He woke to silence. Usually his alarm woke him with a cacophonic WAA-waa, WAA-waa that sounded like one of those European police car sirens (he could, but wouldn't, set it so that the radio would come on instead, because music seemed to lull him into a deeper sleep, and thus oversleep). And then there were the usual sounds of hustle and bustle from his family getting ready for school or work that were missing. For a moment he was disorientated, and then he remembered that he hadn't set his clock last night because he didn't have to go to school today. He was supposed to be "recovering" from his "accident", and that Carol would be bringing Drew and Scott over this afternoon after school. Apparently, he was in the house alone. He got up and headed for the bathroom. He stood in front of the sink and leaned on it with both hands, after turning on the tap to wait for the water to turn hot, wondering if he should shave. He had needed his first shave when he was twelve. On that birthday, his parents had presented him with an electric razor, even though the blond peach-fuzz above his upper lip hardly seemed worth the effort. At first, he was secretly pleased that the gift was a tacit acknowledgement on their part of his budding manhood and, for many months thereafter, he ritually shaved every morning, needed or not. Soon after, however, it became a chore, just one more thing to do and, being the sort that never saw any profit in doing something that didn't need to be done, stopped doing it unless one of his parents, or Carol, told him he needed to. Since Carol was coming over later, and it had been several days now, he studied his face. Maybe I should grow a 'stash, he mused. "Yeah, right" he said aloud. He could imagine the kidding he'd get from his family. His father had always told him that adolescent hairs above the lip trying to pass as a mustache were a joke to adults, or his mother who always was reminding him that there is more to the making of a man than facial hair. She also said she always wondered why any man would want to cultivate on his face what he grew wild in his nether regions. Then there would be the snide remarks he’d get from Carol (she agreed with his dad that it was pretentious), although he'd bet that Drew and Scott would think it cool. So, even though he probably could have gone another day or two, he shaved the sparse reddish light-brown beard above his lip. He always thought it curious that he had medium-dark brown hair on his head and a reddish, light-brown beard.
Once finished shaving, and his shower, he went reluctantly into the kitchen for breakfast. Trouble was, if it wasn't ready made, out of a box or can, precooked and ready to eat, he had no interest in it, unless somebody else would make it. The only thing in the Fridge he could find that met those criteria was some leftover Chinese from last night. He nuked a bowlful of black pepper chicken and noodles, sat at the table, and started to plan his day. It was already after nine; the guys would be here in a little over six hours. The question was how to fill the time between now and then? He remembered his father telling him that his talent, just as his brain, was like a muscle that needed to be exercised to grow stronger. Maybe he should try another vision. The thought of doing so caused him to hesitate; the knowledge of knowing now what his visions really entailed both excited him and scared him. Excited, in knowing he had this extraordinary ability, but scared, knowing the potential danger that lay within. Still, if he was to be blessed (or cursed) with this power, he had to know all about it, learn to control it, or forget about it and learn not to use it. He knew he'd never be able to stop it. Better to use it, in a controlled fashion. Well, he thought to himself, can't learn to control it if I don't use it! As he sat thinking about where he wanted to go, and what he wanted to do there, he finished eating. He first decided that warmed-over chicken was okay, but reheated noodles had the consistency of rubber bands. He then decided that if he was going someplace he'd better put on something more than his undies, not that it mattered for the vision. He just didn’t want anyone to come home and catch him thus dressed (or, rather, undressed) while “gone” in his vision.
The only place he'd envisioned intentionally was the beach with his parents and unintentionally his pirate adventure. Dr. Smith’s place didn't really count as it hadn't been his vision but that of Specks’, according to the way Smith had acted. He really didn't understand that episode. From what his father had told him, one could include someone else in a vision only if they were very close by and one had wanted to include them in it. Had Specks known that I, and then Carol, was standing next to him in the bookstore and willed us into his vision? Can a person be aware of their surroundings while in a vision? If so, then why the need for a Watcher? If not, how’d he know we were there? And, an even better question, Why would Specks want to take us to Smith's meeting of the Circle? he wondered. From the reaction of everyone there, they had no idea that he and Carol would be coming. The more he thought about it, the more he began to wonder. I'll have to ask about this.
Filing that thought away for the future, he started thinking about an adventure. Where to go? He suddenly thought of the one place he'd never been but always wanted to see, the Argyle, the southwestern Highlands of Scotland, where his family originally came from. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he imagined it looked like. After several minutes, nothing, so he tried harder. He was beginning to sweat through his shirt. Thirty minutes later, he was now soaked, his head ached, and he felt very exhausted. He opened his eyes and found it difficult to focus, at first, and then saw he was still in his room. Well that was a bust! He wondered why nothing had happened, outside of feeling lousy, and it occurred to him that maybe it didn't work because he really had no idea what the Highlands really looked like. But then again, he had never been on a pirate ship in a battle on the open seas before, but he had gone there! Considering the question, he decided that maybe because he had read so many, all, in fact, of the Horatio Hornblower stories by C. S. Forrester that he just "knew" what it was like to be in battle at sea aboard a nineteenth century Man-o-War. Maybe the secret was one has to know, or to at least be familiar with, a place. In that case, he'd have to imagine accordingly. He rethought. Was there a place he knew that he'd like to know more of? Only one place came immediately to his mind: the Circle Room, at Dr. Smith’s. He knew exactly what it looked like; he'd been there, both in Specks’ vision (or so he supposed) and in real life when Specks had physically taken him and Carol. Did he dare? What if Smith was home and heard him? It'd be like trespassing. Even so, he doubted Smith would be home, and even if he was, the Circle Room was under ground, under the garage, and at least fifty feet away from the house. No way would Smith know he was there, and even if he was discovered, he could always say he was just thinking about that meeting and suddenly found himself there, “So sorry, didn't mean to, really must learn to control my thoughts”, et cetera. He knew Smith would buy it. At least he hoped he would.
He stood in the middle of his room and once again closed his eyes. He began envisioning the room. He remembered it was more rectangular than square. The ceiling was a little higher than an ordinary room and it was dimly lit, but he couldn't remember any lights. The walls, ceiling and floor were covered in a thick, black substance. Not cloth, or paint, or even leather. Maybe hard rubber? The table was round, massively built from some kind of dark, black wood, with matching armchairs. There had been nothing on it, either. That was all he could remember. He began concentrating on the image. It was beginning to take shape, quickly. He heard a phone ringing. It caused him to stop in mid-thought. There hadn't been a phone in the room that he could recall. It rang again, and again. It caused him to lose his concentration enough to realize it was his phone. The vision faded away completely. Refocusing on where he was, he checked the Caller ID, saw it was his grandmother, and picked up the phone.
"Hi, Gran, I was thinking of calling you," he answered. Of course, that was something of a fib. He had thought of calling her, only it was last night, not today.
"Uh ha" she responded without inflection. "Liam, we need to talk."
"Okay, let's.
"Not on the phone. Why don't I
come over there and we'll have a chat. And until I get there, don't go anywhere."
"I wasn't going to go out anyway."
"I don't mean 'out', I mean don't 'go' anywhere. Get it?"
"I won't, but how'd you..." The line went dead before he could finish.
Now he was scared. Obviously she knew he was attempting a vision. Her and her precognition? he wondered. He now began to wonder, nervously, about what other things she might have known he was going to do, in the past. Feeling apprehensive, he hoped nothing too, well, personal. And there was no way he was going to ask to find out, either! There wasn't anything to do but wait.
There was a soft knock on the front door. Checking through the curtain of the front room window, he saw it was his grandmother and let her in.
"Hi, Gran."
"Hello, Liam. I feel like a cuppa tea. Why don't we go to the kitchen?"
She told him to have a seat and proceeded to get out the tea and put on the kettle. After asking him if he'd like a cup also (he didn't), she sat down at the table opposite him, looked him squarely in the eyes.
"Do not ever go to Dr. Smith's alone, either in person or in a vision. Can I have your promise on that?"
"I guess. I won't ask how you know I tried, but okay. Why?"
"Never you mind, just now. Just don't. Let's talk about what you have planned so far on Operation Baker Street."
Liam filled her in on what little he and Carol had talked about yesterday and how they'd be meeting with Drew and Scott later.
"Good" she said. "You couldn't have picked two better boys. They're going to help you more than you know."
"How? Have you 'seen' something?"
"I’m gonna be here with all of you this afternoon. You'll find later. While we are waiting we can talk about any more questions I'm sure you have, and I'll tell you some things you haven't even thought about yet. So, what do you want to know?"
Liam felt relieved. Finally, he hoped, some answers. "Okay, Gran, how were Carol and I 'visioned-in', so to speak, to the Circle Meeting at Dr. Smith's?"
"I brought you."
"How? I thought to do that we'd have to be near you. I assumed it was Specks."
"There are many levels of ability with this talent, Liam," she began. "Some can create visions but not be able to project them beyond themselves. They — if we can identify them and bring them in — can become Watchers, since they understand what is happening. Take Carol, for example. Then, there are those who can bring others into their vision. They start out as ’Initiates’. Sort of ‘students’, if you will But can only bring in someone if they are very close by. That would be you, right now. Then, if they truly have the talent, and practice it diligently, can bring in others from a greater distance. We call them 'Masters'. Naturally, Masters vary according to their strengths. Think of it as differing degrees of Black Belts in, say, Karate. Then there are 'Chains' and 'Circles'. A chain is created when many Masters and/or Initiates, separated at a distance, can link a common vision that can extend as far as there are links in the chain. This is most helpful if one wishes another to see the same vision miles, even hundreds of miles, away. Kind of like a mental telegraph. Of course, if a link in the chain fails for any reason anywhere along its length, the vision fails to reach its intended destination. Circles, on the other hand, are small groups that meet regularly to deal with local issues, or to work on one or more tasks for others. But to answer your question, you and Carol were well within my range of power, as a Master, to bring you in."
"Whoa! We had to be at least twenty miles away! Is that normal, for a Master, I mean?"
"So many questions!" she said, laughing. “It was a little over fifteen miles, actually and, as I told you, Master's abilities vary; some are stronger and thus can project farther than others. If I'm feeling extraordinarily well I can at times reach out twice that far, maybe a bit farther.”
"Okay. Now tell me why you brought me into the meeting?"
"It was about you, and I thought you had a right to be there. And, I thought Dr. Smith should see who we were talking about, in the flesh. Besides, I hadn't seen you in a while."
Feeling guilty about how long it had been since he’d gone to see her, he let that last part slide. "So why Carol, too?"
"Same reasons. Besides, I had foreseen that you two would be brought into the Circle together and jointly assigned a task. Couldn't rightly see exactly when that would be, so I figured then was as good a time as any."
"Earlier, before I started trying to go to the Circle Room, I tried to go to Scotland, but couldn't. Is it because I've never been there to know what it looks like?"
"Spot on, Liam. You must have an idea of a place or situation first, either first-hand knowledge or from another source, say a book or another person's detailed account, if you want to go to an actual place. Of course, if you want a fantasy, like your pirate adventure, you can make it up as you wish even though it will become real in fact. Now, how that happens — fantasy becoming real — is difficult to explain, it's sort of another dimension, a different time-line, or whatever. I really don't know how it happens, and I'm not sure anyone really does, although there are a lot of theories out there."
He told her what he'd found out during his online searching, about the time-space continuum and the plasticity of the mind. His grandmother just laughed and said that it was as good an explanation as any other, in her opinion.
“Tell me about the Circle Room."
"Well, I've told you what we do there," she began. "But I suspect you want to know about its peculiar appearance?"
He nodded.
"The material all around the walls, floor, and ceiling is some sort of matter the government has created. I've no clue out of what, and they won't tell us. Hush-hush stuff, I guess. But I do know a little about its properties. It's soundproofing, nothing in, nothing out, and it emits a low level of visible light so that no other lighting is needed to see clearly, unless one wants to read more than just a little. For all I know it could also be blast-proof".
"This Dr. Smith, he said he can also throw visions. So he's a Master too? Does he also have any other power?"
"A Master, yes, but you may be, or probably will be soon, better than he is now. He's really either not at all that proficient or he's keeping how good he is a secret, 'though I'm inclined to believe it’s rather the former than the latter. As far as any other ability, none that I've seen," she answered.
"So why don't you want me to go to his place?
"Two main reasons: first, he's not a local like us; he's an outsider we know nothing about; and second, he's government. More so, he’s in the intelligence business, part of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, also known as PsyOps. Either reason is enough to not get too chummy with him. He's an unknown factor. He, and/or the government, may be using our abilities for the good now, but who knows how they may see us if they try to use us unethically or immorally and we refuse, and they think they cannot control us."
A chill went up his back as he contemplated that last part. "I get your drift" he said. “What’s ‘PsyOps’, and aren’t all of you on the circle ‘government’?”
"No. And there’s a difference between working for the government and being the government. It’s more than semantics; it’s a matter of attitude. When you say someone is government it means they aren't just working for the government, it also means they think like the government. Now, PsyOps means Psychological Operations, as in Psychological Warfare; whatever is needed to confuse or convince an enemy of something. Think propaganda and not ‘Black Bag’ jobs. There are rumored to be other psych goings on involving parapsychology things. Experiments on Psychokinesis and the like. The Pentagon is also doing some work with people who have my talent of seeing future events. They call it 'Project Foresight'. Now, let me add a caution," his grandmother warned. "Trust only family and your closest friends, people you'd trust your life with. We may al
l be Americans and patriots who love this country, but there are some who are more zealous and fanatical than the average, who think they are the only true patriots, and that the rest of us are borderline traitors. They are always ready to denounce anyone who doesn’t completely agree with them. But enough of this for now, we've a few hours left before your friends get here, so why don't we go on a trip?"
"Where are you going to take us?"
"I'm not taking us anywhere. You're taking me!" she answered. "Don't tell me, show me.”
He sat in deep thought. She's testing me! Where to go? It had to be somewhere he'd been before, somewhere he'd like to go back to. There was one place. When he was fourteen, just last summer, he'd stayed for three months in England with his Uncle Gene, who’d been assigned there for several years by his agency. He loved being there, and thought of it often; there had been some kind of resonance within him there, as if he belonged there. Maybe it was “genetic memory”, something else he once read about, that a person can “know” something experienced in his ancestral past without, obviously, direct personal experience. And his mother’s family had lived there for over five hundred years after leaving France and before coming here.
"Okay" he told her. "I hope you've had all your shots!"
His grandmother gave him a quizzical look. He grinned at her, shut his eyes and recalled every detail of where he had lived there. He pulled her into his vision as it started to materialize around them. They were standing on the side of pavement facing a small two-story cottage, painted green, lime green, and looked just like a picture of the archetypical English countryside cottage one would expect to see in a travel brochure.
"Where are we?" she asked Liam.
"You're looking at Lime Cottage, Pebble Lane, Brackley, Nor'thants, England," he answered in his best British accent.
"Of course! I thought it looked familiar! I remember the pictures your uncle sent us when he lived here. This is wonderful, Liam."
He looked up at the sky. It was a typical English day, overcast and threatening to rain, just as he remembered, with a slight chill in the air. He recalled, that when he lived here for those three months, the sun had broken through the ever-present clouds only once, for exactly fourteen minutes (he actually had timed it on his wristwatch). Even though it had been summer, most days he needed to wear the jacket his uncle lent him (since he didn't think to bring one - it was summertime, after all!) He had forgotten how green everything was, a deep green that's only see in most of the States in early spring.
"Its beautiful here, Liam. Thank you so much. What shall we do?"
"Well, we can walk around the village and I can show you the sights. Unfortunately, since this is a reality-based vision and not a fantasy, I don't have any money, so we can't eat, although I would fancy some honest-to-God English fish-n-chips, or bangers and mash, with a spot of tea, with cream and sugar, naturally. And we can't stay too long because if I remember correctly it's gonna start raining in about an hour (when he lived there it lightly rained daily in the early afternoon for about an hour or so and you could almost set your clock by it), and we're not dressed for it."
"Its not so bad" his grandmother told him. “But you forget, Liam. While we are really here, this is still a vision that you are in complete control of, if you just think ahead a little."
"Okay" he answered, hoping he got her drift. He simply envisioned himself with a hundred English Pounds in his wallet. Then, with a hope, he pulled out his wallet. It was there, one hundred total, in differing denominations.
He looked at her as she smiled at him. Grinning, he said, "Cummon, let's have lunch! And if it decides to rain, well then I’ll just find us a couple if umbrellas!”
When they walked around the corner, they almost ran into a fish-n-chips sidewalk vender.
"Wanna share?"
"Sure."
As they walked, eating the filets of fish and greasy fries out of the traditional sheet of newspaper the vender had wrapped them in, he showed her all the places he remembered, past the schoolyard where they watched some lads playing footie (soccer), and the shops he had frequented. Suddenly his grandmother stopped. She seemed lost in thought. Then a small grimace crossed her face, and he thought she looked like she was having a stroke, or at least indigestion.
"Gran, you okay?!"
She seemed to come back a bit, turned to look at him and said, "Oh, yes, but we need to go home now. Let's end this. Now!" she told him with a sense of urgency.
He reacted immediately and envisioned them back into the kitchen at home, just as they had been before their adventure. Sitting back once again in the kitchen, he looked at her across the table and asked her what had happened, just as the doorbell rang, and looking at his watch he saw it was a little after three. Carol and the guys must be here, he thought. She visibly relaxed and told him she'd tell him later. He looked at her and felt relieved that she seemed to be over whatever it was that had distressed her, so he left to answer the door.
Chapter Twelve: Family Affair
“It takes someone with a vision of the possibilities to attain new levels of experience.