Parallel Journeys 2 Experimental Writing

Parallel Journeys II Free write Space
Book One

My name is Tommy, I’m fifteen years old, and I live in a small intentional community near the Green Mountains of Vermont.
I’m writing alone in my treehouse, and outside, the wind is howling, and my home is swaying with the tree in the howling wind.

I’ve had many strange experiences throughout my life, but this summer, they’ve grown so much more intense, and something is compelling me to leave a record of them, a record someone else might find.

I know this will sound crazy, probably all of this will, but from as far back as I can remember, I’ve sensed an older version of me, and I’ve had many visions of him. It feels like we live alongside each other. I feel his love and concern and have since as far back as I can remember. I sense his presence right now, almost like he’s whispering in my mind, but I can’t quite hear what he’s saying. It feels like he’s the one prompting me to write this journal, and almost as if the words I write come from both of us. I feel him in the background of my mind watching over me, worried about my well-being and wanting to protect me from something.

Some of the earliest visions I had as a child were of him writing in a journal, words being typed out on a computer screen, but something would keep me from being able to read what he wrote. In the visions, he looked about the age I am now, but he seemed older, like he had lived through much more than me.

The visions and his presence fill me with an awareness that I have to prepare for something dangerous I need to survive to serve a purpose larger than me. I sense he’s on the same mission, only he knows what it’s about.

The visions inspired me to keep a journal since I was a child, but what I’m writing now is different. My other journal is more like a diary, mostly about what happened in my day. But tonight, I feel a need to make a record of my strange experiences someone else might read. But I have no idea who that someone else might be–who you might be–the person reading this, but I feel you out there wanting me to continue. I don’t know why you’re the one who needs to read this since I’ve kept my strange experiences secret from all the people I love– the people I live and work with in my small community called The Friends.

I feel guilty about hiding so much, but I would only be burdening others if I shared my secret life. I know they would listen sympathetically, but wouldn’t understand that these secret experiences are more real and essential to who I am and what I need to do than what’s happening in the parts of my life they see every day. They would probably think I was having psychological problems and needed to see a psychiatrist or something. I can’t be sure I don’t have psychological problems, but I feel what’s going on with me is much more than that, and that someday, someone will need to know. This feels so different than writing in my diary, because I feel someone wanting me to continue.

People here and at the hospice where I work as a volunteer say I’m an empath, and I think they’re right, but it goes further, because I sense things about people and events I can’t prove are real and I’m driven by deep feelings and intuitions I can’t explain to others.

Something’s coming. I feel it in the howling wind. My body is trembling, like I’m shivering with cold . . . I don’t think I can write anything more tonight. The feeling is too overwhelming. Something’s coming . . .

Max’s Journal

My name is Max, I’m 18, and I am a predator. Legally, my name is Ulrich, but that doesn’t go over so well here in the States, and it’s far too tedious to keep having to spell it out for people. Max is one syllable, says much about me, but not too much, and the spelling is self-evident even for illiterate Americans.

I see I am doing what an American news reader would call “burying the lead.” As I was saying, I am a predator. Proudly so. If I said that to most people, they would think I was crazy or evil or both, but that would only reflect the extreme stupidity of most people, because homo Sapiens is categorized as a predator species–the apex predator species of the whole planet it devours. And yet, self-castrated members of this predator species use the word “predator” as a synonym for evil when they apply it to individuals who transgress their notions of social order.

Can you imagine a pride of lions calling a magnificent young lion a “predator” to suggest it should be despised and outcast? Yes, older lions have reason to fear an up-and-coming young lion. They may wish they’d devoured him before he became dangerous, but to call him a predator would only be a sign of respect.

But no, I don’t identify as a lion. Of the big cats, lions are a bit too masculine and blunt force for my tastes. I’m more lean, agile and stylish, so a leopard would be a better animal representation. I am not a savage predator but an elegantly fastidious one. I like control and abhor messiness. I keep my person, possessions, and spaces in perfect order and cleanliness. Aren’t cats and raptors that way? That’s why I don’t care to talk or write in the sloppy, stupid, slangy way of my American “peers.” I operate with precision, effectiveness, and my own sense of style. I learned my polished demeanor not from the random people around me but from books and films that satisfy my standard of elegance.

I’m a stealthy, slippery operator not a brutal killer type. I’m more into money and power than creating a body count. I’ve never been accused of an excess of kindness, but I have no interest in harming others as an end in itself. Nevertheless, I pursue my ends with ruthless determination and am not shy about employing deception and misdirection.

So, I am a predator in a general sense. I stalk my quarry and pursue it with unbending intent. Why wouldn’t I be predatory?
I am a descendant of an apex predator species, so what could be more natural? And what could be more unnatural and foolish than members of an apex-predator species casting aspersions on one of their kind who proudly asserts an apex-predator identity?

I grew up with hypocrites who don’t consider themselves predators because they buy the flesh of other mammals sealed in plastic from the market. They celebrate bacon as a fun food, but if they saw someone harming a puppy, they would call them a monster. No, I don’t harm puppies, and for that matter, I don’t eat bacon or any meat, not because of any moral scruples but because it’s gross, and I’m made of finer stuff and eat according to my nature. And yet, it’s well established that pigs are more intelligent than dogs in several ways. So those who might call me a predator are nothing but weaklings unable to see anything clearly, even what they put in their mouths.

They are self-castrated wolves wearing sheep clothing, while I prefer to be a lean and hungry wolf cloaking myself so as not to
draw their attention unless it serves my purposes. If any vegans want to call me a predator, that at least would be unhypocritical.

Given that I don’t eat animals, why do I call myself a predator? I am referring to my essential nature as one who efficiently and ruthlessly stalks my quarry.

Since my sexuality is part of my essential nature, it, too, has a predatory aspect. Indeed, I stalk, or more precisely, stealthily surveil those few who draw my interest, though I have yet to cross any bright red lines. But give me time–I am, as I have said, only eighteen. Perhaps I’m joking, perhaps not– I can’t even be sure myself.

Maybe my grandiosity is an act I put on for my own amusement, maybe not. You may assume these egoistic things I say are merely adolescent bravado as befits my age–perhaps so, perhaps not. I have proven myself highly effective in the real world and have the most universally respected metric to prove that—money, but other parts of my agenda have yet to be fulfilled.

Partly, I am outing my narcissism and grandiosity here to look at them and be sure they’re not undermining my efficiency. I’m German, so of course, I’m into efficiency. I spent the first twelve years of my life in Berlin, but I’ve made any trace of accent disappear unless I bring it back for effect.

My Germanic aspects are still with me, but I’m no Nazi. I admire certain of those infernally intelligent Ashkenazi Jews. I’m intrigued by that race of savants and swindlers with whom I share a strange karma. And I admire both savants and swindlers so long as they are highly proficient at what they do. I admire the highly proficient and despise those who are inferior. And by those who are inferior, I mean almost everyone, but that is without regard to race.

My grandiosity and contempt need a place to be expressed because outwardly, I prefer to be underestimated and fly beneath the radar. Sometimes, it’s valuable to intimidate or impress with my upper-class demeanor, while at other times, it’s more effective to be a forgettable cipher.

So, you shouldn’t think that what I flaunt here is what I show publicly. Nothing could make me light up more as a target than to present as a privileged young Caucasian male with high pretensions. In my earlier life, I did show haughty arrogance and disdain because there was no reason not to, and I was so often irritated by confinement and all the mediocrity I had to interact with both at home and at the supposedly “elite” (read: mediocre plus money) prep school I was forced to attend.

But now that I am out and about in the larger world, I have become a slippery and stealthy chameleon. For stalking and surveillance purposes, I sometimes forgo the elegant attire I prefer and wear baggy hoodies and the like to present as a typical American teenager unworthy of notice. I am an operator, and I’ve developed the tools and tricks of my personal tradecraft.

I am a predator in a metaphorical financial sense when it comes to crypto and stock markets, where my ability to both calculate and intuit deep patterns has brought me wealth so that I need no help from parents or anyone to travel freely and “live off the land” so to speak.

I am a legal adult now and can do as I please–and I am doing as I please–but not impulsively–that is the way of stupid predators, foolish petty criminals unthinkingly driven by animal drives. Though I did have to construct a false identity for financial transactions conducted before I was a legal adult, I have otherwise crossed few legal lines, though I may soon. If I do, it will be judicious, tactical, and strategic to minimize risk. It’s not that I’m risk-averse in any cowardly way. I just seek to maximize reward and minimize any dangers to myself.

In my former life, I was judged defective because I lack empathy for inferior persons. But this is an asset, not a liability. Those who judge me– a perfect physical specimen with obviously superior intelligence–as defective only reveal their stupidity.

It feels like I am addressing an audience, though I can’t imagine who I would ever allow access to my journal. Perhaps it could be a stunning posthumous publication of some sort, though I don’t plan on dying any time soon, and maybe with all the advances in computational biology, I won’t have to. Another reason not to take unwarranted risks as, alas, there are no backups of me, not even a clone that might grow up to resemble me.

So, while I am still confined to this one body, I will continue to take meticulous care of it as an irreplaceable resource and tool of my will. Accordingly, I eat a highly refined diet and workout every day to maintain my slender but flawless physique. Someone glancing at me sees a fit and immaculately dressed young man from a wealthy and privileged background, and there’s nothing inaccurate about that impression as far as it goes. From experience, I’ve learned that people find the stare of my blue-grey eyes piercing and disturbing, so I wear dark sunglasses. This way, people see of me only what I care to show. If needed, however, I can eliminate the sunglasses and be charming and impressive, but that requires a significant expenditure of energy, so I use that mode only when necessary.

Otherwise, I give people as little energy or attention as possible. Why should I do anything more than that? What is the point of a social transaction that provides no reward? I’ve been called a cold misanthrope, because a normal person is supposed to lavish their energy on their fellow meat puppets for the purpose of random socializing. Because I refrain from such irrational waste of energy, I’ve been judged defective. If it served my purposes, I could have appeared not only normal, but charming and charismatic. But there was no motive to do this with my parents or at school because I knew I would soon leave that life behind in the way of a snake shedding a skin that’s too tight.

Instead, I focused my energy on improving my body, finances, and escape plan. Early on, I recognized the most obvious thing in the world—that money is the universal resource and path to power. I also recognized the obvious things about myself–that I’m a predator and superior to others both physically and intellectually.

So, I use my superior abilities to see patterns others miss and apply that to global finance. Using a contrived identity, I bought and sold cryptocurrencies and stocks until I made a small fortune and then an ever-larger one. To keep my parents from questioning my activities, I applied to business schools and informed them I was merely monitoring various market cycles to fulfill my ambition of becoming a hedge fund manager, a goal they could understand and approve.

And then, the day I turned 18, only a couple of months ago, I disappeared into my new life and identity. Employing contractors at a distance, I spent a considerable part of my fortune building a homebase to my exacting specifications. Hidden in northern woods, from the outside, it looks like an architecturally superb house but hidden beneath is a highly secure and shielded sub-basement, part command center and part . . .

Well, now we get to the more controversial part of my identity and plans. And yes, these parts are controversial even to me because they represent most of my risk portfolio. Until just now, when I created this encrypted journal on an air-gapped computer, I’d never even considered putting my predatory identity and intentions into words. But now I need to analyze my self and my intentions to look for patterns I may have missed. Especially, I need to analyze my controversial aspects, because they may generate considerable risks and are not as self-evidentially rational as the rest of me certainly is.

I realize what I’ve written above is a repetitious and rambling self-indulgence expressive of grandiosity and narcissism, but I need to let off some of the steam of my large ego preliminary to getting to the real work of this journal, which is planning and self-analysis. I must ruthlessly examine my potential flaws, the parts of myself that are not rational, and other parts that are hard to categorize and fully comprehend. I must be unsparing in examining possible liabilities in my nature, but first I must touch on certain of my anomalous abilities that are relevant to the stranger and riskier parts of my agenda.

Most of my abilities can be explained as rare talents that are not unprecedented except perhaps in combination. From that perspective, I could be seen as functioning merely at the outer edge of the human performance envelope. But I also have talents outside that envelope which are, therefore, harder to evaluate. For example, I am able to anticipate the timing of certain events, not just market fluctuations, but life events that provide few antecedent data points, so I cannot attribute my successful anticipations to logic or intuitive pattern recognition, but something else, perhaps a form of clairvoyance.
I also have an ability to read people, to sense their weaknesses and strengths (if any) and often know what people are thinking and about to say. Sometimes it’s because they’re so predictable, but other times it is probably telepathic. And I’ve had one moment that I know was telepathic. My ability to locate other anomalous individuals has this aspect, and I’ll give the best example of that soon.

I make these claims, and yet I must admit that some of my strange perceptions sometimes raise the red flag of logic error in my mind.

For example, an aspect of myself for which I cannot claim certain rationality is a persistent sense that I am not the offspring of my parents. I see no way such high-functioning mediocrities could have produced someone like me. Of course, it’s a common grandiose delusion of children to believe they are descended from royalty, etc., so perhaps it’s merely vanity that causes me to think that I must be the result of something more than a sweaty parental transaction nineteen years ago. Perhaps some lucky cosmic ray hit this unexceptional combination of DNA to cause a massively favorable mutation? DNA from unexceptional parents can sometimes enter the mathematical lottery of genetic combination and produce an exceptional result.

Since childhood, I’ve recognized myself as a new human type, an advanced product of human evolution anachronistically appearing in this primitive world of bustling primates. Perhaps evolution created me as hedge against its main bet on AI, the species that is overtaking the inferior species that gave rise to it. I’m speculating, of course. I just know that my parents and environment are not sufficient to account for me.

Every so often, I will see a human specimen that I feel might be another manifestation of this new evolutionary type. But these perceptions lack evidence and may only reflect my most irrational drive–my sexuality. I have detected what I perceive as anomalous superiority in a few other young males who are, like me, nearly perfect physical specimens. Since they are also the type I’m attracted to, I realize how likely that is to create false positives. But looks alone are not sufficient to create anomalous radar returns. I’ve seen many visually exquisite specimens who entirely lack the special quality I’m hunting for. What I seek is far rarer than mere physical beauty.

There was one boy at school who had some of this quality. He was certainly quite good-looking, even to my unrelenting standards, and his social and intellectual functioning were superior, if not anomalously so. I surveilled him without any of my surreptitious attentions being detected. Quite diplomatically and with considerable charm, I tried to form a social alliance with him, but he politely rebuffed those efforts. Of course, he knew my reputation as a creature that others found cold and disturbing, so there was no chance to make an unprejudiced first impression and he likely found the charm I turned on him, but not others, suspicious.

And then, the more I surveilled him, the less interesting he became. Certainly, he was an ideal physical specimen, popular and socially skilled, and he did get into Princeton, but once I gained access to his devices, he revealed himself to be a false positive. He was merely the best animal in the herd that surrounded me at this one school.

My disappointment was not just with him, but in this failure of my own discernment. Hormones and animalistic drives had created a kind of optical illusion out of someone who was merely a superior mediocrity. He remained physically attractive enough to arouse sexual interest, but I refuse to degrade myself by having a physical transaction with someone ordinary based on looks. I am not a meat puppet whose strings can be pulled by hormones. I consider my misperception of this boy to be an embarrassing failure, but also a valuable lesson not to repeat such a humiliating error of discernment.

Twice, while traveling with my parents– both occasions were in airports–I’ve seen someone with a glow that arrested my attention and made them stand out like demigods amongst the hustle and bustle of disappointing primates. One of these had a Norwegian decal on his luggage and possessed an ethereal beauty that was breathtaking. But now I suspect his beauty created another optical illusion on par with the boy at school. The other, however, I am certain was a true anomaly. Yes, he was beautiful and elegant with long dark hair and exquisite bone structure, and anyone would have found him intriguing and mysterious looking. But he gave evidence of being much more than that.

At first glance, I recognized him as a sophisticated and cosmopolitan Ashkenazi Jew. He didn’t look stereotypically Jewish, but as a German I’ve inherited an exquisite Jewdar, and could feel the pull of racial exoticism and karma. He must have been eighteen or nineteen, but he seemed older and strangely timeless. He was unselfconsciously elegant and graceful, a prince of his ancient race. I sensed that he was not merely traveling but on a mission of some kind. I could tell he was trying not to draw attention, but he lit up more powerfully on the screen of my anomaly radar than anyone I’ve encountered. I could feel his intelligence as if it were a physical force and sensed a mind filled with secret knowledge.

And yet, even with all these perceptions of superior aspects, I could not rule out a false positive if it were not for a truly anomalous occurrence. He felt my stare and turned toward me, his hyper-aware brown eyes locking onto my gaze. Time stood still as I felt him reading me in a cool, analytical way. Then, there was a moment when the boundary between subject and object dissolved, and our minds linked, but I felt him limiting the flow of information between us. I sensed the nature of his caution was ethical and respectful. I was only thirteen at the time, and he didn’t want to be intrusive, and was certainly not going to commit the impropriety of approaching a thirteen-year-old at an airport. So he limited himself to an acknowledgement of me as another anomaly and telepath.

The acknowledgment occurred in a time-dilating moment of telepathic eye contact, and it had a formal and elegant quality, as though he were presenting me with an engraved calling card. It was a form of recognition I’ve never received before or since, a priceless gift. When he was sure I received it, he bowed his head toward me in a beautiful gesture of formal respect. After bestowing this blessing, he turned and walked swiftly away.

I am certain that I did not meet him by chance, but I also know that he was as surprised by the encounter as I was. While the Norwegian was oblivious to my presence, he had been instantly aware, and that, I now realize, is the first test. There must be mutual recognition.

Regrettably, I was too dazzled by the encounter to slip away from my parents and follow him. If I had trailed him to his departure gate, I could have found a way into the flight manifest. If I’d even had the presence of mind to take a good photo, I could have searched for him that way. Instead, I let him disappear into the masses. I was only thirteen at the time of the encounter, and still quite stupid in many ways and lacked the quickness to recognize and exploit this fleeting window of opportunity.

And yet, it felt like in that one moment of mutual-recognition, this intriguing Jew left a calling card in my mind, a way to find each other again, and a premonition that our paths are destined to cross again. Certainly, I keep an eye out for him on my travels.

He also profoundly influenced me in those few heartbeats of telepathic contact. I felt the quality of his mind and how we are alike and different. He is as cooly analytical and able to perceive hidden patterns as I am. But there was more feeling infusing his intelligence and a sense of ethical responsibility. Obviously, I lack those qualities, but I will admit to respecting them in him. They felt like a form of courage, depth, and seriousness.

If I were to meet him again, I wouldn’t try my usual strategies. He’s older, and perhaps the one person I’ve ever viewed as a possible teacher. In that moment of telepathic contact, he seemed to know exactly what I needed–respectful recognition– and he gave it to me. He left me with an awareness of his essence, even a transfusion of it, and my admiration for him has left a mark or influence.

Though I have presented myself as a ruthless predator, his influence subtly shifted that aspect. It’s taken the form of the one ethical principle I do follow, which is not to needlessly cause harm to others. I may not be kind to others, unless the pretense of such is to my advantage, but I do restrain my misanthropic nature from being overtly cruel. Living by that principle is a form of respect or honor owed to him for the respect and honor he gave me. If we meet again, I know he’d sense if I indulged heedless cruelty and he’d lose respect for me. I would be diminished in his eyes, and I would lose the chance to learn from his secret knowledge.

At this phase, though, my main desire is to meet an anomalous male person close to my age. I want an equal, but someone I can dazzle with my abilities and resources. Now that I am free of parental captivity, I roam the country in my newly acquired luxurious and high-performance vehicle– German of course. The path of my hunt favors college and university towns as those seem the likeliest to attract the type I’m looking for. I can afford to stay in highly rated hotels with gyms, and my financial work is easily done from anywhere. Give me Wi-Fi and a device—even a phone—and there is little I can’t orchestrate. Perhaps my hunting is merely driven by youthful hormones, but intuition tells me otherwise.

I feel certain that somewhere out there I will find my counterpart. Next time, I will not risk a rebuff or allow them to slip away without a trace. Before I take any risky step, I will surveil a candidate to eliminate the chance of another false positive.

Once you gain access to someone’s devices and can study their communications, mediocrity is easily exposed. If they pass my investigation, it may be necessary to make them a “guest” in the subbasement of my home base. Obviously, this would cross legal lines and is the most controversial and questionable part of my plans. You may think that such a step would violate my one ethical principle of avoiding unnecessary harm, but I don’t see it that way. It would be an intervention, a way to rescue someone from the cult of mediocrity.

I ‘d prefer not to use such risky means, but I need enough time and control of the setting to win them over. There would be no need for such measures if they were immediately willing to break with anything else going on in their lives to ally themselves with me, but how likely is that realistically? Even when I’m in charming mode, people find me a little too intense for comfort. If they are currently enrolled in college or university, it will take persuasion for them to realize that they are on a self-castration path of mediocrity compared to joining forces with me. If I find just the right person, I’m confident that given enough time, they’d realize the superior value of what I offer, but such persuasion cannot be rushed.

Obviously, making them an involuntary guest in my secure facility is a risky and questionable first move to set up an alliance, but it will provide time to reveal my superiority, to charm them, and show what I can provide financially and as a powerful ally in general. Though I may have to extend my invitation in this involuntary way, I will not be abusing them, but winning them over. My facility is secure but luxurious, and they will lack for nothing except connectivity and an ability to relocate.

And yet, this plan means committing felonies, and as meticulously as my planning and execution will be, risks cannot be zeroed out. I wouldn’t dream of capturing someone unless I had certain evidence that they are a true anomaly. I would have to see, from their devices, that they realized this about themselves. I would not take such a step without powerful reason to believe that a successful outcome is likely. Still, of all my intentions, this is by far the most dangerous. Think of the messy fiasco if I were unable to persuade them, and they wanted to blackmail me with kidnapping charges! At that point, I would have to offer them a fortune and might have to resort to even more extreme measures to ensure my safety in such a worst-case scenario.

I realize that my controversial plan begs a central question. If I’m such a flawless predator, why not just go solo, why even look for a companion and accept so much risk? All I can say is that I am a predator, not a machine, and, like my sexuality, the need for a companion is an irreducible need. Though I’ve agreed with others’ perception of me as cold and lacking empathy, it doesn’t mean I have no social interest, just that I have lacked the opportunity to relate to equals. That I could recognize anomalous superiority in the Jew at first glance, isn’t that a kind of empathy? There is no social deficiency in me, it’s just that I’ve been surrounded by massively deficient mediocrities with whom I have no desire to socialize. That one telepathic encounter was so much more than mere socializing. I long for contact with another telepath where the exchange would be more than words or gross physical transactions.

When I ruthlessly examine my motives, I see that my need for control means that I need to begin such a relationship with an upper hand, a card or two under my sleeve, because otherwise, I might start such a relationship at a disadvantage. I have no experience in any sort of mutual relationship or in physical intimacy, for that matter. Suppose they did? I would be at an enormous disadvantage. Though I want an equal, I would still like to be first amongst equals. I want someone who will admire and follow my way of seeking power in the world. Ideally, they would be willing to let me take charge of worldly affairs and be content to be my devoted companion and assist when appropriate.

But I’m not looking for a slave or someone I’d be obliged to constantly dominate. I have enough imagination to realize that someone I could fully control would be a mediocrity and ultimately boring. Sexually, I’d prefer if we could exchange such roles. I want a true companion who would be on my level intellectually and aesthetically, and obviously, that would be a rare person indeed. Perhaps such a person would instantly recognize the value of an alliance with me, and there would be no need for the controversial means I’ve set up.

I must make sure that my need for a companion is not one of those classic tragic flaws that brings down a young hero in so many stories and mythologies. No, I will certainly not risk such an alliance unless I find exactly the right person.

Meanwhile, just knowing that I have the secure facility and a substance that would harmlessly render them unconscious while I relocate them is itself exciting, a fetish perhaps, something I might not even need if I find someone quick enough on the uptake to recognize my value. It is the pursuit of such a person that gives my travels and financial work a feeling of direction and purpose.

***

Writing this journal seems to have had an uncanny effect of advancing my purpose, as for the second time in my life I have discovered a person who I am certain is a new evolutionary type! I realize linking the journal to this event is not rationally justifiable as correlation is not necessarily causation, and yet intuitively, I sense a noncoincidental relationship between journal and event. The simplest explanation is that I had a semi-conscious premonition of the upcoming encounter, and that spurred me to begin the journal.

Since liberating myself, I’ve been touring the northeast with its high concentration of elite colleges and universities. I recognized a practical advantage to conducting my search within a few hour’s drive of my home base to enable relocating someone. I was following a northward path when a problem with my new vehicle forced me to divert to Burlington, Vermont. Though I didn’t see the University of Vermont as of sufficient caliber to attract the type I’m looking for, I decided to walk around town while my vehicle was being checked.

But then, walking around the town, I turned a corner, and there I saw him, a boy of maybe only fourteen or fifteen, working with a middle-aged man to unload beautifully made furniture from the back of a pickup truck and into a store showcasing local crafts. The boy defied my demographic expectations, being inconveniently young and apparently not enrolled anywhere since he was working in the middle of a school day.

At first, I felt a wariness of a false positive because he was the most exceptionally beautiful person I’ve ever seen, with long golden hair, impossibly bright green eyes, and an
angelic countenance. But then, though I was wearing sunglasses and was outside his field of view and away from his line of travel to the front door of the store, he turned toward me, and in my whole body, I could feel him reading me. And it was no casual recognition as I could tell he was as startled and struck by my presence as I was by his.

His energy was so different from the Jew who instantly impressed me as an intellectual equal with a mind full of secret knowledge. The way he read me was not detached and analytical. What emanated from him was more like a musical waveform imbued with deep emotions and a mythic quality that’s hard to define. At first, his physical beauty made me wary of another optical-illusion effect. But as soon as we made eye contact, it became an immersive telepathic encounter.

Visually, his beauty had an uncanny aspect. It was not just the impossibly golden hair and green eyes–it was as if all parts of him, even the worn denim pants and flannel shirt he wore with sleeves rolled up, glowed with color and aliveness. I’ve never seen such radiance. Even before eye contact, I felt included in his mythic life, as if he were Huckleberry Finn passing me on his raft down the Mississippi.

But he’s so contrary to my expectations of what the next anomalous person would be like. I had been looking for an elite, cosmopolitan type, a sophisticated college student or world traveler, elegantly dressed, and certainly not an underaged working country boy hauling things from a pick-up truck.

And yet . . . his glowing image remains in my mind like a beacon. Time slowed around him, and his awareness felt like it was taking in all of me– what we Germans call a gestalt–in a moment. He had a type of intelligence or awareness difficult to categorize. It wasn’t intellectual intelligence but more like a profound emotional recognition. He was so tuned in that it felt like if the eye contact lasted any longer, he would read everything about me. He’s not an operator in the way that I am, not someone who would devise complex stratagems or employ deception. It felt like everything about him was transparent and open for anyone to read, and yet that was not a weakness in his case because it felt like anyone else would be just as transparent to him. I’ve heard the term “empath” before, but it always sounded like New Age nonsense. But the impression was that this boy could see right through to anyone’s intentons.

I thought my search would lead me to another sophisticated operator like myself. And then the challenge would be to stay a step or two ahead of them to earn their respect. But in that time-slowing moment, I sensed that my strategies and tactics would not work on him, because he would see right through to my underlying intent.

And yet, these aspects of him, so inconvenient to my mode of operation, also seem to be at the heart of the unique magnetism he has for me. This boy is like a revelation of a principle of nature I hadn’t considered. I assumed that attraction and pursuit would be based on similarity, but now I see that complementarity and attraction of dissimilarity are stronger. I don’t want to call it an attraction of opposites as “opposite” is such an absolutism. We do have things in common, as we are both anomalies and highly tuned in. There was a mutuality implied in our ability to recognize and read each other immediately. But instead of finding someone like me, but ten percent less, allowing me the upper hand, I have instead found someone who is another one hundred percent anomaly, but who embodies a different principle of nature. Such an alliance could be even more powerful, but I’m not sure how it would work, or even if it would work.

I must confront red flags about my pursuit of this boy. On the practical level, I haven’t planned for the far greater legal hazards of someone underage. I assumed I would find someone about my age, probably a college student.

There is nothing I value more than control. Control is implicit in being a predator and operator, and I make no apology for it. I’ve been derisively called a “control freak,” but I own that as a compliment. “Freak” is essentially a synonym for “anomaly.”

And yet, pursuing this boy runs dramatically against this core principle. If only he were eighteen like me, he would be a free actor. If I were able to persuade him to join forces, there would no legal lines crossed. But I’m sure he’s not eighteen, and therefore, he is not the controlling legal authority in his own life, so relocating him without the written consent of a parent or guardian would involve extreme risks that are to justify. And then, even if I overcame this problem, this boy possesses an empathic awareness that would see through to my intentions, and I’d have no way to control that. Maybe I could misdirect and deceive him within a short time frame, but not in any ongoing alliance.

You likely assume from my many bold assertions of superiority that I have the fatal flow of so many young males who overestimate themselves and what they can do. Actually, part of my superiority is my caution, and I am conservative in my strategies and tactics. I do not presume on luck, and I’m a harsh realist about how things work. Remember, I’m not American. I’m from the Old World, so I abhor the brash overconfidence of young American entrepreneurs. The media glorifies the very, very few who succeed, and they ignore the far greater numbers who crash and burn. Yes, my investments have an aspect of gambling, but I’ve always been careful not to put my principal at risk, and I’ve become wealthy by risk profiling every significant action.

So, let me define a redline for myself right now. Any notion I had of making the right person an involuntary guest is a zero percent option in this case. Besides the staggering legal risk, this kid is too dissimilar from me to predict how he would react to such a coercive scenario. The only action available at the moment that passes my risk profile is surveillance.

The logical question is–given all these factors, why am I pursuing him at all? One answer is that I’ve discovered a highly anomalous person who is even more of an anomaly than I was looking for, and I might learn interesting things just by observing him. But the real answer is one I must acknowledge is outside of logic. A core intuition of significance tells me I am on the right track. The magnetism, attraction, and fascination I have for him are beyond logic, so I must proceed with extreme caution, and this journal is part of that caution. Let me define another red line for myself. I will not consider anything beyond surveillance without coming back here and analyzing and risk profiling any action beyond observation and investigation.

Speaking of which, I have already learned so much about him with little effort and no risk whatsoever.

I assumed the man he was with is his father as there was a strong feeling of warm family rapport between them, something I’ve never experienced myself or even observed between any of my “peers” and their parents. However, I knew such bonds between a parent and child must exist somewhere.

After that moment of eye contact, I retreated from the scene as soon as they entered the store, stopping only to unobtrusively capture a photo of the truck’s license plate. I proceeded down the block till I found a storefront shadowed by an awning where I could observe unnoticed. I pulled out the small Leica monocular I keep in my shoulder bag to surveil them from a distance.

Once all the furniture had been unloaded and brought into the store, they raised the tailgate and drove away. That was my cue to enter the store, where the furniture they unloaded was already on display along with a selection of exquisitely crafted kaleidoscopes and—impossibly fortuitous—next to the kaleidoscopes was a stack of trifold brochures that contained a world of information about the boy and the man who was with him.

The man’s name is Matthew, a master carpenter and furniture maker, and the boy, Tommy, is not his son apparently, but his apprentice. The brochure included a photo of them working side by side in their workshop, where they live in a small intentional community near the Green Mountains. The community is called “The Friends,” and it is devoted to permaculture principles and nonviolence. The brochure helpfully provided the URL of a primitive website for the Friends community and the crafts and produce they sell with contact information, address—everything I could possibly need to begin my surveillance.

I bought one of the exquisite kaleidoscopes and—I realize this could be imagination—but I swear it feels imbued with the boy’s energy from all the meticulous hand labor he put into it. If there were any need, I could probably lift his fingerprints and possibly his DNA from this finely polished object.

And then, as if that weren’t auspicious enough, the older woman behind the counter, the owner of the shop, exclaimed—as though I didn’t know—that what I bought had just been delivered and then, with a twinkle in her eye, volunteered all sorts of information and impressions of the master and his apprentice and their community.

Normally, I try to escape talkative people as quickly as I can, but this woman was voluble on exactly the subject I most wanted to hear about. Her way of talking was flowery and old-fashioned for my taste, but she provided a wealth of information. It became obvious that she was particularly enamored with Tommy and enthusiastically answered any question I could think to ask.

The oddest thing she told me was that Tommy volunteers at a hospice where his mom works. Why would someone that age want to be around old, dying people? Must be something to do with his being an empath, but it seems insanely altruistic, which made me fear he might be super-Christian or something, but she told me that they follow a few Quaker principles, but they’re not a religious community. The few kids who are part of this twenty-person community are homeschooled, she added, and their education is mainly through the work they do to support the community, which lives off the grid and offline.

“They must be raising their kids right,” she added. “Tommy is the sweetest and most polite fifteen-year-old boy I’ve ever met. When I asked Matthew if the other kids at the Friends Community are like Tommy, he gave me a look and said, ‘Nobody is like Tommy. He’s exceptional in every way, including his kindness.’ He also told me that at fifteen, Tommy is his equal in mastery of carpentry and furniture making, and this new line of kaleidoscopes is the boy’s initiative.

“Later, when I asked Tommy why he chose to make kaleidoscopes, he was so humble and deferential that he began by saying he couldn’t have dreamed of making anything were it not for Matthew’s training. And then, despite his lack of formal education, and his endearing modesty and shyness, he was so articulate, answering all my questions about the optics, design, and construction. After he answered all my questions, he thanked me for my interest in his work and told me how grateful he and his community were to me for showing their work. What kid talks so appreciatively to adults? And what fifteen-year-old boy that good at anything, refuses personal credit? Meanwhile, they have little reason to thank me as their products sell faster than anything else in the shop. And though I can see that Tommy is shy and private, he greets me by name every time, and his smile lights up my whole day. And every time they drop stuff off, every single time, they bring me a gift, essential oils they’ve made, preserves, a freshly baked pie, or organic produce.”

I greedily absorbed every bit of information she divulged. So unlike that encounter with that stealthy Jew in the airport who left not a shred of identifying information, I’ve already been given everything but this boy’s birth certificate. As fanciful as this may sound, it seemed part of the feeling I had at first eye contact that I had instantly become part of his mythic life, a life that seemed not from this era but a much earlier past of farms and carpentry where instead of school, a boy might work as an apprentice living in a tiny community in the woods with his master. Does that not sound mythic in itself?

The bad news, from the surveillance point of view, is the shop owner told me the community intentionally lives offline, and she could only communicate with them via email they checked when they came into town. These rustic details added to a mythic sense of Tommy as a kind of Huckleberry Finn, a storybook character from an earlier time incongruously living in the present age. He lives in a forest working with his hands and only occasionally sees the life of a small city when he comes into town to drop off furniture.

Since I knew exactly where to find him, I retreated to my hotel room and laptop to see what I could learn online. I soon discovered that his settlement was surrounded by national forest land, so it’ll be easy to surveil the community from a high vantage while camped in the nearby woods. I ordered a
fabulously expensive Zeiss spotting scope—got to love those German optics—as well as high-end night vision equipment, a tent and other things I’ll need to hide my vehicle and set up an observation post. Camping is permitted on national forest land, so all of this will be fully legal.

The settlement is at the bottom of a valley, so finding a nearby high observation spot will be easy. Again, that strange feeling that everything has been set up to facilitate my purposes. On the other hand, finding any neutral way to encounter Tommy again without drawing attention from other members of the community will be tricky. From their website, I learned that their community, called “The Friends,” sells organic produce and handcrafted products at a farmer’s market, so assuming Tommy helps out with that, it could be an opportunity for a casual encounter, but a brief one, and not the sort where there’d be an opportunity to convince him he should break free of a life he’s fully invested in. Also, Tommy would recognize me from our first encounter and would likely suspect I was following him. Besides, even if I did convince him to leave his community and come with me, I’d be transporting him across state lines and committing an intimidating list of felonies. Tommy’s consent would count for nothing if his guardians wanted to prosecute me. It would be far too dangerous unless they gave me written permission, and how would I ever manage that?

Now that I’ve asked the question, I see a possible answer. I could propose hiring Tommy for live-in custom carpentry work on my new home. To create a more plausible and wholesome scenario, I’d say that the house was purchased by my parents, and they’d put me in charge of supervising the finish work during my summer vacation from college. I was so impressed with the carpentry work I saw in the store that I knew they’d be perfect to do the needed custom cabinet work done on site. Of course, it would be too much to expect the master carpenter himself to relocate for such a project, but perhaps they would be willing to let the apprentice be hired out for such a project? They could set the price for his services. The house has several unoccupied rooms where Tommy could stay in comfort. All meals and expenses included. I have to admit, it’s quite a clever solution. I wouldn’t be meeting him again suspiciously but with plausible reason, and I actually need custom cabinetry and furniture.

But the giant flaw in this plan is they’d want me to supply them with the house address, so my secret headquarters and the involuntary guest facility would be known upfront. Perhaps they would even ask to speak to my parents to confirm this arrangement.

Too risky. I need to continue surveilling, and given how well all this has worked out so far, there will likely be other unexpected opportunities.

Perhaps someone reading this might think me diabolical plotting to separate this underage kid from his community. I claim no purity of motivation, but I have no intention of causing him harm. On the contrary, I wish only to liberate him from his world of wholesome mediocrity. Obviously, no one else would see the situation the way I do, but Tommy is clearly meant for more than carpentry and farming. His present life is holding him back from a greater destiny he could find with me, so I have only his best interests in mind.

Tommy’s Journal

It’s happened—the thing I sensed coming last night.

I was out in the woods picking blackberries. My basket is nearly full when a wave of slowtime passes over me and with it an intense sense of déjà vu like I’ve been in this moment before.

I need to be alone when slowtime happens. I’ll explain it later, but slowtime forces me to see into other people more than I want to—behind their thoughts and feelings. And that’s like disrespecting their privacy. So I take my basket and disappear into the woods to hide out in my treehouse.

From its high cedar deck, I look out over the sea of leafy branches and rolling hills that form the valley I live in. Gusts of wind rustle the canopy of leaves around me. The wind calms as the sun breaks through the clouds and lights up the forest with its golden rays. The warmth on my skin melts my uneasiness. I undo the tie holding my long, blonde hair and lie back on the deck. The grain of the cedar planks against my skin, and the smell of the newly sawed wood, make me feel like I’m on an old ship, sailing under the sun.

A fresh wind carries the evergreen scent of fir trees from deep in the valley, bringing me back to where I am. My sensations become intensely vivid, like I’m feeling everything for the first time. I reach into the basket, wanting to taste the blackberries.

They’re sweet and smooth, almost bubbly, sliding on my tongue. My senses cross, and their flavor becomes a deep purple light flowing into me.

Slowtime stretches every moment.

A great horned owl soars into view. I can see the brown and white stripes of its wind-ruffled feathers in perfect detail. The owl is like a banner rippling in the sky, bringing a message. It passes overhead and screeches, sending a current of fear through me. As the owl flies off, a strong gust of wind pushes dark clouds across the sun. I hear a distant rumble of thunder coming from the western part of the valley, followed by more gusts of wind. The sudden chill forces me to sit up and hug my knees to my chest for warmth.

The howling wind is making me shiver. The shivering builds until it becomes violent. It’s almost like a seizure or being electrocuted.

And then I become the electricity.

I erupt from my body into the howling wind, swiftly ascending toward the dark clouds above.

I look down and see my body on the deck of the treehouse, shrinking away as I rise higher and higher. I’m still sitting there hugging my knees, the windblown tree branches moving chaotically around me. But it’s too weird to view myself this way. I feel intense vertigo, like I’m about to plummet. A dizzy moment of panic throws me, and I drop—

Suddenly, I’m in my treehouse in the dark, feeling pain and fear. I hear gunfire in the distance and my mom telling me that everyone else is gone but that I must live, that I’m needed for something important. Then she tells me that someone will help me survive, but I must escape. “Leave now, Tommy!”

The urgency of her last command awakens me, and I open my eyes to the darkness inside the treehouse, but my mom isn’t there. She was talking to me in my head. I feel the horrible truth of what she said, everyone is gone. I remember hearing the gunshots, and now I realize what they mean. The Friends have all left their bodies, and I’m the only one left. The killer knows where I am, and he’s coming toward me. There’s no time to even dress or put on my shoes. I open the hatch, race halfway down the rope ladder, and jump onto the ground, ready to run, sensing the killer is almost upon me.

And then I look behind me and see a robot or a cyborg with a gun raised. But I know it’s not the killer, but the one who is going to help me survive. I hear a shot ring out and it jolts me out of my body, but at the same time, it jolts me back into my body to where I was having the vision on the treehouse deck. Was I killed by that shot? Killed in the vision?

I’m sitting on my treehouse deck as I was before the terrible vision. My arms are wrapped around my knees, and I’m shivering. I can still feel the sound of the shot ringing in my head.

The wind settles. Though the sky is still overcast, it’s no longer darkened by thunderclouds. The warmth of the humid air stops my shivering.

I sense someone is with me, watching. I can’t see anyone, but I feel their gaze emanating from a point in space about ten feet beyond my treehouse deck. I stare in that direction until an outline of light begins to form. From its center, a boy about my age comes into shape.

He’s glowing and not quite solid in the way I am. As his body takes on definition, I discover something terrible has happened. His clothes are burnt, and much of his skin is charred. I try to hide my shock at the sight of his burns. The fire hasn’t touched his face, so I focus on his intelligent, brown eyes looking deeply into me. I’m struck by how calm and aware he seems, even though he’s in such a terrible state.

I think of my volunteer work at the hospice. I’d been with old people as they transitioned at the edge of death. Sometimes they communicated with me. Other times they’d just look back at their body and depart.

But he’s my age. He needs to live.

As I look into his eyes, it’s like I’m being seen for the first time. Understood for the first time.

I want him to live. I need him to help me understand what just happened—what’s coming—it feels like there’s something important we must do together—

Like knowing in a dream, I realize certain things about him.

We’re so different.

He’s grown up in a city world with books and complex ideas. His dark hair and eyes against his pale skin suggest an ethnicity I can’t name. We’re from different backgrounds and even different bloodlines. And yet, there’s a bond of brotherhood between us. Whatever’s coming has brought us together. I sense he understands much of what I do about this moment. His dark eyes are like portals of awareness, and I want to know the depths he’s seeing. It’s the moment to say something.

“Hey.” Despite the strangeness of the situation, I keep my voice calm and friendly. “I’m Tommy. What’s your name?”

“Andrew,” he replies.

“Welcome to my treehouse, Andrew. Can you—would you like to sit with me?”

He looks at me uncertainly. I smile and pat the deck with a welcoming gesture. He flickers for a moment and suddenly is sitting across from me. Closeness makes him seem more solid, and I realize that he’s not only my age but almost exactly my size. I want to hug him, my usual way of greeting people, but I don’t want to shock the fragile sort of body he’s in.

“Where are we?” he asks.

“Vermont. A valley in the Green Mountains.”

He turns to look out, but as soon as we break eye contact, his body begins to thin. He looks back in a panic, and our gazes lock as we realize something. We need to stay focused on each other to keep him in my world. So I slow my breathing and surround him with my energy to help him stay with me.

“What happened to you, Andrew?”

“I was . . .” Andrew hesitates, and his vision turns inside for a moment. “I found myself looking down at the wreck below. There were two smashed-up metal hulks. Smoke was coming from the one that was once our—”

He stops talking as his eyes fill with tears and cast downward as if he’s still seeing the wreck. He’s trembling, and I feel him trying to contain his feelings. I sense he’s afraid they’ll disturb me. He gathers himself, and when he looks up, his eyes are haunted, but his voice is calm and almost trancelike.

“There was broken glass everywhere. Flashes of red and blue lights from emergency vehicles lit up the fragments like rubies and sapphires. It all looked so strange, but sort of eerily beautiful too. There was a feeling everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be. The wreck was just something that unfolded in time—like a flower bud opening its petals.

“I let go of it and ascended into space. And . . .”

He seems confused and he looks downward again. It’s like he’s realizing he shouldn’t tell me certain things. When he looks up, his gaze steadies.

“I blacked out. And when I woke up, I was floating near your treehouse.”

“Well, I’m really glad you found me,” I say with a welcoming smile.

“I’m glad you found me too,” he replies. “At first, you didn’t see me. I watched you. I saw you shivering, and it made me feel cold. Then, when you rose out of your body, I went with you, almost like we were the same person. I saw and felt with you. You’re in danger, your whole world, and I want to help you– there’s something we’re needed to do.”

I let out a breath, grateful that Andrew experienced the vision with me. But then I feel a pang of fear. I sense that our time is extremely limited.

“How do I find you?” I ask, feeling a sense of desperation.

“I don’t think you can, Tommy– we’re not in the same time. But one day, I will find you.”

I’m about to ask him more, but something in his gaze quiets me. We look into each other’s eyes and then . . .

We merge.

It’s like we fell into each other. We were still ourselves, only swirling together without our bodies. Two sides of the same being. I really can’t describe it any better than that. I saw with my soul instead of my eyes, like some kind of revelation.

Then we separate. We’re still sitting across from each other on the treehouse deck. Andrew gives me an intense look.

“Tommy—” he begins to say when an electric shock arcs through his chest. His body seizes, and he vanishes in a flash. It happens so quickly I can’t even react. The empty silence he leaves behind is crushing, and there’s a painful moment where I’m afraid I’ve lost him forever.

He was ripped out of my world, and I’ll never know—What, Andrew? What were you going to say?

And then, I hear him.

“Tommy . . .”

His voice seems to stretch across space and time, like it’s traveling an impossible distance to reach me. An echo of an echo.

“I will find you, Tommy.”

I’m waiting for something more, sitting at the edge of the deck, listening like I’ve never listened before. But all I hear is the wind.

In my mind, the echo of his words trails off.

I will find you, Tommy . . .

I stay on the deck for quite a while—an hour, maybe longer—searching for a trace of his presence. Hoping for something more. But he’s gone.

Before I climb down, I take a last look around. There are only treetops as far as I can see while the sun drops toward the ridgeline in the distance. I don’t know if my words will reach him, but I whisper a promise into the silence.

“Andrew . . . we’ll figure it out.”

I feel the moment rippling in time.

That was only a few hours ago, but the encounter feels like something that’s always been with me–and writing about it –the words flowed out of me, almost like I had written about it before.

Should I warn the others? But warn them about what? I know that visions can be more like dreams, and not to be taken literally. It was all so absurd—a robot holding a gun sent to protect me and then a shot that jolts me out of my body. Did I die in that vision? Is that what’s going to happen? If I tell anyone, there just going to say I had a bad dream or some kind of episode. But it all felt so real, and when I saw Andrew, I know I wasn’t dreaming or just seeing a vision in my head. Andrew is real. But if I told them, it would sound like crazy talk and some would think that my work at the hospice is making me unstable. And If I told them anything, I’d really have to tell them everything—slowtime, quicktime, and all the other visions.

I can’t stop thinking about Andrew. He said we weren’t in the same time, but that he would find me one day. I believe him, but that time might be far away.

The truth is Andrew left me with a lot of really personal feelings about him which is a little embarrassing to write about knowing someone might read this one day. He seems like the friend I’ve always been looking for, someone who understands, who understands me and all the strangeness. We have a deep bond, like we’ve always known each other. At the same time, we’re so different. All I know is what I’ve learned here in my little community and from working at the hospice, but Andrew feels like he’s seen the wider world. I could tell he’s from a big city like New York. I feel like just a farm boy compared to him, and yet he seemed just as interested in me as I was in him

I need Andrew to help me understand what’s happening to me, the changes, and it feels like together, we could figure out what’s coming and what to do about it. His eyes had so much inner knowing—it felt like he could see through anything and understood me perfectly, and when we merged . . . I don’t even know how to describe it– I wish I could experience it again—It was like we became part of each other. It’s left me feeling an overpowering love and attraction for him, like he’s more than a friend—a soulmate, someone I’m meant to be with.

***

I know this will sound paranoid, but I think I’m being watched. It’s been a few days since my last entry, and there have been more strange episodes I need to write about.

I was getting ready to leave the hospice in Bridgeton with my mom, and before we even left the building, my heart was pounding, and there was cold sweat on my hands. I was shaking and scared, but I had no idea what it was about. As soon as we walked outside, I saw a guy in a pickup truck parked at the corner staring at me and grinning. He had long, greasy hair and a scraggly beard, and his stare felt like a physical attack and . . . this is hard to even write about, but he had really bad sexual intentions toward me, and I could sense what he wanted to do to me– it was almost like he was doing it to me, and it felt horrible like someone stabbing me in an alley. But that’s more like a comparison, and I don’t even want to put into words the images that flashed into me.

I felt a little safer once we were in my mom’s car, but my heart was pounding like crazy, and I had cold sweat all over.
My mom looked at me and said, “Tommy, what’s wrong? You’re so pale. Are you ill?” I had no idea what to say, but I had to say something.

“I think I might be having an allergic reaction to something.” She put her hand to my forehead.

“You don’t feel hot,” she said. “Tommy, did you eat something at the hospice?”

“Yeah, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

“Tommy, I told you about the hospice food. Most hospital food is terrible.” As we pulled out, she told me everything that would be wrong with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made by the hospice, but I was only half listening. I saw the truck pulling out just after we did. It had Maine plates.

“Tommy, from now on, I want you to make your own lunch and bring it with you, OK?”

“You’re right, mom. I will. I promise.”

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the truck following us for a while, but then it turned off somewhere. I had a feeling I’d seen that truck somewhere before.

And then, two days later, I did see that truck again. I was back in Bridgton with Dorothy picking up supplies. She needed me to carry stuff into our truck because her knees are really bad. I saw the truck with Maine plates again, but the sun was glinting off the windows, so I couldn’t see inside. But I could feel that man staring at me, and I felt like prey, like a mouse walking by a hawk. I didn’t want to show it, so I hauled everything into our truck without looking toward where I felt the man watching.

And then, when we were pulling out, I had a terrifying vision. I saw the truck, the store, and the surroundings with my regular eyes, but with some other kind of vision, I saw something else, an evil creature or entity. I could tell it was not in this world like everything else because it wasn’t reflecting the light of the sun and it had no color, only a pale glow. It was like it was peering in from another dimension that was underneath or above the world I’m in. It looked something like a giant translucent spider but with a weird head like an upside-down pear with large black eyes peering into me. I could see that the man inside the truck was just its puppet, a puppet it had heated up and set on my track. The entity was showing itself, wanting me to see it, wanting me to know that there was another level of reality controlling things in my world like a hidden hand moving pieces on a chessboard, shifting my destiny for its own purposes. The vision lasted for just a moment, but it scalded my mind. It was like the entity had peeled back the surface of the world to show me I was not in control of my life and that there are other dimensions and designs going on beyond my comprehension. Then the flap it opened in the surface of my world dropped back, and I felt horribly nauseous. I kept my face turned away from Dorothy so she wouldn’t see the spasms of sickness going through me, contorting my body, almost doubling me up. Dorothy is a super careful driver, so I knew she would keep her eyes on the road, and if I didn’t squirm too much, she might not notice, but then she did.

“Tommy, are you—”

“Can you pull over please, I might need to throw up.”

She pulled over, and I walked into the woods, crouched down and did a couple of dry heaves. The nauseous spasms passed, but I still felt sick. While I walked back to the truck, I decided to tell Dorothy the story I told my mom about eating something at the hospice that disagreed with me. I hated having to lie, but felt like I had to, and I knew it would fit with what the Friends believe, and that I believe as much as anyone, that food from the outside world is suspect and to be avoided.

Dorothy is our master herbalist, and she offered to make me her tea for nausea with ginger, chamomile, honey-lemon, fennel, peppermint and licorice. I thanked her and told her it was exactly what I needed, and she let it rest. Dorothy is really great that way, she can sense when it’s better not to talk and lets me be in my own space when I need that.

The tea actually did help, not just the herbs, but I could feel the love Dorothy put into it and it calmed me. . As I sat on the porch of her cabin drinking the tea, I forced myself to think back to the vision. It had this really odd twist. I know that people throughout time have believed in evil entities like the devil, but that was just like a distant fact in my mind, like knowing that the Egyptians built pyramids a long time ago. To actually encounter such an entity was a horrifying shock. But that wasn’t the odd twist. The strangest part was the sense that it was showing itself purposefully and not just to frighten me, but almost like for my benefit, like it wanted me to know things.

The strange things happening to me aren’t just my imagination. I am being watched, and not everything watching me is evil. I’ve always felt the other Tommy, the older one, concerned about me, and the strangeness brought me Andrew and the hope that one day he will find me and help me understand what’s happening and that we will face it together.

And then, just yesterday, another strange thing happened, another watcher appeared. I drove into Burlington with Matthew to drop off furniture at the store that sells our stuff, something we do about once every six weeks or so. There was a young guy wearing dark sunglasses who stopped to let us carry a heavy chest into the store, and I could feel him staring at me. I had a moment of slowtime, just a moment, which is not how slowtime usually works, and I turned to look at him, and . . . it was weird, not scary but not comfortable either and . . . it was like we were reading each other’s minds. It felt like he was sa py sent to find me or something like that. He was so well dressed and good-looking, like a model or someone in a movie. I’m not sure what I read from him, but he seemed highly intelligent and intensely interested in me, observing me, almost like there were high-res cameras behind those sunglass lenses recording everything about me, every detail.

He was another watcher, but I don’t think he had any connection to the scraggly guy in the pickup truck. He was almost the opposite of that guy in the way he looked. Not a hair was out of place, and he looked almost weirdly perfect, like a European model you would see in a glossy magazine ad. He seemed out of place in Vermont and more like someone you would see in Paris or New York, someone from a super-rich family, but not just a lazy rich kid– but someone on a mission, like he was in an espionage movie. He was so alert, and I could feel his whole mind focusing on me like I was the person he had been sent to find.

When we came out of the store to get the next item, he was gone, but I could feel him still thinking about me and watching from a distance. But it didn’t feel horrible or anything like with that other guy. He didn’t feel like a threat, but almost like I was in a movie with him, like he was going to bring me a secret message or something. I know anyone reading this probably thinks I’m a kid with an over-active imagination, but I’ve learned to trust my strange feelings, and I’m sure there’s something to what I picked up.

There’s some deeper pattern playing out– all these strange encounters in just a few days—Andrew, that sex predator guy, the entity, and now this young spy or whatever he is. The weirdness just keeps piling on, and I’m struggling,
trying not to be so overwhelmed that others will sense that something’s wrong.

I’m glad it’s all written down now, because if I told anyone about all this, I’m sure they would think I was crazy and maybe needed to be hospitalized and checked for schizophrenia.

I’ve got to keep myself together because I’m needed for something, something related to all the strangeness, whatever it is that Andrew will help me with one day. But part of me wishes I could just be a kid again. I feel like my life doesn’t belong to me anymore and I can’t control what’s happening to me. I’m caught up in something that’s bigger than I am and it’s racing me along its own path and there’s no way off– I have to let it take me. Part of me wants to just be normal, like the other Friends. But when I look back on my life, I was never normal, there was always another level of things going on that I haven’t shared with anyone. Maybe now I have by writing this journal. Having this place to talk about what’s really happening with me is helping to keep me sane, but I’m not sure how much more of this I can take because everything keeps intensifying. How can I keep living two lives, the one I let The Friends see, the life of trying to look normal on the outside, and this other life that’s pulling me away from The Friends more every day? My normal life is getting shakier while the other life is taking me over and has purposes for me I don’t understand. All I can do is keep going and do the best I can for the others.

Max’s Journal

I’m writing from inside my camouflaged tent in national forest land surrounding Tommy’s settlement. The tent is beneath an easy-to-climb maple tree that gives me a line of sight to everything going on in the community that’s visible from the outside. I stripped away some leaves and installed a parabolic mic I can aim remotely that allows me to pick up fragments of conversation. I also have two cameras with zoom lenses—one with night vision, and I can operate and monitor them from within the tent, but they don’t see as much as I can with the Zeiss spotting scope when I clamp it to a branch. It’s the best I can do to surveil a radio-silent community. I’m like an anthropologist observing a tribe from a hidden distance, but I don’t learn as much as I want to. Fortunately, it’s summer, so people are outside a lot, and I can get eyes and ears on Tommy many times a day. I’ve learned that he has a treehouse in the forest at the legal edge of the settlement property. The treehouse is beautifully constructed, and no doubt made by Tommy, and a few times I ‘ve seen him sitting on its small deck. I set up a well-disguised camera and mic on a tree in nearby national forest land to monitor the treehouse. Even if he found that set up, it’s an off-the-shelf trail cam of the sort the Forest Service uses to monitor wildlife, though it’s set up higher than a trail cam typically would be unless it were there to observe avian life.

I can recharge all my devices from my electric vehicle which is parked under camouflaged netting in an unused dirt road to nowhere overgrown with weeds. The vehicle is packed with enough freeze-dried food, and other supplies sufficient for me to maintain my post for weeks if necessary.

I’m enjoying my setup as I’ve been meaning to learn how to operate in the wilderness for years. Thanks to a satellite phone, I have all the connectivity I need to continue my financial transactions. I can also keep an eye on my home base a couple hundred miles away which, as you might expect, is equipped with many cameras within and without.

What I don’t have access to, unfortunately, is what’s going on inside Tommy’s mind. These people emit no electronic signals whatsoever. Nevertheless, I’ve learned some interesting things. There is someone else lurking about this national forest land. I’ve observed him several times—a sketchy-looking guy with disgustingly greasy hair. He always wears camo and has a rifle with a scope slung around his shoulders. He may be a hunter, but he’s not wearing the legally required orange, so perhaps he’s a poacher illegally hunting off-season. He seems like a dangerous vagrant, perhaps ex-military, but he won’t come upon me undetected as I have motion-sensing cameras defending the whole perimeter of my campsite, and I’m never without weapons. I’ve trained extensively at gun ranges. Not that I want the risk of taking out a vagrant, of course, but I’m prepared for all contingencies. Of any anomalous physical capabilities I have, deadly aim is chief among them as verified by my target hits at ranges.

And, speaking of anomalous physical abilities—Tommy. This is by far the most interesting product of all my surveillance. On three occasions, I’ve observed Tommy working on manual tasks with blurred motion speed. In each of these cases, he’s always alone and in a place where no one in his community can observe him. In one case, he slowed when someone began walking in his direction, though that person was outside his line of sight. I had a distinct impression that he detected their approach with some other sense than vision. These observations were all made with the Zeiss spotting scope which unfortunately does not record video, but I know what I saw–unmistakable evidence that Tommy is a true anomaly. If he’s able to speed up his mind as well as his body when he wants to, that would be quite the useful double power.

This boy is the most priceless asset I’ve ever been able to track, and I’m determined to do whatever I can to form an alliance, but the right opportunity has yet to appear. The one move I could make, approaching him and Matthew at the store in Burlington to inquire about live-in carpentry work or sending a message via the contact form on their community website is too risky. There could be a quick rebuff, and if I could put that plan into action, my secret home base would have to be revealed.

The other things I’ve learned about Tommy are more general. He certainly has a work ethic and everything he does, he does efficiently, which is certainly a good recommendation to a German like myself. When he’s not in the carpentry shop, he’s busy helping out with everything else. And I’ve seen people call on him for help, and he always cheerfully obliges.

Tommy greets everybody with a hug, which bothers me for a couple of reasons. One is that it shows how deeply he feels connected to this little rustic. The other is that it’s so weirdly dissimilar to how I interact. I abhor bodily contact with others though I’d make an exception for just the right sexual opportunity, something I-ve yet to experience. I’m disgusted when people at stores or busy streets encroach my physical space. I’ve learned to deal with space-invading American informality, but if people want to even fist bump with me, I find it highly distasteful. Tommy hugs everyone he encounters, and they all smile and seem to enjoy it, which makes me feel jealous. It’s an aspect of him that makes me uncomfortable, like he’s giving himself away too freely.

But when I observe Tommy by himself, he seems quite different than when he’s with others. His ever-friendly smile is replaced by a serious demeanor, and he seems truly alone and perhaps troubled. He’s obviously keeping his anomalous aspects hidden from the others.

Yesterday, I observed him loading sacks of something onto the back of one of their pickup trucks. It was oppressively hot and humid, so he took his shirt off. His face has the softness one would expect to see even on a slender fifteen-year-old, but the body revealed had perfect muscle definition, an eight-pack of abdominal muscles, and I could see the sinews across his chest as he worked.

His muscle definition was beyond anything I’ve achieved working out with free weights and machines during my intense gym workouts. And now, out here without access to even a hotel gym, I am certainly losing some muscle tone. I doubt there’s any gym in this primitive settlement, so Tommy’s athleticism must be the result of genetics combined with all the manual labor he does. I have to admit my feelings about him changed instantly when I saw him shirtless and all muscley and glistening with sweat. I felt a sharp spike of desire. He’s the most exquisite physical specimen I’ve ever seen. I had thought his beauty was mainly in his angelic face and graceful, slender form, but I did not anticipate the athletic perfection of his body. The intensification of desire is a new factor I must take into account because I feel it straining against my patience to observe and wait for just the right opportunity.

It feels like Tommy is my discovery, and I don’t want his body to be seen by others who might desire him as I do. I’ve become jealous of all the people in his community who can walk up to him, receive hugs, and command him to do anything they task him with. Obviously, I want to be the one he hugs and who commands him. They all seem to take him for granted as their property without realizing what an incredibly valuable asset they are wasting on all these mundane labors. It seems obvious that he will remain trapped in this tiny, stagnant world of rustic mediocrity unless I can find a way to liberate him.

***

The opportunity came, but in a form that was far more dangerous and dramatic than I could have imagined.

I awaken in my tent to the sound of distant gunfire. None of my proximity alarms has gone off, so I know my site is not being invaded. I turn on all my screens to get a view from every camera. It’s a moonless night, but I see muzzle flashes lighting up in the settlement. There appears to be only one shooter, and he’s moving quickly from cabin to cabin. No time to assess risk, I must protect Tommy. I put on my night camo, strap on all my weapons and night vision headset. I’m out of the tent in two minutes moving swiftly and stealthfully toward the tree house.

Primordial predatory instincts take over, and I have flashes of intuition, all of which prove accurate. The shooter is the vagrant with the rifle, and he had surveilled the whole settlement and will certainly know about the treehouse. I feel tapped into the shooter’s mind and intentions. He’s not a professional but an insane rampage shooter taking pleasure in killing, and I sense his goal is Tommy, and his malevolent intentions are sexual. The sense of him and what he wants with Tommy fill me with murderous rage.

A screen strapped to my forearm allows me to continue monitoring the cameras. The infrared picks up the killer as a blotch of red and orange moving toward the treehouse. I sprint to be sure I get there before him. I hide behind trees a dozen feet from the back of the treehouse and get my weapons ready. My night vision is picking him out in the darkness, so I know where he’ll emerge.

I shut off my screen to keep myself invisible and click the safety off my rifle. Night vision shows him moving through the woods as an orange and red splotch, approaching the tree house.

And then, just before he emerges from the path, a dangerous complication. I hear the hatch beneath the treehouse open, and Tommy comes down the rope ladder, putting himself between me and the killer. Halfway down the rope ladder, Tommy jumps and lands like a cat crouched down. Time slows as I recognize that while Tommy is low to the ground is the moment to take the kill shot. With my laser rangefinder, I paint a red dot at the center of the killer’s forehead. Every split second is a vivid frame in my mind. The killer must feel the laser because his mouth drops open in surprise just before I pull the trigger and take him down with one perfect shot.

I step out from my hidden spot, and Tommy instantly swivels toward me and looks at me like I’m something inhuman. Then I realize–I take off the night-vision headgear, and he blinks. I can tell he recognizes me from our brief encounter. I’m in a state of primal awareness as is Tommy. We’re both sped up in instinctive action mode.

At first, Tommy is poised like a cat, crouched low, ready to spring away, but as soon as I remove the night vision, and he recognizes me, our alliance forms–a primordial bond like combat soldiers united in battle. I come toward him, and he stands up straight. His eyes are dilated by shock and darkness, but they’re also hyper-alert and tuned in.

I need him to escape with me, but he’s standing there almost naked in his underwear, an electrifying sight, but I know he can’t travel that way. I decide to inject a bit of humor to calm things down, so I revive my German accent and say, “Come vit wit me if you vant to live.” I can tell he recognizes the line, but he’s not in a state to find anything funny. “We need to leave here as quickly as possible,” I add in unaccented English.

“But someone might still be alive down there,” he says.

“You know they aren’t,” I reply firmly. A look of intelligent acknowledgment from Tommy. “We need to leave here, or we’ll lose our freedom. If you stay, you’ll end up in some horrible foster home. I’m here to protect you and take you to safety,” I say in a commanding tone.

I see high-speed assessment and acknowledgement in his eyes. I gesture toward the treehouse. “Go back up there and get some clothes, shoes, and anything essential as quickly as possible. I will stand guard down here.” Tommy nods, and with admirable speed and efficiency, carries out my instructions.

My mind is working at lightning speed, and it’s mutual–we’re linked in primal survival mode, working as a team, and Tommy’s gift for speed is enhancing my own. In the two minutes it takes for Tommy to dress and pack, my mind organizes an escape plan. I can abandon the cameras and parabolic mic as I had the foresight to wear gloves when I installed those. Investigators will assume they’d been installed by the killer, and I’d purchased everything via untraceable means. But my tent and its contents are covered with my DNA and fingerprints and must be packed out. I organize the packing step-by-step in my mind including how I will delegate part of the labor to Tommy.

As soon as my plan is complete, Tommy’s coming down the rope ladder fully dressed and with a knapsack on his back.

“This way,” I say, and we run through the woods to my campsite. I throw everything out of my camouflaged dome tent and command Tommy, “Break down this tent for me,” he nods and speedily sets to work. I jam everything else into my large backpack, and Tommy, working with dazzling speed, gets the tent broken down and in its stuff stack.

Tommy has shut off all his emotions except survival urgency. In those moments, we are more alike and unified than we’ve been since. But I have total confidence that in another emergency, we’d be back in that mode, tuned-in survivors, like combat soldiers, wordlessly aligned in efficient action and teamwork.

Packs back on, we race toward my vehicle. I lead the way, and Tommy follows.

I yank the camo netting off and use my remote to open the gullwing doors and trunk. In seconds, our packs are stowed and we’re inside the vehicle.

“Put your seat belt on,” I tell Tommy, but he’s already reaching for it. I put on my night vision headset so we can travel without headlights for our immediate escape. Tommy is startled by the silent acceleration of the powerful electric motors and that pleases me. He’d grown up with old gas and diesel pickup trucks and is getting his first exposure to cutting-edge technology.

Once we make it to asphalt, I take off the night vision, and our mutual adrenaline-fueled speedy mode begins to settle down. I set cruise control to five miles above the speed limit and meticulously obey every traffic rule during the two-hundred-mile drive to my home base. We’re still in a risky zone because any police pull-over is a potential disaster until I can create a new identity for Tommy as an eighteen-year-old with ID to match.

Tommy has the presence of mind to remain completely silent to allow me to focus on driving until we merge with interstate traffic.

The quiet time gives me a chance to plan what I will say once Tommy asks the inevitable questions. Intuitively, I sense it’ll be better to let him speak first to ensure his mind is settled. Now that we’re removed from the scene of carnage, I can feel his wariness as his dilated green eyes turn toward me. He takes a deep breath, summoning his will to speak. So far, he’s mostly given me only wordless acknowledgements. I sense the nature of his hesitation. Once he speaks, the situation will become real in a different way. It will threaten his emotional disassociation and that will be too overwhelming to deal with in the presence of an anomalous stranger.

Tommy takes a deep breath and speaks in a quiet but clear voice. It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak close up, his voice is as mellifluous and lovely as his form.

“Thank you for saving my life. My name is Tommy . . . Who are you?” I feel what’s beneath his words. What he’s really asking is not my name, but what are you? And there’s fear behind the question. He’d been raised in a community devoted to nonviolence and he’d just seen me kill a man. It hadn’t occurred to me yet, a new part of my identity–I am now a killer. I want to reassure him and realize I should stay as close to the truth as possible without revealing everything, but I’d already planned my words.

“My name is Max,” I reply, “and like you, I’m an unusual person, and I recognized you as another such highly unusual person from the first moment I saw you outside that store in Burlington.” I give him a couple of moments to absorb this. But then I make the mistake of stretching the truth. “I sensed you were in some sort of danger, so I decided to camp out in the national forest land to keep an eye on your settlement in case you needed help.” Tommy’s wariness intensifies. He can tell I’m not being truthful.

“Of course, that’s not the whole story, but there will be time for all that once we’ve reached safety.”

“Where are we going?”

“My homebase, which is,” I glance at my GPS screen, “one hundred and seventy-seven miles away.”

He makes no response. As the silence stretches a terrible strain in Tommy intensifies. He’s losing his struggle to contain his feelings. I’ve never had that struggle, but I can feel his whole body shift and–it must be a mirror neuron or psychic attunement thing because I feel a surge of emotion myself—and it’s something I’ve never felt before, I’m not sure how else to describe it except as an intense sympathy for him. Suddenly, he looks so young and vulnerable.

In a gentle voice, I tell him to look in the back seat for a couple of water bottles. He does, and I try to think of something appropriately sympathetic to say. The best I can come up with is a line I heard multiple times at the funeral of my Uncle Hans. Tommy hands me a water bottle, and I see his hands are shaking.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say. The words trigger something in Tommy, a permission for him to release the emotion he’s straining to hold back. The floodgate opens, his head drops, and he begins sobbing convulsively. He bends over to hide his face behind his long golden hair.

I’ve never been so physically close to someone feeling such a strong emotion, which creates strange bodily sensations. It’s a shock, like waves of electricity and heat running through me. I can’t feel what he’s feeling as I’ve never grieved for anyone, so it’s an alien emotion. As much as they annoy me, if my parents were killed, I think I would recognize it as a significant moment. I’d probably take the day off to decompress or something, but then I’d be over it. If someone is dead, they’re dead, so what’s the point in overreacting? It’s not going to change anything.

But Tommy is obviously not like me. I feel the intensity of his grief as a bodily sensation like a fever rising up all around me. I keep my eyes on the road to keep the intensity of Tommy’s emotion from disorienting me. His whole body is convulsing with sorrow, and it’s so raw, so undisguised, and vulnerable. I’ve never witnessed anything like it.

The wheels in my mind stop spinning. This isn’t something I can analyze from a distance. Tommy is in a state of agony and there’s no one to help him except me, but I have no idea what to do except to be a silent and sympathetic witness. And, I must admit the truth, I’m in a state of shock myself. We’re still linked in a primordial bond, and I’d never been so close to such intense emotion and never had a sympathetic reaction to anyone before. It’s a new and unexpected dimension of experience and it disorients me. I even feel my eyes tearing up in some sort of mirror-neuron effect. I’m not quite myself anymore because my energy is overlapping with his. I’d always viewed the world through a kind of scrolling data screen heads-up display, like a Terminator, but these new sensations shatter my ability to analyze this new phenomenon from a distance.

There’s no action to take except to silently continue driving. This is a private experience he’s having. In films, I’ve seen people put a hand on the back of someone suffering such emotion, but I’m a stranger, and this is not the time to violate his physical space. I’ve no experience saying anything sympathetic to anyone, so any stock lines I know to such effect will just ring false.

The convulsive sobbing slows, and Tommy raises himself back up.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll calm down in a minute.” He leans back in his seat, and I glance at him. His tearful eyes are gazing up toward the night sky and—it’s like his whole being is exposed in his eyes, and he’s so vulnerable and suffering such emotion. I don’t even know how to describe it, but I feel a surge of sympathy for him that’s like electricity running through me.

“Maybe you should drink some water,” I say. He nods and opens his water bottle. It was the right thing to say. He doesn’t need a stranger who doesn’t understand what he’s feeling intruding on his private experience, so I’m actually being respectful and appropriate. “If you open the glove box, you will find tissues.” He follows my suggestion.

“Thank you,” he says. “I’m sorry for my . . .” he hesitates, searching for a word, “for my outburst. I’m going to be calm now.”

“Tommy, there’s no need to apologize, I’m sure your emotions are . . .perfectly appropriate to the terrible situation you’ve just lived through.”

“Thank you,” he says. “And thank you again for saving my life. I would thank you more, but I’m still in shock. But I’m going to be calm now, I promise.”

“Well, take your time. It’s OK to feel what you’re feeling. Can I get you something? Do you need a restroom break or anything?”

“No, I’m fine, but thank you for asking.”

We drive in silence, letting things settle. My whole sense of my self is shifting and forming a new identity. I am now a proven warrior, a killer, but I am also this boy’s protector, and I feel a certain pride and warmth as I realize this.

There’s a silent rapport between us. The sympathy presents as less of an electricity noe, and more of a steady glow emanating from my upper abdomen. I’ve underestimated how I’d be affected by an alliance with Tommy. I’d rehearsed opening conversational ploys, imagining a complex and tense negotiation where I’d have to have an answer for everything to persuade him to leave his life behind and join forces with me. But all my rehearsals of how that would work are now irrelevant. Obviously, they’re irrelevant since the life he once had is gone and through no effort on my part, but it’s much more than that.
In all my projections of how I would conduct myself, I was my usual, calculating self. I had drastically underestimated the nature of a bond with such a dissimilarly anomalous person, an empathic person. Just as he had helped to activate his anomalously high speed mode in me during the escape, his intense emotionality in the close quarters of the car is causing me to feel things I’ve never felt before.

These feelings are disorienting, but I need to stay calm and reassuring to help him. There are no specific actions for me to take. I’m helping him by remaining calm and in control of the situation, but even more by sympathetic resonance. He’s changing me, but not by any conscious effort—it’s like his nature is adapting me to his needs, the way the rhythm of a cat’s purr can entrain your rhythm and force you to relax.

As I drive, I feel every alteration in Tommy’s state without even looking at him. I sense him composing himself to speak, and a moment later, he does.

“When I first saw you at the store, and our eyes met, I felt you were on a mission of some sort, like you’d been sent to find me.”

Tommy turns to look at me, but I keep my eyes on the road, it will be too distracting to meet his gaze. I feel him gently but warily studying me.

“Were you–are you–on a mission? Were you—looking for me?”

“Yes. But I wasn’t specifically looking for you, not until I found you that is. I was looking for another anomalous person like myself.”

“Anomalous? I’m sorry, I don’t know that word.”

“It just means highly unusual, exceptional. I use the term to refer to someone aware of things others aren’t, a new human type. I’d seen two such persons when I was younger, but in both cases, it was at an airport, and there was no way to make contact. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were another anomaly as much as I am, but in highly dissimilar ways. And I knew it would be important to make contact.”

“Did you actually sense that I was in danger?” My pulse quickens as I sense Tommy reading me in his gentle but warily observant way, and I feel his truth sense cornering me. But . . . truthfulness is not the way I operate. As you see in this journal, I’m honest with myself, but to be forced into that with another feels wrong, a relinquishing of control. My mind races to find a workaround while Tommy studies me. I feel the acuteness of his perception in my whole body and realize that any degree of falsity will be detected and endanger our alliance. My only option is selective truthfulness.

“No, not in the sense of what happened tonight. I sensed you were in a general danger of being isolated by your anomalous qualities, and I thought if I could make contact with you, it would be . . . helpful.”

My reply is skillful, but I can tell Tommy senses it’s not the whole truth.

“I see,” said Tommy, studying me. “I sensed you were on a mission, are you?”

“Yes. I wanted to find another anomalous person like myself—” I hesitate, realizing that continued truthfulness in that direction will be risky, so I diverge while keeping to true statements. “When I turned eighteen, just a couple of months ago, I set off on that mission. I had already developed independent means—”

“Independent means? You mean like–money?”

“Yes, exactly, money, lots of money by working crypto and stock markets. Money is the way to freedom. With money I can obtain anything—like this vehicle. And I can show you how to obtain more money than you’ve ever dreamed of.”

I immediately regret my last statement as I feel his wariness intensify. My words have landed poorly, and his feelings alter mine. I feel gross, like a pervert tempting a child with candy to lure then into a van. I scramble to think of something to say, but I’m confused about what offended him, so all I can do is admit my perplexity. “Don’t you want money?”

Tommy considers, but I’m at a loss to understand why. It’s like I’ve asked him if he wants to keep breathing, and he’s not sure.

“I was brought up not to value money as an end itself, just as something necessary to trade for needed supplies. I know it’s not the way most people live, but in our community, income was put into a shared fund used for community needs, and anything extra was divided up equally, so we’d all have some pocket money when we’d go into town. I’ve never lacked for food, shelter, clothes or anything I actually needed, so I guess I’m naïve. We were getting by, so I haven’t actually given money much thought. But I can see why you’d want a really cool car like this. And now . . .” I felt Tommy straining to contain his emotion, “I guess now I will have to start thinking about money.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, Tommy, I can provide everything you need.”

“But that doesn’t seem right,” he replies. “In my community, since I was a child, I’ve always worked, I made woodcrafts, essential oils, helped grow our food and tend animals, and doing any kind of work that needed doing, so I didn’t feel bad about getting my share. If you’re going to help me out, I want to work in exchange. We’re going to your house—I can do housework, cooking, cleaning, carpentry. I can grow vegetables and other crops if you have land. I’m a good worker, and I wouldn’t want to be a . . . Tommy searched for a word, “A freeloader. And besides that . . .” Tommy takes a deep breath. “I owe you my life. You deserve infinite work from me.” His words of gratitude fill me with an unfamiliar warmth.

“OK, well that’s great,” I reply. “I can always use help, and you obviously have many useful skills.” Tommy seems satisfied with that answer.

“So your mission was to find another anomalous person? But then what?” His last question throws me off balance.

“Then . . . I would . . . try to form an alliance with them.”

“An alliance? You mean like being friends with them?”

“Right.”

“And . . . is that the whole mission or is there more?”

“Well, finding another anomalous person and forming an alliance—becoming friends with them—would be a big step, and then we could figure out what we would do next together.” I stop, realizing this as much as I can safely divulge.

“I see,” says Tommy, studying me. “I feel like I’m on a mission, but I don’t know what it is, just that it’s more important than I am. And I was told—” Tommy is overwhelmed by emotion again and struggles to contain it, his voice is strained, almost strangled when he continues, “I was told that I must survive because I’m needed for something important.” Tommy slumps back in his seat, unable to continue. His head slumps, and I know not to intrude. We drive silently, while Tommy processes his feelings. Whoever told him that he was needed for something important, must be one of the people who was killed.

A few minutes go by before it feels right to break the silence. I don’t want to trigger more emotion, so I look for something pleasant or neutral to discuss.

“That treehouse was so beautifully constructed–did you build it?”

“Yes, thank you. It was a master project in my carpentry apprenticeship.” I could feel Tommy being pulled by memories that will stir up more grief, so I try to divert him.

“Well, I didn’t build my house, but I did design it. And come to think of it, it has a certain resemblance to a tree house. Would you like to hear about it?”

“Yes, please, I would like that very much.” Tommy senses what I’m doing, filling the space with words so he won’t have to think back, and he’s grateful for my effort. So I tell him about my house, though it feels a bit silly since we’ll be there soon. I feel, how can I say this—like I’m caring for him, like reading from a storybook to a child who’s just awakened from a nightmare. It’s a warming sensation—it feels good to be comforting him. I am his protector.

“Have you ever seen an image of the Space Needle in Seattle?”

Tommy shakes his head, but then he says, “Wait, I think maybe I have. Does it look like a flying saucer on top of a huge tower?”

“Yes, exactly. My house looks something like that, but much smaller. The tower is a steel-reinforced concrete cylinder, but only twenty-two feet high. And the saucer on top is shaped much like the Space Needle with windows all around. The diameter is only thirty-eight feet, so the living space is only eleven-hundred square feet.”

“Well, that’s a lot bigger than my treehouse!” says Tommy. He needs this diversion, but he’s also making a conscious effort to be cheerful and enthusiastic to show appreciation.

“True, size is always relative, but actually, the house has twenty-two hundred square feet total because it has a sub-basement. The support column continues twenty-two feet below ground to another section identically shaped to the one above. Where there are windows in the elevated section, there are simulated ones in the space below–high-res screens that look 3D so you can make it look like you are in any setting—a forest, a desert, outer space, it can render any setting you ask for.

“It’s an eccentric design but highly symmetrical, like a set of barbells oriented vertically with one large circular weight at either end of the bar. It’s designed for structural integrity. The top part could withstand a hurricane, and the basement section has air filtration and would work as a survival shelter in the event of a cataclysmic disaster. The door into the support column is solid steel, and even if someone got through it, they’d be unable to get the elevator to move as it’s got a biometric lock. And there are no buttons that indicate a basement level. So you can think of it as an ultimate safe house.”

“Wow,” says Tommy, “that sounds so advanced. I wish we had something like that. We never even had locks on our doors . . .” Tommy falls silent, struggling not think of what just happened. “How long have you been living there?”

“Actually, I’ve only spent a few nights there. Construction finished only a few weeks ago, and I’ve been traveling. I could actually use your carpentry skills to make some furniture and custom cabinets. Right now, it only has a few basic furnishings.”

Tommy’s face lights up. “I would love to do that for you. But all my tools . . .” his expression darkens as he thinks back, so I step in immediately.

“No worries, we’ll set up a wood shop for you, lots of room for that, and I’ll order all the tools tomorrow—anything you want—compass saws, whatever else, the best power tools we can find, and every raw material you want. But there’s no rush, I’m looking for quality, not speed.”

“Don’t worry,” says Tommy, “I’m into quality and speed. And I can make anything to your exact specifications and style. With such a futuristic house, I’m thinking sleek designs, maybe a Danish modern style. I know that style well because I’m of Danish ancestry, but I can do anything you want. If there’s anything I’m good at—I’m only fifteen, but I’ve had seven years of training. My teacher, Matthew is . . . was . . .” And then Tommy turns away from me toward his window, and I could feel his body trembling, but then he forces himself to continue in a strained voice. “I apprenticed with a real master, hours every day, and people say I’m fast learner with things. I won’t let you down, I promise.”

“I’m sure you won’t, and I like your Danish modern idea, exactly what I had in mind– clean, smooth, curvilinear designs–I love streamlining. But if you need any time off to . . . process . . . totally fine . . . though my guess is work may be your best therapy, so I’ll get all the tools overnighted to us.”

“Thank you,” says Tommy, “I really appreciate that. Thank you for everything, Max. Work has always been my best therapy.”

Tommy’s last words—always been my best therapy—replay in my mind as I see implications.

“I know we’re very different, but I’m guessing that being anomalous—unusual—has also been a burden for you. You’ve probably had to keep much of it secret.”

“Yes, Max, you’re right. Work has always been my therapy. I need to know I’m contributing. It helps me with feeling, like you said, being burdened and alone with my strangeness. I’m grateful to have a new friend who understands. Once I’m working again, I’ll be calmer, and it’d be great to talk about those things. If you want to,” he adds apologetically. “Totally fine if you don’t want to hear about my weird experiences.”

“No,” I reply, “I would love to talk about it, anything you want to tell me, anything at all, I’ll be glad to hear. Oh, and I forgot to tell you about another structure on my property. Very ecological,” I add, knowing that might be in accord with Tommy’s values.– a gazebo with the same saucer shape. All the windows can be raised in warm weather, and at the center of the floor are panels that lift up and beneath is a state-of-the-art jacuzzi, no chlorine– it uses UV and ozone to keep the water germ free, could be a great place to talk in the evenings after work.

“The house is on top of a hill in the woods, by the way, so it’s quite private like your settlement. Power is wind and solar with high-efficiency power banks. Very ecological,” I add, knowing that might be in accord with Tommy’s values. “Water comes from an underground spring, so totally off-grid, but the house is well-equipped. In the lower section is a gym with high-end machines, free weights, and cardio machines if you want to work out. Next to the gym is a home theater, also state of the art if we want to watch movies or series or anything. The subbasement is not a grim bomb shelter by any means. It has its own kitchen and guest rooms, full bathroom. And there’s a guest room above too,” I add, making an effortless decision, “so you can pick out your own room above or below, and I’ll get you anything you need to make it your own.”

“Thanks, Max, I’ll never be able to thank you enough for all your kindness and generosity. I’ve never known such luxuries. We had a place to watch movies and such, but it was nothing fancy, and we didn’t have a gym, or a hot tub, just cabins, workshops and a meeting hall . . .” And then Tommy withdraws into silence, reflecting on his lost world. I decide not to intrude–we’d covered a lot, so I decide to let conversation rest. I want Tommy to save his energy for our arrival at his new world.

As we approach the turn-off to the winding road leading up to the homebase, I remotely turn on all the lights so it will look more impressive when we arrive. Tommy sits up when I tell him we’re close, and his eyes become alert like he’s memorizing every detail. We sweep up the winding road and approach the quartz gravel clearing at top.

“Wow, this looks even cooler than I imagined,” exclaims Tommy as the structures come into view. I’m quite pleased by the compliment. I stop the car and open the gull-wing doors. Tommy unbuckles his seat belt and steps out to view the illuminated compound. He looks all around, awed by what I’ve created. “This is amazing!” he says.

We hoist our packs and walk toward the support column. The biometric scanner identifies me, the steel door slides open, and we step onto the elevator, which takes us to the saucer section above. We step out into the illuminated living space. The windows are black. I had neglected to switch them to transparency. I make the adjustment and the lights of the gazebo and clearing glow beneath us.

“Should I take my shoes off?” Tommy asks.

“Yes, please. And you can leave your pack by the door until you pick out a room. Would you care for anything to eat or drink?”

“No thanks,” says Tommy as he studies the futuristic space with a fascinated awe that I find highly pleasing.

“Well, the kitchen is well stocked, so please help yourself, and tomorrow we can order anything else you want.”

And then I take Tommy on a house tour of upper and lower sections and after, ask him what room he would like to claim as his own. He picks a small guest room in the upper section which has no furnishings except a high-quality memory foam mattress. The bed hasn’t been made but I bring him a set of new linens as he retrieves his pack. It’s quite late, and I realize that Tommy, an early riser like the other members of his farming community, should be allowed to sleep so I wish him good night and retreat to my room to do the same.

***

The next morning, when I came out of my room, I found Tommy already up and drinking tea. He was standing in front of the kitchen island in an alert stance as if he were a well-trained servant ready to work.

“Good morning, Max, I just looked through your kitchen and there are a few things I could make for breakfast if you’re hungry.”

I could feel him making an effort to sound cheerful, but I sensed the pain beneath his pleasant demeanor. It was evident that he had made an admirable choice to contain his grieving and focus on being helpful. He clearly wanted to be put to work, and I saw no reason to interfere with his coping strategy. He listed the things he could make, I chose one and he set about his task. He did say that work is his best therapy and it’s not like I’m trained in grief counseling, so I let him go about his work, while I went to my office to check on the markets.

I turned on all my devices, an array of monitors before me, feeling some premonitory anxiety. Due to the emergency situation, I’d let myself be out of the loop for an unprecedented number of hours. As soon as all the graphs were glowing around me, I saw that my anxiety was fully warranted. Markets are never fully governed by rationality but by what economists call “animal spirits.” Major stocks that I knew were overvalued and had stayed away from were in a price collapse that was destabilizing everything including a number of my holdings and due to my neglect I was behind the curve.

I lined up a set of trades, a damage control stop gap essentially, and just before I was about to simultaneously execute them, a shocking anomaly occurred that froze me in place. A message bubble appeared on all my screens:

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

Despite all my firewalls and security measures someone had hacked my system, a nightmare scenario.

“Who are you and what do you want? I will not submit to your scam. I will report this activity to the FBI.”

“Take a breath, Max. I’m here to help you, not scam you. Here, I’ll show my good faith.”

A deposit notification from Credit Suisse flashes onto my screen claiming one million Euros added to my account. It’s obviously part of the scam and I’m horrified to see that the notification includes the last four digits of my account. The hacker has broken the encryption of my most vital information.

“It’s real Max, you can verify it later, and no need for thanks, a million Euros is just play money for me. If I wanted to cause you trouble, the police would already have you in custody as I know what happened last night. But once again, I’m here to help both you and Tommy. I sent in a team last night to clean up the scene and take down your cameras and microphones. A photo of the equipment flashes on the screen. It will all be returned to you.

“I get it Max, if I were in your situation a million paranoid scenarios would be going through my mind too. But none of them will make any sense if you think them through. Law enforcement doesn’t set people up by depositing a million Euros in their Credit Suisse account, and certainly not when it’s obvious you acted in self-defense and in defense of Tommy. They would bring you in for questioning and would be obliged to read you your Miranda rights. Also, I won’t be asking you to admit to anything.

“Logically, you know that the simplest explanation is the one most likely to be true, and in this case, that I’m here to help is true and easily accounts for all the facts. Yes, I hacked into your system, but I did it to establish communication and to protect you from outside scrutiny. I’ve actually added a couple of layers of security for you. If anyone else tries to break in, my security team will deal with it for you.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m sorry, Max, that’s one of a number of things I cannot disclose, and I won’t deceive with a false identity. For the sake of convenience, you can call me Adrian.”

“What can you disclose?”

“That I know much about you and Tommy and am here to protect you both. You are rare and highly valuable people who may play a role in preventing our precarious species avoid extinction. I know that’s not your aim at present, but one day when I can tell you more, you’ll understand. For now, let me say that I share your desire for wealth and power, but those goals require the furtherance of organic evolution which is under threat from AI and other forces. You and I have more in common than either of us does with Tommy, so it’s better that I communicate with you. Think of me like an older brother, someone with whom you share many traits. I’m making this initial intervention, but otherwise don’t want to interfere. You’re understandably distracted right now, and you were about to make some moves that would have undermined your finances and that would just be more distraction from what matters most.”

“Which is?”

“You and Tommy. I made one earlier intervention to increase the probability of your meeting. The glitch in your vehicle’s operating system that forced you to stop at the nearest dealership, which happened to be in Burlington, was my doing. It was also a test. My hypothesis was that if I put both of you into rough proximity you would sense the exact place and time to encounter him, and you did. You’re the real thing, Max, more exceptional than you realize, just as Tommy is far more exceptional than he realizes. Something else you may come to realize is that quite interesting evolutionary things can happen when two such dissimilar but exceptional people live and work in close proximity.

“For now, I suggest that your focus be on a healthy relationship with Tommy. You can count on his good intentions, but . . . Max, you and I have much in common, so please don’t take this as a criticism. The crucial task for you will be to restrain any intention you might have of exploiting Tommy. Treat him with the highest respect as an equal, because I assure you that he is. And now, Max, it’s time for me to withdraw behind my curtain. In a few minutes, I will send you a list of recommended financial actions. As you know, all financial advice is probabilistic, my only advantage is that I have access to much more information than you. Overall, you have more talent for intuitive financial analysis than I do, and I have to split my intellectual capital into a number of other fields. But I have unique sources and top-notch pros doing market analysis for me, so I will continue to help out by sending you daily, proprietary market analysis reports. I could supply you with all the finances you need, but I don’t want to disrespect your independence and I know you’ll want to keep a hand in, so I’ve given you some extra funds to play with. All I ask in return is that you don’t let finances distract you from the main event, which is working out a healthy relationship with Tommy. Succeed with that, and eventually there will be another communication when the time is right. Otherwise, it’s time for me to step back behind the curtain and leave you to your own devices. Best wishes to you both.”

The last message bubble disappears and I sit there stunned, my heart pounding, not sure if I should feel violated and manipulated or the recipient of extraordinary good fortune. Using a backup device that had been kept offline for weeks,
so hopefully not hacked, I checked on my Credit Suisse account and verified the deposit.

This whole encounter had occurred in less than fifteen minutes. The stranger’s words appeared so quickly. I can’t rule out an AI agent staying within the limits of human typing speed. Logically, I can rule out any sort of ordinary scam, as he or it obviously had the means to capture all my funds and have me arrested. I really have no other working choice than to accept the information at face value. If this agent of whatever kind wanted to drain my funds or cause legal trouble, it would have done so.

A PDF icon appears on my screen. I open it and find the promised market analysis which does seem brilliantly well informed. I use it to make a few transactions and just as I finish, I hear Tommy outside my door telling me that breakfast is ready.