proper kiss.  Maybe that will help you to remember.”

“Oh hell no!” Stephen said, backing away.  “I don’t want to kiss you for anything!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Melody demanded as she moved in and wrapped her arms around him.  “Stephen, I love you, baby.  You’re mine!  I love you.  Please remember me.  Please.  I can’t live without you.”

Stephen didn’t know what to say to any of it.  He just wanted away from this weird woman.  “Stop…” he started to say, when she grabbed his head again and pulled him down for another kiss on his lips.  But once again he didn’t kiss her back, and pulled away.

Still trying to hold his head, she looked up into his eyes, but all she saw was uncertainty and fear, no recognition of her at all.  “Steve?  Steve?” she said.  “Are you in there?”

“Let me go!” Steve replied as he pried her arms from around him and moved further away.  “Geez!  What the hell was that?  Disgusting!”  Once again he wiped his lips with his hand.

“Disgust…” Melody started to say.  She watched him, looking again into his face, but she realized he didn’t recognize her at all.  Not one bit.  “You really don’t know me,” she said softly.

“No.  I don’t!” Steve replied firmly.  “And after that, I don’t think I want to.  Geez!”

“How can you say that?” she demanded.

“Easy!  What’s with all the kissing stuff?  I hate it.”

“You hate it?  You never did before.  You couldn’t get enough of me.  Ever!”

“Well I can tell you right now that I’ve already had enough of you.  Please, just go away.  I was already miserable.  I don’t need another girl trying to kiss me, especially not on the lips!”

Melody took a step backwards as the full realization hit her.  She took a few more steps back away from him, still watching him closely.  He still didn’t act like he wanted her to be anywhere near him.  She had never felt so rejected in her life.  Finally, she turned and walked back toward the house.  She saw Steve’s mother standing just outside the door, watching them.

“I told you,” Agatha said to her.

Melody stopped.  “He’s not there,” she said.  “He’s really not there.”

“No.  Trust me, he’s not.  And the doctors are fairly certain it’s going to be permanent.  He doesn't know you.  He doesn’t know us.  He doesn't know anybody.  But more than that, he doesn't even know who he is…at all.  He has no memory of his life at all.  Right now, he’s completely lost, and we’re at our wits end as to how to help him.

Melody took that in, then looked back at Stephen who was still standing there watching them.  She shook her head.  “The rumors said he had lost his memory, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”

“Well it is,” Agatha told her.  “We may be lucky to have as much of him as we do, which is really nothing but his physical body.  The rest of him is…for all intents and purposes, dead.”

Melody’s eyes went wide at that, then she nodded and turned toward the door.  She stopped though and turned back toward Stephen.  “Bye Steve,” she said softly and gave him a small wave of her hand.  “I really did love you.  I’ll miss you.”  She looked at Agatha.  “Bye,” she said simply, then she headed into the house and out the front door.

Stephen walked up to his new mother.  “That was weird.”

“It didn’t look like you appreciated the kisses she tried to give you.  That kind of surprised me.”

“Are you kidding?  I’m still Nancy inside.  I don’t want another girl kissing me on the lips like that.”

Agatha breathed one soft word.  “Oh.”

 

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The government committee would meet one more time in the next couple of days to discuss and finalize their report before meeting with the President to hand it over.  Even though the full individual conclusions of the committee had yet to be finalized, Curmett already knew that all three of them were thinking along the exact same lines.  It was only their individual areas of expertise that were needed now so that it could all be combined into one final document.

But Curmett was the National Security Advisor.  The bottom-line conclusion was up to him.  He pulled up his computer and began typing a rough draft of what he needed to say.  He didn’t type three of the words yet, but he already knew that the document would have the words, “Confirmed Viable Threat” at the very top.  But his job now was to finalize his part, the end of the report.  He typed:

 

It is the conclusion of this committee that as unlikely as it may seem, someone has managed to perfect some kind of process that can extract the entire memories, personality, and sense of identity from a person, and transfer all of that into someone else, completely removing the original identity of the second subject in the process.

We have no knowledge if the process automatically erases the identity of the new host person by placing the new identity into that person, or if the original identity becomes erased due to the new information being injected.  In the two subjects we have examined, we could find no trace at all of the original identities within each of their physical bodies.

We also have no proof that the new identity can be placed into a host, while allowing the original identity to also remain.  We are all inclined to believe however that such a situation would simply be too confusing for any one person to manage and would most likely result in either severe mental trauma, or possibly death.  It should be noted though that doing such a thing to a person might be used as a weapon, however, a simple gunshot would be easier, faster, and cheaper.

This committee can only conclude that whoever has done this has used the current subjects to show us that the transfer process can be made from anyone at all and the identity can then be placed into anyone else.  Age, and even sex have no bearing on it.  The old identity is somehow removed and is completely replaced by the new one, no matter what physical factors exist in the new host.

With only these two examples so far, we do not know if the process of transference is only a one-to-one occurrence…that is that it can only be done from one person into one other person, or if the transference can be from one host identity into many new hosts.  However, when you take into consideration the equipment and computing power that must be involved for such a thing, it is more likely that that once an identity is extracted from the original host, it can then be placed into any number of succeeding hosts, rendering multiple mental copies of the original for whatever purposes someone should have.

It should be noted here that one other possibility for this process may be possible as well, and may indeed have been the root of the research behind the creation of the process.  Just as in many science fiction stories, someone may have intended the process as a way to either extend someone’s life, or to enable them to live forever.  By having their identity and memories extracted once they get old or ill, and then transferring all of that into a new younger and healthier host would be like granting someone a second lifetime, complete with their entire original identity intact.

We the committee are at a loss at this time to explain why whoever came up with the process should bother to show us what they can do instead of simply using it against us.  The only possible conclusion we can draw from what little we have seen so far is that whoever has this process is more inclined at this time to use it as some form of blackmail in order to gain something in the future.

We need to keep in mind however, that it could be used against this country in other ways and at any time.  The process could easily be used on prisoners of war so that when returned, the prisoners would actually be foreign agents.  Or the process could be used to overwrite the identity of a government leader or official with someone who has been carefully trained to either spy on this country or take over its leadership.  Finally, the process could be used to inject adverse agents into the population to cause chaos, unrest, and even a civil uprising.  Too little is known so far about their intentions.

 

Final Conclusion:

 

As stated at the top of this document, our final conclusion is that a viable threat does exist against this country, and that for reasons unknown, whoever has developed this process wants us to know what they’re capable of.

 

Recommendations:

 

With the limited information we have been shown by these examples, we have only two recommendations at this time.

Firstly, whoever has this process must be found and either stopped, or at the very least watched carefully, no matter where in the world they are or what government is sponsoring it.  As to going to war over it, that is not within the purview of this committee.

And secondly, we all feel strongly that any knowledge of this process, and what the perpetrators have accomplished, should be classified with the highest level of secrecy so as to prevent civil panic.

As deplorable as it sounds, to further minimize knowledge of what has occurred, it might be wise to terminate all those who have knowledge of this situation.  This should include both the victims and their entire families, the two psychiatrists involved, the police detective, and any FBI agents who have knowledge of the case.  A black ops strategy to handle these people may be the best way to fully ensure that no one other than select government personnel can be aware of it.

In the event that termination of these people is not condoned, we recommend that each of the people involved be made firmly aware of the consequences of letting anyone else know about it. 

We would like to note that the psychiatrist, Doctor Isabella Montcliff, not only knows about the process already since it was she who alerted the government to its existence, but she has herself come to many of the same conclusions stated in this study.  If termination is not approved, we recommend that Doctor Montcliff should be the sole psychiatrist to work with both subjects so as to not only minimize anyone else from gaining knowledge, but so that she can report all findings to the government in case further information can be learned about the process, the effects, or who has been using it.

The second psychiatrist who worked briefly with one of the subjects, Doctor Christopher Faucet, has already been dropped by the Marsh family.  This committee is convinced that he does not believe any such process exists.  As Doctor Blake has concluded, he seems to be a poor psychiatric choice, perhaps for all of his patients.

 

It wasn’t often that terminating, killing, innocent people was called for, but it had been done more times than most people would believe.  Black ops groups were the standard procedure to carry those orders out.  And they were good at it.  Nobody ever knew those people were murdered.  They were all staged to look like tragic accidents.  That was what Curmett expected would happen to all the people they had interviewed at that Catskill resort.

No matter what, Curmett had no doubt that behind the scenes, unknown to anyone else, the government teams would begin scouring the world for whoever had managed to create such a diabolical process.  Curmett also had no doubt that they would eventually find that a government somewhere was behind it.