The Threat from Within

By Charles F. Lee

An Eastern European research institute has developed the power to attack and destroy the mental capacity of American teenagers through the insidious use of cell towers popping up all over the United States like mushrooms. Seven teenaged high school classmates with extraordinary powers ultimately put an end to that threat . . . for now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483674407

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Mountain Village, Eastern Romania, 2012

A dozen strange-looking men appeared one day on the main street of a small village tucked away in a narrow Carpathian mountain valley. No one knew where the men came from. It was as if the men appeared out of nowhere, like some strange animal popping up out of a hole in the ground. They were the strangest-looking men, loose jointed and dressed in black sack coats and baggy trousers. Each man wore an English-style bowler hat placed firmly on his head.

The village folks didn’t know what to make of this group of strange-looking men ambling slowly down the main street, looking neither to the right nor to the left. They spoke not a word to any of the villagers watching them walk slowly along the village street. The villagers talked and whispered to one another, believing these strange-looking men must have come from a faraway town or village located in some remote mountain valley to the east of where their village existed.

The strangers continued on their way out of the village, heading toward a run-down mansion built on a plateau several miles from the village. All the village folks knew the old mansion built high on the plateau, with windows peering down on the village, had a terrible history that generated whispered gossip. No one in the village dared to even think about living in the old mansion for fear of ghosts lingering on in the run-down building long after the last residents abandoned the place fearing for their lives.

After the strange group of black-clad men made their way out of the village, small groups of villagers gathered with raised eyebrows or a stern look on their faces to chat and fret about the troop of odd-looking men that had passed through the village. These were simple folks, farmers mostly, and not used to such a large group of outsiders invading their village. Dressed in clothes native to the mountainous area, the men and women and children of the village looked very much like their ancestors of many years passed.

Upon close examination, you could readily tell the villagers’ clothes were handmade. The men of the village plowed the fields of wheat and other crops and tended the flocks of goats and sheep. The women of the village tended the vegetable gardens and the pig pens and gathered the eggs from the many henhouses. Wives and older daughters of the villagers made the clothes for family members from locally harvested raw materials. Boys and younger girls of the village gathered the fruit from orchards and grapes from vines to be made into wine by the village fathers. The fruits gathered from common orchards usually were made into piping-hot cobblers seen cooling on many house windowsills.

Time meant very little to the villagers hidden away in the narrow mountain valley. So the village folks continued to live and pass the years like their ancestors did for hundreds of years, undisturbed by more modern cities springing up all over the world. In fact, however, the nearest and larger community was only about fifty miles away as the crow flies.

But the journey to this larger community required a rather steep climb over a mountain. Thus, few folks from the village ever went there except for a few men delivering produce to the city. They didn’t need to. All the village families required was provided right there in the tiny valley. It was not a surprise for the villagers to be rather disturbed but still curious when the troop of odd-looking men tramped through the village on their way to the run-down mansion built on the plateau, overlooking the isolated community.

The group of odd-looking men clad in their silly-looking sack coats and baggy pants had gathered in the run-down mansion in this remote village by orders of the director of the Institute for Brain Study, a relatively unknown research facility located in the mountains of Eastern Romania. The small gathering of odd-looking strangers was the advance team who, when ordered, was to infiltrate small cities and towns in America and conduct trials using a mysterious black box to create panic and chaos among the citizens of these communities by controlling the output of cell towers. They addressed each other in an unfamiliar dialect spoken only by the people living in the remote valley from whence they came.

The Institute for Brain Study was staffed with dissident scientists, renegade professors, and other disgruntled intellectuals from all over Europe and Asia. These people spent years studying the brains of adolescents in an effort to prove to the rest of the world the often and unexplained reasons why this human age group did what they often did, much to the exasperation of adults, particularly their parents. These scientists, medical people, and other professionals spent years gathering information from books and published scientific articles dealing with the anatomy of the human brain and, in particular, the brain of adolescents. They were eagerly seeking and proving the weakest link in the chain of the developing human brain. It turned out to be a teenager’s brain.

When the members of the advance team were given their marching orders, each man was handed a mysterious black box and told that under no circumstances should this device be taken or given up by them. This mysterious device had been tested and retested by the Institute for Brain Study staff and proven to be the means to reduce the adolescent brain to that of a child. A well-planned and executed strike on the adolescent segment of American society could and should eliminate America as a world superpower. If such a device were offered on the world market, what wouldn’t a third-world country pay for such a means, for, without a doubt, it would eliminate America as the only remaining world superpower. So the members of the advance team of black-clad men were instructed over and over again that the best way to defeat the American people and destroy their society as it now existed would be to destroy the means for adolescents to ever reach adulthood. By destroying the next generation of adults, it should be easy to force the current generation of adults to accept their country’s plight and negotiate a huge payment plan or surrender to a superior intellectual power. Or a new superpower made up of a coconspiracy of Eastern European countries, Russia, and even China. Without a doubt, the most important link in reaching adulthood was the adolescent’s brain. Tampering with the brains of its adolescents, the Smart Ones at the Institute for Brain Study said it is the only way to eliminate America as a world superpower. So the members of the advance team became the Chosen Ones.

The Chosen Ones were taught by the Institute for Brain Study staff members that a human baby’s brain, at birth, contained one hundred billion neurons and were almost all the neurons the infant’s brain will ever have. These men also learned that before birth, the brain produces trillions more neurons and synapses the connections between brain cells than it needs. And as the neurons mature, more and more synapses are made. They were also taught the human brain has two hemispheres, with each hemisphere having four lobes.

The black-clad men from a small city hidden in a valley tucked away in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania were taught that the human brain is also a part of the central nervous system and plays a decisive role in controlling many bodily functions, including both voluntary activities, such as walking or speaking, and involuntary functions, such as breathing or blinking.

The men were quick to learn the fact that each neuron in the human brain has an axon, usually only one. They also learned that the axon is an output fiber that sends impulses to other neurons. The members of the advance team discussed over and over the fact that each neuron also has many dendrites—short, hairlike input fibers that receive impulses from other neurons.

During their period of instruction, the men learned that neurons are perfectly constructed to form connections. As the neurons mature, more and more synapse and brain cell connections are made. Taught by highly skilled scientists and professional medical people, the members of the advance team ended their months of learning about human brain development with the understanding the life span of the American people went from childhood to adolescence and, finally, to adulthood.

Youngsters still in their childhood years did not seem to be a threat to the plan to possibly reduce America to the ranks of a third-world nation using a threat from within. Picked by the director of the Institute for Brain Study, the black-clad team members were taught that adolescents were the most vulnerable Americans. The infiltrating team was strongly advised that adolescent Americans would be the means to achieve the destruction of America as a world superpower. They were told that America was rapidly becoming a third-world country because of the waste and abuse of its natural resources. Most of the students in the country academically fell well below the average students in developed countries and were more interested in their entitlements than improving their course grades. Only the very best schools in the United States graduated students at the 50 percent level of students graduating from schools in developed countries. Moreover, fully 70 percent of the engineering graduates were foreign born. The director of the Eastern Romanian Institute for Brain Study truly believed that America would be theirs for the taking. It would only be a matter of time, he told himself over and over again and again. The time to strike was now before America woke up to the threat from within.

Albert’s concoction provided the director of the Institute for Brain Study the opportunity and the means for reducing the retaliation capability of the United States to no more than idle threats by attacking and destroying the developing brain cell connections of all the adolescents living in America. By destroying a significant amount of brain cell connections or synapses at the adolescent stage of life, it would prevent the youngster from reaching the next stage in life—adulthood.

Destruction of enough brain cell connections, the staff and institute director had proven following many trials and experiments would reduce the adolescent to the childhood stage of life. Removing one generation or more of the American population capable of putting up a strong defense against the Institute for Brain Study’s director’s well-conceived plans would facilitate the means to ending America as a superpower. And the very means for ending America as a world superpower was unknowingly being provided by its own citizens with the rapid proliferation of cell towers throughout the land.

So the rapid installation of cell towers throughout the land would become the threat from within and, according to the institute director’s plan, provide the means to accomplish the destruction of America as a world power. This expansion of cell towers throughout the land provided the means the Chosen Ones needed to implement the director of the remote Institute for Brain Study’s plan to reduce America to no more than a large third-world nation. Often, cell towers or sites were required to be inconspicuous, blending with the surrounding area, and this fact suits the use of Albert’s invention quite nicely. In practice throughout the United States, cell sites are generally grouped in areas of high population density, where access to the most potential users is the most important criteria. This grouping of cell sites situated throughout the country was just what the black-clad men planned to take full advantage of while using Albert’s devilish invention to attack and eliminate the adolescent class, the very foundation that forged America and made it the greatest country on earth. Those areas where there are enough cell sites to cover a wide area, the handpicked men from eastern Romania would investigate and make sure the range of each cell tower would be set to ensure there is enough overlap for handover to and from other cell sites before using the mysterious black box given to each member of the special squad. The instrument most commonly found in the homes of American teenagers and best suited for achieving the destruction of an adolescent’s ability for the further brain cell development of an adult is, no doubt, the cell phone.

Through the use of the popular cell phone, the specially trained men from Eastern Romania were provided with a black box emitting a low-frequency rogue signal, producing a microwave radiation effect which could be altered to closely mimic and interact with normal adolescent brain waves having similar amplitudes and frequencies as the way to retard, reverse, or completely destroy the developing synapses or connections between their brain, eliminating the possibility of ever reaching adulthood. The term coined by the Institute for Brain Study electronic specialists soon became known as Extinguish American Youth Using a Pulse Energy Frequency Projectile.

When used against humans, the men trained at the Institute for Brain Study learned that electromagnetic weapons can have dramatic effects. Through this means they were taught the adolescents of America could be eliminated from ever reaching adulthood. Afterward, following the stroke of the institute director’s pen, an electronic attack could begin against the adults if needed to achieve total domination and complete surrender of the American people. If such orders were given by the director of the Institute for Brain Study, there would be total mind altering of all Americans. If such an attack were to be carried out on the adult population in America, there would not be a single soul strong enough left to offer the slightest resistance to the institute director’s plans to conquer and dominate the American people.

Because of the rapid spread of cell towers in America, the concentrated mind-altering attack on adolescents could begin after one man among the Chosen Ones secretly infiltrated into the United States and successfully tested Albert’s mind-altering invention. Thanks to Albert’s ingenious black box, the Institute for Brain Study turned from pure knowledge of the adolescent brain to the destruction of the adolescent brain. The director of the institute tucked away in a remote Carpathian mountain valley chuckled when the thought crossed his mind; the people of America had no idea of what soon was coming their way.

1

G et off the phone with Judy, or you will be late for school! Edith Morgan told her daughter in no uncertain terms as she burst into her bedroom.

Mary Ann Morgan was seated on her bed with legs crossed, chatting with her best girlfriend, Judy Jackson, JJ for short. She was still wearing her white tank top and blue shorts pajamas and hadn’t even begun to dress for school. She was running late and knew it but chatting with JJ seemed more important at the time.

Got to go! Mary Ann abruptly said to Judy. I’ll talk to you later, she added quickly as she shut off her cell phone. Okay, Mom, I’ll be ready in a jiffy. And I won’t be late for school, I promise, Mary Ann said as she flipped herself off her bed and stood before her mother.

Mary Ann Morgan, with shoulder-length, straw-blond hair, a perky nose, bright-blue eyes, and a complexion most girls her age would wish for. She was one of the prettiest girls, if not the prettiest girl, in her high school class. She was every bit a high-energy high school senior and the captain of the senior cheerleading squad.

With a satisfying smile, Mrs. Morgan looked at her daughter, thinking Mary Ann was becoming a beautiful young lady. She said, Hurry up and get dressed, and I’ll have breakfast ready and on the table when you come down.

Then Edith Morgan took a moment to look around her daughter’s bedroom. What she saw was a typical teenage girl’s bedroom with a twin-size bed flanked by twin side stands holding crystal reading lamps.

Three of Mary Ann’s bedroom walls were plastered with posters of better-known and adored music stars, movie stars as well as those TV personalities she and her high school friends rated superpeople. A desk holding a laptop computer and a printer sat along the wall opposite her twin bed. A small chair was pushed into the kneehole of the desk to keep it out of the way.

The door to Mary Ann’s bedroom opened against a wall containing a collection of dolls housed in a recessed set of shelves. Twin corner windows covered with wooden blinds completed the makeup of the room.

As Edith Morgan’s eyes swept her daughter’s bedroom, she was pleased with the way her daughter kept her room so clean and neat unlike the typical teenager many parents complained about. All of Mary Ann’s clothes were neatly hung in her walk-in closet or put away in the drawers of a handsome oak chest. There were no clothes scattered about, thanks to her constant lecturing to her daughter about maintaining a neat room, just in case a relative should walk in to her bedroom unannounced and be shocked seeing her clothes scattered on the floor or on the bed, just like so many girls of her age that parents constantly complained about. While the way her daughter kept her room clean and neat was unlike most teenage girls, Mrs. Morgan was not about to let her off the hook for talking too long on her cell phone with Judy Jackson when she should have been getting ready for school.

So with the thought still fresh in her mind, she was no longer smiling when she asked with a tinge of scolding in her voice, Mary Ann, why do you always have to chatter with your friend on school mornings? It seems like every day I have to come to your room and tell you to get ready for school?

Ah, Mom. Give me a break, Mary Ann replied, feeling rather testy.

She knew better than to sass her mother and so held her temper in check.

It seems parents, especially mothers, didn’t really care about what was important to teenage daughters, Mary Ann mumbled under her breath.

JJ and I talked about what we will be doing during school and after school for cheerleading practice. We also talked over important things and not just nonsense stuff, Mary Ann said in as pleasant a voice as she could muster, telling her mother what was on her mind.

I don’t care how important you think chatting with JJ is before getting ready for school. My concern is getting you ready and off to school on time, Mrs. Morgan said sternly and not cracking a smile.

If you need to talk to your friend every morning before getting dressed for school, keep it short, she told her daughter with hands on her hips and not backing down one bit, insisting getting ready for school should be first and chatting with her best friend second.

Mary Ann’s temper began to rise a bit, so she turned her head and faced her collection of dolls. She didn’t want her mother to see her face turning red with a tinge of anger and fury in her eyes.

So Mary Ann vented her slowly rising temper by staring at the collection of dolls nestled neatly on the recessed display shelves built into a bedroom wall. With her face flushed, Mary Ann’s eyes settled on Raggedy Ann, her favorite doll she remembered receiving one Christmas when she was very young.

For several years, this Raggedy Ann doll remained her very favorite doll even though many of the newer dolls she received for Christmas cost a lot more. Trying very hard not to let her mother see just how upset she was, Mary Ann continued to cast a sharp eye on Raggedy Ann.

Then directing attention away from her mother, she said under her breath, MAKE IT HAPPEN! No sooner than said, suddenly, the Raggedy Ann doll jerked and tumbled to the floor.

Now how did that happen? Mrs. Morgan said in an astonished voice. Raggedy Ann used to be your favorite doll when you were just a young child, Mary Ann.

Don’t you remember when you received Raggedy Ann for Christmas? We called you ragamuffin because that is what you were, a little ragamuffin. I wonder what caused Raggedy Ann to tumble off the shelf like it did, Mrs. Morgan said, a trifle upset seeing Mary Ann’s once favorite doll lying in a heap on the floor.

Gee whiz, Mom! I don’t know what caused that old rag doll to fall off the shelf! While at the same time, Mary Ann mumbled under her breath, I did it.

Acting upset, Mary Ann turned her head away from her Raggedy Ann doll lying limp and in a heap on the floor and faced her mother and told her in a reassuring voice, I’ll put Raggedy Ann back where she belongs, Mom. Then I will hurry and get ready for school, I promise. Mary Ann quickly turned away from her mother and went and picked up the rag doll. Gently, she put Raggedy Ann back on the shelf where it belonged. She carefully arranged the rag doll so it wouldn’t tumble off the shelf and fall on the floor again.

When you have finished getting ready for school, breakfast will be on the table for you, Mrs. Morgan said, pleased with the way her daughter handled the old rag doll like she did when Mary Ann first opened the Christmas box, and there it was, so nicely wrapped.

Mrs. Morgan then spun around and walked out of her daughter’s bedroom, closing the door gently behind her.

Later, as Mary Ann was taking her textbooks for her next class from her locker, she was hailed by a female student rapidly walking toward her. It was early in the morning, and the Midwestern High school hallways were filled with students on their way to their first class for the day.

With a big smile on her face, Judy Jackson approached Mary Ann and said, Hi there, gorgeous one! Did your mother read the riot act to you this morning after you hung up on me? Oh, by the way, Mary Ann, congratulations for being selected for the captain’s spot on the cheerleading squad. Thanks, JJ, Mary Ann replied, feeling a bit overwhelmed. But you know any one of the girls on the squad would have made a fine captain.

No, they wouldn’t! JJ replied, shaking her head from side to side. Besides, the boys like you a whole lot better, especially Bob Everett. I think he has an eye for you, she chuckled and said with a devilish look in her eyes. There is something different about you all the boys seem to like. But what it is, I surely don’t know. Otherwise, I would get some of what you have for myself, Judy said kiddingly as she poked Mary Ann on her right shoulder.

Gosh, JJ, Mary Ann replied as if she didn’t care. Bob can have any girl in the senior class he wants, especially since he was named captain of the football team even before school started. So, JJ, why do you think he is so interested in me?

Mary Ann turned and started walking toward her first class of the morning with Judy by her side. Single or in small clusters, other senior girls passed by and called out to Mary Ann a cheerful good morning as they walked slowly down the hallway to their first class of the day. It was a typical early fall day at Midwestern High school, full of eager students not yet tired of the homework that would be assigned to them over the next few months.

A trio of boys backslapping, shoulder-punching, and eyeing all the girls worked their way to their first class of the day. All three boys were members of the Midwestern City High School football team. Heads and eyes of all three boys turned toward Mary Ann as she and JJ passed them, going in the opposite direction on their way to the first-period class, English.

Bob Everett, the tallest of the three boys, had eyes only for Mary Ann, and with a big grin and gleaming eyes, he called out, Hey, Mary Ann! What’s cooking, good looking? He barely held back from reaching out and taking her by the hand.

I told you so. JJ poked Mary Ann on her right shoulder to remind her of her earlier comment. She was positive that Bob Everett had eyes only for her best friend. And she couldn’t hold back from teasing Mary Ann. That is what best friends are for in JJ’s mind.

Without another word, Mary Ann and Judy Jackson picked up their pace and joined the crowd of senior students filling the first floor hallway of Midwestern City High School. Many students had bright and shiny looks on their faces, while other students with barely open eyes looked like they just got out of bed and really needed more sleep. Like a herd of cattle, all the students were headed for open classroom doors.

After school and for a solid hour, Margret Maggie Malone, the cheerleaders’ squad coach, kept blowing her whistle while putting her girls through their routines. Fresh from a lazy summer vacation, the cheerleading squad needed a lot of work to perfect their routine their coach taught. I need to put them through the ringer, and there was no question about that, Margret Maggie Malone said to herself.

The last stunt their coach wanted the girls to work on during this practice session was a five-tier pyramid setup. Five girls went down on their hands and knees to form the base of the pyramid. Then four girls on hands and knees, resting on the backs of the five girls forming the base of the pyramid quickly mounted up and formed the second tier. Three girls then climbed up and formed the third tier followed by two girls climbing up on the backs of the other girls to form the fourth tier.

A single cheerleader carrying a small school mascot flag slowly and carefully climbed up the four tiers of girls on their hands and knees, resting on the girls below them, to her place at the top of the pyramid. This cheerleader formed the fifth tier of the pyramid, and her job was to wave the school mascot flag at the football team’s cheering crowd.

Mary Ann, dressed in a white jersey and blue shorts like all the cheerleaders, stood facing the other girls as they formed the pyramid and timed them. She watched the single cheerleader slowly make her way to the top of the pyramid. After reaching the top of the pyramid, the cheerleader stood up and began to wave the school mascot flag.

Suddenly, the top cheerleader’s right leg began to buckle. If she went down, the whole pyramid would most likely crumble like a house of cards. As the top cheerleader’s right leg began to collapse, Mary Ann stood transfixed, watching this horrible tragedy about to happen. The cheerleaders’ coach also watched the beginning of the pyramid collapse, horrified, but there was nothing she could do to prevent it from happening.

With her mind set on stopping