Electra Factor
Chapter 3 — Off to work
“You must still be excited over our big win! That secured us the group! Quarterfinals start in a week and a half, though we’ll be able to see some of the other groups- just for a laugh and to know what we’ll be going up against, of course. Osaka Tech is the funniest, although the locals worship them. The battles between Osaka and Electra are epic!”
Wanda woke with a start, rubbing the sleep sand out of her eyes. “Oh my God, I fell asleep on the couch? I haven’t done that since I was twelve. What’re you talking about, anyway? That weird game show? I don’t remember much, and what I do remember was pretty messed up.” She put a hand to her forehead and groped for the remote to turn the television off.
“Jet lag,” Elsa said sagely. “The same happened to me, and I had only half the trip you did. I thought I was fine, decided to watch a little television before dinner, and the next thing I knew it was 8 in the morning instead of 8 at night.”
“Eight in the morning? Shit! Work’s in half an hour! Can’t be late! Can’t look frazzled! I don’t think plane fare home is in the severance!” Wanda said, panicking as she ran for the shower.
“At least you don’t have to worry about the commute!” Elsa called after her, laughing.
Twenty minutes later, Wanda was in a brown skirtsuit and a cream-colored blouse, and Elsa met her at the door, looking dangerous all in black.
Mr. Hyashi met them at the entrance to the office building. “I see you have met Elsa. She was the best programmer in Berlin, so we had to have her. You should get along well.”
Wanda restrained herself from raising an eyebrow at that assessment. “Yeah, she told me about Electra’s game show team. Very interesting, I must say.”
“Oh, the corporate picnic games! I had forgotten that they are televised. I do believe we won group 8 for the fifth straight year,” Mr. Hyashi said with pride. “Let me lead you to your work station. You’ll be in background, greenscreen, and game programming, since graphics were the strongest part of your resume.”
“This looks like a great challenge,” Wanda said.
“I’m glad you’re so interested. Our next project is a fantasy game, where you pilot your character through different levels designed by different members of the team. Build your best cartoon world and put in as many pitfalls as you can. Whoever beats the level beats you personally,” Mr. Hyashi said with a chuckle. Wanda sat down and started work as soon as he left the room. Something had struck her oddly about the exchange, and she’d noticed that doing easy work helped free her mind to worry at more intractable problems, so she started to create the background for the level.
Halfway through, she had successfully worked through what was bothering her- the entire introduction was done in Japanese, and all the text on the screen was in kanji. I guess the immersion tapes and a night of television helped more than I thought! Good show, Marion! Her eyes bright with excitement, she got back to work. Computer animation was what she’d always wanted to do, and this was an opportunity she could never have gotten in the States.
“Simple scrolling interface? A good place to start, but this is Electra. You will need to think much bigger. Don’t worry. I started the same way. I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself first. I’m the floor supervisor, Hasagawa Midori- you can call me Midori, American style, or Hasagawa-san if you prefer to be more formal. You’re very efficient for an American on her first day. That is appreciated. Do keep working. I apologize for interrupting you.”
Wanda nodded at the dignified woman in the old-fashioned dress, and Midori gave her a sweet smile that made her look a good ten years younger, more in line with the other women in the office. Again, the exchange had been in Japanese, but this time Wanda barely noticed; her thoughts were already shifting into Japanese, the language coming to her more easily than she had imagined possible.
When lunchtime rolled around, Wanda sat down with her tempura and her grandfather’s diary to keep herself entertained. She was looking forward to the next crazy installment. As she opened the book, the letters started to swim, and she rubbed her eyes to put the words back into proper order.
7 June 1948:
My decision to marry Rachel while operating out of Paris was met with skepticism by many and suspicion by some, but I see the maddening charm of her despite, or perhaps because of, her altered mental state. It is very rare for a man to complain about too much time in bed, but what was done to her during the war means that she can never be satisfied. But I always remember that this was her sacrifice, given in service of her country, as much as any soldier who returned home broken.
I too still serve our country, and through OSS, I have been looking into Japan’s recovery. It has been too fast for my liking, and I fear that the systems we sought to destroy were never eliminated by the atomic bombings. Our anti-communism forces are hindering my efforts to gather evidence about what happened to Rachel, but I know it has to be out there. She has far more charm in her than anyone her height and build should have.
When I have a bit of time to myself- perhaps after finding Rachel a hobby she can devote her ferocious attention to- I can begin some experiments and observations. Given the notes from the Tokyo Rose trials, and Holliday’s study of suicide records from Allied soldiers in the Pacific, I have become convinced that the women on trial were supervisors, not the actual broadcasters, who were likely killed and buried to cover up their victim’s kidnapping. I suspect answers can also be found in the tapes meant to depress soldiers into suicide. Were it not for Rachel, I would fear to listen to those tapes, but with her, I know that I’ll always have the will to live.
15 December 1948
Using Rachel’s condition as an excuse, I was able to acquire the soon to be discarded notes on the use of female POWs in the Tokyo Rose tapes. The evidence of mind control elements and other sonic technologies unknown to the US is astounding. All possible efforts must be taken to keep these plans hidden from the greater world. I am delivering this report only to those who have responded favorably to my inquiries. Under the guise of a Christmas dinner, we will hold an emergency meeting in a secured office in Paris.
Gentlemen, I thank you all for your service to our country. Our task has become more dangerous than we could have ever imagined, and outreach to other nations may become necessary.
Wanda’s eyes widened at the picture on the next page. The lone black man was easy to spot and even easier to recognize as her grandfather. The Christmas wreaths did little to disguise the seriousness of the meeting, or the business-like expressions of the twenty men around the table, all of whom looked as if they were involved in the next Manhattan Project. Twenty men- and one woman, because behind Rachel Beard’s television smile and the casual way she held the giant turkey, there was steel in her eyes. Wanda started to understand just how huge whatever her grandfather had been involved in was. She reached for her phone and dialed her sister. “Did I call you at 4 in the morning?”
“No, only one-eighteen this time. What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you since Gramps passed,” Claudia replied.
“So far not much, but I’m a little worried about things. You know that cookbook?”
“Yeah, I know. The will lawyer showed us the same thing. Weird stuff, but nothing about today’s Japan, so nothing for you to worry about. Most of it’s space age horror films,” Claudia said soothingly.
“That’s just it. I think I’ve blacked out at least twice so far, and I’ve only been here a few days. Maybe it’s just homesickness and boredom, but whatever Grandpa was doing, it seemed big for the time.”
“I can’t believe he managed to keep it a secret for almost seventy years. I just started reading the copy myself, so now I know why he freaked himself out to death when he heard about you going to Japan. But none of it seems to be past even when Mom and Dad were born, no matter how much of it there was. Did you get up to the part where he saved the A-bomb from being sabotaged by our own men? His Medal of Honor was being kept in a law office, if you can believe that. Our bragging grandfather, hiding a Medal of Honor. So maybe he wasn’t as crazy an old coot as we thought. But the stuff he talked about later... I think he let his imagination run away with him, and I don’t want you to make the same mistake.” Claudia sounded proud and stern at the same time.
“I guess you’re right. I don’t know. I guess the odd customs are fitting too much into the patterns he described, but I’ve always been a little paranoid- must be something I got from Grandpa.”
“Need something Stars and Stripes to take your mind off of the sushi? Maybe you need to remember how to cook fish?” Claudia asked. She sounded- not necessarily worried, Wanda thought, but like there was something nagging at her that she couldn’t put into words.
“Send me a DVD of the original Paris’s Favorite Cook- you know, the favorite cook of France who happened to be from Omaha, the one who sounded like she’d have three bottles of wine before a show, then break them over her head. It can’t get more ignorant American than that,” Wanda said, putting a smile into her voice that was nowhere to be found on her face. The names had started to sound familiar, and there was something she thought she recognized about Rachel Beard’s face.
“Man, you do have it bad. Only blessing about that crazy woman was that she never had kids to further annoy us,” Claudia said before hanging up the phone. Wanda thought about that, took out the picture to hang on her cubicle wall, and went back to work.
When she returned to her apartment, she scratched her head and tried to sort out her thoughts. On the surface, things were going great. The programming was a breeze; it seemed easier than she remembered to set up the codes to paint the backgrounds, and Midori seemed very pleased at the early results. She had been afraid that she was going too Super Mario with the boxy clouds, but ‘80s retro seemed to go with the animé and fantastical levels that her co-workers were creating.
A week passed, and Wanda started to feel like she’d found a routine she could work with. Elsa seemed a little calmer (though now Wanda knew why people made jokes about Germans and sex). Avoiding the weirdest stuff calmed her down. Something still aged at her, and every so often, she looked over at the picture on her wall to remind her to stay alert- not for the family interest in the foreground, but the mindless smile in the background.
OSS Report- 2 March 1957
The McCarthy reign of terror has ended with the Senator’s death. Our resources were reduced to nothing thanks to his misdirected paranoia. If he had allied himself with us, what things we could have done! I questioned his motives, but one of his greatest enemies in the Senate was known to be a 3S classification (codename 109 Mass. Hysteria), I see no ties to our investigations of Japan and Nanking. I must conclude that sometimes a madman is just a madman.
Fortunately, I still have some benefactors in France who have allowed me the space to call another meeting of our group. I would rather not admit how it had to be done, but I have regained the intelligence reports from Japan and China that were confiscated at the founding of the CIA, and augmented those with reports from Allied operatives. With these resources, I am ready to launch my experiment. Given the medium of television and the danger level it presents, I am beginning to wonder if the Japanese “economic miracle” was a miracle at all, or a different manifestation of the control techniques that they were so talented at. The data from my operatives in Korea has allowed me to realize that Imperial Japan simply altered their lust for conquest instead of abolishing it. Their goal of economic dominance in the wake of the atomic bomb is unheard of.
This war in Korea has allowed us to recover information from China that pertains to the events in Nanking. It includes notes and records on the brainwashing of Chinese women into sexual slavery (rendering the rape of Nanking unfortunately literal), the use of brainwashing techniques on American POWs, subliminal messaging during the Tokyo Rose broadcasts, and hints of a trade of Chinese women for Japanese soldiers. While Japan has been forbidden to raise an army, I believe 3S style brainwashing my be taking place in the private sector for the purpose of arms dealing. Furthermore, photos of American trysts with various prostitutes during leave in Japan suggest my greatest fear: these private companies use foreign women as raw material for a global underground sex trade.
Our operatives in Asia have compiled a watch list of companies to investigate in Japan, beginning with Osaka Technical Devices, Yoshii Industries of Tokyo, Women’s Consumer Goods, and Electra Heavy Industries.