The Dorvak Protocol 3
After knocking three times on the guest bedroom door, Angie came down the stairs and found her nephew staring into space.
“You gonna say something? Anything?”
Trevor stared at his Aunt.
“I don’t know what to say........I know you believe this is all true......”
She smirked at him. “You think I’m crazy right?”
Trevor was still fumbling with a response when they heard Norma padding down the stairs. She carried the small suitcase in one hand, her purse in the other. She was barefoot, her sandals jammed into the handbag.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Dupuis.....I didn’t mean to intrude...I heard the three knocks and.....and.......”
She was openly staring at Trevor, her mouth open. He struggled not to stare back.
Angie quickly interjected.
“Norma....you remember my nephew, Trevor......he’s going to be driving you, just as we discussed. Remember?”
Norma blinked then dropped the suitcase and purse. She shook his hand, her eyes never leaving his.
“Of course.....Young Trevor.....I’m sorry to gawk....but you look just like John....I mean Mr. Dupuis.” She kept shaking his hand.
“I get that a lot.” He pulled his hand away.
“I would think you would......but where are my manners? I am so very grateful to have your company. It is of the utmost importance I get to Las Vegas.”
“Why is that, Mrs. Breckinridge?”
There was a moment as her face grew empty. Then, she spoke like student reciting a lesson.
“The reason does not matter. It is of the utmost importance I get to Las Vegas.” She blinked, then smiled.
“When do we begin our little adventure, Master Dupuis?
Trevor turned to his Aunt.
“Show me......with her.”
Norma looked confused. “Show him what, Mrs. Dupuis? I’m afraid I don’t....”
“Barefoot Norma must listen.” Angie’s voice was decisive.
Trevor watched in amazement as Norma immediately broke off her words. All emotion seemed to drain her face, and her posture relaxed. To see the object of so many of his adolescent fantasies so submissive...so open...
Angie approached her, but still spoke to Trevor.
“That’s the first step.....gets her attention. If she doesn’t hear the second part soon, she’ll wake up on her own.” Now standing directly in front of the entranced secretary, she continued.
“Luck, let a gentleman see.”
“How nice....a dame I can be”. Norma’s voice was a submissive murmur. She now stared straight ahead, her arms loose to her side.
“She’s now fully hypnotized. She’ll obey any command given by me since I’m the person who triggered her.”
Trevor walked up to her, then theatrically snapped his fingers in front of Norma’s empty eyes. She didn’t blink.
Angie nodded her head.
“Unless I say otherwise, she don’t even know you’re in the room with us. I am now the center of her universe. Ain’t that true, Norma?”
The secretary slowly turned her head toward Angie. “Yes, Mistress....we have said the words, and I must obey.”
Trevor found himself thinking what it would be like to be the one triggering Norma. But then he slowly shook his head.
“This......this is wrong.....”
Angie looked at him like he was a dense child.
“Wrong......of course it’s wrong. You know what else’s wrong? The fact I’m the same as her. Somebody utters some poetry about a Grecian Urn to me and I’ll think and do whatever I’m told to think or do..like a good, barefoot robot. That’s what I gotta live with. We spent years trying to reprogram me.....the other women....but our trigger is forever a pass key to our minds.”
“Do you, Patty, all of you have the same trigger?”
“No....each slave has one just meant for her. We keep all those triggers in your Uncle’s safe.”
“How....How many are there like you?”
“Hundreds, enough to fill an entire ledger. Little Kenny Dorvak was real busy before he was killed. Most of these gals haven’t a clue. We periodically trigger them....we make sure they’re ok and no one else has been using them. But, the ladies here.......Patricia Breckinridge, Nancy and Dori....we all carry the fear that we’re potential puppets.....and we now got the burden of finishing the mission your Uncle Johnny started....to fix what some evil folks put in motion.”
“This is too much, Mom....you’re telling me that the women I grew up with....are all brainwashed? That you are?”
“C’mon Trevor...open your damn eyes. You must have noticed things are out of whack around here. Why do we gals always go barefoot? Did you think we were all auditioning for ‘Lil Abner’? Why does Norma Breckinridge, the stepmom of a multimillionaire, work as a secretary? As a hobby? And why would I go along with a dame like her working so close with Johnny? That sound like me? Answer this...Norma, Patty, the Space Girls, the waitresses at the Diner....do any of us look our real age? All of this must have struck you as odd at some point.”
“Why haven’t you told all of this to her?” He pointedly looked at Norma. “Seems like you’re using her as slave labor.”
“Cause she was one of the evil folks. Probably the worst of the bunch. Forget the fact she looks like angel. She never needed hypnosis to twist men. If she had her way, your Uncle would have been murdered, and me, Patty, and the rest would have been at her feet, slaves to her every sick idea. And you can bet, she wouldn’t be using us as secretaries.”
“But....Mom.....even if this was all true.......hypnosis can’t......”
“I told you....this is more than just hypnosis. Dorvak’s great uncle or something invented the process eighty years ago. He used it England, then here. Armand Dupuis stopped him then....but the Dorvak Protocol lives on. We have the most complete copy of the method locked up, but other fragments exist.”
“I’m sorry...but this just sounds like some bad sci fi or spy movie.”
Angie looked even more annoyed.
“You wanna lecture me what hypnosis can do? Fine, but first I’ll tell you what it did to me. I was seconds from putting a bullet in your Uncle Johnny. And, I’d a done it, if Artie hadn’t stopped me, thank God. And, if “Barefoot Angelina” hears the poem again, and I’m told to do it to you, I’ll pull the trigger.”
Her words hung in the air a bit.
“So why do you need me?”
“Because I can trust you. The men in the Agency don’t know anything. Bart suspects a little. We’re going to keep it that way. All this power over women is too tempting, to even good men. Even your Uncle Johnny couldn’t help playing with it sometimes...with her....with me. He usually asked me first...but still...anyway...The man you’ll be meeting in Vegas, he won’t trust any female, including me....we’re all potential traitors. So it’s gotta be a male. You...you’re a man I know and trust. The fact all of this horrifies you proves it..”
“So why the trip?”
“Something’s going on with Norma...we can still control her but bit by bit...her old persona is coming back to the surface. Trust, me the World don’t need that Norma Breckinridge back. There’s a psychiatrist who’s been helping us, Dr. Grayson Spender. He’s was an expert on the Dorvak Protocol before we found him...already knew some of the process. We trust him....enough that Johnny gave him a lot of the information to fill in the gaps in his knowledge. Patty funds his research to find a way to free us zombie girls. He’s earned our trust time and time again and he’s helped us help the ladies. If anyone can get Miss Va Va Va Voom right, it’s him.”
“So why doesn’t Spender just come here, to her?”
Angie sighed. “We trust him.....but he don’t always trust us. He’s a bit skittish....really into conspiracies....you know like Kennedy being shot......Johnny always said he’s a paranoid....lately...I wonder if maybe Grayson isn’t so crazy.”
“What’d you mean by that?”
Angie shook her head. “It’s probably nothing, but ever since your Uncle got sick...I’ve felt like we’re being watched. Then....at the cemetery yesterday.....”
Trevor immediately knew what she was talking about. ”The big guy....looked like a Fed.......Angie that heat maybe on me.....for my trips to the border.”
“Maybe.....but I want you to be careful if you do this.......You’ll do it, won’t you Trev?”
There was a long pause.
“Of course I will, Mom.....I’d do anything for you...you know that.”
Angie started to cry. It was as if a huge weight came off her shoulders. Trevor held her tight. Finally, she whispered:
“Thanks, Trev. My other idea was to order Norma to take a long walk into the ocean......and I know Johnny wouldn’t have liked that.”
Norma stood in blissful unawareness as Angie and Trevor spoke. None of it was directed to her. But that did not mean her mind was inactive. The voice from within was speaking to her again. Had her mistress and her nephew been paying attention, they might have caught her moving lips as she silently responded to the voice.
“He does look just like Johnny. Even kinda sounds like him, don’t you think?”
“Yes...”. Norma silently mouthed.
“Yes...he could almost be Johnny. And what did Johnny want from us, dear?”
Norma thought hard for a moment.
“Bad Norma.”
“That’s right. Now when the time is right, Bad Norma must remember her Mistress Angelina saying the following words:
’Somebody utters some poetry about a Grecian Urn to me and I’ll think and do whatever I’m told to think or do.’”
Norma’s lips moved as she repeated Angie’s words to herself. Then she smiled her smile as the voice faded back into the deep recesses of her entranced mind.