Fire Of Heaven 02 - Threshold Read online

  Something was wrong.

  The red light on the board glowed, indicating that the random number generator, or RNG, was up and running. The original RNG had been developed nearly thirty years ago by a brilliant but bored Boeing employee out in Seattle. Today, its offspring are found in nearly every parapsychology lab in the world. Although it has many uses, it’s particularly effective in measuring a person’s psychokinesis, or PK — the ability to move physical objects through mental concentration.

  In the old days, this meant trying to manipulate the outcome of tumbling dice or flipping coins. The process was slow and cumbersome, sometimes taking hundreds, even thousands of trials. But now, thanks to modern science, this and nearly every other area of paranormal research had turned high-tech.

  Sarah never completely understood the electronics behind the RNG, but she knew it was designed to fire a random set of pluses or minuses over a given period of time. All the human subject had to do was hold down a button on the joystick and concentrate, trying to force the computer to fire more pluses or more minuses than would be normal for random chance.

  Sarah had been working with a dozen volunteer subjects who came in weekly. Some demonstrated very strong PK. Others showed no giftedness in the area whatsoever.

  But in the past seventy-two hours, all of that had changed.

  Everything had gone haywire. Subjects with consistently high PK readings were flat lining. Those with no past history were going off the chart. Incredible. It was as if somebody was playing an elaborate hoax. That’s why Sarah was here in these early morning hours. That’s why she had reexamined every result, every figure, every procedural report.

  But the outcome was exactly the same: Other than impossible PK scores, there was absolutely nothing unusual.

  Sarah leaned back and sighed. Almost absentmindedly she reached to the console and snapped on a monitor. With the same lack of thought, she scooped up the joystick and started fiddling with the button in the handle. The speaker in front of her began to ping — high pings meant plus firings, low pings meant minus firings. On the monitor, a graph with a line appeared. It showed visually what she was hearing audibly. The more plus firings, the higher the line rose on the graph, the more minus firings, the lower it dropped.

  Earlier that day a technician had run careful calibrations on all six of the Institute’s RNGs. He’d found no problems. Not a one.

  Having no energy to concentrate, Sarah lowered the volume. This wasn’t an experiment, just something to do as she tried to relax. But she couldn’t let her mind drift too far. After all, this was the first week of August — the week of bad dreams and deepest depression. The week of drinking just a little too much wine and working doubly hard to keep her mind occupied. The little whirlpools of memory were always present, but this week, the anniversary of her abortion, was always the worst. If she was careless, she could accidentally step into one of those memories and be pulled under — dragged into a spinning vortex that would take days, sometimes weeks, to pull out of. Over the past three years she’d grown to accept this period of time. She figured it was the price of admission. And, truth be told, she considered it mild punishment for her offense.

  It had been about this time last year that Dr. Reichner had begun pursuing her. Having her Ph.D. in neuroscience and doing research for UCLA, Sarah initially had been repulsed at the thought of joining a parapsychology lab. There are few branches of science given less credit than parapsychology. But, like Samuel, Reichner knew how to get what he wanted. His offer had been nearly double what she had been making at the school and, gradually, his phone calls and persistent e-mail accomplished their purpose. She had agreed to move to this backwoods Indiana town and take a position as senior researcher for Moran Research Institute. New job, new part of the country, longer hours — maybe this would be what she needed to finally bury her grief and self-hatred.

  She’d found research into the paranormal more credible than she had anticipated. In fact, she was surprised to observe the painstaking care and scientific objectivity with which studies in the paranormal were being undertaken throughout the world.

  She was also surprised at some of the results.

  Such as the PK research in Russia. A group of so-called psychics were brought in to focus disruptive thoughts upon preselected laboratory rats from a larger colony. They attempted to make the selected rats act more aggressively. Professional animal behaviorists observed the colony to determine which rats appeared to be most disruptive. Without knowing it, the behaviorists chose the identical rats that the psychics had been concentrating upon. To further verify the results, biologists were brought in to dissect all of the rats’ brains, particularly studying the chemicals and regions that indicate aggression. Once again, this group selected the identical rats that both the psychics and animal behaviorists had chosen.

  Of course, this was just one of dozens of PK experiments being conducted around the world. Others measured the human mind’s effect on plants, atomic particles, even the human nervous system — often with impressive results. In fact, just recently the U.S. Department of Defense had admitted to pouring over twenty million dollars into their own special parapsychology studies. A waste of taxpayers’ money? Perhaps. But if the human mind could maneuver the electrons necessary for firing the RNG, couldn’t it do the same on an enemy’s computer? If they could disturb a mouse’s mind, couldn’t they do the same with the thoughts of a military general?

  Sarah’s own thoughts were jarred by a faint, electronic whine. Earlier, she had turned down the RNG’s volume, but now the soft shrillness caught her attention. She looked up at the monitor. The line on the graph was gone. It had completely shot up and off the screen.

  Immediately, she released the button on the joystick. But the high-pitched whine continued.

  That was impossible. She wasn’t influencing the machine now. It should drop back down to the flat line of random chance.

  But it didn’t.

  Instead the whine’s pitch actually increased. Sarah rose to her feet, staring at the screen, wincing at the shrillness. It was a malfunction. Had to be. There was no other explanation.

  She had to record this. Get the results on tape. She turned to the DAT machine behind her and punched up record.

  But just as the recorder came to life, the whine stopped.

  Sarah looked back at the monitor. The line on the graph had gone flat. It had dropped back down to the acceptable level of probability.

  And then she felt something. A chill. A damp, freezing sensation swept across the lab. From right to left. She gave an involuntary shiver as it brushed against her skin, then moved on toward the open door to the hallway.

  Word of last night’s townie exploits rapidly spread through the plant of Bollenger’s Printing and Lithograph. The fact that Brandon and Frank both worked there certainly helped. The fact that Frank loved retelling the story and thrived on all the attention didn’t hurt, either. And since most of the employees were townies like himself, they hung on his every word, vicariously reliving last night’s escapade and sharing the victory. Even now, as Brandon drove his electric forklift past the giant printing press, he could see Frank recounting the story to Warner, the ponytailed operator.

  Warner listened and laughed as he manipulated the reverse button of the press, inching the mammoth rollers backward with his left hand as the right deftly darted in between them with a cleaning rag.

  Looking up and spotting Brandon, Frank shouted to him over the plant’s noise. “Hey, there he is now. Hey, Mario — Mario Andretti!”

  Both guys laughed and Brandon threw them a half-smile before turning his attention back to the forklift.

  That’s when he saw her …

  His eight-year-old sister. She was wearing a white nightgown and looking even more lovely than he remembered. In her hand she held a pot, and in that pot was a small, ornamental tree.

  Brandon slammed on the brakes.

  The girl said nothing.

  Qui
ckly, he dropped the forklift into neutral and hopped off.

  “Jenny?”

  His heart began to pound. He felt a joy he hadn’t experienced in months as he started toward her, anxious to hug her, to scoop her into his arms, to say how much he had missed her.

  But she held out her hand, motioning for him to stop.

  He slowed, confused. What did she mean?

  She extended her finger and pointed. Brandon followed it to Frank and Warner. He looked back at her. He started to speak, to ask what she meant, but before the words came he was interrupted.

  “Hey, Martus.”

  He turned to see Roger Putnam, the foreman of their shift, a lumbering mass of muscle and fat who was busy reading his clipboard as he rounded the forklift. He glanced up and spotted Jenny.

  “How’d she get in?” he asked. “No one under eighteen on the floor, you know that.”

  Brandon looked at him in surprise. Was that all he had to say?

  Tapping his clipboard, Putnam continued. “Listen, you’re screwing up on the orders again. You know I can’t keep covering for you.”

  As he spoke, Jenny again raised her hand and pointed.

  “I mean, I’ve got my rear end to protect too, y’ know.”

  Again, Brandon followed Jenny’s gesture to Frank and Warner. What was she trying to say? They were just shooting the breeze. Just standing and talking —

  Except for Warner’s right hand, the one darting in and out of the rollers. He glanced at Jenny. Her face was filling with urgency. That was it.

  He looked back at Warner, who was still laughing, paying little attention to his work.

  “Now, you got another delivery over at the Institute today,” Putnam was saying, “so try not to …”

  But Brandon barely heard. He stared at Warner’s hands as the man carelessly pushed the reverse button with his left, while darting the cleaning rag in and out of the rollers with his right. Suddenly, his left hand hit the reverse button too recklessly and slipped off, pressing the forward button instead.

  Before Brandon could shout a warning, the rollers reversed. They grabbed the cleaning rag, yanking Warner’s hand with it. The massive rollers crushed his fingers, then his hand. Warner opened his mouth, trying to scream, but no sound came — only Brandon’s own anguished cry as he bolted up in bed, his face covered in sweat.

  He glanced at the crimson glow of the radio alarm on his nightstand. It read 4:22 a.m.

  “How long a drive do we have?” Dr. Reichner called from the backseat of the Peugeot. “Where exactly does your Teacher live?”

  It had been twenty minutes since they’d met at the airport outside Katmandu. Now they had doubled back into the city and were making their way through the crowded, stone-paved streets. Both of his escorts sat up front — the shorter one on the passenger side, the taller one gripping a knob on the steering wheel with his steel prosthesis. The sunlight had started to fade, making the city look surreal — white plaster walls now orange from the sun, umber tiled roofs, holy shrines, strange statues covered in multicolored candle wax and flowers. And the people, everywhere people. Street vendors, barefoot children, emaciated holy men with painted faces and white, flowing hair.

  “So,” Reichner tried again. “How long before we get there?”

  For the first time since they’d met, the shorter one spoke. Unlike his British partner, this man sounded Danish. “You have your degree in physics?”

  Reichner didn’t appreciate having the subject changed, but he decided to answer. “That is one of my doctorates. My first is in theology at Princeton Seminary. But when I couldn’t find God in religion, I turned to physics.” It was an old joke, but one that carried more truth for him than humor.

  “So tell me,” Short Suit continued, “don’t you find the similarity between quantum physics and Eastern philosophy amazingly similar?”

  Wonderful, Reichner thought, a pseudo-intellectual. This guy will want to talk forever. He glanced out the window and again wondered how long the ride to guru-land would take. “Yes,” he answered almost mechanically. “There are interesting parallels.”

  Short Suit nodded. “I am reading about Schrödinger’s cat. What an intriguing concept.”

  Reichner said nothing. It always surprised him how excited laypeople became when they first grasped quantum mechanics, as if it were something entirely new. The truth is, it had been around for three-quarters of a century. And in that time it had done some major damage. In fact, many would say that it had overthrown much of Isaac Newton’s and Albert Einstein’s thinking, causing Einstein himself to complain, “God does not play dice with the universe.”

  Well, guess again, Al.

  Until the 1920s everything was clear-cut. Everyone knew that the movement and position of any object could be predicted. Just find its speed and direction, then do a little math. Of course this is still true with larger objects like cars or planes or planets, but when it comes down to particles the size of atoms or smaller, look out. At that level everything can turn topsy-turvy. The fact is, there’s no telling where one of those particles could suddenly pop up, or in what direction they’ll be heading — until we observe them.

  Observation, that’s the key that baffles everyone. Because somehow, someway, it’s that very act of observation that determines where those objects will be. Until the observation is made, the particle is merely a ghost located in several places at the same time. It’s only when we observe it that it materializes at the location in which it is observed.

  At first the concept sounds absurd, unbelievable. So for beginners, Reichner usually explained it as if a subatomic particle were a magical car, one that is in St. Louis, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, and a hundred other locations all at the same time. It is only when we, the observers, go to St. Louis and see it there, that its ghostly appearances in all of the other locations disappear and it materializes in St. Louis. The same would have been true if we had first seen it in New York or Dallas. The car would have appeared in those cities instead. It was a crude comparison that left out more than a few details, but it helped Reichner make his point: Our act of observing has a profound impact upon subatomic objects. In truth, it actually determines where those objects will be or what direction they will be heading.

  Astonishing? Yes.

  True? Absolutely.

  As a teen, Reichner used to think such theoretical double-talk belonged more to philosophers than to scientists — following such hypothetical questions as: “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?” But quantum mechanics is far more than theory. It has been proven mathematically and through hundreds of lab experiments such as Thomas Young’s two-slit system, or Alaine Aspect’s work at the University of Paris as early as the 1970s.

  Then, of course, there was Reichner’s own work with Sarah Weintraub and their PK experiments back at the Moran Research Institute. The chain of logic was clear. If we can determine the location of a subatomic particle by observing it with our minds, can’t we also influence that particle’s behavior with those same minds? Isn’t that really what PK is all about? When the Institute’s subjects direct the firing of the random number generators to either pluses or minuses, are they not simply practicing everyday, run-of-the-mill, quantum mechanics?

  But quantum mechanics is more than just some scientific laboratory’s novelty. It is also responsible for such practical inventions as the transistor, electron microscope, superconductor, laser, and even nuclear power.

  Unfortunately, Short Suit wasn’t done talking. Not yet. “I am sure you and the Teacher will have many fascinating hours of conversation, particularly regarding the Buddhist and Hindu beliefs of the nonlocal mind.”

  Reichner rolled his eyes and looked back out the window. Once quantum mechanics had become accessible to the public, the Eastern religions had quickly jumped on the cosmic bandwagon. If subatomic particles don’t really exist until we view them, couldn’t the same thing be said about larger items, li
ke the earth, the stars, the universe? And if the universe didn’t really exist until we observed it, doesn’t that make us its creators? And if we’ve created the universe, doesn’t that make us all God, all part of a great single cosmic consciousness that has created itself?

  It was an interesting theory, and one that had left the Western religions and philosophers in the dust.

  Until now.

  Now there were some new and powerful scientific theories on the block involving superstrings and the eleven-dimension universe. Theories that indicate higher dimensions, suggesting a reality beyond our perceived three-dimensional world — a reality that the less sophisticated could misconstrue as belonging to “God” or the “supernatural.” Such theories didn’t completely nullify quantum mechanics, but they thoroughly and quite effectively put Judeo-Christianity back into the system. Not that Reichner cared one way or the other. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to be the one to break the bad news to his Eastern mystic sponsor. News like that might have a serious impact on his guru’s check-writing ability.

  “Here we go,” Tall Suit said as he eased the car to the side of the road.

  Reichner glanced around. They had reached the outskirts of the city. For the first time since they’d left the airport, they weren’t surrounded by people. In fact, the place was nearly deserted. The nearest building was almost thirty yards away. “This is it?” he asked.

  Without a word, both men opened their doors and stepped out. Reichner started to open his own door, then noticed that Short Suit was doing it for him. But instead of allowing Reichner to exit, Short Suit scooted in beside him.

  “What is going on?” Reichner demanded.

  “May I see your arm, please?”

  “What?”

  Short Suit produced a syringe and needle.

  “What are you doing?”

  Now the other door opened and Tall Suit moved in and sat next to Reichner on the other side. “The Teacher, he’s very particular about revealing his location.”