Dr. Kenneth D. Rich, code name Psyche-Out, is the G.I. Joe psychological warfare expert. He is responsible for creating and disseminating information designed to win over indigenous populations or demoralize the enemy.
"I don't believe it. It has to be some sort of mind control." His hands trembling, Psyche-Out challenges the assertions of his fellow Joe Research and Medical Team members. Around the table, Doctors Greer and Greer, Steen, and Link Talbot continue the search for the cause of the outbreak, which is quickly infecting the world.
"You've seen it with your own eyes." Doc looks wearily up from the files laid out before him. They have spent several weeks in the labs deep in the belly of the Pitt, working with staff from the CDC. Always coming up empty-handed and, in many cases, with more questions than when they began. After one particularly long night in the lab, the alarms of the Pitt sounded, and a small number of THEM had breached the outermost security and were being engaged. THEY were quickly dealt with by a small squad of troopers from the Steel Brigade. It was then that the senior member of the team and elder Greer sent for his niece, Carla Greer.
"Doc's right," added Carla, arms crossed and face stern.
"I…" The words stammer out, "...I still think it might be."
"It's not." Dr. Steen, codename Lifeline, places his hand assuredly on his friend's shoulder. Lifeline tries to get his friend to listen to reason, "You're a psychiatrist. We don't need to explain cognitive dissonance to you." Over the last several weeks, Psyche-Out has seen things that can't be real; bodies rising from fatal wounds, only to attack and eat the living, which in turn become another organic mindless murder machine. He's struggled to believe it. He knows the mind and what it's capable of. He has spent his time trying to find a logical explanation for what he witnessed until shoulders slumped, he looks Lifeline in the eye, "I know."
That was then.
After the fall of the Pitt, Psyche-Out closed his emotions off from his fellow Joes. Once, a happy smiling face was now grizzled and focused. He knew his friends whispered their worries to one another, that he had finally lost it, but it was quite the opposite. He was well aware of his choices and actions. He chose to close his mind to the terrors he lived daily with the plan to tear down the walls and help other survivors when humanity finally overcame the undead.
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When asked about his role during Joe's current operations, Psyche-Out replied, "When the enemy has no mind to influence, what is a PSYOP Officer to do? Pick up his rifle and center on their frontal lobe."
