Page 85 of Shielding Instinct

“And what was the response?”

“Indifference from the kids. From the grownups, a bit like what you’re doing now, unease. I thought I got the answer wrong.”

“Which was painful for you.”

“For a very long time, I was ashamed that I would want to be either smart or have fun. Then, freshman year in high school, I mentioned that story to my art teacher, and she reframed it for me as the best possible answer. That’s what everyone should aspire to. A decade to carry that shame was more than enough. I’m forever grateful to her, to Mrs. Barnstrom.”

“I’m sorry you carried it at all. I wouldn’t call my reaction ‘unease’ as much as you damned well shifted my paradigms. It’s so out of the box. So, while I’m going through this internal seismic event, I want to congratulate you. It seems to me you’ve met your goals. Amazing. You know you and my sister are going to get along really well. She does this to me, too, shifts my perspective. I like it. It keeps me nimble.” He paused. “You’re going to hear me mention Cora a lot around you. She’s not just my sister. She’s a very dear friend. I like to just laze about and listen to her thoughts. I can see you two becoming good friends. That is, unless you prefer to retreat into your curmudgeon shell, in which case, I can visit her and give you space.”

He realized he was talking to Petra like they’d agreed they were in a relationship.

He needed to slow his damned roll. “Is talking about your work too much for you right now? Should we change the subject? Would you like to be silent?”

“Me? I love talking about my work. I’m sure it’s the same with you.”

“I love doing my work. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to hear more about yours, to the extent that it’s not classified. Rowan is into post-Soviet psyops, and he’s jumping on a plane for St. Croix.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Petra said.

“I see.” He didn’t see at all, but he knew enough about Rowan to recognize that he played among some very dangerous and despicable characters. And Hawkeye, selfishly, wanted Petra safe. “Federal employees aren’t paid well. Your expertise is unique. You jumped into a brand-new world with brain security. I’d imagine there are any number of institutions and industries that would snatch you up and pay you royally to help them understand and exploit the human brain. Obviously, you don’t have the personality or drive to do that. Are you frightened by what you’re discovering?”

“As a scientist, I don’t want to use the word frightened. Perhaps—mmm, I’m looking for a word that’s more than cautious, less than hair on fire. I’mbraced. The human brain is truly extraordinary. But living in a questionable reality is demonstrably bad. Underlying mental health issues will become more challenging. Depression, thoughts of suicide, anxiety, paranoia, anger control, and such. Our health systems aren’t equipped. We don’t have enough mental health professionals. Even if we did, the average person can’t access them for financial reasons. The consequences are widespread. An increase in self-medication with drugs and alcohol, more violence borne of frustration, and a lack of control over our environment are expected. One of the responses we see in our research is therise of small groups that tune into each other, eschewing wider society and societal norms. That too can be problematic.”

Hawkeye drew his brows together. “Keep going with that.”

“They fold in on themselves. They develop a reality apart from others, reinforcing those beliefs in each other. That’s part of our history. The Pilgrims, for example, had unique worldviews that they tied to their faith. They were first ostracized in England fled to Holland, then fled again to what would become the United States. History redefines who and what they were, but at the time, they were radicals.”

“Sounds like you’re talking about more cults. Your research is still cult related?”

“There’s an argument for that. What are the elements of a cult?” Petra asked, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.

“A charismatic leader. Brainwashing,” Hawkeye ventured. He hadn’t given it much thought.

“Can you imagine a world where we can’t believe our own eyes, our own ears? Then what is reality? We need someone we trust to tell us what is true. A charismatic personality is, by definition, someone who can sway people. Imagine this—a human is floundering. They feel marginalized. They want to challenge the norms because the norms make them feel bad about themselves or their circumstances. Then someone says, you’re right to be aggrieved and afraid. Come follow me, and I will show you the way to feeling content. The anxiety and anger will leave your body. The depression will lift.”

“It sounds like self-medication, desperate people seeking relief.”

She canted her head and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Did you know that while facing a doomsday scenario like I did today, I might have fallen under the sway of a charismatic whomakes me feel safe, and therefore, I put my faith in him? Does your cult have a name?”

“You’re teasing me. But I hope that’s true to the extent that I want good outcomes for you. In difficult circumstances, it’s helpful—even hopeful—to lean on someone you trust. As I’m listening to you, I’m thinking about a German philosopher I read last year who lived through WWI and WWII. She postulated in an interview that if everything is a lie, no one believes anything anymore. And then she says that when you don’t know what’s the truth and what’s a lie, you don’t know what to do.”

“You read philosophy?”

Deflection or a thought ricochet? He didn’t answer.

“I’d say if you don’t know what to do, you’d end up doing nothing, or worse, you do what you want.” She turned back around.

Hawkeye continued to slowly comb her hair. He hoped she found it as calming as he did. “Why is that worse?”

“A whole different discussion. Is that the direction you want me to take?”

“I’ll ask you about that another day. I guess I’d like to know how this applies to your work,” Hawkeye said. “This is pseudo-spiritual?”

“Spiritual groups have been around for all of humanity. People connect that way. There’s a lot of positivity. What I call pseudo-spirituality is about leadership gain at the detriment of the followers.”

“That’s an eye of the beholder kind of thing, right? The person may get everything good out of the association, but to the outside, people wonder why they might, for example, take a vow of celibacy or vow of poverty.”

“I’m talking about Jim Jones and the like.”

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