Children of the Source (14 page)

     My physical body had not moved but my consciousness and energy had, and others could feel it.
  There was no question who had done these things.  People looked stunned.  Some in fear.  Others in awe.  Knowledge of The Sound Language - its history and what it was capable of doing would bring a host of conflicting feelings.

    “He’s dead.
  Ren is dead.”  Florence pointed at the crumpled form.   I could see Ren standing bewildered beside his still body confused that he was still alive.   I pointed at Ren’s physical body sending a tonal complex.  The body took a great breath, and Ren found himself slipping back into his body.  He opened his eyes.

    Wobbling to his feet, he pointed at me shouting, “Devil!
  He’s a devil.  A God cursed devil.  I was supposed to be dead, yet I was alive out of my body.  That’s not what I was told by preacher Joe.”

    Florence arched an eyebrow. “And what did preacher Joe tell you?”

    “I’d be moldering in the grave until the Second Coming.  Then all the believers will be resurrected for the Final Judgment.  I wasn’t supposed to be alive.  What’s going on here?”

    I snorted. “Idiot.”

    “Who?”  Ren asked.

    “That arsed preacher Joe.
  Maybe well-meaning, but had no clue.  You, Ren will go on forever, conscious and aware.  And if you don’t like yourself, you will have to change.  For until you open yourself to change you can experience nothing more than what you are now.  There is a land on the Other Side where after you shed the physical body you will find other people like yourself.  There you can practice whatever beliefs you wish to your heart’s content.  But one day you will get bored and begin to ask questions.  Change can only come with a desire and a yearning.  Desire and yearning are the true portals of learning.”

    “Then who are you or what are you that you can raise the dead, melt a rifle, and mend a child?” asked Ren.
  “Are you a fallen angel, some type of unknown god, or a lost soul having sold yourself to the Devil and  been given powers over other men?”

    “Sorry.
  None of the above,”  I said.

    “I know.”
  Ren brightened, and pointed to the alien spacecraft.  “You’re one of them.”

    I laughed.
  If he only knew.  There are things you can’t tell some people, they wouldn’t be able to handle the information.  “Just a man, Ren.  A generic man.”

    “Nothing generic about you, Bub.”
  He gave that odd smile that disconcerted me.

    “So you think I have some special knowledge?”
  I said.

    “You must know something if you’re able to do this.”
  He gestured to the ruined rifle, and the group of people surrounding my daughter.  “So, here is one for you.  A man prays to God to save his son-in-law who is shaking with cold and fever, starving around a small fire under an Interstate Bridge to stay out of the rain.”  Ren swallowed.  “No one answers.”

    “Where is Preacher Joe’s God?” I said gently.

    “Yeah.”  He looked away.

    “There is a Creative Force whose energy makes up everything.
  It has no interest in controlling or interfering with those Beings that make up its Body.  No, there is no Preacher Joe’s God.”

    “Then who do you pray to get answers?
  I know I’ve gotten answers to some things.  I’ve seen things happen that couldn’t have any other way.  I just knew.”

    “You, like everyone else, are part of larger wholes, Beings - Souls or Entities, that created you out of their energies.
  They are the ones that hear and sometimes respond to your prayers,” I said.

    “Sometimes?”
  Ren sat on a bench.

    “These Beings have values that are entirely different than yours.
  They often don’t feel a need to respond to your supplications.  They are at different levels of maturity.  Some are more interested in their personality creations.  Indeed, they often create diseases, injuries and so-called accidents, terrible and wondrous events in your life to see how you react.  They experience your world, your reality, vicariously through you.  That is one way they learn.  And that is what they are most interested in doing - learning.  They know they and you, their creations, are immortal.  But you have two things they can never take away from you, something every Being has - personal identity and free-will.  It is a natural law of the Creative Force.  These Beings -  Souls or Entities, know when they created you out of themselves, they gave you irrevocable freedom.  It isn’t done lightly.  They want you to return to them, rejoining their larger whole.  You can accept or reject anything they offer you and go your own way.  However, you do have to play the cards, the hand you’re dealt, and can create your reality from there.”

    He stared at me, horrified.
  “That’s absolutely monstrous.  We’re puppets on a string.”

    “Well, yes and no.
  When you have knowledge of your origins, you can tell your Entity or Soul, you aren’t going to join up with them if they treat you badly.  A wee tricky here.  Part of that problem is you may be treating yourself badly with your beliefs.  For you get what you believe and concentrate on.  Like attracts like.  Law of the Creative Force.”

    “It’s still monstrous.” Ren was aghast.
  “Who of us know this?  Why aren’t we told these things.?”   

    “Why would they?
  If personalities knew of their origins, they’d probably join a union.”  I laughed.

    Ren spat.
  “This is no laughing matter.  It explains a great deal.  Look at human history.  The squalor, the poverty, the short wretched lives.”

    “But there is also great beauty, caring, and love,” I pointed out.

    “All for learning?”  He shook his head.  “For all the disasters in my life, I think my Entity can stick it in his or her left ear, to put it gently.  So what happens to me now, considering what I’ve done?  Keeping in mind that Carson would never believe what happened here.”

    That last part was true.
  General Carson probably would never believe it.  But maybe considering ... naagh, not a chance.  “Dragging your daughter and grandson around the countryside is a recipe for death and disaster.  They wouldn’t survive it.  There is a troop train returning back East within a week.  You three can be on it.  Your daughter and grandson will have a chance to make a life for themselves.  You ... you will do what you will do.”  I looked at his strange smile.  Dangerous guy.  One day he would get himself killed.  “What do you say, Ren?”

    “Best for Elaine and the baby.”
  He nodded.  “Thank you.”  Then that crooked grin.  “What would the C.I.A. or Defense Department do to have you?”

    “As you observed, who would believe such abilities were possible?
  Comic book heroes.  You have no idea what you are dealing with.  If I had not controlled what I did to you, you would be like the rifle.  Can you imagine what would happen if this ability were coupled with hate, fear, and envy?  It has happened.  A whole planet was made uninhabitable.  Millions of people died.  Something similar, but not on that scale, happened on Earth.  A cadre of scientist-priests came to Earth from a federation of planets they were expelled from for misuse of these abilities.  There is a thin glass residue in the Earth geologic event which has caused great speculation.  This came from a brief war between two factions that had my abilities.”

    Ren pointed to the alien spacecraft.
  “They have come back.”

    “Yes and no.
  There was a faction that left before the war.  These are the ones returning.”

    Ren leaned forward.
  “And you’re part of the reception committee.”  Again the strange smile.  “I do wonder how this came to be.  How wonderfully convenient that you and they happen to be in the same place at the same time.  A curious phenomena the authorities should be made aware of.”

    “You’re an arse, Ren.
  Why don’t you march yourself into General Carson’s office and see how far you get?  You have zero credibility.  If he knew about your history, he’d probably be inclined to hang you.  I’m sure there’s a hanging offence somewhere in your history, like killing the old man over his horse.”  Ren blanched.  “Poor horse died two days later.”

     “That’s what I mean,” Ren said.
  “You’re unnatural.  No one should have access to information like this with the abilities of a god.  People like you should be put to death for the safety of the general population.”  A deep dislike carved his face.  “You can’t prove what you’re saying.”

    “Nope.
  Sure can’t.  But I will protect my own.  If you try anything violent again, I will make your physical body uninhabitable.”

    “Kill me?
  Murder me?”

    “Child,” I said. “You will survive physical death.
  Murder is the malicious taking of physical life for gain, pleasure, or revenge.  You have no ethics or code to keep you on the straight and narrow.  That’s most of your problem.  No boundaries.  You’ve been able to justify everything.  I knew a man once who was similar to you except he had my abilities.  There was nothing he had not done or tried to do.  Frightening.”

    “What happened to him?”

    “He went as far as he could go off the deep end, and had to find his way back.  Because, one thing is for sure, you can never escape what you’ve done.  It’s  part of you forever, but
you
can change and that is the redeeming thing in creation - change from learning.  He found himself at the bottom of a vast pit of his creation and had to find his way out.”

    “Where is he now?”

    “He’s climbed out of his pit.  Made a sort of peace with his past.”  I smiled at Ren.  “He’s where he’s supposed to be.”

    Ren waved his hands at Cheshire.
  “This is some kind of alien outpost, isn’t it.”

    I laughed.
  “Not exactly.  You are getting warmer, but like I said Carson will hang you rather than listen to you.  Now, calm yourself.  One of us will be with you until you are handed off to the soldiers at the fort.  Why don’t you go see your daughter and grandson?”

    “I know ... ”
  Ren began and saw my face.  “What?”

    Know.
  Ren.  I knew Ren.  From around that oval table of so long ago.  That smirking face and wandering eyes.  Locus.  Akenton’s closest associate.  God-Almighty, why has he showed up here?  Now.  “Go see your daughter and grandson.  Florence, could you escort our friend?  I’ll ask Mike Roseman to meet you.  Ren, you have seen that I can be in more than one place at the same time.  Don’t do anything stupid.”  I went home.

    Charles looked at me from my kitchen table, an extra steaming mug of tea waiting.
  “Locus?”

    “Crap,”
  I said.  “Why?” 

    Bareton shook his head.
  “I lost track of him after the war.  This is the first he’s showed himself.  I recognized him from a distance, and kept it that way.”

    “Still as devious as ever.
  Just like he never changed.  Thank God he doesn’t have the Sound Language,” I said.  “I have it back in full force, Charles.”

    “I don’t,” he said.
  “And have refused it ever since.  You also have the ability to be in several places at the same time.  Something we never had as Akenton and Kodus.  I’ve heard of this before with people who have had the most profound of near-death-experiences.  It is a Soul thing.  Something from the core of your Being.  Father Pio, the Italian healer and mystic, was said to do this.”  He smiled.  “I saw what you did with Ren and Victoria.  Good work.”

    “Thank you for being there for Victoria.”
  The comforting presence.

    “You’re welcome.
  A beautiful child.  The world needs our Victoria.”

    “And Ren/Locus?”

    He sat back and took a deep breath.  “I wish I could tell you.  Hand him off at the fort as you said, and wish him well away from here.  I pray that the Powers-That-Be favor us, and this will be the end of it.”

    I bowed my head. “Indeed.”
  But inside I knew this was not the end.

8

    Nursing my mug of sweetened tea, I watched Victoria playing a spirited game of checkers with Laith.  “How’s my girl?”

    She raised her hands.
  “Fine, Dad.  Just like normal.  Not even a scar.”

    Judith put her hands on my arm.
  “Hard to believe, Love.  You’ve gone another step up.”

    I shook my head.
  “This is entirely different, Judith.  Way beyond what I’ve been doing.  And that’s incredible in itself.  But this ...   Come outside a moment.”   She and I walked outside.  “Is there a rock you can live without in its natural condition?”

    She looked around in the evening twilight.
  It was still plenty light enough to see well.  She handed me a fist-sized rock.  I held it a moment and handed it back.  “It doesn’t want to be changed.  Could you choose another?”  It took five minutes until I settled on a rock that agreed to be changed. “Now, watch.”  With tonal complexes, I molded the solid object from its irregular shape into an exquisite miniature chair with a seat, arms, back and four legs.  Then I handed it to her.  The rock had requested its essential nature not be changed, only its form.

    “This is granite, Jamie.”
  Her eyes were wide on my face.

    “Right.
  You also saw the rifle and our daughter.  This is a whole different sort of thing.  I’m working with the elemental forms of energy.  Manipulating them at very core levels with sound the way the scientist-priests did.  This is what the aliens can do.”

    “Probably only the elite are allowed, like before,” she said. “The average person having the ability would not work.”

    “If they are our people, great care would be used before allowing anyone ...   We will hope.” 

    She studied me.
  “And being in two places at once?”

    “So far.
  There doesn’t seem to be a limit  ...  I don’t know how far this can go.  I was only confronted with two simultaneous events that needed my attention in the present.”

    Judith turned her wedding ring on her finger. “Does it mean you can be in the past and the present at the same time?”

    “I don’t know.  I’ve spoken to those on the Other Side that say the past, present, and future are all part of a larger Present.  I don’t understand how it works.  We’re locked into a linear time line for a reason.  But time seems to be a plastic thing.  I’ve been able to bend it when I made the jay hawker’s revolver go off seconds later than it normally would.”

    I felt her gaze on my face. “What use would there be operating in the past and present simultaneously?”

    “You can change the past by what you do in the present.  The past is not a static finished state.  By being in both places at once, you might be able to make the present more plastic and less prone to a certain future.”

    Dr. Evan McPherson trotted up, out of breath, round face serious.
  “Judith.  Jamie.  It’s Roger Henderson.  He’s dying.  Decided it isn’t worth it anymore.  Hardly blame the guy with a body crippled up like that.  He asked to see you.  Seems to think you have some magic he could use.”

    “No magic.”
  I eyed Judith. “I’ll see what can be done.  See you later, Mrs.”

    Roger Henderson had come to us ten years ago during the Third Fall Bartering Rendezvous at Clint’s Well.  I’d stood talking with Grant by the goods we’d laid out to barter.  Five other survival communities joined us: Heber, Dripping Springs, Sky Haven out of the Chiricahua Mountains, Thatcher-Safford, and Chino Valley.  Colonel Steve Deckart provided security.  The leaders of the Heber contingent walked up to us leading a crippled boy I judged to be around seven years old.  His right side grew stunted and pretty much useless.  He dragged the leg.  The eyes looked out, not vacant, but listless.  Drool dripped off his slack chin.

    The leader put out a hand, “Rib Wallace.”
  He gestured to the other two men, “Henry Michaels.  Jake Attenbough.”  I shook their hands and we introduced ourselves.  Rib turned.  “Roger,” he said gently, and led the boy forward.  “This is Jamie and Grant.”  The boy laughed awkwardly, eyes waiting for  rejection, revulsion.  He swallowed and looked down in relief when it didn’t come.

    Rib Wallace pulled me aside, and we walked amid tall ponderosa pine in the brisk Fall air and bright sunshine.
  “We have a problem.  A sickness took Roger’s folks along with twelve others a couple of months ago.  We used to be fifty-eight strong.  Now we have barely enough people to keep things together.  We haven’t got the people to spare to look after him.  He takes near constant attention.  To be blunt we were hoping you’d be able to take him.”  He stopped and faced me.  “We can’t give him what he needs anymore.  If you can’t take him, we’ll be forced to turn him over to Deckart.  He’ll ship him back East.  You know Carson doesn’t have the facilities and manpower to help Roger.  God, we don’t want that.”  He shook a bowed head in painful frustration.

    “We’ll take Roger, and give it a go.
  I know you’ve got a struggle going on.  Any way else we can help?”  We gave Heber half our Barter that year, and later they helped us with information on putting something together at our place a couple of times.  That’s the way things worked.

    As our party prepared to head back up Lake Mary Road and home, Deckart walked up to me.
  “You sure pull in the strays, don’t you?”

    “Yep, sure do, Steve.”

    “We could ship him back East.  He’d get care there, Jamie.”

    “Things back East are chaotic too.
  He’d probably be warehoused in an orphanage.  Best with us, Colonel.  Thanks for the offer, but we’ll keep him.”  I looked back toward the end of our five mule column where Roger sat on the end mule Wilbur.  Grant stood at his side.  Betty Oberman went from mule to mule, checking cinches and ropes.

    Roger wept as we made our way north, and the pain on Rib’s face as we left showed pretty plain, too.
  I thought on this as we ran to Evan’s house.  We’d made some progress.   He learned to speak better, and in a whispered voice could almost speak normally.  A lot of love and attention helped, but the great frustration of living in a partially functioning body caused him enormous stress.

    I entered his bedroom and found him with his eyes closed.  I could tell he was at his wits end, feeling he had no place to go.  I knew the problem.  Roger had fallen in love with pretty Krystal Clayton, but because of his physical body he felt the whole thing futile and less.  He was growing into adulthood without manhood or personhood.

    Roger’s eyes blinked open.
  “Give me back my body, Jamie.”

    “Don’t know if I can, Rog.”

    “You haven’t tried.  Look what you did for Marilyn and Victoria.”

    I nodded, feeling excited.
  “Roger, we’re going to tote you to the clinic and work on you.  Evan, could you put him in the room next to Elaine?  Ask Betty to get an energy circle ready.  I have a couple of people I have to see to make things work.”

    Evan escorted me to the door.
  “You think you can do it?  It’s not fair to get Roger’s hopes up falsely.”

    “There may be a way with the Sound Language I’ve just learned to use.
  I have to try.  What if there was a way and I didn’t try?  Where would Roger be then?  Let’s see what happens.”

    A half hour later I stood over Roger who lay on an examining table.
  Betty Oberman sat in the waiting room with five other people forming what we called an energy circle.  To others it would be akin to a prayer or healing group.  I studied Roger, and knew the problem lay in another life where the Entity had unresolved ideas that had been used to structure Roger’s current life.   Roger had decided to reject these problems and go his own way, but  he needed serious help.  In deep states of hypnosis, normal waking consciousness can be bypassed, so contact with the Entity can be made.  Also the ideas/events from other lives which impinge on this one can be examined and resolved in ways that can clear up physical and psychological problems in this present life.

    His physical problems were so serious, he would need restructuring using the Sound Language.  But that meant operating in the past and present simultaneously.
  I looked at Evan, Laith, and Charles.  “You will feel movements of energy physically.  I have to contact Roger’s Entity or Greater Self.  The problems his Entity intended to play out and resolve in Roger’s life will have to be shelved for another time.”

     Evan frowned.
  “But aren’t Roger and his Entity the same?”

    “Same energy, but Roger is like a subset of the Entity.
  He has complete freedom and self-determination from the Entity.  This is a law of Creation.  Rather like a parent with a child.  Here goes.”  I drew in a breath of energy. 

    I found myself both within Roger’s damaged body and in a curious mental realm where I saw/ felt a life used to running roughshod over others for personal gain.
  The physical body was strong and unusually healthy, and the personality used it to control and abuse others.  The Entity decided to create a body where that could not happen, and the new personality would be dependent on others for nearly everything.  I realized both were different poses of the same thing. 

    I touched the Entity explaining the new direction Roger intended to go.
  The Entity agreed, reluctant, but making no objections.  Then I began the delicate changes needed in the personality and body to allow the energy to flow naturally using delicate tonal complexes.  Slowly I cleaned the meridians, layers of scar tissue that had been set up to reinforce the problem.  Bitter beliefs he was crippled for life, and the rage at this unfair fate.  Beliefs are energy structures that provide the landscape for thoughts to grow for good or ill.  That is what I had to clean by going back into his past and changing his ideas.  Working with Roger’s Entity, we made the break between the past personality and Roger.  This decrease of stress released the energy constricting his physical nerves.  A part of me was monitoring Roger’s body, which began to relax with the nerve pathways restoring to normal.  His meridians were now clear.  Slow going reshaping the nerves and nerve pathways, strengthening various body parts, cleaning up the connections between the body systems and making them interact the way they should.  Fifteen minutes later Laith, Charles, and Evan exchanged glances.

    An hour later I took a break, and ate a meal.
  I was using enormous amounts of energy, not all of it my own.  Some from Betty’s energy circle, some from Roger’s Entity, and some from other energy sources.  Roger lay asleep, actually out of his physical body, in the dream state where I could work with him and his ideas.  Twenty minutes later I resumed the restoration.  I took four more breaks before I completed the reconstruction.  Finally, after four and a half hours I was done.  Roger reentered his physical body.  He would sleep a restorative sleep, gathering energy for his awakening.

    I sat back and viewed my handiwork, actually
ours
.  The enterprise had required a number of Beings, not all in physical bodies.  I simply acted as the focus and directed the handiwork.  Roger looked like a normal person now.  Body completely relaxed.  I wondered what he would do with this new found life.  A gentle personality, he had the heart of an artist.

    An exhausted group adjourned to the Dining Hall for some refreshment.
  Herb teas, cookies, goat cheese, slices of pie proved the perfect comfort food for blurred minds and drained bodies.  I turned to Betty, “Ma’am, your group sure pulled through.  Did you feel any movement as I siphoned off the energy?”

    “A dip.
  A waver.  A pulling.”

    “Interesting,” I said, taking another slice of apple pie.

    “You look almost fresh,”  Jana observed.

    “Just excited,” I said.
  “We’ve done something I didn’t know could be done.”

    “Think it’ll work?” Dick Clayton asked.
  He and Krystal heard of the experiment and come to lend their energies.

    “I don’t know the extent of where it’ll go, but the ideas are changed, the meridians are clear, the nerve pathways are rebuilt and clean, and everything is hooked up.
  He’ll need people to help with muscle building, but there is nothing keeping him from functioning normally.”

    “I’ll help,”
  Krystal volunteered.

    I looked at her and she blushed.
  I smiled.  “He’s in love with you, Krystal.  That’s part of what prompted this operation.”

    “I’ve seen him watching me,” she said seriously.
  “We’ve known each other before.  I feel at ease around him, but I didn’t know how to handle his disability so I never went close.”

    “You two lived a happy life as husband and wife during a peaceful period as Minoans on the island of Crete.
   A successful relationship.  You were the male.  He the female.”

    “And now?”