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“How do they know I can find him? Do they
know I have psychic powers?”

“I believe so.”

“Then for sure they want me dead.”

“If they can’t convince you to ‘work’ for
them, then they will have to kill you.”

“You’re always so full of good news.”

“Nate, don’t take it lightly. You may not
survive this.”

“You don’t understand, Spencer. If I take
it too seriously, if I dwell on all that’s at stake, then I’ll run away and
hide. I’m not some brave hero. Linh thinks I’m Harry Potter; I’m not. I don’t
understand what’s happening. I don’t know what to do. And every other word out
of your mouth since we first met is how the weight of the world is on my
shoulders and how at any moment, I could be killed; my friends and family, too.
Now they’ve grabbed Dustin and are stalking me and the people I care about. I
can feel the freaking pressure! Okay? It’s there with every waking breath, and
I don’t even want to talk about how it is when I sleep. So, don’t worry about
me taking things too lightly. I’m just barely hanging on, all right?”

“Okay. Fair enough,” his whole face
softened. His eyes apologized. “Let’s get started.”

“I’m ready.”

“Good. But I will need your patience once
more. We won’t find him right away. There is an order to how we have to do
this. I need you to trust me.”

“Fine, but you’re not going to ask me to
spend the night in the woods again, are you?” I smiled.

“No. You’ve done that. Did it better than I
could have hoped, as a matter of fact. You should know your father is proud of
you.”

“I felt him that night.”

“He was with you.” He nodded. “Now, do you
see that seagull up there?”

“Yeah. Where are his ten thousand friends?”

“They may show up yet. But we’re only
concerned with that one. You need to connect with him and then put him to
sleep.”

“How?”

“Remember everything I’m showing you is
knowledge you already have. These are things your soul has been able to do for
millennia.”

“So, you’re saying you’re not going to tell
me how to do it?”

“It’s enough that I’ve told you that you’re
capable of it.”

I watched the bird for a moment, then
closed my eyes and flew with him in my mind. We became one. ‘Sleep,’ I
whispered in my head. I opened my eyes and instinctively ran to where the
seagull was dropping out of the sky. My arms extended as it fell softly into my
hands.

“Easy, huh?” Spencer asked.

I gently cradled the gull and said, “Wake
up now. Fly,” as I tossed it into the air. My bird circled once and then flew
away.

“It’s harder with people. But you’ll
practice.”

“You mean I can put people to sleep?”

“Yes, it’s a subtle form of mind control,
part of Solteer. You can do all sorts of things.”

“That’s frightening.”

“Yes, it can be. Use it wisely.”

I nodded. My thoughts raced with
possibilities, then a nervous feeling arose, what if Sanford Fitts and the
other Lightyear agents could also use Solteer?

“Don’t worry about that,” Spencer said,
reading my mind. “If people use these powers directly to cause harm, then they
weaken considerably.”

“What about someone from the dark side?”

“The dark side is a myth, made up by
religions to keep people in fear.”

“Why?”

“So they could be controlled easier. In the
modern world, Hollywood has perhaps done more to propagate the presence of a dark
side than the Church.” Something I couldn’t see out in the ocean took his
attention for a couple of minutes. Then, he turned to me staring intensely into
my eyes. “There is no evil in the natural universe. It is a creation of man,
and they do it extremely well. One could say the human race has mastered the
art of evil.”

I thought about his words. It was a
revolutionary idea to me, and he was not presenting it as a theory but as fact.
And if the only evil that existed in the world was from ordinary men, then I
might have a chance against them. After all, I had the power of the universe at
my disposal.

“Yes, it is a fact,” he was reading my mind
again. “And yes, you do have all that power within you. But you’re still a mere
mortal, just like them, and they have all the power of the U.S. government at
their
disposal. That’s no small thing, especially because the battle is being
waged on earth, a decidedly human place.”

“But earth is part of the universe, and
it’s inhabited by souls, right?”

“Yes, but most of them are trapped in the
amnesia of their human existence. Earth may have once been one of the jewels of
the universe, but man has been doing a good job of burying its beauty and power
in layers of filth and mayhem for the past few thousand years. And with each
passing decade, their rate of destruction has been expanding exponentially.”

“But I have a chance. A good chance.”

“Yes, you do. And the more people you help
to awaken, then the better your odds.”

“When can I read minds like you do?”

“Much later. If we are both among the
living, I will help you remember more of your lost powers next summer. And
still more a year after that.”

“And if we’re not among the living?”

“Then you won’t need reminding, you’ll
already know.”

“What if I’m alive and you aren’t?”

“Someone else will help you. There is never
a shortage of help.
Always
remember that.”

“Finally some good news from Spencer.”

“What I’m about to show you may appear to
be a weapon, but of course it’s not. You can use it for protection, but there
are many other uses, as with all knowledge. But this is most often used as a
healing tool.” He cupped his palms in front of him, looked slightly toward the
sky, and then focused his gaze on his hands. Slowly, he worked them back and
forth as if forming a ball out of clay. And then, there it was, nearly
invisible but there nonetheless.

“What is it?”

“This is a healing orb called a ‘Lusan’.
It’s made using Foush
and
Vising. It even mixes in Gogen.” He placed the
grapefruit-sized ball gently on the sand and rolled it. Tiny green sprouts
formed in its wake. Then, he pushed it softly against a small scab on my hand.
No blemish remained when he removed the sphere and hurled it against a nearby
boulder where a ten-inch chunk of the rock obliterated.

“Incredible!” Beyond that, I was
speechless. The first thing that came into my mind, “Does the military have
this?”

“It’s hard to say how far things have
gotten at Lightyear.”

“But they can’t use these powers for harm,
right?”

“Not directly, but they manipulate the
people into believing they’re doing good. And they believe it. They think they
are protecting their country from terrorists or enemy nations, and so the power
is real.”

“In other words, if they convince an agent
I’m evil, then they can use powers against me.”

“Something like that. Back to your
training.”

I watched him make another Lusan and throw
it into the ocean producing a momentary geyser thirty feet high. “Now, you do
it. Gather your thoughts. Pull the energy from the universe, focus it in your
hands, then just imagine making the perfect snowball, keeping your focus until
the ball becomes independent of your energy.”

It was surprisingly easy. Once I found the
moment the ball no longer required my kneading, I couldn’t help but laugh. The
feeling was invigorating, warm, and tingling. It made me want to jump up-and-down
like an excited kid. “What should I do with it?”

“Follow me,” I walked with Spencer to where
the narrow trail left the trees to meet the sand. “Walk up the trail four or
five feet, then roll it down slowly.”

I did and was amazed. The trail vanished as
greenery of all kind from ferns to wild flowers grew before my eyes and filled
the worn path. “Wow! That’s unbelievable!”

“Turns out the most unbelievable things
are
the most believable.” He smiled.

“How have we forgotten all of this
knowledge?”

“That is a story as long as human
existence. And not really worth telling even if I knew all the reasons, which I
don’t.”

“Imagine what the world could be like if we
all remembered.”

“Yes, imagine.”

And I started to, still caught in the
euphoria of producing the Lusan.

“Not now though. Time for that later. There
is much to do,” he said.

I picked up the ball and walked to the
water, rolling it on the surface like I was bowling. It sliced a shallow gutter
through the surf for several feet before being swallowed by a wave in a
sizzling bubbly stew.

“Your next lesson won’t seem as flashy as a
Lusan, but it will prove to be one of the most profound things you’ll learn in
this life.” He paused to insure the impact of his words resonated. They did.
After everything Spencer had shown me, I was open to anything and intrigued by
what he would attach so much importance to. “You know how to hug people?”

“Yeah.” I laughed.

“Good. Next time you hug someone, close
your eyes and picture their eyes in all the detail you can. And hold that image
with the thought of finding their soul. I find it useful to silently but
passionately ask, ‘who are you?’ And then you should begin to see their past.
Their whole life will flash before you in a matter of minutes. The longer you
hold on, the more you will see.”

“No!”

“Wait, there’s more. If you continue to
embrace them, you will see a brief few seconds of blackness and then a review
of their prior lives will begin to flood in. It will accelerate so that you can
go through a thousand years in a minute.”

“How would I digest all that information?”

“Your soul will process it. Remember,
you’ll be potentially seeing hundreds of lifetimes. This is all part of your
Vising power.”

“I don’t know if I want to know anyone that
well,” I said, thinking of the slave trader.

“It can be a difficult thing. You’ll find
it easier if you can remove judgment from your personality traits.”

“How hard could that be?”

“Just when I forget your age, you remind me
quite nicely.”

“Can I try this out on you? Can I see your
past?”

“I think that would complicate things
considerably right now. Try it on Kyle or Linh when you next see them. It’s
time to visit the astral.”

“Really? I’m ready?”

“We’re going to find out.”

“This is going to be so cool.”

“Before we go into this. I want you to know
there are two reasons why we are progressing this way.” He picked up some sand
and let it slip from his hand into the wind. “As I said earlier, there is a
logical path that makes each step easier than the last. But I’m balancing that
with what I anticipate you may need on your
immediate
journey.”

“You can see my future, can’t you?”

“Only parts, and it changes as I watch it.
It’s not like the past; the future is fluid. It is constantly in flux and
rearranging based on what we do, think, see, and hear and by what billions of
other people do, think, see, and hear as well. So, if I see something of the
future right now, five minutes from now it could be very different.”

“What good is it then?”

“As one gets more proficient with Timbal,
one begins to develop a knack for deciphering it and an ability to guess what
the ramifications of a subtle change in the present will do to the future.
Obviously, the farther out in time you go, it becomes more difficult to rely on
anything we see.”

I dug my toes into the sand, looked beyond
the ocean, and squinted into the sun for a moment. “When will I be able to see
the future like that?”

“Sometime in the future.”

I laughed, but he wasn’t being funny.

“Astral traveling is one of the soul’s core
abilities, and it’s accessed through Gogen. It’s like being on a highway of
sorts. But what I just said may be the greatest understatement ever spoken.
Still, it will give you a reference point to try to grasp the unfathomable.
Through the astral, you’re able to move within your lifetimes as in your Outviews.
You can also move between time and dimensions to any place or moment in the
universe.”

“My head hurts. I don’t think I can handle
this.”

“Do you remember lesson number one?” he
asked.

“Everything can change in an instant.
Everything can be learned in an instant.”

“Close enough. Don’t worry. You don’t need
to understand it. You won’t ever anyway. I don’t, and if I try too hard, it
hurts my head, too. All you need to do is know how to access it.”

“Can I get lost out there in time?”

“You can temporarily get stuck in between,
but you should eventually return to where you started from.”