Colliding Worlds: Chapter 9

Here is a page of all prior chapters. The page includes a full explanation of the story.
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Colliding Worlds is set in New York in 2030.
Soon Ella was going to be Nadia’s. Nadia loved Rachel but couldn’t trust her. How did she know if Rachel was telling the truth? Rachel claimed that Denny thought Justin a mid-level ISB agent like him who lived in an intellectual fog, and was allowed in the townhouse under orders to tell nobody including his superiors about it. True Nadia had thought this was an ISB experiment and had never understood Justin’s position. He wrote two best sellers a year and owned Web Warriors. That seemed to occupy all his time. Even now he was playing games. If he truly loved Ella he would find someway to get her out.

Nadia put a sparkling mobile she had just bought over the bed. Ella’s eyes opened widely and she giggled as she tried to touch the neon colored figures. She picked up her doll. When her doll couldn’t pick up the figures she began to sob. Nadia lit a contraband Marlboro and watched. She had always wanted her own baby. Ella would give her the best of all worlds. She thought about Justin. He couldn’t be in charge of this operation. He was too vapid.

Nadia hated all Americans, on principle, except for Ella and Rachel. Ella she could control. Rachel she couldn’t trust. The ISB had screwed up when they hadn’t discovered Nadia’s other identity and profession as chemist. The ISB thought that Del was lost in one of the new Arab countries when in reality he was right here.

The Regressive Division had erased all of his memories. He was called a “blank slate regressive.” Somebody would talk into the chips implanted in his brain and ears and tell him what to think and say. In Colombia they had many blank slate regressives. The Regressive Division would experiment with peasants. Blank slates were the easiest to control. Sometimes when their chips were removed they would remember their former lives and forget everything that had happened since. Others would become like violent zombies but when the chips were replaced they would go back to being blank slates.

“Manifold regressives” such as Ella were more difficult to control. They would be implanted with false memories, but their chips would allow them to remember their earlier lives. Some were given hallucinogenics and/or other drugs, for a day, a week, one day a week and so on. When their chips were removed they would be even more violent than the blank slate regressives. Implanting a blank slate chip hadn’t worked so far. The Regressive Division was working 24/7 to make them blank slates. Ella was to be implanted with a blank slate when they were perfected. First the Regressive Division wanted to see how she reacted when she was lucid and saw Justin. It was important that Nell and Justin suffer for all the harm they had done to The USC.

Nadia had seen a Ken Russell movie where Tchaikovsky’s wife had become an inmate in an insane asylum. She remembered how the movie seemed to end with the wife hanging in air and other inmates licking her body. She knew most people found that vile. It had aroused her. She hoped to have that opportunity with Ella one day

Ella was the most difficult manifold regressive to control. The Regressive Experts were impressed with Nadia’s ability to control her but they didn’t know about the added drugs. If she told them about her discoveries she could rise rapidly though never be completely trusted. Nadia preferred to go her own way.

There was noise. Something was happening but Nadia didn’t know what. Nadia didn’t scare easily. She had done things in Latvia to survive that weak American’s, with their bloodless be happy revolution, couldn’t begin to imagine.
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ISB members brought the new improved stun guns to the townhouse. It was easier than either Justin or Max could imagine to stun the USC members. They fell onto the floor where they would remain motionless for hours. Justin would have thought the look on Denny’s face priceless if he wasn’t concerned with getting Nell to a helicopter that was on the roof.

Max drags Denny into the elevator that will take him to the roof. They need Denny to explain what The ISB Behavioral Division hasn’t been able to ascertain. They know there is a mammoth lab in a Colombian village but haven’t been able to find it.

Nadia tries securing the fifth floor and the bedroom. Denny has told her that Justin would never be able to figure out the security. He has no idea that Max supplanted the sensors. Nadia screams in real fear as Justin points the stun gun at her.