Rosebud

Martial Arts, weapons, women, drugs; the Classics: Aristotle, Spinoza, St. Thomas Aquinas; the Other Classics: De Sade, Poe, Freud, Lovecraft. I had rejected the field I had chosen on every occasion.

I entered the Air Force to become a Law Enforcement Specialist, but after several weeks in Boot Camp, my AFSC (Air Force Speciality Code) was changed to that of an O.S.I. Agent. The Office of Special Investigations, is an F.B.I.-type organization. Finally, I went to University, and then eventually, I was inducted into the C.I.A.: the world's most sophisticated Intelligence gathering organization. They take a lot of heat, but they are the best. And I was the perfect candidate for Special Intelligence. Initially, I was trained on how and when to kill. Opportunity counted. Eventually, I was taught what and where. Each mission was different. But never, was the subject of "why" covered.

I was a very well read individual. I could slide into any social level, location or scenario. My self training had gone into diverse forms of survival far beyond that which the Intelligence field could indoctrinate someone. But, in the end, I had rejected them all, and for one simple reason; the men backing me up were sorely in need of honing their skills. After all, the Cold War was over. The Industrial Espionage of the modern world, though quite deadly, still did not make for the intense training ground of the old days, or so I have learned.

After I had taken the O.S.I. entrance examinations, the C.O., his rank as Commanding Officer being classified (though I assumed he was a Colonel by his knowledge, acumen and demeanor), had, within his surprise at looking over my scores, unintentionally confided in me. He remarked that I had achieved the highest scores that he had ever seen on the O.S.I. battery of entrance exams. So it was that I was instantly abducted into an elite grouping of the best that they had to offer. This did not please me since I unequivocally preferred to work with people who could out think me, who could keep me alive when I was out on a limb, when my own reasoning exhausted itself. They were good, but I wanted more.

Then, when I discovered from the C.O. that the O.S.I. did not carry weaponry and were constantly at risk of death without even the hope of protecting themselves via personal body armament, I seriously began to question the intelligence of this organization. For their part, I will say, they are inhibited because of the international nature of their plight.

It was at this moment that I decided to shun the field of "Intelligence" work in the Armed Services. My eventual wish was to put in my four years, get out, get a University Degree and apply to the C.I.A. Some years before, I had my I.Q. rated and received rather higher than average scores, but nothing special.

After entering the Service, I received a battery of tests by the Air Force's Special Testing Center. Evidently, it was just a random choice on their part. These results also, had rated me at the top of nearly every test they had to offer. Eye hand coordination, manual dexterity, vocabulary, decision making, scenario assessment, etc.; in every test, I had finished long before anyone else in the room, with the ensuing scores just as far above the rest. Still I could not accept that I was in the top five percent of the top five percent of the Country's citizens.

Or, so they explained it to me.

After having heard from parent and teacher alike for most of my life that I was dumb or slow (in other words, stupid), it tends to become rather difficult for one to accept the idea of possessing "superior intellect". After all, I had graduated high school with a G.P.A. of 1.75, not a leading Academic's standing. With the Service eventually secured behind me, my University Grade Point Average shot upward to a rock steady 4.0.

Those years left me having lost my wife, my career, and nearly my sanity. I decided to use up my Viet Nam Era G.I. Bill College benefits by pursuing a degree in Psychology. The area of Awareness and Reasoning seemed a fit direction, and so it was.

I hooked up with a slim young thing named Cynn, short for Cynnamin, ten years my junior, who also had decided to get a Psych. degree. Eventually, we moved in together to save on time and expenditures.

Part of my studies concerned indirect coercion and mind control: Freud, hypnosis, trancing, and alternate states of consciousness among them. Early on in our University career, we had stumbled on to the phenomenon of hypnosis. After a day's lecture on abnormal behavior, we retired to our apartment, a pleasant enough place that we shared with the woman I had previously been (platonically) sharing the apartment with.

Cinn and I discussed the possibilities of hypnosis and the theory of mind control, and finally had decided to test our mettle against this form of external mind stirring. Much to my dismay for all these years since, she wanted to test hers first. Cinn was curious about the strength of her psyche and I was curious about the possibilities of mind control in the area of P.O.W.s, the control of foreign agents, and use of random foreign citizenry for assassination purposes, as such things are the concern of the spy business.

First, I had her lie on the waterbed and relax. I then turned on my Vox Beatle, Super Reverb guitar amp, superbly manufactured by the Thomas Organ Company. There are controls on these amps called the Treble, Depth and Speed Controls, of which I soon made creative use. Turning the Amp Volume and Depth Controls up all the way and manipulating the Speed Control properly, a simulated heartbeat can be produced. I took our Abnormal Psych. book and merely read out loud the paragraph exemplifying the technique of hypnotizing a subject. It worked amazingly well.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, this was all new to the both of us and was done in the spirit of studious exploration. She was to go first and I would follow. This would put each of us, equally, in the other's control for a time and seemed a solution quite fair to the both of us. We used a tape recorder so that the subject would know exactly what was done to them during the session. If there was a stop in the recording, the subject would know that something surreptitious had occurred. We thought we had all our bases covered. And we did, except for one thing that we overlooked.