The Secret of the Ancient Alchemist (6 page)

“
It’s important they connect to it. How would they achieve
what they want? Don’t give up on your mission, Tom. You must
demonstrate how it grants wishes. You must find that ancient text.
Start looking!
”

“
Why
won’t you tell me who you are?”

“
Don’t worry about that. We’ll talk again soon. Oh! There’s
one more thing
.”

“
What’s
that?”

“
Your friend, Julius Olsen, is searching for a new age,
isn’t he? Well, it’s coming soon. Bye, Tom.
”

Hart sat. He
didn’t want to struggle anymore with the notion of what was outside
a person was also in that person in a realm waiting to grant
wishes. He needed to be sure. He needed to find it. Supercilious
and lofty were just some of the descriptions levelled at him by his
peers who considered him eccentric. He was none of those things. He
was an arduous thinker, a resilient and passionate man who knew the
road ahead would be hard.

How was he to
convince anyone that trees, forests, birds and skies all dwelled
within or that a person could command a mountain to move and it
would? How could he tell a ninety-year-old man that he was also a
five year old, that age, sex, creed and class mattered none? Who
would believe that information of what people needed to do, where
they had to go and whom to call, could come to them
intuitively?

His
student’s question suddenly came back to him.
How do we log on, Dr.
Hart?

“
I must
the realm,” he said, “If it’s the last thing I do.”

He decided he
would no longer put off his search of ancient texts even though the
task was daunting. He got up and looked out the window with his
hands behind his back. There were moments when he did feel lost and
this was one of them. That his mission would be cast to the dustbin
of irrationality shadowed him. He steadied himself and shook the
feelings off, convinced of success.

“
The text
will not only tell me where the realm is but whether a universal
mind exists in it. Humans can access supernatural consciousness. I
know they can.”

Chapter 13

He looked out
his office. People were moving about in a rush to get projects
done. Government was spending tons of money on shale exploration.
Climate change was still at the forefront of research but seismic
studies were gaining much attention. He felt irritable remembering
a meeting he had to attend.

“
Dr.
Hart?” a male voice called.

He turned to
Marcus Tuttle. He was sure the Scientific Officer had come by to
discuss the NSA’s new earthquake-warning systems. Hart worked with
the seismologist, Josh Marin, on developing them.

“
I know
what you’re going to ask about,” he said. “It’s about the warning
systems, isn’t it?”

Marcus stared
at Hart’s broad face and long hair. The sun that filtered through
the glass pane behind him revealed more of his medieval image. Hart
looked as if he stepped out of the sixteenth century.

“
Actually, yes, Dr. Hart.”

“
Let’s
look at the process.” Hart walked to a board and took up a green
marker. “Here, we’ll place a minor tremor, let’s say, 3.8.” He
moved his hand across the board. “Here, we’ll place a devastating
one, say, 8.2. The challenge was to set up an alarm system that
could trigger cell phones.”

“
How’ll
they indicate quake intensity?” Marcus had a paper to present at
the
State of
the Earth Conference
in
Paris and he was a little at sea.

“
Colour
pointers, orange and red stars on cell phones. People would have
thirty or forty seconds of warning time before a major quake
strikes.”

“
A lot
depends on the accuracy of the underground seismic
sensors.”

“
They’re
connected to a large network. Media houses, emergency services and
phones can all pick up signals.”

“
I’ll
need to run this through with you again before I leave for Paris,
Dr. Hart. Tell me something. What if these underground sensors
fail?”

Hart recoiled.
He had raised the matter with Marin who had provided him with
little assurance. His fertile told him again that the answer to the
earth’s problems could only come from one source and, that was
Olsen’s Inca date.

“
I
suggest you call Dr. Marin. He’ll fill you in on the sensors.” Hart
grabbed his watch and checked the time. “There’ll be a meeting in
the conference room. It’s probably already started. You should
attend. I’m going to introduce Dr. Olsen’s work on the Inca
prophecy for a new age.”

“
Thanks a
lot, Dr. Hart.”

Hart picked up
the mathematical equations he had worked on as Marcus Tuttle closed
the door. He knew his calculations were flawless. Still, he needed
Olsen to have a look. He stashed the papers away and started
walking down the hallway thinking about the ancient text.

On a screen in
the conference room, a satellite image of the Cordillera Blanca,
the glacial mass of the Andes, looked back ominously at the special
meeting of scientific advisers. Hart took his seat next to the
Director of Strategic Studies, Helen Dupon. Eight top scientists
from around the world had eyes glued to the screen as Dupon began
speaking.

“
This
glacier has lost almost twenty-five percent of its mass.” The
director wasn’t exaggerating. The top of it was missing. “Not to
mention the disruption of life for the Andean people. I would like
to open this meeting for fresh ideas, solutions. We’ve discussed
the matters surrounding the seismic warning systems and I don’t
want to revisit that. Dr. Hart has given us the assurance that Josh
Marin will continue his work on the accuracy of the earthquake
alarm systems.”

A gentleman
cleared his throat to speak. It was the expert from Canada.

“
We’ve
seen this type of melt down in many areas, in Iceland, Chile and
Alaska. It’s increasing worldwide.”

“
The
Himalayas should be getting attention,” a Swede advised.

“
I don’t
agree,” Dupon said. “The Cordillera Blanca can trigger tsunamis.
Dr. Hart, your suggestion?”

Hart looked up
from the notepad he was scribbling on. “Madam Chair, I’ve already
indicated to you my position on this matter.”

“
What
might that be?” the Swede inquired.

“
I’m sure
you’ve heard of Julius Olsen.”

The man’s face
grew grim. When he spoke, his nose flared. “You can’t be serious?
He talks about prophecy.”

Grunts pervaded
the air as Dupon rapped the table. “Let Dr. Hart speak.”

“
Thank
you. I have a lot of confidence in Dr. Olsen. He wouldn’t take on a
task as difficult as searching for a date in ancient Incan
artefacts if he wasn’t certain of its accuracy. The artefacts were
found by the renowned archaeologist, Arthur Bentley.”

“
You
really expect us to believe all this crap? Where’s the credibility
in it?” The Swede’s arrogance suffocated the air. Not giving Hart a
chance to reply, he declared, “This is nonsense!”

“
We’re
moving from Mayan hype to Incan hype. I fail to see Dr. Hart’s
point, Madam Chair,” the Canadian expert added with growing
anger.

Hart could do
little more than cover his face with his hands. Soon, he removed
them. Leering eyes peered at him as he spoke again.

“
Unless
we find the date for a new age, I don’t think there’s anything more
we can do. God knows we’ve tried everything. What more can we do?
The problems we’re experiencing, as Olsen has indicated, arise from
solar shift. The Inca had much ability to foresee the future, to
predict.”

“
Predict
what?” The Swede’s hand came down on the table.

“
A new
dawn, a renewed world,” Hart replied.

“
Well,
good for you but I don’t intend to sit here and wait for some
imaginary date. Sorry.”

“
Dr.
Hart,” a voice of reason came from the Kenyan Wildlife Specialist.
“Maybe you can you tell us about this shift.”

Hart was
waiting for the moment. He bounced up and pressed a flash drive
into a projector. He plucked an infrared penlight from his coat
pocket and pointed it to the screen as an image appeared.

“
What you
see before you is a depiction of solar shift. The sun’s poles
started shifting some time ago. The earth’s poles, on the other
hand, are an entirely different matter. Those shift every five to
fifty million years and it’s not an issue here. The sun’s magnetic
field, however, envelops our system in what is called a heliosphere
and this can cause disturbances in climates as well as fault
lines.”

“
What’s
your point?” The Swede jeered.

“
What
we’re experiencing is due to an expansion of our universe caused by
the solar shift. It will end at some point.”

“
Any
monitoring station can tell you solar cycles occur every eleven
years. This current cycle would have ended in 2012.”

“
Not
quite.”

“
No?”

“
Cosmic
influences are affecting the normal cycle.”

“
Will
this situation last indefinitely?” Helen Dupon asked
wide-eyed.

Hart looked at
her. The woman was waiting for his answer tapping her pen as she
did. But the problem was one that scientists didn’t how to resolve.
In fact, no one did.

“
Dr.
Hart?” she called again.

“
I assure
you, Madam, the situation will change,” he said.

“
When?”

“
Only
Olsen can tell us.”

Blank stares
still came Hart’s way. Not wanting to argue with anyone, he decided
to take his leave.

The journey to
his suburban home in Alpine, New Jersey began at 4PM. He loosened
his tie and opened the top buttons of his shirt as he exited the
NSA on his way to the NY Transit hub. As he walked along Greenwich
Street, his mind ran another mental discourse. Hart was meeting the
seismologist, Josh Marin, later at his home. He didn’t want the day
to close without thrashing out his theories with him. He knew the
meeting ahead was going to be rough. Chalk and cheese were too mild
a comparison of their natures. Marin was wary of things abstract,
things unseen and unmeasured. With the wind blowing his hair, Hart
started to prepare himself for the level of convincing he would
need to prove to Marin that messages and visions from the beyond
were real and tenable as fact.

Chapter 15

“
Log onto
the global satellite network,” Ted Thompson shouted hurrying to
Josh Marin’s desk at the Earthquake Surveillance Unit in the
Bronx.

“
A
minute.” Marin entered his password to access the United States
Global Satellite Network, the USGS.

“
Click on
the Pacific,” Thompson ordered.

Ten seconds
later they were staring at a live image of the Indonesian volcano,
Krakatau.

“
Shit.”
The word came from Marin.

“
No one
expected this. She started activating an hour ago, unleashing tons
of ash and debris.”

“
If the
temperature in that crater is more than eleven hundred degrees, the
lava will flow fast.”

“
I think
the damn thing’s going to explode.”

Marin zoomed
the image to take a closer look. “Lava is already accumulating
beyond the perimeter.”

“
And,
blocking access roads.” Thompson grabbed a TV remote and turned on
a station carrying live images of the action further around the
volcano. His face cringed. “Look.”

The whir of
helicopter blades grew as Marin turned the volume up. “Rescue
helicopters are leaving?”

“
Lava
speed must be more than twenty-five kilometres per hour. Those ash
clouds look pretty high.”

Thirty seconds
later, Krakatau exploded with the roar of a two hundred ton TNT
bomb.

Marin moved
away and buried his face in his hands. Krakatau was rumbling when
he lifted his head to stare at the screen again. His eyes teared.
Homes were sticking out of the volcano’s pyroclastic flow. He could
hear embers cracking. Screams were lost in clouds of smoke that
billowed for miles. Hiroshima was nothing like the Armageddon that
had come to earth.

“
Shut it
off, shut it off,” he pleaded in the new seismic unit.

The room was
quiet as Thompson did. He turned to Marin whose voice was barely
audible.

“
Wh…where
the hell did we go wrong?”

“
Don’t
blame yourself for not issuing warnings.”

“
I
do.”

Marin’s
specialty was Reflection Seismology. He spent years developing
warning systems for earthquakes and volcanoes. He had planted them
in critical points around the world, Krakatau included.

“
The
underground sensors failed us. Things happen,” Thompson consoled.
“They were designed to give warnings in advance. We don’t know why
they malfunctioned.”

“
They
were likely ruined by condensation. There’s no way to get around
the problem, is there?” Marin admitted. His fear hung like a weight
in the cold room. He grabbed a ringing phone. “Marin,” he answered
gruffly.