Operation Treadstone

Prior to a whistleblowing incident that exposed the project to the public, the exact origins of the top-secret black ops program of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) known as **Operation Treadstone** were unclear. According to some people, it recruited only United States Service members to turn them into nearly superhuman assassins. However, according to others it also recruited people from foreign countries. What is known is that Treadstone is a highly covert, clandestine assassination program within the CIA, opearting from an office in the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It is so secretive that only CIA Director acknowledges its existence.

Around 2022, Operation Treadstone was abruptly exposed to the public thanks to a whistleblower who also happened to be a former CIA operative themselves.

## Overview

Though the nature the exact origins of Operation Treadstone are unclear, the abrupt exposure of the Treadstone program in mid-2022-early 2023 revealed that it was a covert assassination program within the CIA, based in an office building in Langley, Virginia. Leaked files indicate that Treadstone targets individuals deemed an "immediate threat to the U.S government or the CIA itself". These are usually individuals with the knowledge of CIA's shadowy interests or people who need to be silenced to prevent exposure of highly clandestine information.

The leak revealed that Treadstone operatives are deployed with limited oversight. Treadstone handlers do not plan out assassination missions with their operatives. Rather, handlers put the operatives themselves in charge of planning and organizing assassinations. This is so agents minimize the risk of being exposed while deployed as much as possible.

The leak also revealed that Treadstone had been reverse-engineered from a similar Cold War-era Soviet supersoldier program known as Operation Tsikada.

## Operatives

Described as "ghosts in the mist", Treadstone operatives are highly trained in numerous killing techniques and the use of improvised weapons. They possess nearly superhuman levels of proficiency with firearms and other weapons. Treadstone agents are unique from average CIA agents in that they possess observational skills, heightened target awareness, lightning reflexes, peak-human physical condition, escape-evasion abilities, and mental process that allow them to remain calm in stressful situations.

The following is a list of known (both current and former) Treadstone members:

* Jason Bourne/Cain (Formerly, defected)
* Adam Hayes (Formerly, defected)
* Freya Bradshaw/Helen McCandlish (Formerly, defected to Jörmungandr)
* Azadeh Al-Mazri (Formerly, defected to Jörmungandr)
* Methuselah Locke (Formerly, transferred to Operation Reaper before permanently leaving the CIA).
* Anastasiya Malenkova/Judy J. Guyton (Formerly, defected)
* Solomon Lewis (Formerly)
* Varda Yedidyah/Lilith (Formerly, defected)

## Physical and psychological effects

The 2022 leak revealed that Treadstone operatives were recorded to have experienced a number of physical problems due to the physical and mental enhancement, like headaches, chronic fatigue, and sensitivity to lights, in addition to amnesia, as was the case with Jason Bourne.

Treadstone members were effectively sleeper agents; with the use of drugs and a mix of classical conditioning and hypnosis, Treadstone agents were hypnotically suggestible, training them to respond in certain ways to certain stimuli. The drugs would directly influence pleasure and reward systems in the brain. Music, specifically a song, would trigger agents to perform certain actions.

This has led to numerous incidents where Treadstone members injured or killed non-combatants; former operative Solomon Lewis related an incident where he lashed out and savagely beat a man who was abusing his girlfriend at a bar while a nearby jukebox played the song Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones; this was later revealed to be because during his Treadstone training, his handlers used Paint it Black to compel him to kill people as part of assassination missions. Even after leaving the program, Solomon would be on edge whenever Paint it Black played near him and he would lash out and attack anyone who even remotely constituted a threat while the song was blasting in his ears.

After erasing the operatives' old lives, the agents would be released for about a year to develop a cover story in a new environment, heavily overseen by their handlers though the agents themselves would be completely kept in the dark. This story would become their entire lives, fleshed out by a combination of the handlers and their own experiences. They would integrate seamlessly into a society as any normal person would, even believing that they are normal people, until they were "activated" for a mission.

For example, without the song Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones to trigger Solomon Lewis' reflexes, Solomon was just your average citizen. Once the song was played near Solomon, he would be "activated"; his reflexes would instantly emerge and he would be on high alert, waiting for orders. Once active, a post-hypnotic trigger could be used to give orders to the agent. For example, a photograph of a person's face with three red lines beneath it represented a kill order.