on my mind
by Keith Hinrichs
The smell inside the Sprinter van was familiar, but not in a good way. It reminded Connor of his high school boys’ locker room after track practice. Warm, moist, and kind of funky. A mix of sweaty shirts and athlete’s foot powder.
There were complex notes layered into the mélange: coffee with curdled milk, stale almond croissants, sweet Mountain Dew. And something tangy or cloying. He couldn’t place it just yet. Overheating electronics?
“God, you guys are driving me crazy! Why can’t you pick up after yourselves? Doesn’t the mess you’ve created bother you?” Margaret shook her shoulder-length, curly brown-hair with a shudder, and set down her Dew. “I'll have PTSD by the time this stakeout’s done.” She leaned over the message feed, then straightened and scanned the quad-pack of camera monitors in front of her. Her hands absentmindedly tried to smooth the wrinkles setting into her cream blouse and navy pants power-ensemble.
“This is cool and all, in principle,” intoned Phil, “but it’s tedious as hell.” He was seated in one of the bucket seats in the back of the van. His summer-palette polo shirt and chino pants looked at home with his sockless loafers. “There are more important things that I’d rather be doing.” He closed his eyes, rolled his palms upward in his lap, and inhaled and released a meditative breath from his tan, clean-shaven head.
“Just you?” Margaret prodded. “Nobody else here has important things to do? I would rather stick a knitting needle in my eye than spend another hour in this hippie hotel.”
Connor could tell that Phil was trying to ignore her, but was failing. He grinned to himself when he noticed the vein on Phil’s right temple pulsing. The three of them were crammed in close in the white Mercedes-Benz contractor van. Margaret’s histrionics could be a bit much sometimes, but Connor found Phil’s arrogance hardest to tolerate.
To lighten the mood, Connor broke into his best impression of the Chief of Station. “Y'all need to focus. We're fixin' to get us some actionable intel, officers. Eyes on that prize, now, ya hear?” He did his best to mimic Silver’s warm, southern drawl. It was tough to pull off, with his own Boston Southie accent, but it made the attempt more humorous.
Margaret chortled first, causing Phil to break into a smile, still with his eyes closed. “Okay, Connor, you win. Can we switch places? I gotta pee.” Margaret stood up, as much as the van roof allowed her 5-9 frame, and maneuvered to the door. Connor slipped past her and dropped into the now-empty seat, skimming the monitors.
“See you in a bit, Margaret,” said Connor, as she exited the van. The July Parisian heat and humidity poured into the van like overripe peach nectar until the side door slid closed.
“Anything going on?” asked Phil. He had opened his eyes to study his smart phone.
“Nope, nothing at all.”
“How is field work going for you?”
“Umm, I think I’m getting the hang of it.” He crossed his jean-clad legs, showing off his street-wise Vans Eras shoes.
Phil looked up at him. “Well, there’s learning the craft: you’ve got to be good at the details. Then there are the surprises. Nothing’s as it seems at first. Nothing goes the way you plan. Knowing how to respond to both only comes with experience.”
“I’m sure that’s true. Appreciate the advice.” Connor adjusted the neck of his local heavy metal band T-shirt. “So do you think this new tech is legit?”
Phil smiled. “I doubt it. Best case, it reads and records something, but I think all we’re going to get is French onion soup.” He played up the meditative guru role in front of others, but Connor thought Phil might be more cynical than he and Margaret, combined.
“So, Connor, my boy, what do you think of Margaret? I saw you giving her the side-eye at the morning briefing. You like her?”
“Nah, that’s ridiculous; I wasn’t looking at her. I mean, yeah, she’s pretty. But she’s a good field officer. I have nothing but respect.”
Phil smiled at him and shook his head. “You are such a bad liar, son. We’ve been trained to deceive, but your face is an open book when it comes to her.”
“No suh. I could care less,” said Connor, his neighborhood accent returning. He looked away, re-crossed his legs and picked at a seam on his other shoe. Then he started scrolling through the message feeds.
Five minutes later, the door slid open and slammed shut, as Margaret returned from the pâtisserie-down-the-street’s restroom. “I wish we could change the air, guys, even for a minute. What are you talking about?”
“I don’t remember. What were we talking about, Connor?” Phil asked, raising his chin and giving him a wink.
“Hey, hey: target is coming down the street,” said Connor, relieved. “From the East. Just one.”
Phil and Margaret crowded the camera screens. “He’s our guy,” she said, “Finally.”
“Who’s on point?” asked Connor.
“I’m on it,” said Phil, as he slid into the gamer chair directly behind the driver’s seat. The team executed their practiced moves. Phil flicked the power and enable switches. “Charging up. Turn on the LN2, please, Margot.” He pulled the display goggles down over his eyes. “Cut the inside lights, Connor.”
The neuronal illuminator acoustically came to life: FETs and electrical relays clacked and ka-chunked, capacitors ramped up to dog-hearing pitch, and liquid nitrogen shushed through the insulated flex-steel tubing. Phil pointed the business-end of the device at the van’s visibly-opaque sidewall, its supporting gimbal allowing him to cover the field-of-regard directly outside of the van.
“I can see him now, on the visual overlay. Tracking him. Is there anyone else nearby?”
Connor scanned the camera monitors. Margaret glanced out the front and rear windows and then shook her head. “No, Phil. No one in sight.”
“Good. Did you turn on the data storage unit? Hey, the capture light just turned green. We ready to go?”
“DSU’s on. Cleared hot,” said Connor. “It’s all you, man.”
Phil squeezed the trigger. He slowly exhaled through his pursed lips as he tracked the target, pivoting the machine and his seat as the pedestrian walked past the side of the unmarked van.
“I’m getting greens on acquisition and data writing. Charge levels are holding,” said Connor.
“It smells hot. Do you think it’s going to catch fire?” said Margaret.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” said Connor. “Keep going, Phil.”
“He’s turning into the entryway to the upstairs apartments. We’re going to lose him soon,” said Margaret.
“I’ve lost visual but I can still see some of the neural cloud. I’ll keep tracking up the stairs; I’m guessing on the pointing.”
“The battery icon just turned yellow.”
“That’s all right. Losing. Losing. Lost him.” Phil released the trigger. He sat back in the chair and lifted the goggles to the top of his shiny head. “So cool.” Margaret and Connor stared at him. “I felt like I could see into his brain when I fired. This greenish-yellow cloud was overlayed on top of the image of his head. For a second, I thought the whole cloud would pop like a balloon hit by a 50-cal. But no bang and no pop.”
Margaret shook her head once, as if waking from a trance, and then checked the files on the workstation. “Each of the sensors was able to write its data and close its file. I’m turning off the nitrogen flow.
“I hope we got what we came for. Let’s get this science experiment off of the street.” She squeezed her hips past Connor and Phil and slipped into the driver seat. “Shut her down, boys. We’re heading back to the stable. Let’s deliver this to S&T.”
Margaret drove the team back to their garage. They took a roundabout route, changing direction several times while looking for surveilling cars or motor scooters. The garage was a fifteen-minute walk from the Embassy near La Place de la Concorde; far enough that the locals wouldn’t associate the van with the station. Connor got out and closed the overhead door behind the now parked vehicle. Margaret pulled the hard drives and stuffed them into her embroidered cloth shopping bag. She slung it over her shoulder and exited the van.
“I need fresh air, tout de suite. Be sure to check for tails, Connor. See you soon.” Phil joined her and they walked out the back door onto the wide boulevard’s sidewalk.
Connor gave the pair a ten-minute head start. He cleaned the trash out of the van and locked it. Then he exited through the industrial-strength front door, pointed his face at the discreetly-emplaced camera, and walked his own route to the service door of the embassy.
They met up in the Agency’s bullpen, where the field operations teams and the science and technology nerds held court. Margaret pulled the drives from her bag and handed them to Ethan.
“Thank you, Ms. Margaret. Give me a half hour to process the data. Then we’ll see what you’ve captured.” He turned and headed to his open cubicle in the far corner, stuffed full of computer, networking, and audio-visual equipment.
“You’re welcome, Ethan,” she called to his back. The team plopped down in front of bullpen workstations. They logged in, checked email, and wrote up their after-action reports.
“Do you guys want to go out tonight for drinks?” asked Phil. “I’m going stir crazy after sitting in that box all day.”
“I’m down,” said Connor. “But it’s gotta be cheap; I maxed out my per diem last week. Where do you want to go?”
“Remember that bistro we drove by this morning? Le Figaro gave it a good review in their gastro section last week. They have outside tables. What do you think?”
Ethan strode back across the room with a swagger in his step, accentuated by his gray New Balance 990 sneakers. “We copied over all the data. The analysis algorithms are running now. It may take ten or fifteen minutes more.
“You know,” said Ethan, recognizing a captive audience, “the Agency has a long-standing interest in this topic. In the early 1970’s, my predecessors ran several studies on what they called ‘remote viewing’ for intelligence purposes. Some even involved mind-altering drugs. They were trying to gather intel on certain field sites, places that they didn’t have access to. They wanted to know the same things we want to know: which rooms are code rooms, status of facility build-outs, number of people and weapons at a site. Unfortunately, the studies’ discovery accuracy statistics were not favorable, so they cancelled them.”
“Go on, Ethan,” encouraged Margaret. “So, what were we going after today?”
Ethan smiled at her appreciatively. “We’re not looking for details of far-away secret bases. At the very least, we want info that will get us into secure facilities and networks: front door codes, safe combos, and passwords. If it works as well as I hope, someday we’ll be able to read national security secrets directly from a target’s memory. That capability would make our adversaries’ SAPs and SCIFs and secure computer networks the opposite of impenetrable.”
Phil took the bait. “So how does this machine of yours work?” Margaret turned to Connor, gave a short shake of her head and surreptitiously rolled her eyes.
“My directorate has been funding academic and medical research on the relationship between the brain’s neural activity and memory. You probably know the hippocampus is where memories from specific events in our lives are formed and indexed for later access. But memories needed for immediate use can be moved from the hippocampus into the pre-frontal cortex. The PFC is for short-term working memories, such as recalling a door code before having to type it into a keypad.”
“I’m tracking,” said Connor, “but how does this machine work?”
“It uses some of the same techniques used today for brain and memory research: fNIRS and transcranial ultrasound, with AI/ML processing tools. Today’s fNIRS devices need to be strapped to a subject’s skull to work. But we’ve discovered how to apply the technique from a distance. We’ve got it working with good signal-to-noise ratios from up to thirty feet away.”
“Okay, I understood half of that. What I want to know is, do we need to wear tinfoil hats now?”
Ethan ignored Phil. “Let’s get back to the mission.” He walked across the bullpen to his cubicle, bent over his workstation to read the monitor, and wrote something down. He returned to the crew, visibly beaming. “We have just taken this to the next level. Voila!” With a flourish, he pulled a sheet of paper from behind his back and held it up to the team. “6-4-0-7. That’s it. That’s the door code. We read it.”
“How do you know for sure?” said Connor. “It could be some random mix of neural signals. People see shapes and symbols in everyday objects all the time. You know: Rorschach tests. Or the Madonna in a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“No, this is accurate. He thought it twice. The subject. He thought of this number two different times. Watch this.” Using Connor’s workstation, Ethan navigated to a video file on the server and launched it. “Look. See for yourself.”
The timestamped color video showed the target walking down the street, presumably in front of the van. As he approached the street entrance to the second-floor apartment, a yellow, tessellated glow appeared, superimposed on his head. The yellow glow reminded Connor of the inside of a spaghetti squash: stringy and overlapping.
“There, that’s the neuronal illuminator activity. It’s detecting working memory of the door code in the prefrontal cortex,” narrated Ethan. Two seconds later, a line of text appeared in the top right of the frame: 6-4-0-7. “He’s thinking the door code to himself, to remember it before he has to press the numbered buttons. This next part confirms it.” The target turned into the entry way, his back toward them. He tipped his head down and reached his arm forward, toward the door jamb. Once again, the same number sequence appeared on the screen. Ethan gave a fist pump and did a full spin, before smiling.
“Okay, well done, Ethan. I’m impressed.” Margaret popped open a fresh Mountain Dew. “We’ll use the code to enter the apartment when the target is at work. If it doesn’t take, we know where to find you.”
“So, what else could we do with this?” said Phil. “Can it read more than numbers?”
“This is all new ground. You guys are effectively the field test team and that guy was the mouse. We need to put together a design-of-experiment. It needs to be methodical and map out the corners of the device’s performance space.”
“I wonder, is it reciprocal?” said Connor. “Could we use this in the other direction? Could we plant information or memories in the target’s mind?”
“You’re giving me new reasons to meditate,” said Phil. “Listen, let’s do another trial. We’ll go collect some more data for you, okay, Ethan? Can you give us back the hard drives?”
“The memories-to-text algorithm appears to be working well. I’m going to enable the function on the machine itself. Hold on,” he said, as he entered instructions on the workstation and updated the device’s firmware. “This should enable on-site processing, so you can learn in the field and then exploit it.”
Phil stood and turned to Margaret and Connor. “Let’s go.” He had an intense, far-away look in his eyes.
“Good luck, guys,” said Ethan. “Please be gentle with it.”
“I have an idea,” said Phil, once they were back in the van. “It doesn’t matter who we surveille, as long as we can obtain ground truth.”
“What do you mean?” said Margaret.
“We need to record a target’s memories, but we also need to know what they are actually thinking of so we can validate that the neuronal illuminator’s working,” said Connor.
“Yes, that’s what I mean,” said Phil. “But how could we do that?”
Margaret slammed her hand on the armrest. “Oh my god, this is easier than we think. Guys, we need to see the truth, right? What better way to do this than to stake out a karaoke bar? We’ve got words in the singer’s short-term memory, and the karaoke machine has the written lyrics.”
Now it was Phil’s turn to roll his eyes and shake his head. “Margot, you’re a genius.” He followed it up with a smile.
“Do you mind if we stay close to the Embassy?” said Connor. “Maybe somewhere in the 8th arrondissement?”
“Sure,” said Phil. “Any ideas?”
“I went to a brasserie with karaoke near Quartier Pigalle. They have a lot of expat customers. We could park on the street and image through their big doors. It’s so hot today, I’m sure they’ll be open. One of us could sit inside and video the session with a phone, providing a timestamp for our data.”
“Okay, my boy, you just volunteered. You take a seat in the club. Margot and I will record from the van.”
“But,” stammered Connor.
“No buts. This is all in the name of scientific discovery. I’m sure you were better at lab in college than I was. I’ll give you ten Euros to buy yourself a drink.”
“This feels stupid. Fine, make it twenty and I’ll go.”
“Good man,” said Margaret. “I think Ethan will be pleased with the data we collect. Eventually, we’ll be able to use it on some real targets.”
Afternoon traffic was moderate. It took twenty-minutes to get to the karaoke bar. Phil slowed down as they approached the establishment, located on a narrow, one-way street. “Dammit. No open parking spots.”
“Just bang a U-ey,” said Connor.
“No. Continue down the avenue, take a left at the light, and then loop back around,” said Margaret.
Phil remained silent but kept driving. Ten minutes later, he returned and expertly maneuvered the van into an on-street parking space on the opposite side of the street. It was almost directly in front of the karaoke club’s open French doors. “You’re good luck, Margot.”
“Thanks, Phil,” she said. She turned to Connor, “Ground rules among friends: no singing any Britney, Bieber, or Champs-Élysées songs.”
Connor dramatically sighed and then slid the door open. He stepped out and turned to face them. “I know I’m going to frikin’ regret this.”
“We’ll text you when we’re ready to acquire,” said Margaret. She winked and he slid the door closed.
Margaret and Phil watched him cross the wide sidewalk and enter the establishment. “Let’s give him ten-minutes to get acclimated,” she said, “and then we’ll start rolling.”
She was impressed that Connor was willing to set aside his pride for this experiment. She thought he was a hard worker and team player, with a refreshing positive outlook on life. Most of her single field ops teammates had hit on her within their first week, whether she wanted them to or not. She had never felt confident initiating, herself. But Connor was different: seemingly interested, but at a respectful distance. He was beginning to grow on her.
“That’s good of you, Margot. Can you open up the LN2? I’m going to warm it up, so to speak.”
“It’s too early. We don’t need it yet.”
“I know. I just want to be ready.”
She leaned over and opened the regulator’s valve. She hoped they’d continue to work together, she and Connor.
“You know, he’s sweet on you.”
She sat bolt upright. “You don’t know that.” I hate this about him: the jealousy comes so quickly, thought Margaret.
“Yes, I do. I’ve seen him watching you. He definitely has a crush.”
“You’re imagining things. Maybe you’re just jealous. You and I are not a thing anymore, Phil. Remember?”
“I mean, it makes sense that he’s sweet on you,” he said, ignoring the barb. “Sophisticated, professional, beautiful, older woman.”
“Old? I’m barely five years older than Connor. Stop trying to make trouble, Phil.” I need to stay calm.
“Okay, okay. Guess I still know how to push your buttons.”
“Merde, you never know when to mind your own business or shut the F up.”
“I’ll lay off, Margot. But listen: if I’m wrong, you owe me a cocktail.”
“Fine.” She waited two beats, unwilling to engage in further conversation “The DSU is on.”
“Good, thanks.” He pulled the display goggles down over his eyes. “Green light is on. Pulling the trigger now.” He pivoted the device in its gimbal. “I’m searching for the karaoke singer.”
Margaret sat in front of the camera monitors. “I can’t see her. It’s so dark in there. But I can see Connor. He’s at the window with his back to us. Do you see him, too?”
Phil executed a search pattern as he scanned the floor-to-ceiling openings. “There. I see him. Wait a minute.”
“What? Is something not working? What’s wrong?”
“Um, nothing’s wrong. [pause] This is very interesting. [pause] Are you seeing this? Look at my screencast.”
Margaret switched to the screen that mirrored what Phil was seeing in the goggles. “Okay, I can see Connor’s back. He’s sitting at one of the high tops. And there’s a yellowish glow that’s blocking the view of his head. Is that what the machine is seeing?”
“Yes, I think so. It’s detecting brain activity. Now what do you see?”
There was a five-second pause while Margaret read, slowly moving her lips, but not saying anything.
“Oh my god. Dammit, Phil. Shut it off.”
He emitted a low, slow-motion laugh.
“You are such a shit. Shut it off!”
“Hey, babe, this is all in the name of science: the quest for knowledge. He’s thinking about you. Right now. Can you see the text?”
“Of course I can read the text. All of it. (I wish I hadn’t seen it). This is not for you to see. Or me, either. This is a breach of privacy. Shut it off!”
He sighed. “Ooh, this is good. He’s giving Ethan plenty of material. I wonder how long this can record for?”
Margaret smacked him in the back of the head, causing the goggles to fall over his nose and mouth.
“Ouch. Hey, quit that. Ethan said be gentle.”
“Not to you.” She flicked the DSU switches to off. She reached down and shut off the liquid nitrogen. Then she leaned over Phil and pulled the hard drives out of the rack, stuffing them into her embroidered cloth shopping bag.
“Give me those. They’re Agency property. Ethan will be pissed if we don’t bring them back.”
“See you, asshole.” She slid open the side door and stepped down. “We’re done here,” she said, and slammed it shut.
Margaret turned, crossed the wide sidewalk, and walked into the bar. She could smell beverages spilled the previous night, now fermented. On the stage, a twenty-something yankee woman was crooning Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’. Margaret looked around and saw Connor, backlit by the window. She walked over to him.
“Mind if I sit?”
“Oh, sure. I was waiting for your text. Everything all right?”
She sat next to him at the high-top table, uncertain of where to begin. “Hmm. The equipment is fine. Phil is being the asshole he always has been.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Margaret.”
“Please, call me Margot.” She leaned forward, placing her folded arms on the table, and looked straight at him. “Can we stay here for a while?”
Connor smiled. She thought she saw a twinkle in his eye.
“Absolutely. You going to sing?”
Margaret laughed. “You’re so funny. Only if you do.”
“Yah no,” said Connor. “Can I get you a drink?”
“What are you having?”
“Well, if we’re going to stay a while, I’m going to order a French 75.”
“A bold choice. You must have read my mind; one for me, too, please. Then you better warm up those vocal cords.”
She found his self-conscious smile endearing. By itself, it may not have been enough encouragement. But she was already, without-a-doubt certain: he liked her.
Photo of Keith Hinrichs
BIO: Keith Hinrichs lives in metrowest Boston with his wife, young-adult children, and golden doodle. This is his debut short story. He’s written articles published in peer-reviewed technical journals (Optical Engineering). When Keith’s not developing optical technology, he’s rapidly turning pages in thriller and spy novels, fixing stuff, or learning recurve archery.