"Becky, I'm glad you could get off this morning." I said yawning a bit. "The doorbell kept going off last night. I think I'll be glad once again that Halloween only comes once a year. The kids are cute, but the constant doorbells. Up and down and up and down. It gets to me."

"I know what you mean honey, but the kids get a kick out of it. We even do every now and a gain. Remember the party the Stevens threw a few years ago?"

"That was a lark. Come as you aren't wasn't it?"

"That's the one. I must say, some folks came up with some really good costumes!"

"That's for sure. Who'd ever have expected to see Nick in drag! What a lark."

"He sure hammed it up. It's not every day you see the chief of detectives clowning like that."

"No Becky, I guess not. But, looking like that was about as far as I could imagine from his job. I mean, my shepherd bit really wasn't much by comparison."

"Your shepherd was pretty good Bill. Hmmm. I bet you could have pulled off the hooker bit better than Nick did. Probably a good thing you didn't come up with the idea."

"You've got to be kidding. Nobody could mistake me for a dame."

"Not today maybe. But, go back to when Ruth & Craig were kids, you were slimmer then. I bet we could have gotten you looking pretty good." I looked around a bit at that.

"I guess its good we didn't try. People might have wondered." She laughed a bit at that. We're almost there. I just hope that Dr. Wong goes along with our plan."

"Bill, it's that or something like it, or we find someone else don't you think?"

"Yea. I do. I still hope things work out. In many ways, I'm more curious about my past than I was. I just wonder what all happened."

"That's why I'm here Bill. Come on, let’s go in."

"Hello Dr. Wong, this is my wife Becky."

"Hello Mrs. Wyman, it's nice to meet you." She then turned toward me. "Are you ready to get started this morning, or do you have some more questions Mr. Wyman?"

"Do you mind if she sits in with us for a bit? We've something we'd like to discuss about my memory hunting."

I could see her thinking. "Well, we'll see how it goes. Add a third person to the session can lead to complications I normally wish to avoid. We'll start, and see how things go." She said as she led the way back. "What do you have on your minds?"

"Well Doctor" I said, I was talking with Dr. Flynn about my concerns about getting false memories out of the work. And, I discussed what we went over last night on how you went about avoiding this. I also expressed my continuing concerns. She said she'd reviewed some of the literature and protocols and some used an observer roll instead of your recording process."

"Yes, many of the older protocols do describe a neutral observer roll. The difficulty is scheduling one. Ideally, such an observer would be a highly trained individual. That's why I came up with my recording approach a few years ago. The recorded sessions could be reviewed by me or another professional to judge the veracity of the recovered memory."

"I understand that. We think that's good, but we believe that we can add an observer that would help as well. See, if Becky were to observe the session, she knows me well enough to recognize when I'm stressed, and also should be able to recognize when your guiding might be more leading than we agree upon. Becky works in marketing, and based on what you said about words triggering, I think she understands words too so might be good there as well." I took a breath. "I'm running off aren't I?"

Dr. Wong smiled at that. "You've obviously put a lot of thought into this, and are still concerned about the safety of the process." She turned to Becky. "Mrs. Wyman, for it to work with you or another observer, you need to not be in his line of sight. And you need to not interrupt. An interruption at the wrong point could be a bad idea, and even dangerous. Do you understand this?"

"I've done marketing studies Dr. Wong, where I need to observe people's reactions to different ads. They don't react the same way when they can see us observing them, and when they can't see us."

"That's part of it for sure. But the non-interruption is also important."

"Well, that's the second bit. Bill and I would like for me to be able to abort a session, if I perceive him to be over stressed or if it looks like you're accidentally leading him in a direction."

She looked thoughtful for a minute. "Well, as for you aborting the session. The only safe way would be for you to signal me to abort it not to abort it yourself. The session is more effective and Bill is safer if only one voice is talking to him. Can you both accept that limit?"

We looked at each other, and then nodded.

"Okay, then I think we can give it a try. Mr. Wyman, as we talked the first thing we will do is help you define a safe refuge. Once we get that and you can get there quickly, we can be ready to start. Let me get a chair for you Mrs. Wyman, and then we'll move into the other room."

"I think this will work. Mrs. Wyman, if you sit here, you can see me, and I can see you. You'll not be able to see Mr. Wyman's face, but if you could, he could see you as well which might disrupt things. If you look over your shoulder, you can see the monitor I use when a particularly stressful session is anticipated. If this works out today, I can probably update things to get one of the camera feeds to a monitor so you can watch Mr. Wyman as well."

"Thank you for working with us on this Dr. Wong. From what you said, today is mostly a preparatory session and no memories are going to be looked for."

"That's right. Today we just make sure Mr. Wyman has a safe security space he can retreat to when needed. We also start and end all sessions in this space." She turned to me and asked, "Now, Mr. Wyman, I'd like you to think about the kind of places you feel most comfortable and relaxed. For many people, it's on the beach, or a peaceful glade in the forest. Others find a feeling of safety in a Castle. Any thoughts for you?"

"Well, I've always felt pretty peaceful walking through an open forest in the fall, where the leaves are starting to turn colors."

"That hits the peaceful side, but does that also give you the safe or protected feeling?"

"Hmmm. Maybe not. Though, I certainly don't feel threatened there. Maybe if I knew I had a buncha friends in shouting distance... I rarely am totally alone out in the forest. I thought about an Island, or a castle. The island fits me better too, but the castle feels too confining and cold."

"That gives us a bit to work with then. Why don't you get comfortable?" Then she continued in a soft even voice. "Think of an open forest. You've wandered a little way from your friends but you know they're just a call away. The leaves have turned and they are bursts of oranges, yellows and reds on the trees, and quieting your footsteps."

About this time, I seem to have zoned out a bit. Apparently about a half hour later, I came back from wherever I went. "Are we going to do this?"

"We did, sort of. It went a little different than I was expecting however. You seemed to be fighting and kept slipping off to a place you described as a stone tower." I shuddered at the name a bit. "It's almost as if you have done something like this before, and used a stone tower as a refuge. We did eventually get you to your forest refuge, and setup a key phrase to help you get there. At some time in the future, I'd like to try investigating the tower, but that's certainly not for today. All in all, I believe the session was productive. What did you think of the session Mrs. Wyman? I saw you start to raise your hand a few times."

"It was nothing like what I expected. I guess I was expecting to see the shiny pendulum and the getting sleepy bit. But it was nothing like that. It was interesting seeing you suggest Bill walk in a forest, and then have him describe it. That first time he described a tall tower instead of the forest I almost thought he was joking with you. You're saying that was something else."

"Yes. If Bill hadn't said he didn't like Castles and such earlier, I'd have thought his subconscious was just changing things to a different place, and gone with it. However with that, it's like he's had some trance based sessions previously and this was the home base he used." She turned toward me. "Are you sure you've not done anything like this before?"

"Not that I can recall I've not. Until I talked with Flo, that's Dr. Broadhurst, I'd not even thought about talking to a psychiatrist about my memory."

"Well, in any event, you're going to the forest when needed now. What do you two think about continuing?"

"Well, if we can move to Monday mornings, it might be easier for me to get an observer here. Becky can't take off all the time. Oh, I wanted to ask you about the possibility of my daughter occasionally subbing as the observer. She's in her 3rd year at the Uni now."

"I'd have to talk to her first, to see if she has an appropriate background and wouldn't act as a disruption. As to Mondays, let's go out and look at my schedule. I think I can be flexible most Mondays." she said, with her voice dropping at the end, as she opened up her calendar. "Actually, I can do Mondays, except for the 4th Monday each month. Will that work for you?"

I looked at Becky and at her nod, "Yes. We can do that. I'll try to bring my daughter in soon, so the two of you can talk."

"Fine, now I wanted to put a caveat to the observer being able to stop the session by signaling. It may depend on what we're doing whether I can get you out right then, or whether it may take a few minutes. You'll have to trust my professional judgment on that. Also, if I believe the session will be particularly stressful, I may ask you to not abort so soon, and trust me there too. But, we'll talk about that before those sessions."

I looked a Becky again. This time, she answered for the two of us. "On the first bit, I think we have no problem. We'll have to talk about the second when the time comes. Perhaps we'll be able to build up sufficient trust by then so it's a non-issue."

"That would be a nice outcome. I'll see you next week then. We'll reinforce today's session, and then go after some memory."

"Thanks Doctor!" I said as we walked out the door. "You'd best get off Becky. You can tell me about what went on tonight."

"Okay Bill. You be careful today."

"Always dear!"

That afternoon

"What's up Ruth? Your IM was a tad cryptic last night!"

"Oh hi Dad. Sorry about that."

"So, what's the big mystery?"

"Well, last night at the Halloween party, I was talking to my Cold War professor, about things that both sides did during the war, and he was describing some stuff the Soviets did to enhance their soldiers. They used hypnotism and some drugs to enhance training, and develop teamwork. Apparently this produced some very effective soldiers that could anticipate what teammates could do and where they'd be. He said the program got dropped because it was so time intensive, and they ran into some difficulties occasionally. He said the soviet literature didn't report on the difficulties."

"How could that apply to me?"

"Well dad, I said that could never happen here, and he said he remembered reading something about the CIA sponsoring some experiments along those lines here in the states. Guess what?"

"That isn't nice to hear, but I'll bite. What?"

"I've got a topic for my course paper now!"

"Oh really? What might that be?"

"I'm going to research our responses to perceived soviet threats in the so-called shadow war. You know, spy vs. spy kinda stuff. I'll even be looking at that program, and our responses to it."

"That's all fascinating Ruth. But I still don't see how it applies."

"Well dad," I could hear a bit of exasperation in her voice. I guess I was being particularly dense this afternoon. "If we had programs for soldiers, it's conceivable that they were used on kids too."

"No. I won't believe that! I mean, nobody would authorize such a thing in this country!" I could hear the lack of conviction in my own voice. "Well, maybe, but I still don't think it applies to me."

"Okay dad. Anything else before I sign off?"

"Actually yes."

"Really? Don't tell me I forgot the Craigster's birthday, ‘cause that's not until March."

"No, nothing like that. It's with my memory hunting. Apparently, as the Soviets apparently found, it is possible to implant a memory instead of recover one. Well, with Dr. Flynn's help, we've come up with an approach to reduce the likelihood of an accidental implant. Your mother was there today, and acted as an observer. That way, if it looks like the doctor is pushing a memory, she can stop it."

"That sounds good dad, and I'm glad you're keeping me up to date on your stuff."

"That's not all oh wise one."

"What do you mean ancient one?"

I laughed at that. "Well, your mom can't make it every Monday. She does have to work you know."

"What do you mean by Monday? Today's Wednesday. I CAN still read my calendar!"

"Sorry, we moved the sessions to Monday mornings, because we'd like you to be able to substitute for your mom as observer occasionally. Do you think you could do that?"

"Of course dad. Hey, maybe I can ask your Doctor if she knows anything about that Soviet program!

"I'm sure she'd be willing to talk to you about that too. You just have to ask. How about next weekend?"

"Let me get back to you on that Dad. If things go smoothly here, I'll be glad to."

"Okay, well get back to your books."

"Kay dad. Have fun on your report." She said as she rang off. I can't believe how much she's grown in the past ten years. Skipping 3rd grade certainly doesn't seem to have hurt her any. Well, back to the grindstone.