Z. A Chameleons Colour - Part 3 of 3

He called in a favour to get the Intention Check, going through
normal channels would have alerted the director. After that he made
another call and ordered an Invasive Therapy team, and called in
another favour to make them as late as possible. "Just covering my
back." He said to the empty room after he put the phone down, but he
knew he was not, he knew he had made his judgement and made the
decision his masters trusted him to make. He had a soft spot for the
Lady it was true, but all he would give her, and Stanley Tierson, was a
little time.

He walked back but did not go in the room, instead he stood with the
soldier, not talking. All the man had to do was guard a door, he did
not have to make difficult decisions. If he was capable of making them,
if he was a leader of men, then he would be made one, the Meritocracy
would see to that. Mysko made difficult decisions and the soldier
guarded the door and that was how the city worked. Mysko wandered if
the guard resented it, if he envied the power of Mysko's job the way
Mysko envied the simplicity of his. He was still wandering when the
Intention Check turned up.

The Intention Check was nothing more than a small computer attached to
various wires which the Lady now carefully secured to Stanley Tierson's
head.

"Why are you doing this?" Asked Stanley.

"You are confused Stanley, I want to find out just how confused. The
Intention Check will give me an insight into what is going on in that
head of yours."

"But what are you looking for? Exactly."

The lady moved over to the other side of the bed and the other side of
Stanley's head, she continued attaching electrodes. "I want to find out
why your memory has not returned."

"Oh." Said Stanley. Mysko could see he was trying hard to seem
unconcerned, a poker face. The man was not a natural liar, which was
why he told a lie so convincingly once he was convinced it was the
truth.

"Can you just run through what you do remember for me please."

"Now?" Asked Stanley.

"Yes please." Said the Lady.

"Well I still remember defecting very clearly, but I kind of also
remember what you said, about volunteering to be a spy. I'm not sure
what to believe. Like when you cannot quite be sure what was a dream
and what was not."

"Try not to worry about that. Concentrate on the second memory, do you
remember any details."

"I remember something?" He stopped and held his head in his hands, as
if trying to squeeze the memory from his temples. "Something about
you."

"Don't strain yourself." Said the Lady.

Stanley rubbed his skull, dislodging one of the lady's carefully placed
electrodes. "We were lovers." He said with triumph. "You and me." He
looked up at the Lady Grey like a puppy expecting a reward.

Mysko watched intently, ducking down to better see the Lady's face, she
looked away from Stanley for a moment, not watching the machine or
anything else but hiding her eyes from his. Mysko wondered if the fact
had embarrassed her.

"That was why I did it." Said Stanley. "Why I really did it. For
you."

"I didn't know that Stanley." Said the Lady, her voice was cautious
now, as if stepping over snakes.

"I think you did." Said Stanley. "Deep down."

"Perhaps." Said the Lady.

"What does the machine say?"

The Lady turned around the screen so Stanley could see the rows of
graphs displaying brain activity. "It looks better Stanley. I think you
are getting there."

"I'm still not sure."

"Do you know what will happen if your memory does not return?"

"No."

"Agent Mysko." The Lady turned to face Mysko. Stanley Tierson followed
her gaze.

Mysko looked at the lady who gave the slightest nod of her head. He
said. "Invasive Therapy."

Stanley said. "What is that?"

The lady answered. "Using a combination of drugs and hypnosis they will
extract the information they want from your mind, the process will
leave you insane, most likely a vegetable."

"You're kidding."

"No Mr Tierson. They will snap open your brain and scoop out the
contents. "

The Lady Grey looked at Mysko and asked "How long?"

Mysko replied. "Ten minutes. I can maybe stall them more once they're
here."

Stanley Tierson looked worried. "But I do remember." He said. "I'm
starting to remember, I'm sure it will all come."

A wide and friendly smile spread slowly across the Lady's face. "Then
we should work fast." She said.

Later, Mysko and the Lady walked back down the same corridor. Their
work concluded, the director called and the Invasive Therapy team
called off. Stanley Tierson sleeping soundly.

"You didn't tell me you were lovers."

She stopped and looked at him. "Are you jealous Mysko?"

He paused. "A little. But I'm angry you lied to me."

"How angry?"

"Maybe not angry." He said. "Disappointed."

"Let's get a coffee." She said. "In the canteen."

They walked in silence to the hospital canteen and ordered coffee and
sandwiches. Something did not sit right in Mysko's head, something
somewhere did not fit together. The Lady's reaction when Stanley had
remembered they were lovers, her doctoring his form, it did not sound
like her however close they had been. He thought about Stanley Tierson,
how confused the man was, the truth had seemed to confuse him more
rather than put everything into place. He had seen people deprogrammed
before and it was not like that. The idea of a double agent was
worrying, but it did not ring true, it assumed too much, it did not
provide answers but more questions. Mysko looked across the table at
the Lady, there was something she was not saying.

"You were never lovers were you?"

She paused, holding her coffee cup to her lips. "What makes you think
that?"

"A lot of things." He said. "But mainly I think you would have told me
if you were."

"Your right." Said the Lady. "We were not. That was just the
rationalisation he needed to make sense of the story we told him." A
look crossed her face that Mysko could not decipher, something between
memory and regret. "Perhaps he wished we were." She said

"So was he an agent?"

"He defected legitimately. From a certain point of view."

"You lied to me."

"We lied to your department. It was necessary."

Mysko drank his coffee. Lies were his business, he should not be unduly
worried by them.

The Lady said "Do you hate me for it?"

"I don't know. Why was it necessary?"

"Reality is subjective." She said. "It depends on your environment. You
believed Tierson was a spy, which in turn helped Tierson believe
it."

"That is no reason." He said. "I could have lied. I am a
professional."

"Then the reason every lie is necessary, to conceal the truth."

"What truth? Can the Intention Check be cheated or not?"

"In a way it can. But the process I described earlier is just
misinformation."

"So how is it cheated?"

"In much the same way as it works, by subverting the perceived order of
events."

"The perceived order of events?"

"When you speak, truth or lie, you believe you plan it first, think it
and then say it. In fact this is rarely so, you speak first and then
rationalise afterwards. The Intention Check merely measures the amount
of rationalisation, it tells you nothing about the answer but
everything about the question."

"That's all?"

"It is a powerful tool, there is a lot of information in the
question."

"And the process?"

"Our enemies believe what I told Stanley, that we have developed a
method of brainwashing so effective it can defeat the Intention Check.
This is a lie to conceal the truth. Like the lie of carrots helping you
see in the dark concealed the invention of radar."

She stopped talking and leaned back in her seat.

"But what is the real process?"

"Haven't you worked it out yet?"

Mysko thought for a moment and then laughed. "That was it wasn't it,
that was not a deprogramming but a programming, you convinced an
innocent citizen he was a brainwashed spy."

The Lady smiled slightly. "It is a secret." She said. "You must not
tell anyone, least of all your director."

"It must take more than just the artifice." Said Mysko.

"There are other factors."

"The injection." He said with triumph.

"Something to make him? more receptive."

Mysko smiled, enjoying the discovery. "How long was it planned?"

"For years." Said the Lady. "Tierson had tried to defect before but
Lendia had no interest in him, their much touted altruism rarely
extends to individuals. We saw our chance and brought him in to
Exterior Confidence and had him work with me where we fed him choice
bits of information. This of course made him very interesting to the
People's Republic, they snatched him at the earliest opportunity. Like
I said, they know we have a way of defrauding the Intention Check so we
have to make the subjects attractive, Stanley was simply too valuable
to them, they placed him into Martial Consequences in order to leverage
his knowledge of us and in turn they fed him knowledge of their own
plans, knowledge which shall soon be ours."

Mysko laughed out loud. "In effect." He said, still laughing. "You
haven't defeated their Intention Check, but our own."

The lady laughed with him. "That is a good description."

Mysko stopped laughing, so sudden as to lay the suspicion he was only
putting it on. "Why did you tell me you lied on his report?"

The Lady put down her coffee cup and placed both hands on the table. "I
needed you to protect me, to give me time to work."

"And all that crap about a double agent to force me back into action
again I suppose. You played me, like you played him. We're both just
pawns to you, things to manipulate."

"I'm sorry John." She said. "We needed your department to extract
Stanley from Lendia, but we had to maintain the lie. I'm only telling
you because?." She tailed off.

"Why?" Mysko Demanded. "Why are you telling me."

"Because I like you."

Mysko drank his coffee and said nothing, she was still playing him but
she was genuinely contrite. He wondered how long it would last, and how
long he would be able to stay angry at her. Not long, he thought, in
either case.