Monday, July 8, 2013

Trifecta: Blind Obedience (1)

Trifecta: Week Eighty-Five

 


This week's challenge is to write 33 to 333 words using the following definition of the word FLY:  a ) to move, pass, or spread quickly ; b) to be moved with sudden extreme emotion ; c) to seem to pass quickly .

My entry is the beginning of possibly a novel with fact and fiction mixed together. Some names are real while others are not because of the need to fictionalize details. The program MK-ULTRA was indeed real.



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Elias knew he wanted to kill from an early age. Even when his parents saw they could no longer have pets, he found animals to torture in secret. It was with great pleasure he signed the contract that turned his life over to the military. Extraordinary timing. The war had ended not long before and the CIA just came into its own after having been the Office of Strategic Services. British MI-6 officers had aided in the transition.

Psychiatrists had devised a questionnaire (unbeknown to Elias) to target sociopaths. He had passed with flying colors and, even though he was not a college graduate, somehow he had been drafted into officer training school under the auspices of the new CIA for a secret program. He got his license to kill just prior to his first assignment, Korea, before his 20th birthday.

According to plan, he married before his departure. He would not reunite with his bride until after his tour of duty for a year in Korea instructing Korean soldiers how to torture and kill. How he thrived on torture. His wife joined him at his next assignment in Japan. Once again he became involved in Japanese civil affairs where it was to US advantage for one side to win. Japan was also where his first child was born. He had already been trained to condition his wife to obey orders and sometimes hypnotize her to forget things she had seen or heard. That was crucial to his life in the underworld as a spy sanctioned by the secret level of the government. To his wife, time would just fly by when her baby daughter was taken for nefarious purposes. Her mind simply closed the time gaps.

In the beginning of the Cold War, US military was highly interested in mind control, especially having soldiers follow orders without question or memory. And so the behavioral engineering experiments began, and not just on the soldiers. The program known as MK-ULTRA was underway.


Words: 333

Part 2 of this story can be found here.




22 comments:

  1. This read as being fully formed. I was interested that a sociopath like Elias would have had a high school sweetheart. But I love reading about the bad guy, because sanctioned or not, Elias seemed like a really, really bad guy.

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    1. Thank you, Jennifer, for being the first to read and provide feedback. It does make one wonder about having a highschool sweetheart and whether or not it might have been preordained as the story continues. Good question!

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  2. I, too, wondered about having a sweetheart. Interested to see how this unfolds.

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    1. Because of this reaction, and I so appreciate the feedback, I edited the segment to explain how acquiring a wife was necessary as part of his cover. I posted the revised version to a post where I will post additional segments to this story. The revision exceeds the 333 words. Thank you so much, LaTonya. It was an inconsistency, although my reality...the history I had of "Elias".

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    2. Cool. Thanks for coming back to this, Maggie.

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    3. Btw, feeling lonesome. Hope you'll find your way to my entry. :-)

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  3. Oh what the government does in the name of national security. There is no concern for the cost to the one doing the deeds, only to accomplish the goal. This put me in mind of the character "tuck" from the ABC political drama "Scandal". Although it is dissimilar in may ways, the character was ordered to do terrible things with no regard for the personal consequences. Very good Maggie.

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    1. Thank you. I know Tuck and he was a trained assassin but he also has a conscience on the show. The behind the scenes of the govt is pretty realistic in that show. Plus Tuck was fully aware of his actions, although, if I recall, he was placed under extreme duress to carry out his orders :((

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  4. Sociopaths do tend to be loners, but I could believe that he would acquire a wife as part of the job. That doesn't mean he's a loving and attentive husband (I tend to think she's living a nightmare.)

    This is an interesting concept and I'd love to see how this develops and where the story goes.

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    1. Thank you, Janna. I have several chapters written that I will test out for prompts. Since I'm combining truth with fiction, I'm hoping other inconsistencies will be picked up by others. I'm a bit too close to see sometimes.

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  5. Ooh, this is really interesting! Love the tone, love the harshness. Can't wait to see where you go with it!

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  6. I wonder if you've read the recent Pulitzer winner, The Orphan Master's Son. It's brutal, but an excellent read. Takes place in North Korea. Tells how people are trained to do very terrible things. As you suggest, in this book also people are not only required to marry, but the government chooses their spouse. It's a novel based on interviews from people who lived to tell stories about the regime. And, to use a fictional psychopath as an example, Dexter is attracted to like-minded psychopaths as love interests. I'll look forward to your next installment.

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    1. Hi Steph, I haven't read it...my attention span doesn't allow me to read novels. I forget the plot and characters if I put the book down for even a day or two. Am sure there are lots of similar stories...the truth written as fiction. Too many psychopaths and sociopaths in this world and running the world!

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  7. As far as sociopaths being loners, well, yes, but they can also be very strategic in acquiring the necessary "camouflage" to pass as normal. Ted Bundy was married, as were Russell Williams and John Wayne Gacy, among many, many others. Your premise was sound without having your protagonist being forced into marriage.

    Definitely looking forward to reading more.

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    1. Thank you for the insight and validation, Kallan. More will be coming.

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  8. This is chilling beyond my understanding. So much damage one can do to humans by pressing the wrong (or right depending on your viewpoint) buttons. To me this has many similarities to child soldiers.

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    1. The US govt considered many things sanctioned as a means to an end. It is similar to how child soldiers are brainwashed through fear and more except they are usually beyond the age when the mind shuts off the horror and the remember most of it. Some things are too traumatic for anyone's mind to handle. Thank you for reading and commenting.

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  9. It's rather terrifying to think that the government of a western country could knowingly do so much evil. It makes one wonder how much is still going on that we have no clue about. Thanks for posting.

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  10. Very sinister and wholly believable.

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  11. Very unsettling and would love to read more.

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  12. @quest, Tara, and Sarah, thank you for your comments and the time to read. It still goes on in different ways. People accept, I think, now the world into which child/teen/young adult "slaves" are thrown. It's on par with that which is worldwide and the US govt is known to play a role. It's very profitable :(

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