the mind controlled spy was activated when they learned of a planned videogame. the people they intensely encountered may not have remembered them afterward.

it sounds like a possible mind controller spy story (maybe the biggest for us), tey go toward a ommunity and engage people they bump into as they travel, welcoming them into their work either voluntarily or coercively (possibly with drugs), and then at the target area they develop larger gangs as needed so as to have control of the environment of the target