God's Dogs

There’s been a lot of experience with torture in history. It doesn’t work.

Molly Ivins

Andrew Lockhart wasn’t at brunch that morning. He was interrogating a blond, nondescript maintenance worker his people pegged as a possible League agent. He was just getting started with the interrogation when the alarm sounded.

He hurried to his command center and the staff gave him a concise report. A delivery person discovered the stunned kitchen staff, and quickly surmised that a kidnapping was in progress. He alerted security. They were slow to respond, and the bullet train had left the station. The kidnap team was gone, except for a sniper.

“How will the sniper exfil?” Lockhart asked.

An operator worked the problem on his screen and said, “Two possibilities.”

“Get a platoon to each. I want whoever it is alive.”

“Yes, sir.”

River now wore an orange one-piece jump suit with the word PRISONER in white florescent letters across her back. She sat cross-legged in a holding cell with electronic dampening in place. That didn’t matter, since she had already disabled her implant A.I.

She was roughed up a bit but less than what she expected. Now she sat in meditation. One part of her mind remained acutely aware of her surroundings, while the active part of her mind descended into the bardos to aid all those she killed that morning.

Upon completing that ritual, she dropped into a deeper state, a delta state, and floated there in a self-aware slumber.

Hours later, guards hauled her to a nearby interrogation room. They cuffed her to a ring in the center of a metal table, sat her in a bolted down chair, and cuffed her ankles to the legs of the chair. A slender older man sat across from her. He spoke, “I’m Andrew Lockhart.”

“I know,” River said.

“And you are a Coyote. What is your name?”

“River.”

Lockhart snorted. Then he said, “You didn’t leave much of use in your armor.”

River didn’t reply.

Lockhart went on, “We caught your agent. I broke him before coming to see you. I can only assume the emperor and the others are in hyper-space by now, on their way to Central.”

River considered that, realizing the agent’s discomfort she and Pax picked up on, probably came from knowing he was compromised. She promised herself to check on him when she could. Then she focused on Lockhart. “The war is over. Instead of wasting time on me, you ought to be activating your exit plan.”

“It’s initiated,” Lockhart said. “Before I go, I need to experiment on your brain. We think we’ve perfected a way to break a Coyote, but we haven’t been able to try it on a live subject.”

River grinned at him. “Let’s get to it, then.”

At first, Lockhart was shocked. He had never seen this response in a prisoner before. Then he chuckled and motioned for the guards to take her away. This would be the pinnacle of his career. He had not doubt he could break her.

There are multiple ways to mess with the brain: drugs, electro-shock, probes inserted into the brain, and subverting the implant A.I. Since River’s A.I. was disabled, and the Empire would spend years trying to hack it, that avenue was closed. That left some combination of brainwashing, drugs, and/or electrical stimulation.

What Lockhart didn’t know, or appreciate, was the distinction between the brain-mind continuum and consciousness. He could mess with someone’s body and brain all he wanted, and in most cases it would work, but not in River’s case.

Her mind was the product of the complex brain, to be sure, but consciousness was a pre-existing condition. For centuries, scientists figured consciousness was a product of the mind, just as the mind was a product of the brain. It wasn’t. Rather, the mind could perceive consciousness, because the mind was evolved enough to do so. Therefore, one trained in the exploration of consciousness could detach from the brain-mind. River could, in a sense, bounce out of her body and watch what they did to her from above.

Psychologists called it ‘dissociation.’ Psychics called it ‘astral projection.’ Shamans called it ‘walking in two worlds.’ Buddhists called it the ‘observer self.’ And River spent decades in meditation making that place her home.

The torture began with the normal softening up period: Hot/cold and constant loud noises in her cell, erratic light/dark schedule, water boarding, pain from neural whipping, and so on. Ritual humiliation began at that point, and it was thorough.

It went on for days. River observed it, ate when there was food, drank when there was water, and endured, but it was difficult.

The Observer Self possessed its own attributes: non-judgment, objectivity, and a compassionate regard for one’s ego-system. What they were doing to her mind and body triggered her self-compassion, but there was no way to act on it. That became the most difficult part of the process — waiting for it to end.

By then the drugs were introduced. Again, she observed the chaos in her mind. It was hellish. Somehow they tapped into childhood memories and changed them to horror stories.They were like morphing dreams — cherished childhood memories devolving into massacres of her family and friends.

Days later, they draped her head with a mesh cap to manipulate her brain’s electrical currents. She noticed they were suppressing the anterior insula and the parietal lobe. They were also bombarding her brain with beta waves to interrupt the gamma and alpha waves that generally occurred in deep meditation.

Well, they did their homework, River concluded. If she wasn’t already securely ensconced in the observing self, she might not be able to launch out of her brain with all that interference.

She didn’t know how long it went on, but finally one day the guards returned her to the interrogation room.

She settled back into her tortured brain and began a mantra healing meditation as she sat before Lockhart.

“The experiment failed,” he stated, “as you must know. And we have no theory on why.”

“Your theories are reductionist,” she croaked out.

As he considered her comment, he poured her water from a pitcher on the table. River drank from the plastic cup.

“Thank you,” she said in a clearer voice.

Lockhart squinted at her, not sure what to do with her gratitude.

Then he took a breath and said, “I need to be going. The League has forced a surrender. Our computer system was compromised, and all our secrets are known. The emperor and my former colleagues are headed to a prison planet. I don’t wish to join them.”

“I’m a loose end,” River smiled at him.

“My staff wants to use you as a bargaining chip.”

“Won’t work.”

“I told them so,” he smirked. “So it’s either dispose of you, or release you.”

“Are you asking my preference?”

“No. I’m considering which would be in my best interests.”

“If you kill me, Penglai will hunt you down. If you release me, the League will hunt you down.”

“I think I have a better chance of eluding the League.”

He motioned to the guards, “Return her to her cell and see that she is treated according to POW standards.”

They did so, and ten days later River and the blond agent were released to League representatives. Among them was her team, waiting at the compound’s entrance. They escorted her to Satya, and the flight home began.

Moss held his tongue until they were under way and sitting in the galley. River had showered and changed into a skin-suit.

As she sat at the table, Moss gushed, “It wasn’t our call, River. The damn politicians wouldn’t let us get you out of there.”

“I know,” she said and patted his forearm.

“Was it bad?” Pax asked.

“Not after I got situated in my observer self, but my mind and body have been through a meat grinder.”

“Master Lu assembled a team for your rehab,” Quinn said.

“Thank the goddess for that,” River smiled. “I’m barely holding it together.”

“What can we do?” Moss demanded.

She smiled weakly. “Just hold me a lot and tell me it will be okay.”

For the week it took to get to Penglai, they did so. River continued with her healing meditation, which was reinforced by whoever was holding her. They took turns so that she was never alone.

When they landed at the monastery, River was introduced to her rehab team. They greeted her as she exited the ship.

A stout, black-haired woman led the group of four. She spoke, “Hi, I’m Rosalind McKearney. This is your team. We have quarters near medical. If you will follow me, we can get you settled in and get started.”

River hugged her teammates and followed Rosalind off the landing pad.

Moss remarked, “She’s tougher than me, Quinn.”

Pax snorted. “That’s not saying much, but I get your meaning. She’s probably tougher than all of us put together.”

“Could you have sustained an observer self meditation that long?” Moss wondered. “Without getting sucked back into the body?”

“Maybe,” Quinn said, “but I’d hate to have to find out.”

“No shit,” Moss said and his whole body shook. “Damn. I wish we could have got her out of there.”

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed and turned to head off to the Coyote barracks.

The rehab included a complete brain workup to see what damage was there. River’s A.I. was rebooted and joined in on that assessment. She also received a full physical workup, daily acupuncture treatments, taiji workouts, and counseling sessions with Rosalind.

In the first one, a few days after the medical staff was done with her, River entered a comfortable office with a desk against the far wall, couches, chairs, end tables, potted plants, and tasteful wall hangings. A large picture window framed the valley.

River sat on the central couch and Rosalind sat in a chair facing her.

“Are you ready for this?” Rosalind asked.

River grinned. “Not sure what ‘this’ is, but I trust Master Lu to look out for me.”

“The big picture – sort of the forest view, rather than lost in the trees view – is that you were out of your body for some time. Everything that happened to your body, including your brain, is unexperienced experience. In order for all of it to revert to normal memory, you have to experience it – essentially by experiencing it, you digest it and turn it into normal memory.”

“Well,” River chuckled, “that’s going to suck.”

Rosalind smiled, her eyes lighting up. “We have ways to make it, well, less unpleasant.”

“Glad to hear it. When do we start?”

Rosalind peered at River for a moment and said, “I met Grace and Raina a while back. They are ever-grateful to your team. I told them I’d never even met a Coyote, and that was true. Few people have a reason to.

“When Master Lu asked for volunteers from the Penglai Psychological Association, I stepped up, mainly because I felt an obligation on Grace’s part.”

River nodded her understanding but let Rosalind go on.

“That’s still there, but now, having met you and reviewed the reports on what you went through, my motivation has changed. A woman as strong and powerful as you are must be restored to her former self. When that occurs, who knows what will come from your processing of these traumatic events? It was a trial by fire no one I know of has survived. What does that mean? Who will you become? We don’t know, but there are benefits here. Both to you, but also to the greater arena of mental health.

“So, at the risk of sounding dramatic, River. I’m honored to be able to work with you.”

One lonely tear tracked down River’s cheek. “Thanks, Rosalind. I promise to behave.”

They both laughed then, and Rosalind knew the therapeutic connection was forged. Her worries that she wouldn’t be able to connect to this remarkable woman evaporated, and she relaxed into the magic of a therapeutic collaboration.