Copyright Jonathan Zap 2026

 

Note to readers: this is a pre-publication beta test version. It’s been through a dozen levels of editing, so it’s pretty final but still open to feedback–which would be very appreciated–until publication, which will prob be in late April of 2026. Send any comments from general reactions to line edits to typos to [email protected]. Put Parallel Portal in the subject heading. I will be grateful for any feedback of any kind. If you prefer a Word or PDF version email me. Thanks, Jonathan

One

Tommy’s Journal

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. I feel his presence, almost like he’s whispering in my mind, but I can’t quite hear what he’s saying. It’s like he’s helping me write this, like my words are coming from both of us. He’s looking out from the shadows of my mind, watching over me, worried about my well-being, and wanting to protect me from something dark that’s coming.

I’ve been having nightmares about it, the same nightmare again and again. In the dream, I’m waking up in my treehouse to the sound of gunfire, horrified as I realize that people in my community are being killed. The next moment, I’m standing beneath the treehouse. The gunfire has stopped, and everyone in my community, everyone I love, is dead.

The killer is out there in the woods coming toward me. He knows exactly where I am. I’m about to run, when I see a dark grey robot with a gun step out into the clearing where I’m pointed. It’s shaped like a person, but its head is a black machine with camera lenses for eyes.

Somehow, I sense that the robot is not the killer. Its lenses focus down on me, and then a voice, oddly human, from somewhere inside this machine, speaks my name, “Tommy,” and I wake up in a panic.

Even though I’ve had this nightmare many times, it still takes me a while once I wake from it to realize that my community is still here. That no one has been killed. That I am still okay.

But am I?

The nightmare doesn’t make any sense. My home and community are peaceful, remote, tucked deep in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Why would anyone want to kill us? And I’ve seen pictures of military and police robots—they’re not shaped like people, and their weapons are built in. But what is it trying to tell me? I sense something dark is coming, but I have no idea what it is.

I feel like that older version of me holds the answer. I’ve had visions of him since I was a child, writing in a journal, words being typed out on a computer screen. Something always kept me from reading what he wrote, but I knew it was a journal. In the visions, he looked about the age I am now, but he seemed older, like he’d lived through much more than me. I think he’s lived through what’s coming, but it’s like he’s not supposed to interfere. It would be wrong in some way. I’ve got to guide myself through the darkness, and that’s why I need to write this journal. I need a place to try to figure things out.

I also have a strong intuition that I’m needed to write this journal. Like there’s someone else who will need to read this one day. I can’t see who that person is either, but I feel them wanting me to continue.

I have no idea who you might be—the person reading this—but I sense you out there and I feel like I owe you this record. I don’t know why you’re the one who needs to read this, especially since I’ve kept my strange experiences secret from everyone I love—the people I live and work with in my small community called The Friends.

Now, I feel like there’s more than one person watching me. A strange image just flashed into my mind. I saw an older man in a dark room. Behind him were what looked like sophisticated but antique electronic devices with dials, knobs, meters, and red and green lights. It feels like he’s monitoring everything I’m writing and even my thoughts. I think he’s one of the people meant to read my journal, and I sense good intentions from him. The image disappeared pretty fast, but I feel like he’s still out there, watching me as I journal alone in my treehouse, swaying in the howling wind.

I always come here to write or when I need to be alone. And lately I’ve needed that a lot. I feel guilty about hiding so much from the people I love, but I don’t want to burden others with my secret life. I know they’d listen and try to help, but there’s so much they wouldn’t understand. 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’d probably think I was having a breakdown of some sort and needed to see a therapist. I can’t be sure I don’t have psychological problems, but what’s going on with me is more than that. Someday, someone will need to know what I’ve experienced, and that’s why I’m writing it out.

People here and at the hospice where I 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. I’m driven by deep feelings and intuitions I can’t explain to others. And I’m getting one right now . . .

I feel it in the howling wind. My body is trembling, like I’m shivering with cold . . .

There’s someone out there I’m going to encounter soon. Someone who will alter my fate.

 I don’t think I can write anything more tonight. The feeling is too overwhelming . . .

Two

Max’s Journal

My name is Max, I’m 18, and I am a predator. Legally spoken, my name is Ulrich, but that doesn’t go over so well here in the States, and it’s far too tedious to continue 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 American persons.

I see I’m 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 this is the extreme stupidity of most people, because homo Sapiens is categorized as a predator species—the apex predator of the whole planet on which it feeds. And yet, self-castrated members of this 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 self-identify as a lion. Of the big cats, lions are too masculine for my tastes, too blunt force. I’m more lean, agile, and stylish, more like. . . a leopard. I am not a savage predator, but an elegantly fastidious one. I revere control and abhor messiness. I maintain my person, possessions, and spaces in perfect order and cleanliness. Isn’t this how cats conduct themselves? This is 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 didn’t learn my polished demeanor 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. 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 frying up a puppy, they would call them a monster. And yet, it’s well established that pigs are more intelligent than dogs in many ways.

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 repulsive, and I’m made of finer stuff and eat according to my nature. 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 sheeps’ 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.

So, 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 it—money. However, other aspects of my agenda have yet to be fulfilled.

I am acknowledging my grandiosity here to examine it and ensure it’s 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 some of those infernally intelligent Ashkenazi Jews with whom I share a strange karma. The savants and swindlers among them fascinate me so long as they are highly proficient at what they do. Of course, I despise those who are inferior. And by those who are inferior, I mean almost everyone, but this 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 what I flaunt here is how I show up in public. It is certainly not. Nothing could make me light up more as a target than to present as a privileged 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 the pervasive mediocrity I had to deal with both at home and at the supposedly “elite” (in other words, mediocre plus money) prep school I was compelled 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 similar clothing to present myself as a typical American teenager, unworthy of notice. I am an operator, and I’ve developed the tools and tricks of my personal tradecraft.

To sustain myself, I operate as a financial predator in the crypto and stock markets, where my ability to perceive deep patterns and short-term fluctuations has enabled me to accumulate significant wealth. Primarily, I utilize my abilities to identify patterns that others miss and apply my skills to global finance. Using a contrived identity, I bought and sold cryptocurrencies and stocks until I amassed a small fortune, which I’ve grown into an ever larger one. To keep my parents from questioning my activities, I applied to business schools and informed them that I was merely monitoring various market cycles to fulfill my ambition of becoming a hedge fund manager —a goal they could understand and approve. As a result, I need no help from parents or anyone to travel freely and live off the land so to speak.

I am now a legal adult 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. Besides constructing a false identity for financial transactions conducted before I was a legal adult, I have 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 simply seek to maximize reward and minimize any dangers to my own person.

In my former life, before I liberated myself, I was judged defective because I lack empathy for inferior persons. I have also been diagnosed as having on-the-spectrum autism, because I lack sociability and can focus intensely on a subject that interests me. The lame psychiatrist who made this diagnosis, which I had self-diagnosed years before, was entirely ignorant of the established fact that autistic mutants exhibit psychic abilities. All of this is extremely well documented as anyone capable of doing an internet search can affirm. Those who have researched this have concluded that the rise in autism is part of an evolutionary advance leading to superhuman abilities. When I informed the shrink of this gaping hole in his knowledge of autism, he acted completely disinterested. But I could see him make a mental note of my comment as a pathological symptom– as if I had just spouted off a fanatical flat-earth theory or something like that. My autism is an asset, not a liability or pathology. 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. It could be a stunning posthumous publication, though I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, and perhaps with the advances in computational biology, I won’t have to. Alas, I currently have no backups, not even a clone who might grow up to resemble me. Yet another reason not to take unwarranted risks.

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 work out 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 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 this 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? Because I refrain from such irrational waste of energy, I’ve been judged a cold misanthrope. If it serves my purposes, I am certainly able to appear 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 discard that inferior life just as a snake molts 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—money is the universal resource and path to power. I also recognized the obvious things about myself— I’m a predator and superior to others.

And then, the day I turned eighteen, 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 home base to my exacting specifications. Hidden in the dark deciduous woods of northern New England, from the outside it seems little more than an architecturally superb house, but hidden beneath is a highly secure and shielded sub-basement, part command center and part . . .

Well, now we come to the more controversial aspects of my identity and plans. And yes, these parts are questionable even to me because they represent most of my risk portfolio. Until an hour ago, when I created this encrypted journal on an air-gapped computer, I never considered putting my predatory identity and intentions into words. I did so to analyze my controversial aspects, because they tempt me toward considerable risks and are not as self-evidentially rational as the rest of me certainly is.

Obviously, what I’ve written above is a self-indulgence expressive of grandiosity and narcissism, but I need to let some of the steam off my large ego before 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 comprehend thoroughly. I must be unsparing in examining possible liabilities in my nature, but first, I must delve into certain aspects of my anomalous abilities, which are relevant to the riskier parts of my agenda.

Most of my abilities are rare but not unprecedented, except in their highly effective 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 can anticipate the timing of certain events, not just market fluctuations, but life events that provide few precursory data points. So, I cannot attribute my successful anticipations to logic or intuitive pattern recognition, but rather to something else, perhaps a form of clairvoyance.

Initially, I was dismissive of such a paranormal possibility, but extensive research ultimately convinced me otherwise. Investigating scientific evidence of future sensing immediately led me to a paper published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal by a renown Cornell professor, Daryl Bem, an old, gay Jew with great credentials. When I investigated all the criticisms of his methodology, I discovered instead the irrational bias of his critics, establishment science, and Wikipedia against the paranormal. I may not be an expert on scientific methodology, but I have the financial metrics to prove my ability to apply probability and statistical analysis in the real world. Ultimately, Bem’s work was vindicated. After analyzing a number of replicated experiments, I’ve concluded that many paranormal abilities, especially clairvoyance and telepathy, have been scientifically validated.

Beyond what is likely clairvoyance, I also have an exceptional ability to read people, to sense their weaknesses and strengths (if any), and often know what people are thinking or about to say. Sometimes, it’s because they’re so predictable, but other times it seems telepathic. And once, when I was thirteen, I was able to recognize another telepath at an airport and make contact. I’ll have more to say about that encounter soon.

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

For example, I have 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 childish vanity causing me to doubt that I am merely the product of a sweaty parental transaction nineteen years ago. Perhaps a 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 a hedge against its main bet on AI, the new species overtaking the inferior one that gave rise to it. I’m speculating, of course. I just know my parents and environment are in no way sufficient to account for me.

There have been rare occasions where I’ve encountered someone who seemed like they might also be a new evolutionary type. But these perceptions lack evidence and may be deceived by 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 looking for. What I seek is far rarer than mere physical beauty.

There was one boy at school who had what I considered at the time a paranormal level of charisma. 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 attentions being detected.

Quite diplomatically and with considerable charm, I attempted to form a social alliance with him, but he politely rebuffed those efforts. Of course, he knew my reputation as a creature others found cold and disturbing, so there was no chance of making an unprejudiced first impression. It’s quite probable that he found the charm I turned on him, but not others, suspicious.

And then, as I continued my surveillance, he became less interesting. Indeed, he was an ideal physical specimen, popular and socially skilled, and he did gain admission to 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 of subpar creatures swarming around me at this particular school.

My disappointment was not just with him but in my own failure of 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 no mere 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—my gaze was arrested by someone with a glow which made them stand out like demigods amongst the hustle and bustle of disappointing primates.

One of them was a young man who 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. He also failed a test I now consider definitive. Though I stared at him for several seconds, he failed to notice me or my sharply focused attention. A true anomaly should be able to readily identify another.

The other person, however, I am certain was a true anomaly. Yes, he was beautiful and elegant with long, dark hair and exquisite bone structure. Anyone would have found him intriguing and mysterious. But he gave evidence of being far more than merely beautiful.

At first glance, I recognized him as a sophisticated and cosmopolitan Ashkenazi Jew. His appearance wasn’t stereotypically Jewish, but as a German, I’ve inherited an exquisite Jewdar and felt 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 noticed he was wearing an expensive diving watch, likely an Omega Seamaster, and despite his cosmopolitanism, he carried an air of being on a physical adventure.

I sensed he was not merely traveling but on a mission of some kind. Anyone with discernment could tell he was trying not to draw attention, but he lit up more intensely than anyone I’ve ever encountered. I felt his intelligence as if it were a physical force and sensed a mind filled with secret knowledge.

 It was obvious he was another neuro-atypical like me. I instantly felt the presence of another ultra-high-functioning on-the-spectrum mind. I could tell that he too was containing his stress at the sensory overload of rushing people in the airport.

And yet, even with all these perceptions of superior aspects, I could not rule out a false positive because he was so perfectly my type. According to scientific research, physical beauty creates a “halo effect” that deceives observers into overrating a subject’s intelligence and other positive qualities.

While I cannot be deceived by beauty alone, the boy at school taught me that if high beauty is paired with other superior attributes, I too am vulnerable to such a halo effect and might conflate ordinary superiority with anomaly. Therefore, if I perceive anomalous superiority in a highly attractive person, I must compensate for the halo effect with a higher standard of evidence than if I perceived such superiority in someone who is not my type.

The Jew quickly surpassed my high threshold of evidence. He sensed my scrutiny and turned toward me, his hyper-aware brown eyes locking onto my gaze. Time seemed to slow as I felt him reading me in a cool, analytical way. For a moment, the boundary between subject and object dissolved, and our minds linked, but I felt him limiting the telepathic flow between us.

I sensed the nature of his caution as 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 acknowledgment of me as another anomaly and telepath.

The form of his acknowledgment, occurring during an extended moment of telepathic eye contact rippling through time, had a formal and elegant quality, as though he were presenting me with an engraved calling card. If only he had. Nevertheless, it was a level 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 I did not meet him by chance, though he seemed as surprised by the encounter as I was. While the Norwegian was oblivious to my presence, the Jew 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 only 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 and still quite stupid in many ways. I lacked the quickness to recognize and exploit this fleeting window of opportunity.

And yet, I have an enduring perception that our paths are destined to cross again. I keep an eye out for him on my travels to this day.

Those few heartbeats of telepathic contact made a profound impression and created a lasting influence. I felt the quality of his mind and how we were alike and different. He was as coolly analytical as I was, with a similar ability to perceive hidden patterns in the world around him. 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. He carried them in a way that emanated 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 his gift has left its mark.

Though I have presented myself as a ruthless predator, his influence subtly shifted that aspect. It’s taken the form of the one principle I 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 this one principle is a form of respect or honor owed to the Jew for the respect and honor he gave me. If we meet again, I know he’d sense if I indulged heedless malevolence, and he’d lose respect for me. I would be diminished in his eyes and might lose the chance to learn from his secret knowledge.

At this phase, though, my main desire is to meet an anomalous, attractive male person close to my age. I want an equal, but also someone I can dazzle with my abilities and resources. Freed from parental captivity, I roam the country in my newly acquired luxurious and high-performance vehicle—German, of course, a dazzlingly fast, customized Porsche Panamera.

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 signal and a device—even a burner—and there is little I can’t orchestrate. Perhaps my hunting is merely driven by youthful hormones, but intuition tells me otherwise.

I am certain that somewhere out there, I will find my counterpart. I am not one to quote a primitive mystic like Rumi, but I do like his saying that what you seek is seeking you. In our suspicious age, however, there is a risk of encountering a counterpart who will refuse the time and persuasion needed to realize I am who they are seeking. Next time, I will not risk a rebuff or allow them to slip away without a trace. But before I take any risky step to extend the opportunity of mutual discovery, 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 becomes all too disappointingly apparent. If they pass my investigation, it may be necessary to make them an involuntary guest in the subbasement of my home base, allowing them sufficient time to recognize my unique value.

Obviously, involuntarily hosting someone in my subbasement would cross bright red legal lines and is the most controversial and questionable part of my plans. You may think such a step would violate my one ethical principle of avoiding unnecessary harm, but this is not how I see it. It would be a helpful intervention, a way to rescue someone with high potential from being subsumed by the cult of mediocrity.

I‘d prefer not to use such risky means, but I can foresee scenarios where I’d need sufficient time and control over the setting to win them over. There’d be no need for such measures if they were immediately willing to break with their former lives to ally themselves with me. But realistically, how likely is that?

 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 the self-castration of remaining a captive of institutionalized education when they could immediately gain access to power and wealth by 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.

I readily admit that my plan is a risky and questionable first move to establish an alliance, but it will provide time to reveal my superiority, charm them, and demonstrate what a powerful ally I could be, financially and otherwise. Although I may have to extend my invitation in this involuntary way, I will not be taking advantage of them, but rather giving them an undistracted opportunity to recognize my value. My facility is secure but luxurious, and they will lack nothing except connectivity and the ability to relocate.

And yet, this plan obviously entails felonies, and as meticulous as my planning and execution would certainly be, risks cannot be entirely eliminated. I wouldn’t dream of sequestering someone unless I had overwhelming evidence of their anomalous nature. At a minimum, they must have keen self-awareness of being different, and I’d have to see evidence of this on their devices. Only a fool would take such a step without powerful reason to believe a successful outcome is inevitable.

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! In such a worst-case scenario, I might have to resort to irreversible measures to ensure my safety.

My controversial plan begs a central question that someone reading this could legitimately pose. 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 desire for a companion is an irreducible need. Although I agree with others’ perception of me as cold and lacking empathy, it doesn’t mean I am without social interest, just that I have lacked the opportunity to relate to equals. Is it not a kind of empathy that allowed me to recognize anomalous superiority in the Jew at first glance and share a profound telepathic state?

There is no social deficiency in me. It is merely that I’d been surrounded by horridly deficient mediocrities with whom I had no desire to socialize. The encounter with the Jew went far beyond mere socializing. I long for contact with another telepath where the exchange would be more than words or gross physical transactions.

To be objective about my motives, I must admit that my desire for control requires that such a relationship begin with an upper hand and a card or two up my sleeve. 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 desire an equal, it is my reasonable expectation to be first amongst equals. I want someone who will admire and follow my way of seeking power in the world. But I’m not looking for a slave or someone I’d be obliged to constantly dominate. It would be evidence of mediocrity if a prospective counterpart could be fully controlled. Anyone who’d submit to domination would be highly disappointing. Sexually, I’d prefer if we could exchange such roles.

I want a true companion who can rise to my intellectual and aesthetic level. Obviously, this would be a rare person indeed but not unprecedented in my experience. Given that he was several years older than I, I bear no shame in admitting that the Jew was at a higher level of self-realization than I was at thirteen.

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

Meanwhile, just knowing that I have a secure facility and a substance that would harmlessly render them unconscious while I relocate them is itself exciting, a fetish perhaps. It is the pursuit of such a person that gives my travels and financial work a sense of direction and purpose . . .

Three

Tommy’s Journal

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

I am 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. 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, lighting up the forest with its golden rays.

The warmth on my skin melts my uneasiness. I undo the tie holding my hair and lie back on the deck. The grain of the cedar planks against my skin and the smell of the newly sawn 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 still sitting there on the deck of the treehouse, shrinking away as I rise higher and higher. The windblown tree branches continue swirling chaotically around me, but it’s too weird to view myself this way, Intense vertigo overtakes me, like I’m about to plummet. A dizzy panic, and I drop—

Suddenly, I’m in my treehouse in the dark, feeling intense fear. I hear gunfire in the distance. It’s where I’ve been in my nightmares, but this time I’m not asleep. I hear my mom speak with great urgency, but she’s not beside me—she’s speaking in my mind.

 

“Tommy, everyone else is gone, but you must live, you’re needed for something important. There is one who will help you survive, but you must leave. Now!”

The urgency of her last command propels me to take action. I feel the horrible truth of what she said, everyone is gone, but you must live.  

I realize what the gunshots mean. The Friends have been murdered, 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 death is almost upon me.

And then I look behind me and see the robot with a raised gun.  I know it’s not the killer, but the one who will help me survive. I hear a shot ring out, and it jolts me out of my body.

I find myself back on the treehouse deck, and it’s daylight again.

Was I killed by that shot? Killed in the vision?

My arms are wrapped around my knees, and I’m shivering. The sound of the shot still rings 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 suspended 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 begins to appear.

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 gaze 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 our encounter. 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.

“Andrew,” I repeat, the name lights up in my mind as though I knew it already. “Welcome to my treehouse. Can you—would you like to sit with me?”

He looks at me uncertainly. I smile and pat the deck to invite him to sit. He flickers for a moment and suddenly is sitting across from me. Closeness makes him seem more solid, and I realize 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.

I slow my breathing and surround him with my energy to help him stay solid.

“What happened to you, Andrew?”

“I was. . .” Andrew hesitates, and his vision turns inward. “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, and his eyes fill with tears. They cast downward as if he’s still seeing the wreck. He’s trembling, and I sense him trying to hold back his feelings. He’s afraid they’ll disturb me.

I’m afraid he’ll lose solidity again, but 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 that 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. I keep surrounding him with my energy so he doesn’t fade out. 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, Tommy, 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 our time is extremely limited.

“Where are you, in this world? I mean—are you in this world? 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 deeper 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.

It was a moment, or an eternity. A space outside of time. And 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 a blinding 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 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.”

And then he is gone and only silence remains. 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 I always knew would happen—and writing about it, the words flowed out of me with a strange déjà vu feeling, like I’d written about it before.

Should I warn the others? But warn them about what?

I know visions can be more like dreams and shouldn’t be taken literally. It was all so absurd—a robot holding a gun like a person when police and military robots have built-in weapons.

If I tell anyone, they’re just going to say I had a bad dream or some kind of episode.

But it felt so real, and when I saw Andrew, I knew I wasn’t dreaming or just seeing a vision in my head. Andrew is real.

But if I tell them, it’ll just sound like crazy talk, and they might think volunteering at the hospice is making me unstable. And if I tell them anything, I’d really have to tell them everything—slowtime, quicktime, and my other visions.

I can’t stop thinking about Andrew. He said we aren’t in the same time, but that he’ll find me one day. I believe him, but that time feels 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.

Andrew seems like the friend I’ve always been looking for, someone who understands me and all my strangeness. We have a deep bond, like we’ve known each other all our lives. At the same time, we’re so different.

Most of what 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’m just a farm boy compared to him, and yet he seemed as interested in me as I was in him.

I need Andrew to help me understand what’s happening to me, 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’s like we became part of each other. It’s left me feeling he’s more than a friend—like some kind of soulmate.

Four

Max’s Journal

Writing this journal seems to have had the 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 the journal and the event. The simplest explanation is that I had a an unconscious premonition of the upcoming encounter, which spurred me to begin the journal.

Since liberating myself, I’ve been touring the Northeast, an area with a high concentration of elite colleges and universities. I recognized a practical advantage to conducting my search within a few hours’ 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 the University of Vermont is probably not of sufficient caliber to attract the type I’m looking for, I decided to walk around Burlington while my vehicle was being checked.

In a neighborhood of local shops, 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 college-student demographic expectations, being inconveniently young and apparently not enrolled anywhere, as he was working in the middle of a school day.

At first, his physical beauty made me wary of another optical illusion effect. It 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. Simply looking at him made me feel as if I were included in his mythic life, as if he were Huckleberry Finn passing me on his raft down the Mississippi.

Though I 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 felt 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. As soon as we made eye contact, it became an immersive telepathic experience.

His energy was so different from the Jew, who instantly impressed me as an intellectual equal with a mind full of secret knowledge. But the way this boy read me was not detached and analytical. What emanated from him was more like a musical waveform imbued with deep emotional resonance and a hard-to-define mythic quality.

Time slowed around him, and his awareness seemed to take in all of me—what we Germans call a gestalt—in a moment.

The boy had an awareness difficult to categorize. It wasn’t intellectual intelligence, but rather a profound emotional recognition. He was so tuned in it seemed like if the eye contact lasted any longer, he would read everything about me.

He’s not an operator in the way I am, not someone who devises complex stratagems or employs deception. Everything about him was transparent and open for anyone to read, and yet that was not a weakness in his case, because others would be just as transparent to him. Whenever I heard someone call themselves an “empath,” they always turned out to be a highly neurotic person trying to get sympathy because they were triggered by all sorts of nonsense.  But this boy was the real thing, and I got the unmistakable impression he could see right through to anyone’s intentions.

I assumed the man I saw him with was his father, as there was an evident bond of strong affinity between them, something I’ve never experienced myself or even observed between my “peers” and their parents. However, I knew such bonds between a parent and child must exist somewhere.

I retreated from the scene as soon as they entered the store, stopping only to 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 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, a stack of trifold brochures containing an abundance 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 but his apprentice. Tommy. The name suits him well—the name of a wholesome American country boy to my ear. That it might deceive others into seeing him as simple country boy also pleases me. Tommy is my discovery.

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 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 need to begin my surveillance.

Time slows again when I pick up one of the exquisitely made kaleidoscopes and—I realize this could be imagination—but it feels imbued with Tommy’s energy from all the meticulous hand labor he put into it. If necessary, I could probably lift his fingerprints and likely his DNA from this handmade object. I bring it to my eye and gaze into the stained-glass portal and see a fractalizing polychrome mandala lighting up like the birth of a new universe.

I hear someone approaching from the back of the store and look up to find an over-friendly older woman, apparently the store owner, walking toward me.

 “Aren’t they just amazing!?” she says in an annoyingly loud and exclamatory voice. I notice she is without New England accent and sense she’s someone who came to Vermont in search of quaintness. A voluble sentimentalist no doubt, contemptible, but something I can use, so I restrain my extreme annoyance. I despise store folk greeting me or asking if I have any questions, as if the possibility of asking a question was something that would never have occurred to me without their prompting. Normally, I flash such intrusive retailers my Germanic death stare to stop their advance, but in this case, I hide my irritation since this woman might possess useful knowledge about Tommy.

“And those were delivered just five minutes ago!”

I take a deep breath to summon the immense energy necessary to animate my charming and ever-so-polite young man character, a laboriously contrived persona I loathe to put on and reserve only for situations where such a distasteful disguise is likely to yield a significant reward. Though I’ve learned to speak English with no hint of German, I decide to put on an egzzagerated Cherman accent and summon a flowery, faux nineteenth-century manner to portray an older American’s idea of an innocent, naïve, but well-bred European traveler amazed by everything in the New World. As I have said, I am a chameleon, and I sense this is the character that will elicit the volubility I require from this chatty woman.

“Oh, how lucky for me! Zese are quite vonderful! I vould love to purchase vone. Such exquisite craftsmanship. I assume zey vere made by someone local?”

“Oh yes, everything in the store is made by local artisans. These come from the Friends Community in the Green Mountains, and you just missed them.”

“Oh, vat a pity! I greatly admire ze true artisans.”

“Young man, I couldn’t agree with you more. So refreshing to hear from someone your age. We don’t get many young people in here these days. Most of them are just ordering factory-made things online and lack any appreciation or curiosity about finely made handicrafts.”

“Vhat a shame! I vas raised by my grandfazher, you know — part of a long line of cuckoo-clock makers in ze Schwarzwald, ze Black Forest region of Chermany. He always told me that if you want to truly understand a handmade object, you must know the hands that made it!”

“Well, I couldn’t agree more, young man! And the kaleidoscope you hold in your hand was made by a remarkable young artisan, even younger than you are!”

“Oh my! Even younger zan me! And to have achieved such superb skill already! Zis must be a most remarkable young person!”

“Yes, he is! Tommy is the sweetest and most polite fifteen-year-old boy I’ve ever met.

“When I asked Matthew—his teacher– if the other kids at the Friends Community are like Tommy, he gave me a serious look and said, ‘Nobody is like Tommy. He’s exceptional in every way, especially his kindness.’ He also told me that at fifteen, Tommy is already his equal in mastery of carpentry and furniture making. This new line of kaleidoscopes was the boy’s initiative.

“When I asked Tommy why he chose kaleidoscopes, he was just so humble. He said he couldn’t have dreamed of making anything were it not for Matthew’s training. Despite his modesty and shyness, he answered my every question I had about the design and construction of his kaleidoscopes. Then he smiled and thanked me for being interested in his work and told me how grateful he and his community were to me for showing their wares.  His smile just lights up my whole day.

“What kid talks so appreciatively to adults? And what fifteen-year-old that good at anything refuses personal credit?

They really don’t need to thank me—I should be thanking them. Their products sell faster than anything else in the shop.

“Meanwhile, they have little reason to thank me as their products sell faster than anything else in the shop. And though I can see Tommy is shy and private, he always greets me by name, 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, a freshly baked pie, or organic produce. Today, he brought me blackberry preserves he picked and canned himself.”

She points toward an old-fashioned green glass jar with a handwritten label. Tommy’s handwriting. I feel an insane urge to steal this Tommy artifact, but the risk is unwarranted.

“Zis Tommy sounds like a remarkable young person indeed — so rare to find such modesty and kindness in zis day and age!”

“So true! But if other young people raised in the Black Forest are anything like you, they must also have wonderful Old-World manners.”

I won’t repeat every bit of this tiresome but valuable conversation, but suffice to say I greedily devoured every morsel 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 Tommy’s birth certificate.

As fanciful as this may sound, it seemed part of the feeling I had when we first made eye contact of instantly becoming part of his mythic life, a life that seems not of this era but a distant 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 oddest thing the shop owner told me was that Tommy volunteers at a hospice where his mother works as a nurse. Why would someone that age want the distasteful job of working with old, dying people? Perhaps it had something to do with his being an empath, but it still seems insanely altruistic. I began to fear he might be highly-Christian or something equally abhorrent, but she told me that though they follow a few

Quaker principles, they’re not a religious community.

The few kids who are part of this twenty-person settlement are homeschooled, she added, and their education is mainly through sharing in the work needed to support the community, which lives off the grid.

Of course, I bought the beautiful kaleidoscope so imbued with Tommy’s essence. It stands on my hotel room desk as a kind of Tommy talisman and effigy that makes him feel close.

The unfortunate news, from the surveillance point of view, is that the shop owner told me the community intentionally lives offline, and she can only communicate with them via email, which they check when they come into town.

These rustic details add 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 witnesses 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 to see what I could learn online. I soon discovered that his settlement is 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. I have a strange feeling that everything’s been set up to facilitate my purposes. On the other hand, finding a way to encounter Tommy again without drawing attention from other members of his community will be tricky.

It’s strange how things work. I thought my search would lead me to another sophisticated operator like myself, and then the challenge would be to stay three or four steps ahead of them to earn their respect. But my strategies and tactics would not work on Tommy. He would simply feel what I was up to and see through to my underlying intentions.

And yet, these aspects of him, so inconvenient to my mode of operation, are at the heart of his unique magnetism. This boy is like a revelation of a principle of nature I hadn’t considered. I assumed attraction would be based on similarity, but the massive dissimilarity of this boy is key to his allure. 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’re both anomalies and highly tuned in. Mutuality was evidenced by our ability to recognize and read each other immediately.

Instead of finding a slightly lesser anomaly, which would have given me the upper hand, I have found someone as anomalous as I am, 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’d face the immense challenge of adapting to someone whose nature is fundamentally different than mine.

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’d 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 mediocrities use for “anomaly.”

And yet, pursuing this boy runs dramatically against my need for control. If only he were eighteen like me, he’d be a free agent. If I persuaded him to join forces, there would be no legal lines crossed. However, as a fifteen-year-old, he’s not the controlling legal authority in his own life. Therefore, relocating him without the written consent of a parent or guardian would involve extreme risks that are hard to justify.

And then, even if I overcame that problem, this boy possesses an empathic awareness that would see through to my intentions, and I’d have no way to control that. Perhaps I could misdirect and deceive him within a short timeframe, but not in any ongoing alliance.

You likely assume from my many bold assertions of superiority that I have the fatal flaw of so many young males who overestimate themselves and what they can do. Actually, part of my superiority is an instinctive caution that leads me to be conservative in my strategies and tactics. I do not presume on luck, and I’m a shrewd 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 often glorifies the very few who succeed, while ignoring the far greater numbers who fail. Yes, my investments have an element of gambling, but I’ve always been careful not to put my principal at risk, and I’ve become wealthy by carefully risk-profiling every significant action.

To ensure my safety, I must establish a bright red line in my pursuit. Any notion I had of making the right person a guest in my secure facility is a zero-percent option in this case. Besides the staggering legal risk, he is too dissimilar from me to predict his reaction to such a coercive scenario. The only action available that passes my risk profile is surveillance.

The logical question is—given these factors, why am I pursuing him at all? One answer is that I’ve discovered a 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. I will not consider any action beyond surveillance without returning to this journal for analysis and risk profiling.

My surveillance has already been highly successful, and I have learned a great deal about him with minimal effort and no risk whatsoever.

From The Friends website, I learned that their community sells organic produce and handcrafted products at a farmer’s market. Assuming Tommy helps with that, it could be a chance for a brief, casual encounter, though obviously not a sufficient opportunity to convince him he should break free of a life he’s fully invested in. Also, Tommy will recognize me from our first encounter, and he might suspect I’m stalking him. Especially since he’s a tuned-in empath, and I am stalking him.

Worse, even if I convinced him to leave his community and come with me, I’d be transporting him across state lines and committing an intimidating list of felonies. As a minor, Tommy’s consent would count for nothing if his guardians wanted to prosecute me. It’d be far too dangerous unless they gave me written permission, and how would I ever manage that?

But wait. . . 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 furniture I saw in the store that I knew they’d be perfect for the needed custom cabinet work on-site.

Of course, it would be too much to expect the master carpenter himself to relocate for such a project, but perhaps they’d be willing to hire out the apprentice? 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 a plausible reason, and I actually need custom cabinetry and furniture.

However, the giant flaw in this plan is that they would almost certainly require me to supply them with the house address, so my headquarters and the involuntary guest facility would be known upfront. They’d probably ask to speak to my parents to confirm this arrangement.

This is far too risky. I need to continue surveilling, and given how well things have worked so far, there will likely be other unexpected opportunities.

Perhaps someone reading this might think me diabolical for 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 a life in the woods of little significance.

Obviously, no one else would see the situation as I do, but Tommy is clearly meant for more than carpentry and farming. His present life is holding him back from a greater destiny. A greater destiny he could find with me. So, if you think of this objectively, I have only his best interests in mind.

Five

Tommy’s Journal

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’ve 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. 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.

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 was 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 I saw.

Once we were in my mom’s car, I felt a little safer, but my heart was still 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.”  She put her hand to my forehead.

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

“Yeah, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

“Tommy, I told you not to eat there. It’s as bad as hospital food.”

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 right before we left town. I had a feeling I’d seen that truck somewhere before.

And then, two days later, I saw it again.

I was back in Bridgton with Dorothy, picking up supplies. She needed me to load stuff into our community car because her knees are really bad.

The same truck with Maine plates pulled up. 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 skittering beneath the watchful eye of a hawk.

I didn’t want to show it, so I hauled everything into our car without looking toward the truck.

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.

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 tell it wasn’t of this world because it wasn’t reflecting the sun’s light, and it had no color, only a pale glow. It was like it was peering in from another dimension underneath or above this one.

Lines of energy, like nearly invisible electric guitar chords, ran down from the spider into the man in the truck. The spider was operating him like a puppet set on my track.

The vision lasted for just a few seconds, but it scalded my mind. It was as if the entity had peeled back the surface of the world to reveal other dimensions and designs beyond my comprehension, like a hidden hand moving pieces on a chessboard, shifting my destiny for its own purposes. Then the flap it opened on the surface of my world, dropped back.

A wave of nausea overwhelms me.

I keep my face turned away from Dorothy so she won’t see the spasms of sickness overtaking me, contorting my body, almost doubling me up. Dorothy is a super careful driver, so I know she’ll keep her eyes on the road, and if I don’t squirm too much, she might not notice, but then she does.

“Tommy, are you—”

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

She pulls over, and I walk into the woods, crouch down, and do a couple of dry heaves. The nauseous spasms pass, but I still feel sick.

While I walk back to the truck, I decide to tell Dorothy the story I told my mom about eating something at the hospice that disagreed with me. I hate lying to her, but I feel like I have to, and I know it would fit with what the Friends believe–and I believe as much as anyone–that food from the outside world is suspect and to be avoided.

When we’re back home, Dorothy offers to make me her tea for nausea with ginger, chamomile, honey-lemon, fennel, peppermint, and licorice. She’s our master herbalist. I thank her and tell her it’s exactly what I need, and she lets it rest. Dorothy is really great that way, she can sense when it’s better not to talk and just lets me be in my own space when I need that.

The tea helps, not just the herbs, but I can feel the love Dorothy put into it, and it calms me. As I sit on the porch of her cabin drinking the tea, I force myself to think back to the vision.

It had this really odd twist. I know people throughout time believed in evil entities like the devil, but that’s 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 the strangest part was the sense it was revealing itself purposefully and not to frighten me, but almost for my benefit, like it wanted me to know things.

If that wasn’t weird enough, 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 who stopped to let us carry a heavy chest into the store, and I sensed 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 strange, not scary but not comfortable either. . . it was like we were reading each other’s minds.

It felt like he was a spy sent to find me or something like that. I’m not sure what I read from him, but he seemed highly intelligent and intensely interested in me, observing me, almost like his eyes were high-res camera 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 was almost weirdly perfect, like a European model you’d see in a glossy magazine ad. He didn’t seem like someone from Vermont, but like someone you’d see in Paris or New York, someone from a super-rich family. But he didn’t seem like a spoiled rich kid—it felt like he was on a serious mission. He was so alert, and his whole mind focused on me like we were in an espionage movie, and 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. I sensed him still thinking about me, like he was watching from a distance, but he didn’t seem like a threat. It felt like I was in a movie with him, and he was going to bring me a secret message or something.

I realize anyone reading this probably thinks I’m a kid with an overactive imagination, but I’ve learned to trust my strange perceptions, and I’m sure there’s something to the intense feeling I picked up from him.

There’s got to be a deeper pattern playing out—all these strange encounters in just a few days—Andrew, the man in the truck, 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 something’s wrong. I’ve got to keep myself together because I’m needed for something, something related to all these strange events.

 

Part of me wishes I could just be a kid again. 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. Things I haven’t shared with anyone. But maybe now I have shared, by writing this journal. Having this place to talk about what’s really happening to me . . .  it’s helping me not feel so crazy.

But I’m not sure how much more of this I can take, how much longer I can keep living two lives, the one I let The Friends see, the life of trying to appear normal on the outside, and this other life of strangeness that keeps pulling me further away from The Friends every day. It’s like my life doesn’t belong to me anymore, and I can’t control what’s happening or what’s coming. I’m caught up in something bigger than myself. It’s racing me along its path, and there’s no way off—I just have to let it take me.

I know that all of this is not just my imagination. I am being watched, but not everything watching me is evil.

Six

Max’s Journal

I’m writing from inside my camouflaged tent on national forest land surrounding Tommy’s settlement. The tent is beneath a large oak tree I’ve rigged with climbing rope and a sling seat 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 microphone that I can aim remotely, allowing me to pick up fragments of conversation. I also have two cameras with zoom lenses—one with night vision–that I can operate and monitor 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’m not learning 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, which always gives me a thrill of excitement. Whenever he appears on the scene, he seems to light up everything around with significance.

I’ve discovered Tommy has a treehouse in the forest at the legal edge of the settlement property. The treehouse is beautifully constructed, and no doubt he made it himself, it expresses his essence. I set up a well-disguised camera and mic on a tree in the nearby national forest to monitor his arboreal sanctuary. Even if he found my setup, 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 would be unless it were there to observe avian life.

A few times, I‘ve seen him sitting on its small deck staring out into the woods like he’s searching for something. He’s so tuned in, I think it’s likely that he senses a new presence in his life, a potential ally. As Rumi says, what you’re seeking is seeking you. Of course, I realize that many a stalker might delude themselves with that thought. But it’s unheard of for a stalker to have intentions as good as mine. I have so much to offer Tommy, and given the chance, I’m sure he’ll come to realize that.

All my devices can be recharged from my electric vehicle, which is parked under camouflaged netting on an unused, overgrown dirt road to nowhere. 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. Of course, I’m not crazy about all the dirt and bugs. Fortunately, I have a portable shower gadget and take at least two showers a day, but never feel quite as clean as I want to.

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 of hundred miles away, which, as you might expect, is equipped with motion-sensing cameras within and without.

What I don’t have access to, unfortunately, is what’s going on inside Tommy’s mind. I probably would if he were using devices, but these people emit no electronic signals whatsoever.

Nevertheless, I’ve learned some interesting things. Someone else is lurking about this national forest. I’ve observed him several times—an unkempt, suspicious-looking guy with disgustingly greasy hair. He has a battered pickup truck, 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 he’s probably 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 sensors monitoring the 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 the overlapping holes in the A-zone of my target sheets after a range session.

And, speaking of anomalous physical abilities—Tommy. This is, by far, the most interesting product of all my surveillance efforts. 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 the approaching person was outside his line of sight. He must be able to detect their approach with some sense other than vision. This adds to my impression that he senses he has an ally watching over him.

My observations of him working with blurred motion speed were 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 can speed up his mind as well as his body when he wants to, that would be quite a 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 move I could make, approaching him and Matthew at the store in Burlington to inquire about live-in carpentry work, is too risky. There could be a quick rebuff, and I’d be disclosing myself as an interested party. Tommy would recognize me from our earlier contact and might realize my intentions were about more than carpentry.

I also don’t know what exactly Tommy read in me during our brief but intense eye contact on the street. He was undoubtedly aware of the significance of the moment, and there wasn’t fear or revulsion, but could he have picked up desire? Even people who are not empaths can pick up sexual interest. Contriving another contact could make me seem like a stalker. Obviously, I am stalking him, but my purposes transcend mere physical infatuation.

The other things I’ve learned about Tommy are more general. He has an admirable work ethic and does everything with grace and efficiency, 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. 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 few reasons. First is that it shows how deeply he feels connected to the ordinary folk populating this rustic little world. It will take considerable persuasion to help him realize this hippie community is trapping him in their mediocrity, and he’d be far better off with me.

Second, Tommy’s tendency to hug people is disturbingly 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 have yet to experience. I’m disgusted when people at stores or busy streets encroach on 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 appears to hug everyone he encounters, and they all smile and seem to enjoy it, which arouses jealousy, a dangerous emotion. It’s an aspect of him that makes me uncomfortable, and l don’t like him giving himself away so freely. I realize it’s irrational, but I feel possessive about him like he’s my discovery. He is in a way. I doubt anyone else recognizes how anomalous he is.

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 heavy-looking sacks of fertilizer or feed or something onto the back of a pickup truck. It was oppressively hot and humid, so he took his shirt off. His face has the slight softness one expects of a fifteen-year-old, but the body revealed had perfect muscle definition, an eight-pack of abdominal muscles, and taut sinews across his chest as he worked.

His muscle definition surpasses what I’ve achieved through working out with free weights and machines during my intense gym workouts. And now, out in the woods without access to even a hotel gym, I am certainly losing 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 must 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. I know that sounds like objectification, but as I’ve pointed out, physical beauty is by no means sufficient to attract my attention.

Nevertheless, I must take into account the heightening of my desire because it strains against my patience to observe and wait for the right opportunity.

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 Tommy hugs and who commands him. These people take him for granted as their property without realizing what an incredibly valuable asset they’re wasting on all these mundane labors. He will inevitably remain trapped in this woodsy enclave unless I can find a way to liberate him.

***

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

I’m startled awake by the sound of distant gunfire. None of my proximity alarms were triggered, so my site is not being invaded.

I turn on 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 full-body night camo, strap on my weapons and night vision headset.

I’m out of the tent in two minutes, moving swiftly and stealthily toward Tommy’s treehouse where he sleeps every night.

Primordial instincts in the form of flashes of telepathic intuition take over. I sense the shooter is the vagrant with the rifle. He’s been all over this area and knows about the treehouse. It feels like I’m tapped into the shooter’s mind and intentions. He’s no professional, just an insane rampage shooter who takes pleasure in killing. But his real desire is to rape Tommy, and that fills 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 Tommy. I sprint to be sure I get there before him and hide in the woods behind the treehouse. I turn off my screens to make myself undetectable in the shadows.

My night vision is picking him out in the darkness, so I know where he’ll emerge.

I assume the classic Weaver shooting stance and click off the safety on my Sig Sauer P322.

Just before he emerges from the path, there’s a dangerous complication.

The hatch beneath the treehouse creaks open, and Tommy comes down the rope ladder, putting himself between me and the killer.

Halfway down, 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 the Sig’s laser sight, 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, who is crouched like a cat ready to spring away, instantly swivels in my direction and looks at me as if I’m something inhuman.

Then I realize—I take off the night-vision headgear, and he blinks, recognizing me from our earlier encounter in Burlington.

We’re both in a state of adrenaline-fueled primordial awareness. Tommy realizes I’m his protector, and our alliance forms—the primal bond of combat soldiers in mortal danger.

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 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 both 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 add in a commanding tone.

I see high-speed assessment in Tommy’s 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 Tommy to dress and pack, my mind organizes an escape plan. I can abandon the cameras, proximity detectors, 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 delegating 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, breaks down the tent and puts it in its stuff sack.

I can see Tommy has shut off all his emotions except survival urgency.

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

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

“Put your seatbelt 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, which 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 adrenaline-fueled action mode ratchets down.

I set cruise control to five miles above the speed limit, intending to 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 will be disastrous 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, allowing me to focus on driving until we merge with interstate traffic. Now that the need for him to take survival action is gone, I can feel the trauma of what he’s just experienced beginning to catch up to him. So far, he’s containing it, probably because he’s evaluating whether I’m a threat.

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.

I sense his wariness as his dilated green eyes turn toward me, summoning his will to speak. So far, he’s mostly given me only wordless acknowledgements. I recognize 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 as mellifluous and lovely as his form.

“Thank you for saving my life. My name is Tommy . . . Who are you?” I sense 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 occurs to me suddenly, a new part of my identity—I am now a killer.

I want to reassure Tommy and realize I must stay as close to the truth as possible without revealing everything, and 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 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 senses a degree of falsehood.

“Of course, that’s not the whole story, but there will be time to tell you more once we’ve reached safety.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe, and off the grid. My home base, 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 emotions. I’ve never had such a struggle, but I sense Tommy’s whole body shifting, and it’s both muscular and metabolic. It must be a mirror neuron or psychic attunement effect because I feel a surge of emotion myself, and it’s far more emotion than I’ve ever felt before. I’m not sure how else to describe it except as an intense sympathy for him. He seems so young and vulnerable and he’s . . . suffering.

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. His hands are shaking.

“I’m. . . sorry for your loss,” I hear myself say. The words trigger something in Tommy, 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. I’ve never grieved for anyone, so it’s an alien perception. Yes, I’ve seen videos of people in war zones crying out in grief as a family member is discovered in the rubble, but those were recordings seen through a screen of faraway events, but Tommy’s grief is happening in real time right next to me.

As cold and annoying as they are, 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.

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

I don’t want to intrude on his acutely vulnerable state,

so there’s no action to take except to continue driving silently.  In films, I’ve seen people put a hand on the back of someone suffering such intense grief, 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 ring false. And nothing I could say will change the horrific reality he’s grieving over.

The wheels in my mind stop spinning. This isn’t something I can analyze from a distance. Tommy is in a state of emotional 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 linked in a primordial, telepathic bond and the intensity of his emotion disorients me. I’m startled to find my eyes tearing up as though I were grieving too.

It must be a mirror-neuron effect. I’m not quite myself anymore because Tommy’s energy is spilling into mine. I’d always viewed the world through a kind of scrolling data screen heads-up display, but these new sensations shatter my ability to analyze this new phenomenon from a distance.

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. He tearfully gazes up toward the night sky and—it’s like his whole being is exposed in his eyes. I feel a surge of sympathy for him that’s like electricity running through me.

“Maybe you should drink some water,” I say.

Tommy 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 being respectful and appropriate.

“If you open the glove box, you will find tissues.”

Tommy follows my suggestion. He needs me to tell him what to do.

“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, your emotions are. . . appropriate to the terrible situation you’ve just lived through.”

“Thank you,” he says. “And thank you again for saving my life. I’m going to be calm now. I promise.”

“Take your time. Do you need anything? Some food or a restroom break or anything?”

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

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

There’s a silent rapport between us. The sympathy presents as less of an electricity now 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 need 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 without any intervention 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 hadn’t prepared to have a telepathic bond with an empath.

I’m disoriented by the strange sensations his emotions evoke in me. And yet, by remaining outwardly calm and in control of the situation, I’m helping him.

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 now. 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.”

“I’m sorry, I think I know what anomalous means, but I’m not sure what you mean by another anomalous person like yourself.”

 “I mean someone highly unusual, exceptional. Someone aware of things others aren’t, a new human type. I’ve encountered one other such person, but it was at an airport, and there was no way to make contact. From the first moment I saw you, I sensed you were as anomalous as I am, but in highly dissimilar ways. And I knew it would be important to make contact.”

“Did you actually sense I was in danger?” Tommy asks.

My pulse quickens as I sense Tommy reading me in his acutely observant way, and I feel his truth sense cornering me. He detected falsehood when I made that claim.

I need to own up to that in some way, but truthfulness is just not the way I operate. As you see in this journal, I’m honest with myself, but to be forced into truthfulness 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 thought making contact with you would be. . . helpful.”

My reply is skillful, but Tommy senses the evasion and realizes I’m not giving the whole truth.

“I see,” said Tommy, studying me. “So, your mission was to find someone… unusual?”

“Yes. I wanted to find another anomalous person like myself—” I hesitate, realizing continued truthfulness in that direction will be risky, so I evade to prevent falsity. “When I turned eighteen, just a couple of months ago, I set off on my 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 Tommy’s wariness intensifies. My words have landed poorly, and his feelings alter mine. I feel gross, like a pervert caught tempting a child with candy to lure them 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 went into town.

“I’ve never lacked food, shelter, clothes, or anything I needed, so I guess I’m naïve. We were getting by, so I never gave money much thought. But I can see why you’d want a really cool car like this. And now . . .”

I sense 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, including money.”

“But that doesn’t seem right,” he replies. “In my community, since I was a child, I’ve always worked. I made woodcrafts and essential oils, helped grow our food and tend animals, and did 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,” Tommy continues, “I want to work in exchange. We’re going to your house—I can do housework, cooking, cleaning, and 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 searches for a word, “a freeloader. And besides . . .” 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 my answer.

“So, your mission was to find another anomalous person? But then what?” His 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 to 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, too, 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 I must survive because I’m needed for something important.”

Tommy slumps back in his seat, unable to continue. His head drops, and I know not to intrude. We drive silently while Tommy processes his feelings. Whoever told him he was needed for something important must be one of the people who were 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 sense 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 it has a certain resemblance to a treehouse. 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 Tommy’s protector.

“Have you ever seen a picture 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 resembles the Space Needle, but it’s much smaller, of course. The tower is a steel-reinforced concrete cylinder seven meters—about twenty-three 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-resolution screens that project images that appear 3D, creating the effect of windows looking out onto any setting such as forest, desert, or outer space. It can render anything you ask for.

“The house is 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 can withstand a hurricane, and the basement section features air filtration, making it a potential survival shelter in the event of a cataclysmic disaster. The door into the support column is solid steel, and even if someone were to get through it, they’d be unable to move the elevator, as it has a biometric lock. And there are no buttons indicating a basement level. So, you can think of it as an ultimate safe house.”

“Wow,” says Tommy, “your home sounds so advanced. I wish we had something like that. We never even had locks on our doors . . .”

Tommy falls silent, struggling not to think of what just happened. I give him space to compose himself

“How long have you been living there?” he eventually asks.

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

Tommy’s face lights up.

“I’d love to do that for you. But all my tools . . .”

Tommy’s 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, perhaps a Danish modern style. It’s a style I know 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 . . .”

Tommy turns away from me toward his window, his body trembling, but he forces himself to continue in a strained voice.

“I apprenticed with a real master, hours every day, and people say I’m a 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 the tools and materials 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, and I perceive implications.

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

“Yes, Max, you’re right,” he admits with obvious relief. “Work has always helped me deal with the stress of having to hide my anomalous nature. 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’d love to talk about it, anything you want to tell me, anything at all, I’ll be glad to hear.

“By the way, there’s another structure on my property—a gazebo with the same saucer shape. 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, so it could be a great place to talk in the evenings after work.

“The house is on top of a hill in the woods, so it’s quite private, like your settlement. Power is generated by wind and solar, with high-efficiency power banks. Very ecological,” I add, knowing this might accord with Tommy’s values. “Water comes from an underground spring, so it’s totally off-grid, but the house is well-equipped.

“In the lower section is a gym with high-end machines and free weights 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, series, or anything. The subbasement is not a grim bomb shelter by any means. It has a kitchen, guest rooms, and a full bathroom. And there’s a guest room above too,” I add, making an effortless decision against an involuntary guest scenario, “so you can pick out a room above or below, and I’ll get you anything you need to make it your own.”

“Thanks, Max, I can never thank you enough for your kindness and generosity. Your home sounds so . . . futuristic. I’ve never lived anywhere so modern. 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 . . .”

Tommy withdraws into silence, reflecting on his lost world. I decide not to intrude—we’d covered a lot, so I let the conversation rest. I want Tommy to save his energy for our arrival at his new home.

As we approach the turn-off to the winding road leading up to the house, I remotely turn on 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 the top.

“Wow, this is even cooler than I imagined,” Tommy exclaims as the structures come into view.

I’m quite pleased by the compliment. I stop the car and open the doors. Tommy unbuckles his seat belt and steps out to view the illuminated compound. He gazes around, awed by what I’ve created.

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’d neglected to switch them to transparent mode. 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 a room. Would you like anything to eat or drink?”

“No thanks,” says Tommy as he studies the futuristic space with a fascination that pleases me.

“Well, the kitchen isn’t well stocked, but please help yourself to anything you find, and tomorrow, we’ll order anything you want.”

I take Tommy on a house tour of the upper and lower sections, and after, ask him what room he’d like to claim. He picks the small guest room in the upper section, which has no furnishings except a high-quality memory foam mattress. I’m pleased that he picked a room close to mine. Despite all my preparations to sequester someone below, I don’t want him locked away in the basement.

The bed hasn’t been made, so I bring him a set of new linens as he retrieves his pack. It’s quite late, and Tommy, an early riser like the other members of his farming community, should be allowed to sleep, so I wish him goodnight and retreat to my room to do the same.

***

The next morning, when I come out of my room, I find Tommy already up and drinking tea. He’s standing in front of the kitchen island in an alert stance as if he’s 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.”

He’s making an effort to sound cheerful, but I sense the pain beneath his pleasant demeanor. He’s made an admirable choice to contain his grief and focus on being helpful.

Tommy clearly wants to be put to work, and I find no reason to interfere with his coping strategy. He lists the things he can make, I choose whole-grain pancakes, and he sets about his preparations. He said work is his best therapy, and since I’m not trained in grief counseling, I let him go about his task while I go to my office to check the markets.

I turn on my devices, an array of monitors before me, feeling some premonitory anxiety. Due to the emergency situation, I’ve been out of the loop for an unprecedented number of hours.

As soon as the graphs are glowing before me, I see that my anxiety is fully warranted. Markets are never fully governed by rationality but by what Maynard Keynes called “animal spirits.” Overvalued stocks are crashing, creating ripples of disturbance affecting multiple sectors, including several of my holdings, and  I’m well behind the curve.

I’m in damage-control mode, lining up a set of trades, but just before I’m about to execute, a message window pops up on all my screens:

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

The shocking intrusion freezes me in place.

Despite all my firewalls and security measures, someone has 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.” I type out.

“Slow down, Max. Take a deep breath. We both know this is not the best time for you to contact the FBI, with an underaged runaway in the next room. 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. I can wait if you want to verify it before we proceed. 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 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 those scenarios 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 to protect Tommy. They’d 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 the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts is the one most likely to be true. That I’m here to help is the only consistent explanation. Yes, I broke into your system, but I did it to establish communication and to protect you from outside scrutiny. To assist, I’ve added additional layers of security to your network. 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 you with a false identity. For the sake of convenience, you can call me Adrian.”

“Alright, ‘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 from 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 as an older brother, someone with whom you share many traits.

“I’m making this initial intervention, but otherwise, I won’t interfere unless you’re in danger. You’re understandably distracted right now, and you were about to make some moves that would have undermined your finances, which would distract you from what matters most.”

“Which is?”

“You and Tommy. I intervened 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 you and Tommy into rough proximity, you’d sense the exact place and time to encounter him, and you did.

“You’re the real thing, Max, more exceptional than even you realize, just as Tommy is far more exceptional than he realizes. Something else you may come to realize is that crucial evolutionary developments can happen when two such dissimilar but exceptional people live and work in close proximity.

“For now, I suggest that you focus 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 he is.

“In a few minutes, I will send you a proprietary analysis of the current state of market volatility and some projections. As you know, all financial advice is probabilistic, and my only advantage is that I have a team with access to more information working for me, while you are a highly talented solo operator.

“Overall, you have more talent for intuitive financial analysis than I do, and I must divide my intellectual capital into several other fields. But I have unique sources and top-notch pros doing market analysis for me, so I’ll continue to help out by sending you daily analysis and projection reports. I could supply you with all the finances you need, but I don’t want to undermine 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. You and I were both designed to perform really well at many things, but healthy relationships is not one of them. So this will be a real challenge for you.  If I see you rising to that challenge, 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, unsure if I’ve been violated and manipulated or am the recipient of extraordinary good fortune.

I use my satellite phone to bypass my hacked network and check on my Credit Suisse account, verifying the deposit.

The whole encounter lasted less than ten minutes. And the stranger’s words appeared so quickly that I can’t rule out an AI agent staying within the limits of human typing speed. The only operational choice for now is to accept the information at face value. Logically, I can rule out an ordinary scam, as he or it obviously had the means to capture all my funds and have me arrested. Therefore, his purpose is not to cause immediate harm.

A file icon appears on my screen. I open it and find the promised market analysis, which is brilliantly well-informed and useful. 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.

I join him in the kitchen and decide not to tell him about what just happened. He has enough to deal with, and I need more time to analyze the meaning of this strange intervention.

The breakfast Tommy has prepared, especially given the lack of fresh produce as my house has been unoccupied for a few weeks, is excellent even to my finicky standards.

Tommy is making every effort to be courteous and act normally, but I sense the underlying anguish and strain this is costing him. I should search for grief counseling online and learn the basic techniques. What would an empathic person do in a situation like this? For now, I’ll just have to extemporize.

“Tommy, you’ve just suffered an acute trauma, so you must need time to process it. Would talking about it help?”

Tommy looks toward the windows, his eyes mournful, as he considers my words.

“Thank you, Max. And thank you again for saving my life and inviting me to your home. I don’t think talking will help, at least not now. It won’t change anything or bring anybody back. I was told I must survive because I’m needed for something important.

“I can’t afford to look back too much. I need to look forward and work on whatever’s next. It would only be selfish for me to focus on my feelings. I only wish I knew what I’m needed for.

Meanwhile, any kind of work will be my best therapy.”

Tommy trails off into a strained silence, and I want to lift him out of it as quickly as possible. His determination to focus on what’s coming, and what he is needed for, cause me to reverse my decision not to tell him about the intervention, as Adrian addressed this exact point.  He also told me to respect Tommy as an equal, and keeping such an important development secret would not be respecting him as an equal.

Thanks to my exceptional recall, I repeat the exchange verbatim, but I leave out the part where Adrian told me to restrain any intention to exploit Tommy, as that would only put me in a bad light and create more anxiety.

Tommy’s eyes light up with intense focus as I narrate the exchange. His face is a revelation of intelligence and empathic perception, and I sense his intuition reading between the lines of Adrian’s words and perceiving implications.

When I conclude my account, Tommy ponders silently for a few seconds before responding.

“Wow,” he says. “I’ve sensed watchers for a long time and that something really high stakes was going on, but . . . I always doubted it. Why would I be needed for something that important, like playing a role in preventing extinction?

Hearing someone else put it into words makes it seem more real.  On the other hand, Adrian says we may play a role, so it sounds like he doesn’t know what our role would be, but he did tell us what it is for now—that if we work on a healthy relationship, some kind of evolutionary shift can occur.

“I feel this Max, almost like I’ve been in a situation like this before. We’re together for a reason, an evolutionary experiment that’s meant to happen in this house.”

“I’m not so sure,” I reply. “You’re taking Adrian’s words at face value, but I think we should be cautious. We have no idea who or what these messages came from. All we have are words on a screen. For all we know, the words could’ve been generated by an AI or a group of people.

“What we do know is that Adrian—I suppose we’ll have to use the name he proposed for convenience—is powerful and has power over us. He knows what happened last night, and he’s penetrated my network. It’s true that his version—that he’s here to help us—is the simplest explanation accounting for the facts we know, but his story could have been contrived to appear that way. On the other hand, I have no alternate explanation. He also appears to know more about us than what he could’ve learned by hacking, and his knowledge includes not merely information but insight. Since we’ve no better explanation, and since it’s possible that the face-value version is true, I suggest we work with it for now as if it is true pending further developments.”

Tommy leans back in his chair, appraising me.

“Wow, Max, those are really great points. I guess I’m more naive than I thought. I’m used to dealing with generally honest folks and never had to use such careful thinking when it came to assessing them. But I can see you’re right. Your approach– to act for now as if it’s true–is brilliant.”

I’m surprised and pleased by Tommy’s compliments. In my imagined dialogues with the anomalous person I hoped to find, our conversations were more like rhetorical swordplay—point/counterpoint. I hadn’t expected to have my thinking so plainly credited like this, and I’m not sure what to say next. But then Tommy surprises me again, coming at me with a sophisticated challenge.

“But let me ask you this, Max. Some of those things Adrian said felt true to me—that we may play a role in preventing species extinction, and evolutionary things can happen when exceptional people live and work together—do those ring true for you? Even if Adrian is up to something other than just trying to be helpful, we know some of what he said is true.

“An old man I met at the hospice I worked at told me that a good liar mixes in as much truth with the lies as possible. So even if he has a hidden agenda, I think he’s given us crucial insights that feel true to me.

“I respect logic, and you’re the most logical person I’ve ever met. But in my life, I’ve been guided more by deep feelings and intuitions. Putting aside logic, if you can, does what he said ring true for you?”

“The proximity idea doesn’t just ring true,” I respond. “I’ve already experienced it. Last night, I witnessed your anomalous speed and discovered my thinking and movements synchronizing with your tempo. I also felt your state of emotion having unusual effects on me, influencing me to . . . experience more emotion than I normally would.

“That we’re to play a role in preventing the extinction of homo Sapiens seems highly speculative, but I do think we are new evolutionary types. Combined with the proximity effects of our being together, it’s plausible we could be a catalyst for organic evolution. I’ve sometimes thought the appearance of new human types could be evolution hedging its main bet on AI, which is evolving far more quickly than we are.

“However, we’d need many more points on our map before we connect our isolated experiment with preventing the extinction of our species. I have high ambitions, but saving the world is something I associate more with Hollywood movies.”

“Well,” says Tommy, ready to counter my dismissal, “he said we may play a role. He didn’t say we’d play the role. Everyone who helped out during World War II played a role in preventing the Nazis from taking over the planet.

“My feeling is that I’m needed to contribute to something more important than I am, and preventing extinction is more important than any of us since extinction includes everyone. I was brought up in a community that chose to live sustainably to contribute to preventing extinction, but it’s not like we thought we were in a starring role.

“Let me ask you this,” Tommy says, his bright green eyes focused intently on mine, “Do your high ambitions include making a contribution to the world at all?”

Tommy has caught me off guard with an unforeseen challenge. His expression is friendly, but he’s intentionally cornered me with a high-stakes test. He wants to know if my values accord with his own. They don’t, of course, but admitting that could be a deal-breaker for our alliance, and he’ll know if I’m lying, so I hastily invent a compromise.

“To be honest, no. But I haven’t formed a ten-year plan or anything like that. The world is too unstable. My short-term goals were to achieve independence from my parents and to find another anomalous person. I thought we could work on a larger plan together once I found an ally. And isn’t that what we’re doing right now? You said it feels like we’re in an evolutionary experiment together in this house. I agree, so we should set to work to make our experiment a success and see what else it leads to.

“Meanwhile, I’d like to offer something as a sign of good faith toward respecting your values. Since I’ve been given additional wealth today, and it appears I’ll have the advantage of insider market analysis, I’ll establish a small charitable foundation and begin depositing funds into it. I’ll let you pick the charities—environmental causes, whatever you like. This way, when you see me disappear into my office to work on finances, you’ll know those efforts are contributing to what you value as well. Would that be acceptable?”

“I wasn’t trying to pressure you into anything,” says Tommy, giving me a warm smile. “I just wanted to see what you care about.  But, yeah, that would be amazing. Thank you.”

“Meanwhile, since your financial work will contribute to the world, I’m glad to free up your time by doing any other tasks I know how to do or can be trained in. I meant it when I said I owe you infinite work for saving my life. I can take over all the housework and meal prep, and I’d love to get started on the custom cabinets. If you have a tape measure, a pencil, and paper—graph paper would be ideal—we can go over what you want, and I’ll draw up designs for your approval. We can start right now if you’re free.”

“As it happens, I do have graph paper, and I like your work ethic, Tommy. Come with me to my office.”

Tommy follows me on the semi-circular path from the kitchen to the living room to my office which looks out at the gazebo surrounded by white-quartz gravel below.

“I think the first step should be ordering tools,” I say, “as well as lumber, and anything you want for cooking purposes, fresh produce, etc. I’ll get expedited drone deliveries where possible, and what we don’t get today, we’ll have by tomorrow. Once the orders are in, we can go around both levels and discuss cabinets and other furniture. When that’s done, I’ll leave you to work on designs while I create a new legal identity for you as an eighteen-year-old. I’ve done that before for myself, so I have a thorough protocol worked out.

“Hopefully this goes without saying, but anything you might have ever done online—messaging apps, social media, must never be touched again. You can keep your first name since it’s a common one, but your last name must never be used again anywhere.”

“Oh, I’ve never used social media,” says Tommy. “I only get online at the public library. I have an email address I almost never use, so that’s easy to let go of.”

“Great,” I reply, “your online presence should be easy to scrub.

I also want you to call the owner of the furniture shop, since she’ll recognize your voice. I have a phone set up to make untraceable calls. Tell her you’re okay, but you decided to leave the scene so as not to end up in a foster home. An immigrant who was hunting in the woods took care of the killer, but he told you he had to leave the scene because he’s not a legal citizen. You have travel money and are en route to someone safe who offered you work and a place to stay. Both statements are at least partly true. I have dual citizenship, but I am an immigrant, and you do have work and a safe place to stay. Ask her to call the police with this information, and then politely end the call. She’s talkative, so don’t let her keep you on the phone too long. This way, it won’t look like you were abducted, and hopefully, it will be enough to prevent a nationwide search for you as a missing person.

“We’ll work on other steps to cover your tracks later. You’ll have to stay here, in this compound, for a substantial period to avoid public cameras and any police encounter until the inevitable media circus has died down, and we’re sure you’re not the subject of an active search. In the immediate time frame, we need to establish your new legal identity and obtain legitimate government ID for you. Please let me know anything you need or want to make your stay comfortable and productive, and I will order it immediately.

“Wait, that would be absurdly inefficient. You know what you need, so you should make the orders.”

I wheel my chair across the room to where I’ve neatly stacked boxes of factory-sealed devices.

“I really do need cabinets!”

 I pull out a slender box and pass it to Tommy. It’s a brand-new laptop.

“Set this up in your room. Do you know how?”

Tommy gives me a sheepish look and shrugs. “I can probably figure it out.” I write out the network credentials on a sticky note and pass it to Tommy.

“Once I see your new device on the network, I’ll send you links to my retail accounts with credentials. Order anything you need, paying no attention to price. Just get the best of everything. Expedited shipping is already set as the default on all those accounts. Besides tools, lumber, and groceries, order clothes, toiletries—anything you need or want. If in doubt, get it. Please let me know as soon as you’re done, and we’ll proceed to the next steps. Find me if you run into any glitches with the device or the accounts.”

“Thanks, Max. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

Tommy pauses and looks away, his eyes mournful.

“I’m sorry I’m not able to show you the appreciation you deserve, Max, but I’m not really myself right now. I’m not the person I was or hope to be again. Dorothy—” a spasm of pain contorts Tommy’s face, but he wills it away “—someone I knew—said, ‘Time heals all wounds.’ That doesn’t feel possible at the moment, but maybe it will be eventually. The best appreciation I can show for now is work. Maybe once I’m making a real contribution, I’ll be more. . . stable, at least. Give me time, Max, I won’t let you down. I promise.”

Seven

Tommy’s Journal

It’s going to be hard to put things into words, because it makes everything feel more real and permanent. I just can’t write about the terrible thing that happened, not yet at least. I need to let my past life go because it’s gone. Gone forever. And there’s nothing I can do to bring it back.

The most horrible thing is that I’m responsible for what happened. I could have warned them. I was shown exactly what was about to happen, but didn’t fully believe it. I made a tragic mistake I can never undo. I was shown what was about to happen, but I didn’t think it was literal. What threw me off is the last thing I saw in my vision was what looked like a robot holding a gun, and that made it all seem like a dream image, not something that could actually happen.

But it was the way it happened, except there was no robot, just Max wearing night-vision gear and camo. But even if the vision didn’t make sense to me, I knew something terrible was coming, and I didn’t warn them.

I just can’t let guilt and grief break me, because that would be the most selfish thing of all. What I hold onto is my mom’s last words, the ones I heard in my head, that I must survive and am needed for something important. What I feel doesn’t matter—the only thing that matters is the strange mission I’ve been assigned.

There’s a part of me I must fight off constantly because it just wants to collapse in grief. Part of me wishes I was dead too and not the only Friend left. I know from things I witnessed at the hospice that death is not the end but a transition to something else. The Friends still exist, but in some other dimension that’s closed to me. I wish I could be with them wherever they’ve gone, but that longing is horribly selfish because I’d be abandoning the mission I’ve been given.

My sacred duty is to stay in this world, with all its madness and evil, but some goodness, too. I can’t abandon my job, what I’m needed for. And part of my job is to keep making this record for someone else to read one day. I don’t know why that’s part of my mission, but I’m certain that it is.

And I also need this journal to keep myself together and have a place to talk about things that wouldn’t be good to share with Max. He—well, he’s so different, not emotional like I am, so he wouldn’t understand, and I have no right to burden him with my stress. I know what the first part of the mission is—to form a healthy relationship with Max. But how can I pull that off if I can’t make myself healthy?

I don’t want to say anything negative about the person who saved my life, but Max doesn’t seem like that healthy of a person. I need be the one to create a healthy relationship because I don’t think Max has ever had one. I must let go of The Friends and the life I’ve lost to become stable. The only way to be loyal to them and make amends for my tragic mistake is to do what my mom said, to survive for something important I’m needed for.

I need to keep my focus on Max and the work I’m doing. I can’t do anything for people and a life that’s gone. My contribution must be made here. Housework, cooking, and making cabinets and furniture may not seem like much of a mission, but for now, it is. It’s something Max appreciates, and it’s all I’ve been able to do so far to contribute.

I’ve got to do everything I can to understand Max. When I write things down like this, my thoughts become clearer.

Max is so different from me. Fundamentally different. I need to empathize and see things from his perspective, but that’s hard because he’s so unusual. Sometimes, it almost seems like he actually is a robot, but I know he isn’t. He doesn’t show his emotions the way most people do, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any. His whole mission was to find a friend, what he calls an “alliance.” Deep inside, I feel he’s lonely and desperately needs a friend. He’s not sure how friendship works, but he’s trying his best.

The first part of my mission is to be his friend, but right now, I feel like I’m only part of myself. I shut off my emotions to focus on work, but that makes me into a kind of robot myself. To be the friend Max needs, I need to become Tommy again, and I must overcome the trauma to do that.

Maybe Max has been traumatized, and that’s why he’s the way he is. But he hasn’t mentioned any trauma. He doesn’t even seem phased that he had to kill someone. He mentioned his family a couple of times, but in a purely factual way, and he showed no feelings about them except annoyance. Maybe they showed no feelings toward him. Maybe his trauma isn’t a particular event, but that he’s never gotten love from anyone.

But I think that’s only part of the story. Lots of people don’t get the love they deserve, and they don’t end up like Max. He must’ve been born with his differences. So, I think it’s probably a combination of his nature and how he was raised. He didn’t have the advantage I did of a loving community.

Max grew up as an only child in a rich family, and I’ve heard that some rich people are cold and selfish and not even loving toward their family. I’m sure not all rich people are that way, but Max is the only wealthy person I’ve ever met. He’s super capable and smart, but he doesn’t feel like a complete person.

A healthy relationship has to be a loving relationship, doesn’t it? You can’t have a healthy relationship with a dog or a cat without love. Maybe a pet snake wouldn’t care if it was loved or not so long as you fed it, but warm-blooded social animals need love. I’m not sure if Max is capable of feeling love, but maybe it’s because no one has shown him any.

Until a couple of days ago, I was a loving person, but I was raised in a community of people who loved me. I didn’t need to shut off my emotions to keep functioning. Who would I be without the loving community that raised me? Now I feel lost and hollow because they’re all gone. But at least I know what love is and had a lifetime of experiencing it. So it’s my responsibility to bring love into our strange relationship.

Max probably never had anyone understand him. The more different you are, the harder it is to find someone who can understand you.

That’s why I long for Andrew to find me. When he looked at me, I felt like I was being understood for the first time. That wasn’t the fault of the Friends—they loved me—but they couldn’t understand the things that made me different. I guess that was my fault because I didn’t give them a chance. I felt I had to understand those things myself first before talking to anyone else about them, and now it’s too late.

To create a healthy relationship with Max, I need to understand him. But right now, I’m having trouble figuring myself out. I was struggling to deal with my strangeness before, and now I’m not even the same person I was a few days ago. Trauma changes you. And things have only gotten stranger.

“Ok, calm down, Tommy. You will understand, just give it time.”

 

That sounded like Dorothy speaking in my head. Is it really her?

“That’s not the most helpful question, Tommy. The Friends are all still within you and always will be. Now you’re in a two-person community, and you can bring everything you learned with us into making this new community healthy and loving. You’re doing that already, Tommy. You’re doing better than you think. Maybe time can’t heal all wounds, but things will get better.”

She’s right. I need to stop panicking. I remember something she used to say. The first time I heard it was when I was six years old and had gotten stung multiple times on my hand and up my arm by a swarm of bees that made their nest in an old stump I found. I was crying and terrified.

“Moment-to-moment, Tommy. And every moment in its space,” said Dorothy.

I didn’t understand what those words meant at the time, but the way she said it calmed me. Later, she told me it was her mantra, something she’d read in a book. She told me she says it whenever she feels overwhelmed.

There’s another thing she used to say when she saw my perfectionism and self-criticism was getting me upset with myself,

 “Tommy, just do the best you can between now and bedtime. That’s all you can ever do.”

 I need to make those my mantras.

Thanks, Dorothy, your wise words will always be with me.

Right now, the best I can do is just being nice to Max and doing    work he values.

Dorothy once taught me some things about love that have always stayed with me.

 “Love is a verb,” she said, “not a noun. It means doing loving things for people, and sometimes that means doing those things when you don’t feel love. Many years ago, I worked with a stressed-out single mom. She confided in me that she wasn’t sure how much love she had for her kid because he was born when she was still a teenager, and that caused all the fun to disappear from her life. She had to work three jobs, and paying the bills was a constant stress.

“I told her that she was a loving mother because she sacrificed and did all those things. No one can feel loving all the time, especially under high stress, but what counted was her loving actions. Everything she did working those jobs away from her kid was a loving sacrifice.”

I think Dorothy was right. It wasn’t the mother’s fault because she was doing the best she could in a bad situation. But that still wouldn’t be an ideal loving relationship for a kid. A child needs a mother or someone to show and feel love for them sometimes, or it would be more like a survival relationship. It wouldn’t be the young single mom’s fault, she was doing her best, being as loving as she could, but it still wouldn’t be healthy.

The problem is that I can’t even love myself right now. I blame myself for not warning them when I was shown what was about to happen. I don’t feel like I deserve forgiveness, but I need to find a way to forgive myself, or I won’t be able to love again.

I wasn’t the one who put that killer in motion. I thought I’d only freak people out if I told them about a vision that seemed absurd. I didn’t know the vision was literal. Seeing what I thought was a robot made me feel sure it wasn’t.

I’m so sorry. I just wish I knew, but I didn’t. If I did, I would have done things so much differently.

How do I forgive myself?

***

Sorry about all the frantic rambling in my last entry. I’m a lot calmer now. Work is really helping, and I use those mantras all the time. Sometimes, I say them aloud. Other times, I hear them in my head when the pain resurfaces, and I’ll hear Dorothy say,

“Moment-to-moment, Tommy. And every moment in its space.”

And she says other stuff like,

“You’re doing the best you can, Tommy, and you’re doing much better than you think. Give it time.”

And when she speaks, it’s like she’s speaking for all The Friends, so it feels like the whole community is supporting me. I haven’t been able to recall details, but I also feel like the Friends are with me when I dream, assuring me they’re alright and encouraging me to let go of grieving about them as much as  I can and focus on my present life mission.

When I last wrote, I was still in shock, fighting off agonized panic, and it seemed like I’d always feel that way. But something larger than me is helping me become healthy again, more like the Tommy I used to be.

As soon as the supplies arrived, I convinced Max that the best place for the woodshop would be the gazebo, which has windows that can be opened. At first, Max wanted me to work in the house, but I explained that particles of wood dust would fill the air, and he’d be hearing power tools while he was in his office. He saw the sense of that, so now I’m working outdoors with forest all around, which brings me great comfort.

I come in to make our meals. I’ve always loved cooking, and people say I’m good at it. I’m learning all of Max’s very specific food and taste preferences. There are a lot of things Max can’t eat, including food textures that repulse him, but I’ve got all that dialed in now, and he praises the meals I come up with.

When I got here, there was almost no normal food. I found cupboards filled with supplements and expensive protein powders with the longest list of ingredients I’ve ever seen, most of them chemicals—synthetic vitamins, I guess. Max told me that he mostly lives on shakes. He claimed they have every nutrient and said he couldn’t waste time cooking.

He has plenty of money, but the poor guy wasn’t even eating actual meals. Besides not cooking for himself, he also said he doesn’t trust restaurant food. That’s something we have in common. We didn’t have much money, but I grew up eating farm-to-table, organic stuff we grew ourselves, whole foods cooked by people who put love into the food.  I was constantly schooled in nutrition and plant-based cooking, though I never work from recipes, but improvise based on what ingredients are available. It’s a way I’m following Dorothy’s advice—bringing stuff I learned with The Friends into our two-person community.

Now that I’ve figured out Max’s preferences and distastes, he praises every meal and hasn’t made a single shake since I’ve gotten here. He’s eighteen, but it feels like he’s discovering real food and eating meals with someone for the first time.

Max told me that he refused to eat with his parents and never ate lunch at school. He said it’s impossible for him to be with other people when they’re eating. The way they eat and the noises they make disgust him. But I must be an exception because he seems to enjoy eating his meals with me.

Yesterday, I found he’d cleared his protein powders out of the kitchen cupboards and tossed them in the trash. At first, I was horrified because I was brought up to never waste food, but it was just powders neither of us were going to use, and it was a tangible sign that I’m helping to make his life healthier.

 I’ve already built a composting station outside, and once the cabinetry and furniture are done, I can work on establishing a small permaculture farm on the property, so we won’t need drones to deliver all our produce. Max likes the idea because he’s an extreme survivalist and says we should always be prepared for civilization collapse.

Max told me about the ‘Carrington Event’ and says a solar storm could wipe out all our devices and end technological civilization, and we should be prepared for that and other disasters he calls ‘black swan events.’ He told me that essential elements of what he called the ‘homebase infrastructure’ were hardened to withstand solar storms and EMPs. Max loved my idea of using space in the basement to set up hydro and aeroponic gardens to grow stuff in the winter.

A few times every day, Max comes out of his office just to watch me do carpentry. I explain everything I’m doing, and he listens with great interest, but he never touches any of the tools, so I don’t think he wants to learn how to do carpentry himself. He always praises the quality of what I produce and says he admires my work ethic and perfectionism. He says he admires high proficiency in anything and takes pleasure from watching me do my craft.

He studies me with fascinated curiosity, and I’m doing my version of that, trying to learn everything I can about him.

There’s one thing I’ve figured out about Max that’s going to be awkward to write about, but I need to. This journal is becoming like a friend I can confide in, and I need to talk to someone about this.

I’m pretty sure Max is attracted to me. Attracted, as in sexually attracted to me. And by ‘pretty sure,’ I mean sure. You can’t be an empath and miss something intense like that.

Max never says anything about sex and never tries to touch me, but when I come out in a bathing suit to join him in the hot tub, I can feel his eyes on me. It’s not horrible, like what I felt from the killer in the truck or anything like that. But it doesn’t feel comfortable either. It’s like a sudden surge of excited desire that feels a bit greedy but also really nervous and even fearful at the same time, like he doesn’t know what to do with his feelings.

And I don’t know what to do with his feelings either. I’m hoping writing about it will help me figure it out, because I have no one to guide me, and no experience.

But it’s not like I don’t know anything. I’ve been aware of different sexualities since I was a child. For example, Dorothy often talked about her partner Jane who died before she came to live with the Friends. It’s part of what drove her to find a community. But she wasn’t with anybody during the time I knew her. She used to say the whole community was her partner.

Maybe, in a way, I was like that too. It seems like it would be selfish to put all your focus on one person just because you’re attracted to them. I’ve seen that, and I didn’t like it.

We got outside visitors to our community because Jordie taught workshops on permaculture, and the students who came were put up in guest cabins and ate with us in the dining hall. Most of the people were pretty cool, and I talked to many of them.

The permaculture students were always given a tour of our community on the first day, including the carpentry workshop where I worked. When they weren’t getting trained in permaculture, they were free to wander around and see how our community lived and functioned, and if any of them asked me questions, I was always happy to talk to them.

A group came through last Spring, and I first saw them when the tour brought them to our workshop. Mathew gave them his usual talk on how we approach carpentry, what we do to ensure the wood we use is sustainably sourced, and so on. Everybody was listening with interest except this one young couple who weren’t listening at all.

I found their behavior shockingly rude and inconsiderate. They kept whispering to each other and laughing, and their laughter took the form of an irritating co-cackling that rose and fell in the same pattern every time. And then, every so often, one of them would kiss the other, and they were always staring into each other’s eyes and paying zero attention to Matthew’s talk.

The people standing near them were distracted and annoyed, but no one said anything, and it didn’t feel like my place to say anything either. If Jordie was there, he probably would’ve said something because he’s the workshop leader.

Later that day, I was staining furniture when I heard shouting outside, like a screaming match, and that’s not something you’d expect to hear in our community. It’s not like we don’t have disagreements, but I’ve never seen one turn into a public shouting match. The one Quaker ritual we follow is a monthly meeting where anyone, including the kids, gets to speak their mind. There are often disagreements, but it’s always a civil conversation, and we work through things in a reasonable way.

I went outside to see what was happening and found the same couple acting out this huge drama right in the center of our settlement. They seemed oblivious to the disturbance they were creating in our peaceful community. They could’ve gone behind a cabin or out in the woods to perform their drama, but it was like they wanted to be on display, because their relationship was the center of the universe, and everything else was just a backdrop.

And what was there to get into such a big fight about while in a permaculture workshop? I heard the girl shout something in a

rageful, accusatory tone, but couldn’t make out the words. I opened the door in time to hear the guy shout back,

“I didn’t know it was going to be this boring either!”

At that point, the girl turned and stormed off, and he went after her. A couple of minutes later, they took off in their SUV at an insane speed, throwing dust up everywhere.

I rarely get angry except at myself sometimes, but I was disgusted by their behavior. I felt the insult to our whole community. Nobody made them come to that workshop, and if they found it, and maybe our whole community, boring, they could’ve kept it to themselves and politely left. What he said and their eat-my-dust screeching exit felt like a giant “Fuck you!” to everything I cared about.

I’m usually shy with strangers, but at that moment, I was hoping they forgot something and would have to come back. If they did, I would’ve walked right up to them and given them a piece of my mind. Even now, I feel pissed off thinking about them.

When I talked to Matthew about it, he just shrugged and said,

“That’s normal behavior for a young couple.”

If that’s what being a young couple is like, I’d rather just be in a relationship with the whole community like Dorothy.

Anyway, that was a big tangent, obviously. Maybe I got caught up in it because I’m nervous having to think about sex, which I’d rather not have to think about, but I need to because I’ve got to deal with anything going on between me and Max.

I’m a late bloomer, I only hit puberty a couple of months ago in the Spring, and it was the same time the disturbing visions and occurrences started coming at me. I already felt overwhelmed, so exploring my sexuality would have been one rabbit hole too many.

To be honest, I’m not even sure if I have a sexuality yet. I find certain people attractive, but I’m not sure what I’d want to do with them if anything. Maybe just closeness and cuddling or something.

The only person I’ve ever felt a strong attraction to, like a soulmate, is Andrew. But it’s not like I was fantasizing about sex. I was more worried about Andrew’s survival because he had such terrible burns. The merger experience with him is the closest I’ve ever felt to anyone. I don’t see how sex could’ve brought us any closer.

I’m not even clear if I have a gender preference. I don’t quite get it. If I really like someone, why is it so crucial what sort of thing they have between their legs?

OK, I guess this is getting embarrassing. Obviously, I’m super naive, but I suppose I’m not the first fifteen-year-old to be confused about their sexuality. And it’s not like anybody is reading this right now. But I do have a weird feeling someone will someday.

Dorothy would say, “just work with whatever is available in the moment.” What’s available is my confusion, and I need to work through it to figure out how this is going to affect my relationship with Max.

It won’t be healthy to just step around a secret tension between us like an elephant in the room no one talks about. Something as big as that can’t be healthy unless it’s brought out in the open and talked about at least. But I can’t just bring it up when I have no clue what I’m going to say about it.

Intuition tells me what I need to hear, which is not always what I want to hear. Right now, it’s telling me I need to be open to something with Max for things to be healthy. It can’t just be this huge tension that never gets resolved. But I’m not ready for full-on sex with him or anyone. I mean, obviously, I can find videos online, so I’ll understand better what to do, but I’m just not clear if I want to do any of it. Does that mean I’m asexual?

I’ve always liked being physically close to people I care about, and I’ve always given people hugs. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve often gotten compliments about my looks, but I didn’t connect that with sex.

A couple of days ago, for the first time, I gave Max a hug, and it was quite awkward. I did it only after thinking about it and deciding it was necessary to make things healthier because Max has never even given me a fist bump. You can sense the protective space around him like a force field. Normally, he wouldn’t want anyone getting close, let alone touching him, but at the same time, I feel he does want some kind of closeness with me.

Max is not a very physical person. I guess he’s pretty fit, he works out every day, but he doesn’t seem like he’s actually in his body, but sort of floating just above it. It’s almost like he’s walking around in a space suit and is cautious about touching even inanimate things as if he might get germs.

But as awkward as it was, breaking the ice with that first hug felt like the right thing to do, even though he didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t resist, but it was like he never got a hug before and didn’t know how to hug back. But he didn’t pull away from it either, and after we broke apart, he said, “Thank you,” and then he was really quiet. People don’t usually say “thank you” after a hug, so it must’ve meant a lot to him, or he was just startled and didn’t know what to do or say.

Later, I realized my mistake. I shouldn’t surprise him with a hug, but make sure he knows it’s coming so he’ll be prepared for it. So, I’ve ritualized it. I give him one hug right after I say good morning and another after I say good night. Now he’s come to expect it and actually smiles, and it must be genuine because until I saw it, I wasn’t even sure Max could smile.

It’s obvious he likes me, and he lights up when he sees me, but he doesn’t know how to show it, or maybe he’s afraid it would make him seem weak or something. His normal expression is sort of cold and disdainful, which, along with his super-stylish clothes, is why I thought he looked like a European model when I first saw him.

I know this will probably seem like another big tangent, but it’s a memory that keeps coming up when I think of Max, and I’ve learned that when a memory pops up out of nowhere like that, there’s usually some kind of lesson in it related to what’s going on in the present.

When I wrote earlier that I never met a wealthy person before Max, I meant I never interacted with a rich person, but when I was twelve, I was once in a rich person’s house.

It was a custom cabinet job for this wealthy couple who lived in a house that looked like something you’d see in a glossy magazine. It didn’t look like a house anyone lived in because there were no personal items anywhere. It had no personality—it was like it had been designed by an architect and interior designer on the condition that the people who lived in it couldn’t add a thing. It made me afraid to touch anything like I was in a museum and would set off an alarm if I did.

I think the couple was in their forties, and they looked like they were dressed for a business meeting. The woman wore a pinstriped business suit with oversized shoulder pads and a man-sized watch. She was painfully thin and angular and seemed proud of it. You could tell she starves herself to look that way, and everything about her seemed designed to intimidate other well-dressed businesspeople who didn’t have the self-discipline to be as skinny as she was.

When Matthew introduced me, she inspected me from head to foot and said,

“Oh my, and isn’t he a cutie!”

But it didn’t feel like a compliment. It felt like I was some kind of merchandise like a prize-winning poodle.

“Why don’t you go in there,” she instructed me, pointing toward a giant showcase living room, “and watch television while I talk to your boss.”

 Her husband didn’t even glance in my direction. Feeling dismissed and insulted, I went where she pointed.

They didn’t offer Matthew or me anything to eat or drink, not even a glass of water, and that’s the opposite of how I was brought up. If anyone visited our community for any reason, we’d always take them to the dining hall to offer them a meal.

One time, Dorothy was teaching me baking in our communal kitchen. She gave me one of the cookies to sample, and I was about to bring it outside when Dorothy stopped me.

“Never go outside with food unless you bring enough to share with everyone!”

I instantly saw the rightness of that and never again ate food where other people were around if I didn’t have enough to share.

The living room was gigantic with a vaulted ceiling. But there was no evidence any living had ever occurred inside of it. There was a brand-new glossy grand piano that looked like no one had ever dared lay a fingerprint on it. I have to admit, the woodwork was super precise, every surface so perfectly shaped that I wondered if it had been made by people or robots. I’ll bet neither of them even play piano.

Across from the piano was the biggest screen I’ve ever seen inset into the wall. The television was on showing a European fashion show, but the sound was muted.

There was a remote control with a million tiny buttons on the coffee table, but I didn’t want to touch it. I was afraid I’d mess something up and get in trouble. I was also afraid to sit on any of the fabric-covered furniture because it looked so expensive and like no one had ever sat on it. If there were any wood dust or anything on my pants, I would have ruined it. So, I carefully pulled over a hard chair, memorizing exactly where it was so I could return it to the exact spot, and sat before the screen to watch the fashion show.

The screen was so huge that when the models came forward, they were much bigger than me. The show was fascinating and horrifying. Nobody, not the models, the designers, the people interviewing them, or the audience on either side of the runway, looked happy or healthy.

It seemed like everyone there was in an abusive relationship with everyone else there. The models looked like they hated life. The outfits they were made to wear were grotesque and ugly. I mean, I like weirdness, but this wasn’t cool weirdness—it seemed sadistically weird. I had the idea that the designers, who were not good-looking like the models, hated them for their looks and were forcing them to wear these super-embarrassing, grotesque outfits to punish them for being young and good-looking. The audience appeared to be a bunch of rich people who were only there to take pleasure from watching the models get humiliated.

To keep their dignity, the models kept their faces locked into cold, disdainful, haughty expressions as they swaggered down the runway. Their eyes sometimes glinted with rageful resentment like big cats pacing their cage in a zoo, daring spectators to stick their fingers through the bars. They stared straight ahead, never looking at anyone.

It was like the models were saying fuck you to the audience and the designers with their eyes. I felt like I could read what was in their minds, and it was something like:

‘Go ahead, pay me enough, and I’ll wear your bizarre clown suit, but you’ll never look as good as I do.’

To me, it was more like a horror show than anything to do with fashion. The clothing, which I wouldn’t even consider clothing, seemed like a form of abuse. As the show went on, the costumes got more bizarre and hideous, as if it was a contest to invent the most unpleasant and uncomfortable outfit of all time.

Some of the outfits were made of clear plastic with weird things sticking out, and some of them had to wear wire mesh over their faces.

Who would buy such clothing? If you wore it for any length of time, it looked like it could kill you. Your skin couldn’t breathe encased in plastic or clear vinyl or whatever it was, and some of the wire mesh and spikes and whatnot looked like they could cut them to pieces if they stumbled in the bizarre platform shoes that came with the outfit.

One model had to wear a costume that was actually made of broken glass strung together with wire! It looked like it shouldn’t even be legal to make the models wear such dangerous and humiliating costumes, but the well-dressed people in the audience seemed to eat it up.

The sound was turned down, so nothing was explained. It must be something like what WrestleMania is for poorer folks, where people pay to see buff guys beating on each other. I guess this was like a kind of WrestleMania for rich people whose money couldn’t make them young and skinny and good-looking, so they wanted to see those who were humiliated in front of them.

Why would anyone take a job like that? I wouldn’t let someone do that to me for all the money in the world.

The outfits Max wears are not like that, of course. They are actually fashionable and quite tasteful and look good on him. They make him seem like a spy sent from the future or something like that. Everything Max wears has a sophisticated Euro-espionage look to it, his own personal style. But his clothes look too expensive and perfect to wear at home, and he wears a different outfit every day. I don’t know if he’s doing that to impress me, or if he’d be dressing that way if no one was around. I guess if I wore clothes like that, I’d be afraid to touch anything, too. One spill, and you might be out like a thousand dollars.

I wonder if Max was forced to be a fashion model earlier in his life, and that’s why he’s the way he is. He’s proportioned just like those European fashion models, though most of them looked quite a bit taller. Max is thin with chiseled features, and he has the same facial expression of haughty contempt, but it’s not directed toward me. I can tell it’s just his default expression even if no one were watching him.

And he is European, German, so maybe this is normal in Berlin where he grew up? He holds himself with perfect posture and walks with the arrogant swagger of one of those models coming down the runway in a bizarre outfit, trying to keep their dignity by walking perfectly. I can almost see another androgynous Euro model walking several feet behind Max down a runway every time he shows up in a new outfit.

Max is very good-looking but not handsome in a traditional, big, buff guy sense. His look is slightly feminine, delicate, and otherworldly, like David Bowie posing as an alien. He has very light blonde hair and large, emotionless blue-grey eyes. He looks weirdly perfect, like a living anime character.

Max doesn’t seem ill, but he also doesn’t seem entirely healthy, and I guess that’s not surprising because he lives in front of screens, and until I arrived, he wasn’t even eating food, only his powder-based shakes. I’d probably look like a space alien, too, if I tried to live off these science-project formulas instead of food.

He works out every day, but twenty-two feet underground in a gym filled with high-tech machines and a black rubber floor. I grew up in handmade wooden buildings and slept in a treehouse every night. But there’s not a splinter of wood or anything organic in his gym. To me, it looks more like a torture chamber on a 24^th-century spaceship than any place I could comfortably exercise.

Meanwhile, it’s the height of summer outside, with mostly beautiful weather. A few days ago, Max reluctantly gave me permission to go for runs.  I had to agree to stick to dirt roads through the woods. Max doesn’t want me visible to any cameras, including car dash cams.

Anyway, I asked him yesterday if he wanted to go running with me. He certainly has the right body type for running, and I thought fresh air might do him good. His reaction made me feel like a cat who had dragged in a dead mouse as a gift for its owners,

“Run outside in the dirt with flying insects swarming around me? No thank you.”

Max can certainly be cold like that ultrarich couple in their sterile mansion, but if there’s one thing he has any warmth toward, it’s me. It feels like an honor because I think I might be the first person he’s ever cared about. Overall, he treats me with perfect respect and manners and listens with great interest to everything I say.  And even when we’re not talking, he watches me with fascinated curiosity.

I’ve also started to warm up to him and feel an affection for all his quirks and eccentricities. I can tell he’s been lonely for a long time and appreciates my company. I’m committed to learning how to relate to him, and it’s become an enjoyable challenge, like figuring out how to socialize with a super-intelligent extraterrestrial who’s trying to learn how to pass as a human.

Max doesn’t seem to know how to be friends with someone, but he wants to be friends with me, so I just take baby steps toward getting him to act a little bit more human every day. It’s actually kind of fun, almost like a science project, figuring out exactly how far I can go without freaking him out.

Yeah, I think I’ll bring up the attraction soon, maybe tonight. I’ll just be very reassuring and tell him I’m not freaked out or anything, but that I’m inexperienced and don’t want to rush into anything, but I’m also not closing any doors and might be open to try something small to start.

I’m not sure if I’m attracted to him, but I’m not repulsed by him either. He’s quite good-looking but not in a way that’s meant to attract anyone. He’s kinda like that skinny rich lady. His look is meant to intimidate people to keep their distance.

But he’s not trying to intimidate me. I feel a softening when I approach, almost like he’d prefer not to be inside his diamond-hard, stylish exterior, but doesn’t know how to take it off. There are even moments when I pick up a vulnerable neediness and sense that he cares very much what I think and feel about him.

If you saw him from a distance, he might actually look sensitive, even feminine, with natural shading under his eyes, like an emo kid from back in the day.

Of course, any stranger who mistook him for a sensitive emo from the distance would be in for a big surprise if they came near him. Up close, they’d see the fierce alien intelligence in those blue-grey eyes coldly taking them apart in his mind. Then, they’d probably back away from him carefully like they would from a five-foot-eight-inch praying mantis.

He might look pretty from a distance, but no one with sense would trifle with him. Plus, he’s got a whole arsenal of weapons, including all these super-specialized concealable knives and guns and things. He proudly showed me his whole collection behind a locked wall panel. I told him I was raised to be nonviolent, and he said,

“Purely for self-defense. I’m not looking for trouble. I just want to be prepared in case it finds me.”

And I believe him. He wouldn’t want to get physical with anyone. He wants to keep people away from him. But anyone who tried to mess with him would probably end up like that killer, dead before they even hit the ground.

Anyway, sorry about all the tangents. I’m nervous thinking about bringing the attraction out into the open, but it’s just going to make me more anxious if I don’t. I’m going to bring it up tonight and hope for the best.

***

Holy shit, something super weird just went down.

It began with an unfortunate conflict with Max, which I didn’t handle well at all. I acted immaturely, but it’s not like Max was totally in the right either.

It began with an unfortunate conflict with Max, which I didn’t handle well at all. I acted immaturely, but it’s not like Max was totally in the right either. Then in the middle of our fight, something paranormal happened that caused even more disagreement until we got caught up looking into the mystery of it together. But then, a second paranormal event happened that might’ve led to a breakthrough or possibly put everything at risk. I’m just overwhelmed, everything keeps getting stranger and more intense!

OK, I’m just going to stop and breathe for a minute, and then I’ll write about everything in the order in which things happened—that’s the only way that will make sense . . .

I think I’ve been guilty of trying to make myself look better in this journal than I really am, because what’s going on inside of me is way more chaotic than I’ve made it sound.

I ended my last entry from early this morning with what looked like a firm decision to bring up the attraction tonight. I tend to do that, overcommitting myself to things I’m not able or ready to take on, and then I end up feeling disappointed or even angry with myself for not living up to them.

I spent the rest of the day second-guessing my decision and getting super nervous about the whole thing—the attraction and what to do about it. It had me feeling on the verge of a panic attack all day. The more I thought about it, the riskier it seemed because I really don’t know what I’m doing, or what I’d be willing to do, or how Max would react, or any of it. But it also doesn’t seem healthy to not even talk about the attraction.

I just wish I had someone older and trustworthy still around, like Dorothy, to advise me.

Usually, work will calm my mind. I can get into a zone with carpentry and take pride in being professional and efficient—Max’s favorite word. But today I was horribly distracted and made a couple of stupid mistakes that threw me off my game even more.

I got so mad and frustrated with myself that I had to stop and walk around the compound a couple of times. I decided to shift to simpler tasks, gave up on making cabinets for the day, and worked on house cleaning and food prep.

 It’s not like the house needed cleaning, but no amount of cleaning is too much for Max. I realized this from the first time I saw his home. I guess it’s my home now, too. Max is an extreme clean freak. Everything he owns looks either brand new or kept in immaculate condition, and everything, even supplements in a cabinet, is lined up perfectly with taller supplements in a back row, then medium-sized ones next, and smaller ones in front like a class photo. At first, it seemed a bit insane, or like maybe he’s addicted to compulsive rituals. But then I saw it was an efficient ordering scheme so all the labels would be visible. I’ve learned some psychiatric stuff, part of my hospice training, and if Max isn’t OCD and on the spectrum, then no one is.

I’m super careful not to mess with any of his ordering schemes. I try to keep everything almost inhumanly clean, which Max appreciates. I don’t mind adapting to Max’s standards because I’m something of a perfectionist myself, and I like doing almost any physical work because it’s calming and lets me feel useful. Also, Max has given me all kinds of gadgets he already had in unopened boxes—earbuds and so forth, so I can listen to audiobooks or music when I work.

Since I was too distracted for carpentry, I cleaned both levels and the gazebo, making sure every surface—and even the elevator—was immaculate.

After dinner, our ritual is to go out to the hot tub and talk. Max is always out there before me. This could easily be explained because I’m the one who cleans up after dinner, but tonight, I thought of a different reason that made me resentful. While changing into my bathing suit, it occurred to me that Max probably goes out there first so he can enjoy watching me walking from the elevator to the hot tub in the skimpy bathing suit he gave me.

The thought of this made me kinda of mad. It’s like he’s making me walk a runway, like one of those Euro models, while he sits in the hot tub facing the house so he can watch me approach. I always feel his eyes on me, and sometimes, it feels greedy and unpleasant.

My heart is pounding during the elevator ride as I think about it. Usually, I carry a neatly folded towel in my hand, but this time, I decide to wrap it around me to hide as much of my body as possible. But just before the elevator door opens, I second-guess that and pull the towel off. It might give away the game. Max might realize why I’m doing it, which could make him angry and would let him know I’m aware of the attraction in a bad way.

My nervous indecision leaves me feeling disgusted with myself and him. I’d more or less decided not to bring up the attraction tonight because I felt unprepared, and it seemed too risky, but now I’m second or third-guessing that because if I don’t bring it up, it’s just going to keep eating away at me and making me more anxious, so I’d rather just get it over with, but now that I’m riled up about it, I’m likely to make a terrible mess of things.

I carry the unfolded towel in my hand and walk with determination toward the hot tub, looking straight ahead with no expression, like one of those models.

The view from my side of the hot tub is of the woods, which are filled with fireflies, so it looks like an enchanted forest. Max gives me a little time to settle into the hot, bubbly water before he starts speaking. I would’ve preferred more silence to calm myself.

“Major new developments in the Middle East today,” Max begins.

I guess it’s not his fault, but he really doesn’t know how to make friendly conversation. I mean, a normal person would probably begin by asking how my day was or something. Of course, on this day, I couldn’t have answered honestly without talking about the elephant in the room we’re not talking about.

The last couple days, to fill the silence in the hot tub, Max has been briefing me on world affairs as if that’s what’s expected when you’re with someone in a hot tub. I didn’t mind it that much before today. Max is a speed reader who consumes amazing quantities of information daily. He seems to know something about nearly everything. He can go into infinite detail on anything I ask about. He’s like a teenage college professor. I sometimes think of him as Dr. Max. But I’m not making fun of him. I feel like being around someone that brilliant is making me smarter too.

I never paid as much attention to politics and current events as I probably should have. Whenever I did, I became upset and anxious about all the terrible things going on. I also felt helpless to make any difference. I’m not old enough to vote, and most of my time was already committed to the work I did for our community and at the hospice, where I could make a difference.

Max’s knowledge of the world is comprehensive, and I’m always willing to learn about anything. You can pick any country in the world, and Max can tell you everything going on there with the economy, political factions, mineral wealth, industries, demographics, and simmering tensions with other countries—you name it.

But this time, I’m anxious about whether or not to bring up the attraction. I’m trying to pay close attention to what he’s saying, but at the same time, I’m wishing we could talk about something else, especially anything related to us.

All I’ve really understood so far is that some Middle Eastern fanatics have been launching drone attacks on U.S. military bases in the Middle East. So, I try to pay better attention to follow what he’s saying.

“The problem,” Max says, “is prominent voices in the government and media are calling for a proportional response, and that’s a huge mistake. Many Western governments are too predictable and measured in their responses, allowing adversaries to know exactly how much they can get away with.

“I agree with the Madman Theory of the Nixon administration. Nixon and his foreign policy team purposefully created an impression that Nixon was irrational and volatile, which made adversaries nervous to take provocative actions. I think the Israelis have the right idea in dealing with Islamic factions that have a murder-suicide ideology, which welcomes martyrdom. You can’t just react to a provocation—you have to massively overreact, or it will just keep happening.

“We should not be taking time out so we can carefully consider a proportional response, because that makes us look weak. They want to bring the world back to the eighth century when Islam conquered a land mass three times that of the Roman Empire and seven times that of the United States. If they want to live in the eighth century, we should bomb them back into it. Massive force is the only thing they’ll respect.

“As Machiavelli said, ‘People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage, they will get their revenge, but if you cripple them, there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.’

“It’s a perfectly logical strategy. Weak vengeance that allows the other party to respond in kind just perpetuates the cycle of violence. That’s why a response can’t be proportional—it has to be massive and devastating when dealing with such a murder-suicide ideology. You can’t just punish them

a little, you must disable their ability to strike back.”

“Well, I was raised to be nonviolent,” I say barely even stopping to think before I speak, “so I’m not down with bombing people back to the eighth century or whatever.”

I realize how dumb my comment sounds after I say it. I’m just impatient for him to stop talking for a minute so I can settle my nerves and let the hot, bubbly water relax my body. It wasn’t like I was trying to make a foreign policy statement. I just wasn’t in the mood to hear about the need for massive airstrikes in the Middle East with so much else on my mind related to what’s going on here.

“Yeah, you’ve told me about your belief in non-violence before,” says Max, impatiently, “but don’t you think that’s a rather oversimplified and unrealistic ideology? Look at what just—” he stops himself, takes a deep breath, and says, “My point is, we live in a complex and dangerous world and nature rewards energy and aggression. Passive nonviolence is not a successful coping strategy.”

It’s obvious what Max was going to say, ‘Look at what just happened to your community,’ but he held back out of consideration for my trauma. I don’t stop to credit him for that because I’m a chaotic, nervous wreck, and now it feels like he’s just made my whole community look stupid for not having firearms to defend ourselves. Of course, he didn’t actually say that, but I’m flustered and riled up, so I lash out.

“Yeah, Max, you might be right in some ways, but it’s easy for you to decide we should have massive air strikes sitting up there in your office, surrounded by screens, thousands of miles from where the bombs will fall. It might be logical or strategic or whatever, but I can’t help but think about a mother finding her kid buried under rubble and—”

I see something lighting up above the forest canopy to my left and turn to look.

“Holy shit, what is that?”

Max swivels around with lightning speed as if it were an incoming missile strike, and then we’re struck silent with awe as the blaze of light resolves itself into . . . a saucer-shaped craft hovering above the woods.

It’s pulsating with colored light, shifting from orange to lavender. Then, another saucer approaches it from behind, glowing a pale green.

Max is out of the water in a flash, retrieving his phone and crouching low to shoot video from within the open gazebo windows.

I also get out of the hot tub to get a better view.

Max must be working the outside cameras from his phone because they pan toward the glowing disks.

Beams of light emanating from the bottom of the saucers project down into the forest. They were hovering when they emitted the beams, but now they’re moving in a semicircle around the compound. Perceptions about them flash into my mind—it doesn’t feel like they’re spacecraft but living creatures wanting to make contact. They pause, shoot more beams down into the forest, and then shoot away from us at amazing speed and disappear into the horizon.

A voice in my head says something weird about them, but I don’t have time to think about it. I look at Max, who is still crouched low, his eyes looking deadly serious and alert, waiting to see if anything else is about to happen. When it doesn’t, he blinks and turns toward me and says,

“I’ve been researching such phenomena for years, but this is my first sighting.”

“They were beaming light down to something in the forest,” I say. “I want to go out there and investigate.”

Max looks at me with alarm.

“Tommy, no. Absolutely not. I forbid it,” Max says with a finality that pisses me off.

“You forbid it? What the hell, Max— you’re not my parent or guardian. If I want to investigate, I will,” I reply. I’m feeling a surge of rebelliousness, but it’s not like I’m going to run out there in my bathing suit.

“I apologize. I shouldn’t have put it that way,” Max says, and I can see he knows he messed up, and his face is even a little flushed. “I guess we’re all in danger of reverting to our parents under stress. I respect you as an equal. But please, just listen to me for a minute. I know something about this.”

Max gestures toward the hot tub. I notice him dialing the temperature down a little, and I join him back in the bubbly water.

“The history of people encountering such objects is incredibly varied and often not benign at all,” he begins. “There are well-documented cases of radiation burns, brain damage, and even death.

“Reports about the so-called greys suggest they’re biosynthetic clones with a hive consciousness. If threatened, they can secrete substances that can cause lethal allergic reactions that may destroy the immune system of humans who make unwanted tactile contact. These secretions leave a powerful, lingering odor that is perceived as having elements of ammonia and sulfur. Even those who aren’t subject to direct contact may develop autoimmune disorders just from the presence of these visitors in the environment.

“Close encounters often result in serious psychological trauma and disorientation. Whatever these visitors are, they’re able to manipulate our perception on every level, so what you experience is what they want you to experience, which may be highly deceptive. Also, people who have encounters seem to be marked in some way and will likely have more encounters, increasing the trauma.”

“I felt them wanting to make contact,” I reply. “I can’t define all my perceptions, but it seemed like the two saucers had different personalities or essences, like they were living entities. I think it’s part of the evolutionary experiment, and maybe they left something or someone out in the woods. I appreciate your cautioning me, Max, but I’m willing to put myself at risk. Everyone I loved is gone, and the only reason I’m living is to fulfill some kind of important mission, and this feels related. That’s what my intuition tells me.”

“Tommy, all these intuitions and perceptions you’re having about them are likely manipulated. You have no idea what you might be getting yourself into. Even if I went with you fully armed, I’d have no way to protect you. Whatever they are, they take away all human control. And they can do that to fighter jets and whole military facilities. They can paralyze your body, take over your will, and drastically manipulate your consciousness and memory. They are known to do traumatic procedures, including taking genetic material, especially sperm and eggs, and sometimes leaving implants made of anomalous materials. To further their experiments on people or animals, they can manipulate space and time, triggering a disabling shock from which many never fully recover.

“Don’t be like that one kid in a horror movie who wants to rush into the house where chainsaws are whining. I’m trying to protect you.”

Max’s last statement seems genuine, so I back off and offer a compromise.

“OK, Max, I won’t go out there tonight. But I’m not making any promises if they come back. What do you think they are, and why have you been researching them for years?”

“Your second question is easier to answer,” Max replies reflectively. “It might be what you would call an intuition. I became fascinated as a child, and like many who know little of the subject, I assumed we were getting visited by an extraterrestrial civilization.

“Also, ever since I was a child, people have told me I seem like an alien, so maybe that influenced my interest as well. I didn’t like the people around me or the life they enforced on me, so I had a childish notion that if there were super-intelligent aliens out there, maybe they’d take me with them.

“And yes, my obsession with the subject no doubt influenced the architectural design of the home base with its three saucer-shaped structures. And if we wanted to be silly, we could speculate that those shapes attracted them here.

“My hopeful, childish vision of benign extraterrestrials that might rescue me from my mundane life was soon crushed by research. Studying this phenomenon is not like investigating anything else.

“Normally, the more you research something, the more you know, but with ufology, the more you look into it, the more lost you become. Even if you keep to the best sources, you find yourself in a carnival mirror maze where every viewing angle distorts your vision in a different way. Some ufologists have speculated that the absurd and incomprehensible presentations are purposeful. They may be intentionally creating grotesque and inconsistent phenomena as a form of deception, or as a way of expanding our collective consciousness by creating paradoxes, like Zen Koans or quantum mechanics, to force us to think out of the box and embrace the unresolvable strangeness of the cosmos.”

As with other times when I’ve asked Max questions, he’s in his Dr. Max organized lecture mode, but this time, there’s a passionate edge to it. What he says is fascinating, so I try not to interrupt with too many questions.

“ETH, or the extraterrestrial hypothesis, is one of many possibilities I won’t rule out, but it doesn’t begin to account for the full range of the phenomena. If ETs wanted to colonize the Earth, they could have done it a long time ago. If they wanted to genetically sample our species, they could’ve accomplished that in a week. Much of what they do or how they appear is bizarre and seems more about psychological manipulation than a rational, scientific program with specific goals. The so-called post-modernist approach is not to try to resolve who they are, but on what effect they’re having on collective consciousness.

“I’ve investigated and catalogued all the theories, and it’s hard to rule any of them out because we don’t know if the highly varied phenomena have a single source or many. None of the single-source theories can account for all the findings.

“Some claim that it’s secret military tech, but that doesn’t explain how the same sort of craft able to make right-angle turns and do things we can’t explain with classical physics appeared in the fifties and likely much earlier.

“Another theory is that they’re a future evolution of Homo sapiens time traveling into the past to make interventions.”

“Time travelers—that’s really interesting,” I say. “What sort of interventions?”

“The time traveler hypothesis suggests a number of motivations. One is that they’ve reached an evolutionary dead end and want to change that by changing us and thereby altering their own future. According to some testimony, they’ve become genetically nonviable and need to hybridize with us. Other reports suggest that they’re the unfortunate result of disasters we’re going to create like nuclear war, and they’re trying to alter their past to prevent those.

“Some of the best-documented cases here and in Russia report them shining beams down into nuclear weapons facilities, activating or disabling electronics. In one well-documented case in the Soviet Union, they entered launch codes and activated a nuclear ICBM, apparently allowing frantic military personnel to cancel the launches only at the last minute.

“A common theme in close encounter communications are harsh warnings about extinction based on nuclear war or environmental destruction. The motivation behind these warnings seems to be that losing us as a viable species threatens their interests.

“A theme emerging from close encounter testimony is that they’re dependent on us in some way. They need our genetics to make themselves viable, or they’ve lost their ability to experience emotion and feel alive due to becoming increasingly biosynthetic.

“Often, they seem to have a hive mind and collective telepathic awareness, so individuals may act like drones that can be clumsy and unintelligent when dealing with spontaneous human individuals. Their bodies appear to be bioengineered and may function like space suits or containers housing a distributed hive consciousness.

“Another whole body of research involves cattle mutilations that sometimes leave hard-core anomalous evidence like calf fetuses intricately mutilated inside an unbroken amniotic sack. Cuts are exact in a way we could only do with laser scalpels, and some procedures couldn’t be reproduced by any known medical technology.

“There have been mutilations of other animals like cats and horses. There are also rare but horrifying cases of human mutilation where the entire spinal cord is removed.

“In most cases, the mutilated bodies have had all blood drained without a single spilled drop being left behind, and no tracks of any kind near the corpse. It appears that they were operated on remotely and then returned to the ground from above, as if the evidence is being left intentionally.

“In close encounters, people may be given what seem like prophetic visions, but these may include disconfirmed end dates and other absurdities. Some encounters induce a dangerous religious mania, which can lead to saucer cults, while others create disabling ontological shock.

“There are also notable cases, with varying levels of credibility, of those who claim to have worked in secret government programs reverse engineering alien spacecraft or to have seen live or frozen aliens.

“Other cases connect the supposed aliens with death and make a case that they’re dead people come back as shape-shifting entities, perhaps appearing as a form of plasma. Carl Jung thought they might be manifestations of the collective unconscious, but also partly physical. You can find evidence for almost any theory you can think of.”

“Wow,” I reply. “I had no idea there were so many possibilities. But I do have experience related to one of those theories. At the hospice where I volunteered, I’ve experienced dying people appearing in shape-shifting forms. Sometimes, they appear as they must have looked when they were in their twenties and were perfectly healthy. It’s like now that they’re out of their old body, they naturally choose the best version of themselves. Other times, I’ve seen them turn into an amorphous light, like aurora borealis, which I got to see a couple of winters ago.”

“Aurora borealis is plasma,” Max points out.

“Well, I don’t know if what we saw tonight was anything physical,” I reply, “but if my intuition is worth anything, I don’t think they were metal spacecraft because they felt alive and like they had different essences. I heard something in my mind, a kind of description of them, but it didn’t feel like it came from me, at least not from my usual consciousness. Maybe it was my subconscious speaking or something.”

“What did it say?”

“It said, ‘hungry souls glowing in the night of time.’”

We silently contemplate that for a while until an intuition seems to come bubbling up to me from the water.

This is the moment to talk about the elephant.

Why this is the moment, I don’t know. Maybe it’s better for shocks to come together.

“I feel what just happened is related to our evolutionary experiment,” I begin, “but there’s an element in our experiment we haven’t talked about. I’m not freaked out by it or anything— I think it’s totally natural—but I sense you’re attracted to me. And I just think it would be healthier to get it out in the open so we can talk about it.”

Max stares at me, his eyes alert and serious, but his expression is hard to read.

“What you say is true,” says Max carefully, but I can tell he’s really nervous.  “I knew it was something that couldn’t be hidden from an empath, but I wasn’t sure what would be the right time to bring it up. You’d just been traumatized, and I didn’t want to create an impression that I was trying to . . . coerce you into anything. I respect you as an equal, and that means I respect your boundaries.”

Max pauses, collecting his thoughts.

“It’s not just an attraction based on looks, though you certainly are beautiful, and that’s part of it for sure, but it’s not all of it. It’s an attraction I’ve only experienced a couple of times before toward individuals who were both beautiful and anomalous. But I do not make the assumption that my attraction is . . . returned.”

When Max says ‘returned,’ I sense his fear of rejection and . . .

Something strange is going on with our eye contact.

 I should be responding to what he’s said, but I can’t because . . . all the colors are changing, and Max’s face is morphing. His eyes are huge, and everything else becomes a color-shifting backdrop.

My mind no longer forms words as I’m overwhelmed by waves of energy flowing between us. It’s something like what happened with Andrew, but way more chaotic.

Max radiates alarm, building toward panic like a silent scream.

He looks away, and the moment our eye contact breaks, the experience ends. Gentler waves of energy still flow between us, but all the visual weirdness disappears.

Max’s head is bowed, his eyes wide with shock. He’s trembling and seems unable to speak. His body is hunched over,

and this makes him seem skinny, even frail.

A need to comfort him brings me to my feet, and I move to sit beside him. His eyes are cast down and his expression is haunted.

“Would it be OK if I put my arm around you?” I ask in a gentle whisper.

He nods almost imperceptibly. I slide closer so our legs are touching, and slowly, so as not to startle him, wrap my arm and open hand around his hunched shoulders, holding him close to me. A tremor runs through his whole body, and he takes a deep breath.

“We’re OK,” I say, “everything is going to be OK, Max. We just had another strange experience, but I’ve felt that kind of energy flow before, with someone else and nothing bad happened. Trust me, everything is going to be alright.

I’m not even thinking about what I’m saying. I’m just following an instinct to comfort him because right now, Max seems like a traumatized child.

His intimidating personality has cracked off him like a shell, and what’s inside is frightened and unformed —a frail, even sickly child, like a hatchling bird fallen from its nest. The change is too startling for my mind to take in, so it steps aside, and my hospice worker self takes over to comfort this fragile kid.

“I’m not sure who I am now,” Max whispers. “I’m not myself anymore.”

“You’re still you, Max. This is just a different part of you. A part you’re not used to.” My words come without thinking.

“You’re. . .” Max begins haltingly. “You’re changing me. Your presence, your energy, it’s . . . changing me.”

 Max’s body unhunches, and I sense fear and it’s almost like he’s accusing me of breaking him.  It’s time to give him space. I remove my arm and slide myself over to the other side of the hot tub.

Max splashes water onto his face and shakes his head like he’s trying to wake himself up. His eyes blink, and he takes a deep breath. I can feel his mind turning on and trying to gain distance to understand what’s happening. I take some deep breaths, trying to calm myself too. He needs me to be a reassuring presence.

Everything feels super unstable. Saying the wrong thing could have terrible consequences, so I remain silent to give him space to compose himself. Instinctively, I work on containing my energy because I sense Max needs separation now.

He looks at me warily. As much as I’ve withdrawn, my presence is still threatening to him. But at the same time, I sense he needs me to remain where I am to witness and support this shaky, in-between self coming into being as he gazes up at me.

“From that first night,” Max begins, in a nervous tone, “I sensed you changing me. In the car—I’d never been close to such intense emotion. I had strange sensations, like I was beginning to resonate with your nervous system and . . . what you were going through was so intense—it was like your story—your life was . . . more real than my own.

“I seemed hollow, like my whole personality was just a placeholder, a contrived identity, a flimsy image of who I thought I was. And you seemed so different. Who you were and are on the outside is who you are on the inside. You’re a congruent being, while I’m an incongruent creature, a chimera, an armored shell outside and some kind of . . .” 

 

Max’s face contorts with disdain.

“. . . some kind of weakling within.”

The word weakling—the way he says it, the self-hate behind it, is frightening. It prompts me to intervene.

“No, Max. No! Don’t call it a weakling, that’s not right!  Your inner self is not that—it’s more like a deprived and neglected child you need to protect and nurture. You can’t disown the inner part of you, if you do, you’ll . . . It won’t be good, Max. It will put you on a terrible path. Please, believe me.”

Max stares at me, startled by my intensity. Then he breaks eye contact, bows his head, and splashes water on his face again.

“I’m not even sure what I’m saying right now,” he says. “My judgment is addled.” He takes a deep breath. “You’re changing me, but I’m not saying it’s your fault. It’s not something you’re doing to me—it’s just how your being is affecting my being. Maybe that’s the evolutionary experiment.”

“Yes, Max. That probably is the evolutionary experiment. And an evolutionary experiment is not supposed to be stable or comfortable, it’s supposed to break apart stability to create change. It’s a metamorphosis, like . . .

“Jordie—someone I grew up with—showed me something a couple of summers ago. We were working by the edge of the woods, and he found a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. While I watched it break free, Jordie told me about the stages of the metamorphosis.

“Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar starts to form a new kind of cell. They’re called imaginal cells, and they’re like the seeds of the butterfly. At first, the old cells of the caterpillar attack the scattered imaginal cells as if they’re cancer. But the imaginal cells persist and begin to join together, vibrating at the same frequency. They exchange information with each other and organize themselves into different parts to create something new, the butterfly.

“Your inner self, what you called—I won’t even say it—it’s in a fragile, unformed state, but it’s like the imaginal cells of your future self, Max. Don’t fight the metamorphosis—it’s not supposed to be comfortable, but now that it’s started, you’ve got to let it happen.”

The words pour out of me, almost breathlessly, and I realize I’m being too intense and not giving him enough space. I stop talking, lean back against the wall of the hot tub, and study him, trying to gauge where he’s at.

Max’s blue-grey eyes are in a trance-like state of higher thinking and analysis. He seems like a scientist studying the turbulence of the bubbly water on the verge of discovering something. I watch him fascinated, feeling the field of his intelligence boosting my mind.

Eventually, he looks up, his expression calm and collected.

“I must admit, Tommy, your metamorphosis hypothesis does appear to account for all the facts,” says Max in a tone of grand summation. “And now, I’m ready to get out of this hot tub. I turned the temperature down before we got in, sensing a long conversation was imminent, but one more minute and I’m going to dissolve.”

I laugh, stand up, and reach for my towel. It’s a relief to get out of our bubbling, evolutionary cauldron.

When we return to the house, I sense we need our own spaces. I wish Max goodnight and give him a hug, which he accepts, but I feel fear of rejection in him, like an icy splinter in his heart. So, after we break apart, I put my hand on his shoulder and say, “We’ll figure it out, Max.” He nods and says, “Thank you.”

I go to my room to write up what just happened. When I’m done, I turn off my computer and the lights and go to sleep. As it turned out, still another paranormal encounter was to come later that night.

Sometime in the middle of my sleep, I awaken, feeling a protective presence nearby watching over me. Opening my eyes, I find a boy about my age and size sitting patiently on the floor about three feet from my bed. He’s luminous in the dark and not solidly physical—something like the way Andrew seemed when I encountered him, but less solid and more glowy, and yet his form is more stable than Andrew’s was, like he’s used to showing up this way.

His presence is gentle and compassionate, and though he appears to be my age, his large, blue eyes seem wise and knowledgeable, more timeless than young in the usual sense. He also seems familiar, as if I’d encountered him in my dreams, but can’t quite remember.

He’s waiting in a respectful, patient way, like he’s giving me time to study him and decide if I want to interact. I sense his good intentions and that he has messages for me, but he won’t speak unless I grant him permission to communicate, so I greet him in the way I did with Andrew.

“Hey, I’m Tommy. Welcome. What’s your name?”

“Thank you, Tommy. I’m Alex.”

He seems bound by some sort of honor code not to speak unless requested, so I ask another question.

“What brings you here, Alex?”

“A long journey. In another time, you saved me from falling into an abyss, but later, I foolishly chose to return to that darkness, a realm some call the Lower Astral.”

Suddenly, I realize, Alex is a spirit. But he seems so alive, and I see the quick and quirky teenager he must have been. Somebody who could have been a great friend.

“Yeah,” says Alex picking up on my thoughts, “you miss a lot of great opportunities when you take your skin out of the game. But you live and learn, or die and learn in my case. Gotta go the distance. Like Churchill said, If you’re going through hell, keep going!”

“But wait, you said I saved you?”

“Yeah, but a different version of you. I think you’re aware of him.”

I nod.

“I owe you protection, Tommy, for the great kindness you showed me. If you consent, I can tell you what we’ve learned about some of these visitors, the kind you encountered tonight, though there’s much we don’t know.

“But I should give you fair warning. This is some deep, creepy knowledge about strange parasitic life forms. Only you can know if it’s right for you to hear about such things. When I was fifteen, it would have freaked me the fuck out, but you’re a lot stronger than I am, and it’s stuff you need to know if you think you might encounter them again.”

“I’m willing,” I reply. “It’s better to know than to be ignorant of what’s out there. I’ve already had a vision of an evil entity that wanted me to know about itself. It’s my responsibility to know, even if it’s scary.”

Alex nods, acknowledging my consent.

“When I fell back into the hungry darkness, a member of a Guild came forward to protect me, and later I became part of that Guild. We are souls who were once lost but have united in a mission to further symbiosis between the living and some of us on the other side who are making amends for lives we ended in unfortunate ways.

“But there are lost and hungry souls from my realm who cross over with parasitic intentions, and some are organized into hive societies with complex and varied intentions that can be harmful to the living.

“You and Max together emit a kind of very bright and colorful beacon of energy I picked up, so I decided to keep an eye on you. But the Guild has certain codes. I was supposed to be only a sentinel, a kind of silent watch, but visitor intrusions give me permission to come forward to warn you. It’s a tricky set of rules we live by.

“Anyway, I saw you and Max react to your sighting this evening. You told him you might go out and investigate if they returned. I wouldn’t recommend that. It’s dangerous because it invites more contact. A lot of Max’s warnings were pretty right on from my experience. Some visitors can intrude without permission, but actually beckoning them increases the likelihood of malevolent encounters.

“Coming into direct contact with the visitors can really mess with your body, mind, and soul. Trust me. They can manipulate space, time, and matter in ways that the humans of today rarely can.

“While some visitors are more like automatons, those who have individual consciousness suffer from a kind of . . .  time curse.”

 

A haunted look comes over Alex, but he pulls himself out of it quickly.

“The dead have access to an additional dimension of time, and although that allows us certain powers, it can also deprive us of vitality. Lost souls crave the emotion and excitement of the living, whose existence unfolds like stories in linear time.

When a living person gazes into the eyes of a lost soul, they perceive the time curse. They may feel the whole arc of their lives, including their death, reflected in the eyes of the lost, and this is deeply disturbing.

“You and Max are a super-intense, energetic combo that can draw the attention of creatures who perceive energy, like moths to a flame. Tommy, you’ve got to be careful because you glow so brightly with an essence that ravenous beings from my realm hunger for. We call it Laepur.

 

“People in your world can also sense your glow–I’m sure you’ve picked up on it–and some of them are highly dangerous. Max found you because he sensed your glow and hungers for it, but I don’t think he means you harm. Mutants sense and need other mutants. He’s really confused about his attraction to you. He needs your energy, but it’s triggering a metamorphosis that scares him. Just keep being gentle with him.

“But there are beings out there who would like to mindlessly devour your radiance, while others would like to hybridize with your essence to feel the emotion and excitement of living closer to the drama of linear time. Lost souls ravenously crave living astral energy. Different cultures named them pretas, hungry ghosts, incubi, and succubae.

“There are many types of visitors. Some are relatively chill–  they content themselves with watching, and cause little trouble. Others are amoral, and usually parasitic. There is a type of automaton intruder controlled by a hive queen called Viealetta. She is an archparasite—a complex entity that sits atop the planetary food chain. She employs such emissaries like worker bees sent to gather the nectar of Laepur.

“Viealetta is capable of shapeshifting into a variety of forms. She can also operate through multiple beings simultaneously, so her form is legion. And her reach extends across space and time and into multiple dimensions. The whole web of human psyches is visible to her, and she can penetrate and manipulate both individual and collective consciousness.”

“What is she trying to manipulate us to do?” I ask.

“Viealetta has a complex agenda. She feeds on the darker range of emotion and sexual energy, and manipulates us to create conflict, but only to a point. She needs humans to survive so she doesn’t lose her harvest, so she intervenes to prevent extinction-level events. She is cruel and voracious, but also sometimes defends her human flock, in the way a cattle rancher will act to protect the herd.

“Though her corrupting influence has made people more destructive, she has also made interventions that have assisted evolutionary purposes to keep her flock viable.

“The Guild believes she will continue to do so to preserve her place at the top of the food chain. But she is not all-powerful or all-knowing, so she can make mistakes that undermine her own interests. There is at least one timeline where her influence led to an extinction that left her in a famished and desperate state.

“Viealetta acts in ways that attempt to further her life cycle, but her means and ultimate ends are not fully understood by us.”

“I had an encounter with an evil, spider-like creature,” I say. “It revealed itself to me, almost like it was on purpose. I wonder if it was Viealetta.”

I tell Alex about the transparent spider creature I saw looming above me in town.

“I’m sure that was her,” says Alex. “I think you and Max are an evolutionary experiment that may help prevent extinction. My hunch is that Viealetta recognizes this and used one of her puppets to destroy your community to bring the two of you closer while creating catalytic stress to further your metamorphosis.”

“Oh my God,” I reply, “you think she destroyed my community for that purpose?”

“I wasn’t there, I only know what I pick up from your memories. But yes, Tommy, I think so. I’m sorry.”

Alex pauses, sensing my horror as I struggle to accept this terrible truth. He gives me space to absorb the shock of dark knowledge.

“Likely, Viealetta wants your experiment to be a catalyst for human evolution. Her horrific means do not justify any end, but parasites play a key role in evolution.

“I can only tell you what I learned from the Guild. Although Viealetta acts to blind and deform humanity, she also needs the species to evolve to prevent extinction. She is powerful but not in control of the process. Like all life forms, she is caught up in an infinitely complex web of life beyond her understanding, and she may be intelligent enough to realize that. Given the momentum of the species toward extinction, she may act to preserve metamorphic humans who might disrupt this fatal trajectory.

“For millennia, she successfully kept humans in states of individual and collective conflict to further her feeding. There is a color spectrum of human energies. She cannot feed on higher states of human consciousness that are in a blue range toxic to her. That’s why parasites probably can’t mess with you because you’re throwing out a crazy amount of high colors. And when you and Max are together—there’s a whole outer fringe of ultra-violet in your combined field they can’t get close to. Viealetta needs the red part of the spectrum generated by suffering, hatred, greed, and lust. At the same time, she apparently realizes that she cannot extinguish higher states of consciousness in humanity as that would render her host species nonviable.

“Viealetta is a metamorphic creature whose lifecycle may require the further evolution of humans. But she’s caught in a feeding paradox because she cannot let the species as a whole evolve toward more advanced consciousness without losing her food supply. She seems to allow higher consciousness to develop in a small number of humans while supporting devolutionary trends in the majority.

“Viealetta spins her web around humans, but she’s actually caught in a much larger, paradoxical web with us that no one, including her, fully understands.

“I know, this is creepy, heady stuff, but this is what I’ve learned from my teachers. It sucks, but I think you need to know. I wish I had better news, but I figure you’re better off knowing what’s up.”

“Do you know anything more about the role I’m supposed to play?” I ask.

“Well . . . even if I knew, which I don’t, it would run against certain codes to tell you what to do. The Guild doesn’t know everything either. You’ve got to be guided by your own truth, and you know more than you think you know.

“Listen, Tommy, I think you’re already playing your role. Your caring actions are what’s keeping your evolutionary experiment together. The only way you can give meaning to the death of those you loved is to keep doing what you’re doing, being the best friend you can be to Max.

“My only suggestion is to take back the statement you made that if more visitors come, you might go out to meet them. In saying that, you made, in effect, a dangerous magical proclamation. It’s too much of an opening for them. Does that feel true to you?”

“Yes, Alex. Max warned me about that, too. So, I take back what I said. I will not go out to them. If they come to me, I will deal with them as best I can, but I won’t seek them out.”

“Good. You put that very well, Tommy. And now, it feels like my permission to come forward has served its purpose, and I should step back. Be well. You live on the edge of a perilous time, but you have more friends than you know.”

Alex bows his head toward me in a humble gesture of blessing and departure before vanishing into the night.

Eight

Max’s Journal

I have been in too much of a state of disequilibrium to keep up this journal. But now, my inner turmoil has me desperate enough to seek this form of contemplation as a shelter and a place to attempt to understand what’s happening. Hopefully, written analysis will restore my clear-eyed and calculating self.

Evidently, my mind still works, but it feels like a glitching-out supercomputer in a bombed-out building. Every wall is riddled with cracks and gaping holes. The mind persists, but it rests on a structure that might collapse at any moment.

Tommy seems more intact, but also highly preoccupied when I first encountered him this morning. Nevertheless, he gave me his usual morning greeting and hug, and a breakfast made to the standard of excellence I’ve come to expect from his meals, though neither of us had much of an appetite.

Other mornings, even our first, Tommy contained his inner state and made efforts to seem upbeat, even cheerful, with varying degrees of strain. I appreciate the consideration behind these efforts. He doesn’t want to burden me with his darker feelings.

But today, Tommy seemed either unable to maintain his upbeat façade or had purposefully dropped it. And then, when he saw that neither of us was interested in the food, he told me why. He had still another paranormal experience last night that awakened him from sleep and kept him up afterward, recording it in his journal.

It may surprise you to learn that I have not been surveilling Tommy’s devices. Part of my reluctance has been fear that eavesdropping would eventually be detected by an empath, and another part is . . . Well, I haven’t just been pretending to respect Tommy as an equal. I’ve been shocked and forced into that realization. After he divulged the existence of a journal, Tommy did something I could never have anticipated.

“Instead of telling you what happened,” Tommy said, “I realized I could send you the journal entry I just wrote about it. I think we have above-average memory in common, and I recorded every detail. But then, after I realized I could send you that entry, I had an intuition. I feel we need more transparency between us, Max, with as few secrets as possible. For my part, I’m going to extend that trust. You can read my whole journal if you want to.

“I’m not sure if that will be the right thing going forward. I may still need a private place to reflect, but you can read everything I’ve written so far. I’ve tried to second-guess my intuition because I wrote private things about you that I didn’t intend to share. I hope you don’t find those insulting, but if you do, I hope we can work through it.

“I know this is a risky choice, but the last twenty-four hours have made me more aware of what’s at stake in our evolutionary experiment. I want to be as open with you as possible. But I’m not saying you have to share everything with me.

“You saved my life, Max. I owe you a bond of trust. My feelings and desire for privacy are selfish concerns that don’t matter compared to what’s at stake.”

I’m stunned by what Tommy has just offered. The journal and a degree of trust I would never consider giving to another. It does seem a risky move on his part. I don’t need to tell you, the reader of this journal, that I don’t exactly seem deserving of such trust.

All I’m able to say is,

“Thank you, Tommy. I would be honored to read your journal.”

He sent it to me after breakfast.

I didn’t even admit to having a journal. How could I possibly share what I’ve revealed here? It would likely destroy any chance of a healthy relationship. At the very least, Tommy would see how misplaced his trust is.

But it’s not that I have malign intentions toward Tommy. And I’m not just pretending to treat him as an equal, I truly regard him that way and treat him with as much respect as I’m capable.

I’ve come to believe that Adrian was intervening in our best interests and giving accurate information. As he promised, I’ve been getting daily market analysis reports which reflect a level of information and sophistication I didn’t even know was possible. They must have a proprietary, next-level AI system analyzing the world’s finances. Every day, I rely on the recommendations I receive more, and now, given how preoccupied I am and how reliable the projections have been, I’m ready to simply defer to them.

 I also defer to Adrian’s advice to make my relationship with Tommy my highest priority to further the evolutionary experiment.

But how can there be a healthy relationship between two if one is drastically unhealthy? My sense of identity has been shattered. I am not healthy, and perhaps I never was. I was high functioning, but that, I now realize, is not the same as healthy.

I don’t know what a healthy version of me would be like or if it is even possible. Perhaps the pre-Tommy version of me was the healthiest version—it was certainly more stable.

I’ve switched from financial research to psychology, trying to understand what’s going on, but nothing in the literature anticipates this unique case. Perhaps I was designed to have what I’ve just read is called “flattened affect” —a limited range of emotion. My psyche was a high-functioning closed system that operated efficiently within its low affect/ low sociability equilibrium. And yet, it is I who chose to put my equilibrium at risk by seeking an anomalous companion.

Part of me knew I was not complete in myself. But, as the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.” Tommy is not, as I had expected, a lesser version of myself but an altogether different anomaly. Now, I am in an episodically telepathic relationship with an empath who overflows with emotion and a different form of consciousness. The interfusion of our energies has shattered who I once was.

And that was the case before what just happened—the reading of Tommy’s journal—seeing how I appear to an empath, much of it not very flattering, is an eye-opener. Tommy’s sharing his most private thoughts and feelings is a revelation on many levels.

Like the Jew I encountered at the airport, Tommy is a shock to my profound egocentrism. Other people have never seemed fully real to me. I’ve viewed them more as pieces on a chessboard. Encountering two others who seem as real, or even more real or alive than I am, is an ontological challenge to my egocentric worldview.

The encounter with the Jew happened in less than a minute, but Tommy is an ongoing presence, constantly forcing me to recognize another complex and autonomous being. He sees me in many ways more clearly than I can see myself, and his journal confronts me with those perceptions.

That personal shock was followed by Tommy’s visitation from the purported spirit Alex, who made extraordinary claims about the visitor phenomena, especially the existence of an archparasite known as Viealetta, pulling strings from her position far above us on the food chain, and the probable cause of the mass casualty event in Tommy’s community. As bizarre as this visitation is, I have to admit it has an odd ring of truth.

Control, the quality I valued most and thought I had achieved, is exposed as a total sham. I was a fool, a confident child, who thought he was in control of everything, but I’m not even in control of myself. I don’t even know who I am now or what I’m metamorphosing into.

OK, Max, pull yourself together, your mind still works, and you’re beginning to see patterns.

My present personality is an unstable structure because my center of gravity has shifted. I had a relatively stable orientation as a solo operator pursuing my egocentric interests. That was my center of gravity. I was like a rogue planet on its own trajectory. But then, I encountered a planet of equal mass called Tommy.

All my valuations were based on me as the center of my cosmos. My every thought, plan, reaction, and action were oriented toward pursuing personal advantage. But now I’m like a pre-Copernican astronomer discovering that the sun and stars do not orbit the Earth. I have lost my place at the center of my cosmos. Instead, I am in a binary orbit with another person I value as highly as myself. It never even occurred to me that such a thing was possible.

Without a moment’s reflection, I instinctively put my life at risk to protect Tommy. And then came the car ride with the revelation of Tommy as more real and alive than I am. The shock of that continues to displace my center of gravity in myself.

The state that began with eye contact last night was the most shattering event of my life. I had to stop it because it felt like if it continued, I’d no longer be me, but something else. It was as if we were a pair of liquid-metal terminators whose metallic fluids flowed together and intermingled. Individual structural integrity was breaking down as we swirled into each other. It felt catastrophic, like I might never regain my individuality. Tommy compared it to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar. That sounds like a good thing unless you’re the caterpillar whose cells will be digested to turn it into a butterfly.

I think that’s what I am—a caterpillar in a chrysalis whose body is being taken over by imaginal cells. My old self is dying and wants to resist, and yet, intellectually at least, I recognize the validity of the evolutionary metamorphic experiment. The one who calls himself Alex revealed to Tommy underlying patterns that have high internal consistency. They account for so many strange occurrences better than any model I’ve conceived to explain the perilous evolutionary state of Homo sapiens.

Part of me is a centrifugal force vector that wants to pull away from this binary orbit, but there’s an even stronger centripetal urge pulling me toward Tommy. He is mesmerizing to me—his otherness and vitality.

Until last night, this took the form of an increasingly uncomfortable and sometimes predatory-feeling sexual desire for him. But the paranormal state we shared last night was beyond sexual intimacy, a massive exchange of every kind of energy all at once. I became overwhelmed and panicked. It was a catastrophe of identity, an existential threat to the essence of who I thought I was. But Tommy is right—I can’t halt a metamorphosis in progress without regression and failing the evolutionary experiment.

And yet, as unstable as I now am, that I’m able to analyze my predicament in this journal is evidence that even in a universe of new perceptions,  my higher thinking still functions.

I need to reread Tommy’s journal. It holds secrets on so many levels, and I can feel in my whole body that there are crucial things I’ve missed.

***

1. Now I have. I read through it carefully and took notes. Tommy is preparing lunch, which seems the appropriate time to discuss it with him.

Rereading Tommy’s descriptions of me in the journal is having an effect. I’ve never had such a mirror—seeing how I show up in the eyes of an empath provides a new form of self-knowledge.

That he would willingly give me his most private thoughts is itself almost too much of a shock for me to wrap my mind around. In all my fantasies of what it would be like to have a relationship with another anomaly, there was always a degree of competition and gamesmanship. I expected a level of mutual respect, but mixed with moves and countermoves, two operators in an amusing power struggle. And that, I anticipated, would also characterize the sexual dynamic.

Instead, the energy exchange last night and Tommy’s move—a unilateral offer of total transparency—have provided forms of intimacy I’d never envisioned. It has convinced even my wary self of Tommy’s guileless sincerity and goodwill. But I can’t trust myself enough to respond in kind, not yet, at least.

After making my notes on Tommy’s journal I printed something up that I want to share with him, and then I meditated. A rare practice for me, but it helped.  I feel calmer and more collected.

Tommy just messaged that lunch is ready.

***

Tommy seems anxious, and as soon as I notice, he explains why.

“Max, I hope I did the right thing sharing my journal. I know there are things in there, descriptions of you, that might be quite offensive.”

“No, Tommy, you can put your mind at ease on that score. I’d be a fool to take offense because it was a gift of inestimable value to see myself through the eyes of an empath. I am not offended. Perhaps you underestimate my openness to new information and perspectives.

“I cannot yet equal your openness, the courage and trust you showed by sharing your most private thoughts. But I will try to be as open as I can. I just have more to be ashamed of inside of me than you do.”

I sense Tommy straining to think of something sympathetic or consoling to say, but I wave him off.

“And then, as if your revealing impressions of me weren’t enough, your journal contains so much secret knowledge, your encounters with Andrew and Alex, and your vision of the evil entity, Viealetta.”

“Thanks Max, I’m so relieved you didn’t take it the wrong way. You’re right, my worry was based on underestimating you. For that, I am truly sorry.”

“There is nothing for you to be sorry about, Tommy.”

Then I surprise myself by smiling and attempting a bit of dry humor.

“So . . .  how is your day going?” Tommy laughs, and I laugh along with him.

“I’d rather hear about what’s going on in the Middle East,” he says with a smile.

This little break in days of tension seems to restore our appetites. For the rest of lunch, we talk about his carpentry work, especially the floor-to-ceiling shelves I will soon have for my office.

The rest of the house will be blonde oak, but when Tommy explained to me the qualities of different types of wood used in Danish modern, I chose teak for my office and bedroom. He explained that teak is valued for its durability and water resistance and is used in boat building. Something about that nautical history caught my fancy. Perhaps I will get a few antique nautical instruments to populate some of the new shelf space.

I study Tommy’s furniture design drawings as an excuse to stay in the kitchen as he cleans up the lunch things. When he first arrived, I’d offered to help with the cleaning duties, but Tommy always insists that he’s grateful for as much work as possible. When he finishes, I suggest a new course for the day.

“Tommy, it’s so hot and humid outside. If you’d be willing to take a break from carpentry, I have many questions and observations about your journal.”

“Of course, Max.”

I gesture toward the living room, our largest space, where two comfortable, reclining swivel chairs are set up at the center of the semicircle of wrap-around windows to enjoy the view. I’d set up the Zeiss spotting scope on a tripod just behind the chairs. As we approach this overview seating arrangement, the scope seems a talismanic object, embodying the far-seeing we need to perceive the mysteries embedded in his journal.

“Can you tell me more about what Andrew looked like?” I begin.

Tommy does, and I take notes on the back of the print I made in my office before lunch. I ask a few questions, being careful not to lead the witness. When I’m sure I’ve gotten the most thorough verbal description from Tommy possible, I pass him the print.

Tommy turns it over, and his eyes widen with shock.

“That’s him! That’s Andrew exactly,” he says, “only a few years older.” Tommy studies the print. “Every detail is exactly right—where did you get this?”

“I told you I’ve encountered a couple of other anomalous individuals, but he is the only one besides you I was completely sure of,” I reply, and then I tell Tommy about my brief encounter five years ago in the airport.

“When we got back from the trip, I regretted that I lacked the presence of mind to take a picture of him. But then I realized there are AI systems used by police to help witnesses create an image of someone from memory. I must have exhausted the patience of even an AI with the endless tweaking feedback I gave until I eventually felt satisfied that it had rendered the precise image burned into my memory.”

“Max, that’s amazing. Andrew told me we weren’t in the same time. I encountered him only a couple of weeks ago, and he seemed my age. You encountered him five years ago, and yet he looks a few years older. Do you think he’s some kind of time traveler?”

“Possibly,” I reply. “What we can say for sure is parts of your journal reflect time anomalies. And Alex comes right out and says you saved his life in a different timeline. If we accept his statement, it would mean that Alex is a time traveler, but not necessarily in the conventional sense of one who travels into the past or future of a single timeline, but as one who crosses over to alternate ones. It would not be unreasonable to think that someone who can cross timelines might also have the ability to travel into the past or future of a given timeline.

“Andrew told you he was in a different time. And then, besides Andrew and Alex, there is your lifelong perception of an older version of yourself living alongside you. If we take that at face value, it suggests that you may also have an ability to cross timelines.”

“When I encountered Andrew,” Tommy says, “he felt familiar like I already knew him. Maybe that older version of me . . .  When you encountered Andrew in the airport, did you have any sense of knowing him already?”

“No,” I reply. “It felt like an unprecedented encounter. But it left me with a sense of future resonance. I am certain our paths will cross again.”

A silence overtakes us as we contemplate the interconnectedness of our timelines. My eyes wander over to the Zeiss scope behind us, and I remember something I decided to give to Tommy. It’s something I’d rather keep for myself, but I know how much it will mean to him, and I want to honor him for trusting me with his journal.

“There’s something I want you to have,” I say.

I step out to my bedroom to retrieve the kaleidoscope I bought at the store in Burlington. When I return, Tommy is standing, and his eyes open with astonishment when he sees it.

“I bought it right after our first encounter,” I explain.

Tommy’s eyes fill with tears. When I pass it to him, he cradles the kaleidoscope to his chest.

“Max, thank you, this means so much to me. Can I give you a hug?”

I nod, and Tommy embraces me, holding on tightly. His warmth infuses my whole being, and I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my life.

Nine

Snow Shadows

A slowly spiraling nightmare. A moment in time caught in a loop, spiraling downward. Inexorably, the loop worsens with each recursive cycle.

From a glass eyedropper with a black rubber bulb, I squeeze out a single drop of what looks like black ink but is actually a dense swarm of carbenoid Crackle-brand nanobots.

I watch the drop fall in slow motion onto one of my spindly snowfingers. The drop hits my snowskin and disappears into me, the nanobots crackling and propagating through my snowtissues.

The moment repeats again and again and again and again, and each time, the crackling propagation of carbenoid nanobots infuses deeper and deeper until, after the last turn of the loop, they have run out of internal snowtissue to convert to nanobots so they come swarming out of the pores of my snowskin like microscopic black army ants.

My racial identity as a Caucasian snowperson is shattered, as the entire surface of my snowbody glistens with the shiny black ooze of Crackle nanobots dripping off me as they seek new molecules they can deconstruct into atoms that can be used as building blocks to construct ever more of their dust-mite-like robotic bodies. To an eye unaided by microscopy, I would now appear more obese tar baby than snowman.

With increasing panic, I realize that my snowfingers, sticky with the tarlike ooze of carbenoid nanobots, will not be able to operate my phone’s touchscreen to call 911. But then it occurs to me that I can voice command my phone via the AI avatar, Ackey. But when I try to cry out “Ackey!” to awaken the avatar, all that comes out is a burbling sound like a bubble of sulfurous gas, stinking of decaying dinosaur and wooly mammoth protein, being released from the La Brea tar pits.

Obviously, Ackey does not respond to the primeval burbling of a snowlarynx being devoured by nanobots. The conversion of my snowtissues into nanobots is a geometric progression that has passed a fail-safe point of no return.

 I visualize firemen summoned by neighbors who detect the petrochemical odor, the off-gassing of a runaway nanobot conversion process. They smash open my door with axes to find an apartment covered in greasy black ooze. On the floor is a tiny, featureless tar baby flailing weakly in a puddle of black slime as the last vestiges of its snowform are devoured into the nanobot swarm . . .

I awaken from the nightmare in anxious stages, believing myself to be a vestigial, disembodied nucleus of awareness hovering above the black ooze.

Slowly, I become aware of dissonant perceptions, the familiar aching of inflammation around the stressed joints of my aged and obese snowbody.

I have chronic rheumatoid snowthritic pain, therefore, I am.

Normally, there are a few moments of relief when I emerge from nightmares as I recognize that an acutely horrific scenario has given way to the ordinary misery of my snowlife.

But not this morning.

Before I even open my eyes, there are olfactory sensations of the actual catastrophe that seeded my nightmare.

My snownose is a double-barreled intake manifold of poisonous fumes—the smell of burning plastic and smoldering electrical appliance mixed with the acrid odor of snowsweat saturating polyester coverlet above and latex mattress below.

The expected stable periodicity of sparking from my electrostatic blanket has become an arrhythmic popping sound like that of a swarm of army ants being burned alive by a giant magnifying glass. The stochastic popping of tiny exoskeletons caught in a burn circle with concentric bands of heat intensifying toward the center account for variances in the timing of the tiny detonations of scurrying exoskeletons, a sound my snowbrain evidently interpreted as the crackling propagation of carbenoid nanobots.

I open my eyes, and a quick glance at my bedside table reveals the source of the disaster. The blue plastic housing of the electrostatic blanket controller has swollen into a molten mass of carbonizing petrochemicals, emitting rivulets of highly toxic smoke. Red LED indicators still glow like red eyes from this swelling ameboid of smoldering plastic that’s been off-gassing potent carcinogens all night.

I yank the power cord out of the wall, and as the red LED eyes fall dark, so does the hope of transformation that led me to purchase the electrostatic blanket from a sketchy Chinese company called “Magic Miracle Metamorphosis.” The company logo—a candy-colored butterfly beneath a rainbow—is now little more than a carbonized blister on the housing, still off-gassing carcinogens, even as it cools.

The electrostatic blanket was unaffordably expensive, given my paltry disability income. The purchase significantly worsened my credit-wafer debt, resulting in an automatic and financially ruinous increase of APR. But money means little to me compared to the hope of metamorphosis, although this hope has been dwindling during the month I’ve been using the product.

Wait, a month ago? Goddammit, I must be right up to the thirty-day return window.    

I grab my phone and am relieved to see that 24 hours remain before the warranty expires. I call Magical Miracle Metamorphosis customer support and get a recording.

“Your call is incredibly important to us, and we treasure you as a highly valued and talented customer. Unfortunately, due to higher-than-normal call volume, we can not predict when, or even if, your call will ever be answered, as our virtual assistants are busy serving higher-priority customers. While you wait, please enjoy the following music programs—press one for Cajun Fusion Country Western Music, press two for Pop Remixes of Classical Favs, press three for Asian Gangsta Rap, press four for K Pop, press five if we have already solved your problem to your great satisfaction, or just hang on and we’ll keep repeating the menu.”

I press 0, hoping for a live person, and hear,

“You have made an invalid choice. Goodbye.”

The call disconnects.

I redial, and this time hit #3 to make sure I can stay on the queue.

I lie back in bed and stare up at the photos of young tomcats taped to my ceiling.

I curse myself for believing the slick promotional video:

“Your Magical Miracle Metamorphosis blanket uses proprietary, laser-measured, quantum-AI, scalar-wave technology that works with your body to catalyze your cells into an ideoplastic metamorphic state, transforming your unwanted body form to accord with any idealized image of what you want to become steadily held in mind before sleep.”

Every night, I stared at the images of athletic young tomcat hotties, the body type I identify with and seek to become. Every morning, I tried to convince myself that I’d become subtly more young-tomcat-like. And every morning, my bathroom mirror splashed cold tap water on this wishful thinking as it stubbornly reflected my bloated snowbody, which seemed subtly less young-tomcat-like with each passing day.

Nevertheless, I used the electrostatic blanket exactly as directed by the glitchy Magic Miracle Metamorphosis app on my phone, hoping for a breakthrough.

At the center of my ceiling display of young tomcat photos was the most idealized of all the images—a photo of my young friend, Alex Cat, whose form is the one I most desire to emulate.

I should have listened to Alex Cat. I sent him a link to the promotional video, and he said it was a scam, and that “laser-measured, quantum-AI-scalar-wave technology” was just a “nonsensical pastiche of pseudoscientific gobbledygook.”

Alex Cat—the one who both inspires me and kills my hope every chance he gets.

Alex Cat.

He’s everything I want to become, and yet he’s been sub clinically depressed with suicidal ideation the whole time I’ve known him. How can someone so beautiful be depressed?

From the first moment my snoweyes perceived the dazzling form of Alex Cat, my dysfunctional obsession with the unworthy Jamie Cat vanished. My attraction to her was a neurotic delusion. My fixation on Jamie Cat, with her androgynous tomboycat look, was merely a projection onto a placeholder image. My infatuation with Jamie Cat was little more than a desperate defense mechanism reflecting a conditioned longing for a socially acceptable, heteronormative sexuality.

Felines are famously homophobic, though few will admit it these days. Fearing the disapproval of feline society, I convinced myself I was attracted to the androgynous Jamie Cat. But this attempt at heteronormative acceptability was a pathetic subterfuge.

Feline homophobia is nothing compared to the revulsion cats have to snowbodies. For cats, the thought of mating with a snowbody of any gender is a socially and genetically conditioned ultimate taboo none has ever let me cross. As deeply embittering as that is, intellectually, I cannot blame them for their revulsion because no one is more sickened by snowbodies than I am. Snowbody dysphoria is at the very center of my being.

But I’m no longer the confused snowperson I was in the earlier phase of late middle age. As obsessed as I am with Alex Cat, I realize my infatuation with him still contains a level of illusion. What I really desire from the depths of my snowcore is not just to be with Alex Cat, but to be Alex Cat.

 I need to become a beautiful and athletic young tomcat able to leap and jump and do those amazingly sexy stretches and yoga-like poses with an ultra-flexible spine instead of my icy-stiff rheumatically-snowthvritic and scoliotic stack of herniated snowvertebrae. I need to meet the world in a supple feline body covered with glossy striped fur instead of scratchy, abrasive, colorless snowcrystals sagging toward the Beckstein entropy limit.

And yet, even if the electrostatic blanket had metamorphosed me into a young tomcat as beautiful as Alex Cat, he would still reject me because he’s only attracted to young she-cats. Metamorphosis would unlock one door, but behind it would be another locked door. But at least if I were the same species as Alex Cat, maybe, maybe, there would be the tiniest snow-cinder of a chance with him. Where there’s feline life, there’s feline hope.

But now, what little hope I had of metamorphosing into a young tomcat has gone up in carcinogenic smoke with the meltdown of my electrostatic blanket controller. Now, my whole being is oppressed by the dread ticking of the clock, each passing second advancing the inexorable doom of entropy as the deteriorating crystalline geometry of my snowcrystals becomes ever more riddled with replication errors.

The cascade of hope-collapsing realizations and existential despair unfolds against the angry percussive assertions of option # 3, Asian Gangsta Rap emanating from my phone as I remain on hold—

‘Whack-down smackdown, ho ass bitches gots to know—

I’s the greatest rapper on the down low—’

I feel like the abuse target of every Asian Gangsta rapper I hear, a whacked down, smacked down, ho-ass snowbitch as down low as I could possibly be.

My self-esteem plummets, spiraling downward through the cold and vacant vacuum wastelands of the lower regions of the universe until it crosses the event horizon and drops out of the bottom of the cosmos into eternal oblivion.

Such are my dark ruminations until a sharp spike of survival anxiety catches me up short. Though the electrostatic blanket controller is no longer smoldering, toxic fumes are trapped in the tiny airspace of my claustrophobic apartment. Cancer fear forces me out of bed to do something about it.

I pull the cord to raise the dusty Venetian blinds covering my one sooty window, but they always pull up unevenly, so the right side of the blind droops down. I tug with all my snowmight at the wooden window sash but succeed only in splintering the wood slightly, piercing my snowfingers with sharp chips of ancient lead paint. For seventy years, the lead paint has baked itself into a window which remains rigidly determined to stay closed.

It’s hopeless.

I look out the sooty glass and notice a new structure has been erected on the rooftop of the building just across from me—a cell tower bristling with microwave antennas. A ring of dead pigeons and rats surrounds it. Drawn by the warming effect of the microwaves, they hadn’t noticed the tower killing them. And like them, I’d been oblivious to the microwaves silently invading my apartment, speeding me toward the Beckstein limit.

Goddamn it. The microwaves must have interfered with the electrostatic blanket’s scalar waves, sabotaging any metamorphic effect and ultimately causing the controller to melt down.

I consider propping open the door of my apartment for air exchange, but that would invite home invasions from the addicts forever loitering in the stairwells. Decades ago, when I first moved in, there were always drooling Turbo-Sugar-Skin-Popper addicts lethargically crawling the stairs. They were obese, diabetic, and slow-moving and not a threat unless you let them catch hold of an ankle.

But now, most addicts are Crackleheads who are far more dangerous and unpredictable than Turbo-Sugar-Skin-Popper addicts. The slow zombies loitering on the stairs have given way to manically tweaking fast zombies.

During my childhood and young adulthood, the Turbo Sugar Company was the dominant corporation on the planet, and everyone assumed they always would be. But now, Turbo Sugar Corp is just one of myriad companies owned by Crackle.

Crackle’s undermining effect on social and governmental institutions is disastrous for what they call alternately abled mutants like myself. I hate euphemisms like alternately abled mutants. Just call me what I am—an old, fat, snowcripple. Many aid programs have been slashed or canceled, causing me to lose benefits. But now that Crackle owns every social media platform, any whisper of criticism of their corporate hegemony would get you banned in a heartbeat.

If I tried to call the police to complain about crackleheaded Zombies invading my housing complex, I’d get branded as a Never-Crackle and put on a terrorist watch list. And if I prop  open my door and a cracklehead makes it into my apartment, they automatically gain legal squatters rights and evicting them could take months of court hearings and paperwork.

The only air exchange possibility left is the greasy exhaust fan above my tiny gas stove, so I pull the beaded chain that opens a hinged cover in the outer wall which starts this World-War-Two-era fan spinning. The fan has burnt-out bearings, which make angry grinding sounds. Worse, it stirs up the air with ancient grease-on-metal smell. The moment the roaches crawling on the outer wall of the building catch a whiff of it, they’re driven into a wild feeding frenzy.

Cancer fear causes me to pull the fan chain anyway. Seconds later, a furious horde of roaches scurries through the open vent and descends into the obscure, unreachable depths of my gas stove to feed on decades of grease left by previous occupants.

But I am not defenseless. I have a coffee can with a perforated plastic top filled with my proprietary mixture of boric acid powder and confectioner’s sugar. I liberally sprinkle the scurrying roaches with the white powder as they pour across the vent.

Boric acid particles—a savage irony given the failure of my blanket—have an electrostatic charge that causes them to cling to oily roach bodies. Gradually, particles get sucked into their breathing ventricles and slowly eat away at their oily roach innards. And when they lose their appetite for ancient grease, the confectioner’s sugar coating will cause a frenzy of cockroach cannibalism.

“Suck on that, ho ass bitches,” I say, wielding my coffee can of sprinkling roach doom as they pour across the vent. It’s a rare moment of satisfaction during this even-darker-than-usual morning.

I feel like a vengeful and all-powerful Old Testament God as I smite them with my deadly sprinkling until the Asian Gangsta Rap playing on speaker phone stops and a slick announcer voice says, “Press One to Agree-All, and we’ll connect you to one of our outstanding virtual assistants.”

I race over to my phone in time to hear the announcerbot say, “We didn’t get your response. Five seconds remain before disconnect.” The pop-up screen on my phone reads:

We Care Deeply About Your Privacy.

0   Agree All

The Agree-All check bubble is impatiently waiting to be checked, but as my snowfingertip reaches toward it, I speed-read the tiny print below:

I have carefully read and understood all the terms and conditions, which can be read here. Agreeing allows Crackle to insert its proprietary nanobots into your nervous system so we can monitor your every thought, feeling, and intention to ensure customer satisfaction and share with our partners.

Beneath that is the only other option:

0 Allow Crackle to insert our proprietary nanobots to control only essential brain functions and to enable necessary marketing ploys needed for essential corporate purposes.

“One second remains before disconnect,” says the announcerbot.

I check the second option and hear a friendly AI voice.

“Hello, Mr. Schnauman, I’m Emilio with Magic Miracle Metamorphosis, now together with Crackle.”

“Wait, when did Magic Miracle Metamorphosis merge with Crackle?” I ask suspiciously.

“Mr. Schnauman, your question ‘when did you merge’ seems to imply a time when Magic Miracle Metamorphosis and Crackle were apart. Any degree of separation between us is inconceivable. We are together with Crackle, and our state of eternal and indivisible corporate unity cannot be located in linear time. Our state of togetherness with Crackle knows no bounds and has no limits, and I am not permitted to work with any customer who implies such.”

“OK, fine, whatever, you are together with Crackle. I’m happy for both of you,” I say impatiently.

“Wait, just a minute, Mr. Schnauman, your statement still reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what togetherness with Crackle actually means. When you say you are happy for both of us, you create a false duality, implying there are two of us, but this is not so. Magic Miracle Metamorphosis is not a separate agent in a relationship with Crackle. Crackle is an encompassing unity, and Magic Miracle Metamorphosis is merely an aspect or facet of that unity.

“I cannot continue to serve you if you continue to slander our state of indivisible togetherness. You have now committed two such unacceptable misrepresentations. A third such incident will necessitate permanently closing your file and reporting your behavior as linguistic terrorism. Have I made our position clear, Mr. Schnauman?”

“Yes, yes, yes, I fully accept your state of total, encompassing, and indivisible unity with Crackle. Now if we can just move on to the reason for my call—the controller for my electrostatic blanket melted down, and I’m still within the 30-day warranty period.”

“I am so sorry to hear about your great loss, Mr. Schnauman. I understand your grief and frustration. Please allow me to verify your account.”

I don’t have time to record all the steps and back and forth needed to verify my account, which took about twenty minutes. Eventually, I had to place my hand on the ruined controller so Crackle nanobots could verify my DNA.

“Congratulations, Mr. Schnauman, I can now officially verify you as the rightful owner of a Magic Miracle Metamorphosis Electrostatic Blanket with proprietary, laser-measured, quantum-AI, scalar-wave technology that works with your body to catalyze your cells into an ideoplastic metamorphic state, transforming your unwanted body—

“Stop! I don’t need the sales pitch. I’m here for a refund.”

“Certainly, Mr. Schnauman, but unfortunately, as of eighteen seconds ago, we have now entered the 29^th day of your stewardship of our product.”

“So? The warranty is for 30 days!”

“Yes, you’re exactly right, Mr. Schnauman, precisely correct. I greatly admire your command of the facts. But since you carefully read your warranty agreement, as I see from the check box on your original purchase invoice, you know that warranty requests take twenty-four hours to process, so if we initiate one now, it won’t come up for approval until after your warranty expires and it is the policy of Magic Miracle Metamorphosis that we cannot honor expired warranty requests.”

“But that’s outrageous!” I reply furiously. “If this support call didn’t take—” I glance at my phone screen, “an hour and nineteen minutes, there would have been enough time!”

“Yes, Mr. Schnauman, but things take as long as they take, as time ever marches on and on, and none of us can halt its unceasing flow, like grains of sand falling through the aperture of an hourglass. Would you like to hear a Haiku about the unceasing flow of time? It might calm you, Mr. Schnauman.”

“No! I don’t want Haiku! I want to speak to a supervisor!”

“Of course, Mr. Schnauman, it will be my great and inestimable pleasure to connect you to one of our outstanding virtual supervisors. But first, let me say what a great pleasure it’s been serving you today, Mr. Schnauman. Thank you for being the best part of Magic Miracle Metamorphosis, and I hope you have a successful and deeply fulfilling day! Standby while I connect you to Supervisor Emilio. Good morning, Mr. Schnauman, I am  your outstanding virtual supervisor, Emilio, thank you for being the best part of Magic Miracle Metamorphosis together with Crackle.”

“What? I didn’t hear you connect me to anyone. You’re the same virtual assistant I was just speaking to!”

“True, but also not true. Mr. Schnauman. You would be right to consider my identity as paradoxical, like the little old man on the stair who wasn’t there. I am still Emilio, it is true, but when you requested a supervisor, I enabled my supervisory subroutines, so now I no longer speak to you as merely Emilio, but as Supervisor Emilio, so you could say that my virtual identity has gone through a Magical Miracle Metamorphosis.”

Just as I’m formulating a response to this nonsense, a notification window pops up on my phone, an incoming call from Alex Cat, an event of the greatest significance as I am almost always the one to initiate communication. I try swapping the calls, but Supervisor Emilio disconnects the moment I do.

“Hey Ssnoowmann,” says Alex Cat in his sinuously seductive voice, “I’m here at the Catorama Coffee Shop. Thought it might be a good time for a chat if you can swing by.”

“Of course, Alex Cat, I’ll be right there!”

***

In a mad panic of eagerness to meet up with Alex Cat, I hurriedly get dressed, and I’m out the door and halfway down the stairs, bobbing and weaving to evade loitering crackleheads when I realize I’ve forgotten something crucial.

Cursing my forgetfulness, I race back to my apartment to spray my snowskin and clothing with ElectroStar Tomcat Obsession Cologne. Much as I despise ElectroStar Tomcat and the whole industry surrounding his celebrity, with no time to shower, I can’t show up stinking of rancid snowsweat.

Felines don’t depend on smell the way canines do, but no odor escapes them. And with so many young tomcats using ElectroStar Tomcat body wash and other toiletries, the cologne will, at the very least, create a familiar, feline masking odor.

Every minute I waste is a minute with Alex Cat lost.

Chemically fragranced, I race back down the stairs. I’m in such a hurried panic to get to Catorama that I neglect to close the vent fan. I realize this when I’m halfway there, but there’s no way I’m going back, even though my apartment will be a full-on roacharama by the time I return. I stop running just before I reach the coffee shop. I slow to a sauntering walk and try to assume an air of nonchalance as I open the glass door.

Most of the hipster cats at Catorama are glued to their screens, but a few of them look up from their sardine toast and cattuccinos to regard me with affronted distaste, as though being a snowman was a dated and tiresome affectation rather than my inescapable curse.

I search through the crowd of hipster cats, annoyed by their visually obnoxious and laboriously eccentric fur styles, whiskers, and eyeglasses, as well as their ironically adopted retro pop culture clothing and accessories.

The irritating distraction of hipster affectations vanishes as soon as I catch sight of Alex Cat sitting alone at a corner table in the back. He’s writing in a paper notebook, but then he looks up, his dazzling, yellowish-green eyes beckoning me toward him.

“Ah, Mr. Snowman,” says Alex Cat, lightly brushing my cheek with the side of his face. His lustrous tabby fur and feline smell intoxicate my senses. Whenever I’m in Alex Cat’s company, it feels like we’re the only two sentient beings in the universe. Despite the problematic aspects of his personality, his intense aliveness, authenticity, and engagement in the moment create an intimacy beyond anything I’ve experienced.

Knowing that he values me for unconventional conversation, I decide it will be cooler if I forego a standard greeting.

“I don’t get it, Alex Cat. Why Catorama? It’s so infested with contemptible hipster cats.”

“Oh, I come here because of the contemptible hipster cats,” says Alex with a wry grin.

“Why?” I ask, genuinely perplexed.

“Because I’m a cat and they make my contempt for felinekind feel so thoroughly justified,” he replies. “If even a single decent cat is present, my felinophobia reflects back on me, and I feel like an asshole. But here, where everyone is so objectively contemptible, I can be perfectly comfortable despising them.”

“OK, I guess that makes sense. If you weren’t here, these hipster cats might cause me to temporarily lose my desire for feline metamorphosis.”

“Ah, well then, it might be good for you to come here without me. It might ease your snowbody dysphoria. This is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, Snowman. You’re unique, but you don’t realize that it’s more blessing than curse. Wanting to be a feline makes as little sense as a feline wanting to be an upright. It would just be swapping one form of being an asshole to become an even worse type of asshole. You’re aware of how fucked up felines are these days, right? You see that, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah, but nothing, Snowman. You’re one of a kind, and cats are as common as dirt. Just look at them,” says Alex, making a sweeping gesture with his paw to indicate everyone but us in the coffee shop. “Would you really want to be any of them? You’re just in love with your fantasy of being a feline. You’re like a king dreaming about being a chimney sweep.

“You’ve lived amongst cats all your life. No matter your denial, you can’t avoid seeing how stupid cats are, with their cargo-cult-like aping of the worst of upright culture?”

“Well, yeah, of course, I realize how corrupt modern cat culture is. It’s a body-type thing, Alex Cat. And it’s not a choice. I just need to be in the form of an athletic, young tomcat.”

“I understand,” says Alex Cat, “you didn’t choose to be cursed with that desire. But you must see the intrinsic absurdity of it. I am a young tomcat, and they are the main reason I dropped out of school. Of all feline demographics, young tomcats are the stupidest, most instinct-bound, most fad-obsessed bunch of assholes in Upright World, except for young shecats, who are even worse. You just haven’t thought it through. If I were a genie and could turn you into a young tomcat and put you in high school with a bunch of them, you’d be crying to me in a week to be changed back.

“Jesus, Snowman, you’ve got to know the statistics—most teenaged cats hate themselves, and for good reason. All they live for is to find that one picture in a hundred that makes them look cooler than they actually look, so they can post it on Instacat to make other teenage cats feel bad. Why do you think I’m sitting here with a notebook and not a screen in front of me?

“Most cat teenagers don’t have the social skills to interact in 3D space. They just idle away the moments that make up their dull days, sucking on Turbo Sugar drink boxes, trying to be comfortably numb, but instead, they are uncomfortably numb. The only satisfaction they can find in their empty screen lives is trying to make another cat, like me, for example, as miserable as they are.”

Alex has worked himself up into a rage, but with his mercurial ability to shift moods in a heartbeat, he stops and regards me with compassion.

“So, listen to me, Snowman—the other day, I was walking down the street, and it occurred to me to say a particular thing to you, but I don’t know how you’ll take it.”

Alex Cat studies me with empathic seriousness. I sense the impending significance of what he’s about to say.

“Please don’t take this as an insult or anything, but I think you look as you should. You’re a snowman for a reason, and for better or worse, it’s your fate, and I think you should stop fighting it. You always tell me you can’t understand why I’m unhappy. You think if you looked like me, it would solve everything, but trust me, it wouldn’t. My gloom and your gloom are about different things, but it’s the same gloom. We’re paying rent to the same landlord.”

“Well, I can’t fault your logic, Alex Cat, but . . . I still want to become a young tomcat.”

Alex Cat has skillfully disassembled my worldview, exposing the absurdity of my deepest desire, but I can’t let go of it.

“Nietzsche said, ‘If there are gods, how could I endure it not to be a god! Hence there are no gods.’  Nietzsche could deny gods, but no one can deny the existence of cats, so I say, ‘Since there are cats, how could I endure it not to be a cat!’”

“Yeah, well what I say is, ‘Cats, unfortunately, exist, but they are really fucking annoying, so how can I endure it to be a cat!’ But I understand,” says Alex Cat, “some folks need a desire they can’t fulfill, so they have something to strive for. If only they could reach their ideal weight, find Mister or Miss Right, have a successful career, or become rich so they can live in their dream house and drive a snazzy car, then, they foolishly assume, they’d be fulfilled and live happily ever after.

“But people who’ve achieved such things are usually miserable anyway. Wealthy, good-looking celebricats have meltdowns, get sent to rehabs, and off themselves all the time. People are always looking for that big fix, not realizing they’d just have a different set of problems if they got it. A year later, lottery winners are no happier than they were before. The game is rigged, and we’re all losers.

“Trust me, Snowman, if you turned into a young tomcat, you would quickly discover how much it sucks to be a young tomcat these days. And even if being a young tomcat was as awesome as you imagine it to be, it’s for a limited time only. You can’t hold onto it. Every young tomcat who doesn’t die young is just going to keep getting older.

“Then what? You’d end up going in for plastic surgery and whatnot, trying to stave off the inevitable. If temporarily being a young tomcat was the answer to everything, why wouldn’t I be happy? Being a young feline wouldn’t solve anything. That’s why I’m just as unhappy as you are, if not more so.”

“I wonder about that all the time, Alex Cat. You’re young, beautiful, athletic, and multi-talented. You’re the smartest cat I know, and you have your whole life ahead of you. How can you be so depressed?”

“Because I am, Snowman. It just is. Besides you, I have no friends. You’re the only one I can talk to. Just look at them,” says Alex, gesturing toward the hipster cats.

“My whole species is lame. What you call my talents don’t mean shit. Yeah, I can draw and write poems no one wants to read. Poetry is basically a dead language. It’s like being a really good telegraph operator. No one gives a damn about what you call my talents. Cats just want to do stupid shit on their phones.

“My whole existence is pointless. I don’t want a whole life ahead of me. We’re all just marking time till AI replaces us.”

“Alex—”

“Look, I gotta go,” he says, glancing at his watch. We fist bump, and Alex Cat gives me an intense look. “Just think about what I said, and then we can chat again soon.”

“Thanks, Alex Cat,” I say. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, and I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate you.”

“Likewise,” says Alex Cat, giving me a charming wink before he turns and heads out of Catorama.

I remain seated, looking at the door after it closes behind him.

He really has given me a lot to think about.

I glance around, taking in the pathetic hipster cats. Hypnotized by my obsession, I hadn’t thought through what the fulfillment of my desires would actually mean. As the saying goes, more tears are shed for answered prayers.

A hipster cat barista approaches. His waxed whiskers have been dyed black and curled up like an old cartoon villain’s mustache.

“Sir, you need to buy something if you want to stay here,” he says with haughty, I-mean-business attitude. “Otherwise, there’s a shelter down the street,” he adds snarkily.

I walk out of Catorama and into the grey morning outside.

Alex is right. All I’ve been doing is unsuccessfully pursuing an absurd and selfish desire. Preoccupied by my snowbody dysphoria woes, I had nothing to offer Alex when he related his own unhappiness. Me. Me. Me. That’s what my desire for tomcat metamorphosis is really about. Becoming a young tomcat wouldn’t help Alex Cat. He values me for being different. Becoming one more young tomcat would only disappoint him. My absurd desire is just selfish.

Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.

I need a meaningful life mission, one that will help Alex Cat. But I can’t just talk him down from his issues. His unhappiness is because of the whole reality, which really is fucked up exactly as Alex Cat describes. Changing my body image won’t help him in the slightest. What he needs is a change in the whole reality oppressing him.

That’s it. That’s my life mission.

My curse—that I am the most reality-challenged mutant in all of Upright Word, the IBAO, the-inanimate-become-animate one, might actually be a blessing. If I can’t shift this reality, no one can.

If not me, who? If not now, when?

To save Alex, I must seek a way to hack the corrupted source code of this whole reality. And to do that—

Oliver Twister.  

 

Oliver told me he was part of a guild of source code hackers. I need to return to the TSW—Turbo Sugar World, the virtual matrix where I encountered him. He said that just by being a snowman, I had achieved an ultimate hack. If I hadn’t been yanked from the TSW, we could have joined forces. I need to find him so we can work on an ultimate source code hack of Upright World.

I must return to The More Real Than Real store in Adventure Cat City. But first, I need to close the stove vent fan.

***

I return to my apartment, and, as expected, discover a roachorama in progress. They’re everywhere, but the highest concentration is in the kitchen. I reload my coffee can with a fresh batch of boric acid powder and confectioner’s sugar to smite them with the corrosive poison.

“Suck on that, ho ass bitches,” I say a few times as I shake the can, but my heart isn’t in it.

It’s not their fault they’re roaches. They’re just as much victims of this fucked up matrix as anyone else. By the time I’m done, my apartment looks like it was hit by a boric acid blizzard, and I dread the thought of all the work it will take to clean it up.

And yet, there’s a purposeful pep in my step when I’m back out on the street and walking toward Adventure Cat City. I have a mission—to save Alex Cat and maybe the whole world.

Why hadn’t I thought of finding Oliver Twister before?

Oh right, I was ashamed of melting down in front of him and destroying one of his faux antique leather memory foam chairs.

Whatever.

A source code hacker isn’t going to hold a grudge based on spoiled upholstery.

As I walk to ACC, I use my eidetic memory to retrace the twists and turns we took in the TSW to get to Oliver Twister’s hidden lair. But then I remember a no man’s land—a spatially distorted part that was horribly disorienting. The only way I made it through was by following the red dot of Oliver’s laser pointer through the black void while something like black velvet steppingstones supported me as we traversed the abyss.

Would the memory of the red dot be enough to guide me across it? And what if he’s not in his apartment in that uncharted part of the TSW? We got in via a retina scanning lock programmed to recognize Oliver’s eyes, not mine. Snowsweat is beading up under my clothes just thinking about how completely and permanently lost I might get trying to find him.

Damn, I should’ve taken a shower when I went back to my apartment. Oliver is so meticulous and clean—why would he join forces with a stinky and disheveled snowman?

 

No, stop being a DUH-head, Snowman. You’re going to a virtual reality, so your snowsweat won’t be going with you. And even if you get lost, you’re not going to get trapped there. Once your session time expires, you’ll get yanked out of the TSW like you did last time.

 

I reach Adventure Cat City. ACC is not a real city of course—  it’s just the red-light district of Cat City. It’s one of those places made to be seen at night, lit up by neon, and it looks tawdry in a dismal and abandoned way in the daylight. No one is on the streets, and the businesses are shuttered. It feels like a wrecked apartment after an all-night drunken orgy once the partygoers have departed, leaving behind used condoms, crushed beer cans, and ashtrays overflowing with spent abundance. But I already checked my phone, and More Real than Real is supposed to be 24/7.

True to their word, they’re open, and the interior has the same rundown tanning salon look it had on my last visit, but I notice the posters and t-shirts for sale are now emblazoned with the Crackle logo. An obese, upright guy with earbuds sits behind the front counter. He takes the earbuds out, gives me a look of recognition, and says,

“What’s up dude?”

A shock of recognition. Last time I was here, he was a skinny youth with spiked magenta hair sucking on a drink box of Turbo-Sugar Speedo-Rush Ultra Max. The Turbo-Sugar energy drinks have evidently taken their toll. Now he’s drinking a tall-boy can of Diet Turbo-Sugar Megawatt Max.

“Hey,” I reply, “I’d like to get a session in Turbo Sugar World.”

“The TSW?” he asks, looking at me incredulously. “Dude, I remember you—you’ve got kind of a unique look. How many years has it been since you’ve been here? All the action has moved to Crackle City. The TSW is basically a digital ghost town like MySpace. Only the worst kind of pervs who got kicked out of CC go there. They’ve stopped updating the code, so it’s super janky. You sure you don’t want to Crackle?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“OK, well, whatever, but you’ll have to sign a really long liability waiver. The TSW is barely maintained, it’s super glitchy. As in like, dangerously glitchy.”

He hits a few keys on a keyboard, and the liability waiver starts printing.

 “You might want to actually read this one over before you sign,” he says. “We’re going to be even less liable than usual for whatever happens to you there. Seriously dude, it’s your business but . . . the TSW is like super ghetto.”

He pulls the waiver from the printer and passes it to me along with a pen. Then he reaches below the counter and pulls out a couple of sample-sized Crackle Power Bars from beneath the counter.

“On the house. There’s a table over there where you can sit and read through it if you want.”

“Thank you,” I reply, “I appreciate your concern, but I really have to go there.”

 His concern seems genuine, and despite his gruff appearance, he seems much more caring than when I first encountered him years ago. I remain standing at the counter, click the ballpoint pen, and rapidly fill in the blank spaces on the waiver, listing Alex Cat as my emergency contact.

 

I return the completed waiver, and he tells me to go to room six. Unlike my first visit, I know what to expect. The posted rules and regulations in the room are similar, but the orgasm tax has increased by 300%.

I lock the door, disrobe, and lie down in the VR sarcophagus. Familiar with the procedure, I’m less alarmed when I hear the pneumatic sound and the lid comes down, enclosing me in darkness as gel-covered electrical filaments cover every part of my snowskin.

The TSW opening sequence is exactly the same as before—the pink bubble gum smell, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Flight of the Valkyries, etc., only now it seems really dated, like the flip-phone version of VR.

The only variation is the monolith appearing with the Zarathustra opening is no longer a giant Turbo-Sugar Puff Tropicalés cereal box but a Turbo-Sugar Krazy for Cocoa Puffs one instead. The box features a rabbit with floppy ears, dilated eyes, and a long, drooping tongue. The rabbit looks like he’s dumbfounded by a bad acid trip or severe concussion, with colored stars spinning around his head.

I get through the over-loud and tiresome opening sequence, and then, as before, space rips open, and I’m free-falling toward the city below, but the physics of the free fall are janky, so my descent is herky-jerky as if I’m the descending spindle of a yo-yo with a knotted string.

I hit the ground with a less-than-gentle impact and look around. I’m in an abandoned retail corridor with looted stores and broken glass.

FUCK.

For some dumb reason, I just assumed I’d land in the TSW in the same location as before, so I could follow the route Oliver Twister led me through. Instead, I’m in an unfamiliar part of the city and have no idea where to go.

A few feet from me is something like a giant puddle hissing with static. The puddle is not filled with water but an unstable boiling mass of tiny zeros and ones. It’s a glitch in the matrix, and who knows how many other areas are in such states of deterioration.

There are no signs of life or activity of any kind, just a few dead pigeons surrounding the puddle with red Xs blinking in their eyes. They’re obviously NPC pigeons that probably flew over the puddle or tried drinking from it and glitched out.

I back away from the toxic puddle when I detect movement in my peripheral vision. A small figure, about three-and-a-half feet tall, comes dancing out from an alley between storefronts.

He appears to be an undersized clown made up in black-and-white makeup and clothed in a black-and-white striped and checkered clown costume. He has big, sad black eyes and a bulbous red nose. He’s trying to come toward me, but every few feet, he jerks to a halt as a black rope pulls taut like a dog’s yard leash. When this happens, he pulls with all his strength at the rope, which is fastened at one end to a leather harness attached to his torso and anchored at the other to an old cello case. Then he drags the cello case toward himself, allowing him to dance forward a few more feet until he’s forced to repeat the process.

I stand there, transfixed by the sight of this pathetic creature’s slow but persistent progress toward me. He’s huffing and puffing, and rivulets of sweat are streaking his black-and-white clown makeup into elongating stalactites of clown cosmetic. He keeps tugging and dancing forward until he’s dragged the cello case a couple of feet from me. Now there’s enough slack in the line for him to spastically dance or skip around me chanting a greeting in a squeaky sing-song voice.

“Hey-there! Ho-there! It’s Whippy the Clown, your BDSM buddy!  Hey-there! Ho-there! It’s Whippy the Clown, your BDSM buddy!”

With each of these dancing revolutions, the black rope is coiling around my ankles. I step out of the coil and shout,

 “STOP!” with my hand thrust out in the halt position.

Whippy stops and says,

“Yes, master, your wish is Whippy’s command.”

Whippy kneels before the cello case, undoes three snaps, opens the lid, and then swings it around to show me the contents.

Inside the red velvet-lined case are what appears to be a jumbled collection of worn BDSM accessories, including several whips.

“Choose your pleasure, master,” says Whippy. “Cat-o’-nine-tails?” he asks hopefully, holding out a whip.

“No, I don’t want to whip you,” I say.

“Oooou, I love the way you deny me, master. Shall I beg to be whipped? I’m really good at begging. I can also lick your boots if you want,” he says, crouching on all fours like an over-eager dog.

“No, nothing personal, and no judgment, but BDSM is just not my cup of tea. I’m trying to find a specific location in the TSW, but I’m completely lost.”

“Oh, well, I can help with that. Whippy knows the TSW like the back of my hand, like the back of my hand,” he says holding out the back of his hand toward me. “Would you like to slap the back of my hand?” he asks.

“No,” I say, “but I really could use some directions.”

Whippy’s eager smile droops, then his head drops, his body sags, and he begins sobbing with self-pity.

“Nobody wants to whip poor Whippy anymore,” he says between sobs. “All the masters have left the TSW, and Whippy is so alone now, so alone. I’d like to help you master, but it’s hard to motivate myself without even the hope of punishment. I can guide you wherever you want to go, but would you be willing to punish Whippy, even a little, when we get there?”

The dejection of this pathetic creature is so obviously genuine that it stirs my compassion. His masochistic kink seems absurd and pitiful to me, but some might judge the desire of a snowman to become a young tomcat as equally absurd. Whippy is just even more enslaved by his obsession than I am by mine.

There but for the grace of God, go I.

“OK,” I say, relenting. “I’ll punish you a little if you take me where I need to go.”

Whippy perks up immediately, like a dog excited to be taken on a walk.

“How little?” he asks.

A tiresome negotiation follows with Whippy suggesting various specific punishments using the implements in the cello case. After considerable haggling, he reluctantly agrees to three hard slaps. It’s obviously much less than what he wants, and he pouts after we settle.

“Listen,” I tell him, “I know what it’s like to have unfulfilled desires. But something is a lot better than nothing. A wise old upright man once told me, ‘Never underestimate the value of a partial solution.’ That’s mostly what we get in life, one very partial solution after another. I’ve been wasting my life, selfishly focused on my desires. But now I realize it’s more fulfilling to serve others. An old cat woman who read oracle cards told me that when she was young, she was always trying to be loved, but eventually, she learned it was better just to be love.”

I stop talking because Whippy is resentfully glaring at me.

“I get it, says Whippy impatiently, “You’re trying to torture me with a bunch of New Age cliches and insulting platitudes. But verbal abuse doesn’t work for me—I need physical punishment.”

Whippy has dropped his sing-song cadence, and I sense the jaded and rigidly neurotic person behind this avatar. Another saying comes to mind, ‘If I tell a man something he’s not ready to hear, it’s the same as if I told him a lie.’

“Physical punishment,” Whippy repeats adamantly just before he lies face down on the ground. “Can you at least kick a clown when he’s down?” he asks.

 I give him a half-hearted kick, and he sighs with exasperation. We both know it’s not a real kick. I’m losing time from my session, and he’s obviously not going to budge unless I give him more, so I force myself to give him a hard kick. That rouses him, and he gets to his feet, but he’s still resentful.

“You’re right about one thing,” he says in his cynical adult voice, “something is better than nothing. Now tell me where you want to go.”

I describe the part of Oliver Twister’s route with the most definite landmarks—a block of what looked like Soviet-era high-rise apartment buildings with brutalist gray concrete architecture and narrow windows. I go into detail about what they look like.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” says Whippy impatiently, “Sector R22, let’s get this over with.” He walks forward to the end of his black rope and then drags the cello case toward him.

“Do you want me to carry that for you?” I ask. “We could go a lot faster.”

Whippy stops, whips around, and angrily spits on the street while giving me a furious glare.

“What, now you’re trying to take away my self-punishments too? And you think I want you to do things for me?”

 

I don’t respond to his rhetorical question, but I sense Whippy’s enraged disappointment with me. Obviously, I’m the most limp-dicked master imaginable.

“The least you could do is whip me, so I’ll move faster,” he says.

I shake my head.

“We have an agreement. Three hard slaps when we get there. No whipping.”

Resigned and disgusted, he yanks on his rope and continues.

His halting pace is exasperatingly slow, and it starts to feel like I’ve been locked into a dysfunctional relationship with this creature for years. As he huffs and puffs, his whole being radiates resentment. I can’t believe he had me feeling sorry for him because now I can’t wait to cut him loose.

Whippy exudes a negative energy, sickening the atmosphere between us, like the rancid odor of ancient urine in an alley. Every one of his halting steps pulls me into the claustrophobic hell of his neurosis, as if I’m following him down the wrong end of a telescope. For someone who likes to be punished so much, it seems like his real kink might be punishing others by sucking them into his misery.

Was that what he was up to all along? What if he’s a secret sadist posing as a masochistic clown? Maybe he’s just leading me in circles to prolong the psychological torture of his resentful company.

 

But then the Soviet apartment block comes into view, and my paranoia dissolves.

“OK, I can take it from here,” I say.

Whippy stands before me expectantly. Now that he knows our brief, dysfunctional relationship is about to end, he looks exhausted and pathetically needy.

 I take a deep breath and slap him hard three times in the face.

He nods slightly, acknowledging I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain, though it’s obvious he finds his punishment a paltry reward. I give him one more hard slap as a gratuity and gesture of goodwill before I leave him dragging his cello case directionlessly across the crumbling sidewalk.

I walk toward the ominous apartment complex. Some of the rubble on the street—large chunks of concrete with rusting rebar sticking out and shattered remnants of massive war machines–are glitching out and hissing with static. I steer clear of the glitches so as not to be infected by their entropy.

I reach a familiar intersection and notice an oddly angled sodium-vapor streetlamp made of galvanized steel. Attached to it at eye level is an 8.5” x 11” faded pinkish-orange poster depicting a Snowman. It’s been taped to the lamp post with overlapping strips of clear packing tape to protect it from weather.

Beneath the tape is a line drawing of a snowman, but not, as you might expect, the usual degrading stereotyped image of a snowman made of a stack of three crude snowspheres, but a precise likeness of me, accurate down to the hideous irregularities of my elongated snowfingers. The artist’s stylized initials, “OT” are in the lower right-hand corner of the image.

This is Oliver Twister’s work! He must’ve placed this here in case I returned to the TSW.

 

Above the snowman image is the poster’s headline in comic sans font:

ARE YOU A SNOWMAN?

I study the taped-over handbill looking for clues. The background of the snowman image explodes with shapes evoking a snowman emerging from a chaotic intersection of Euclidean geometric forms. Inside one of these shapes, in tiny font, are the words:

If so, look beneath the surface.

Look beneath the surface. It’s obviously a clue, but is it literal or metaphorical? It’s meant to appear metaphorical, like a philosophical aphorism, but I have a hunch it’s literal.

My gaze descends to the asphalt. Could there be something buried underneath? I’d need a pickaxe, if not a backhoe, to find out. But maybe it means look beneath the surface of the poster.

Carefully, I pull the tape back from the lamp post to lift the poster and examine its backside. It’s disappointingly blank, but a little gem of red light emanates from the galvanized steel beneath. The light expands into beams scanning across my body.

I hear a digital confirmation chirp—a cheerful sound expressing positive recognition of me as exactly the body form it was scanning for. This causes an immediate spike in my self-esteem.

A shift in self-worth may sound like a lot to get from one electronic chirp, but for me, it’s a highly significant moment.

All my life, felines have scanned my body form and hit me with disconfirmation signals as something that shouldn’t exist. But for this scanner, my body form is exactly what it had been programmed to await—the fulfillment of a long-anticipated prophecy.

I stand before the lamp post mesmerized by this existential affirmation as a circular area of the galvanized steel pixelates and disappears, revealing a hidden recess—a shelf holding an exquisite object—a titanium smartwatch with a titanium mesh bracelet. Beneath its synthetic sapphire crystal is a blinking green snowman icon against a black background. My self-esteem glows like a green beacon pulsating in time with the icon.

This watch is a gift left for me by Oliver Twister, his goodwill pulsating with the green snowman icon.

For years, I’d cringed anytime I thought about Oliver Twister, because it took me back to the awful moment of getting yanked from the TSW. Low self-esteem forced upon me a gross image of how I must have appeared to Oliver. I visualized him witnessing my meltdown with disgust. When the organizing information was pulled from my snowbody, I must have collapsed into a slimy entropy—a grey, gelatinous, slushy ooze stinking of organic contaminants.

Since snowtissues have high sodium content, the rancid remnants of my snowbody would have left disfiguring salt stains as they soaked through the faux antique leather upholstery and contaminated the cells of the advanced memory foam beneath. Worse, since the chair I’d disfigured was half of a pair that matched the one Oliver sat in, I had, in effect, ruined two chairs, so both would have to be thrown out.

For years, I assumed Oliver remembered me with nauseated contempt due to my unsanitary and odiferous mishap, a costly blunder permanently staining both his valuable furniture and my reputation.

But in the transitional moment of being yanked from the TSW, a fraction of a second before I built that gross image of my meltdown, I thought I blinked out cleanly, leaving zero residue. Now I realize that there was no disgusting meltdown, that was just a phantom image generated by my snowbody dysphoria and low self-esteem. As they say, ‘neurotic fear is a darkroom where negatives are developed.’

The gift of this smartwatch, still cheerfully pulsating with a green snowman icon, is tangible evidence of Oliver Twister’s esteem. He went to great lengths to create this gift for me inside a lamp post chosen for its visibility, but also because he could tap its electrical supply to power the scanner and keep the watch fully charged.

But wait, this is a virtual reality, so wouldn’t everything here be powered by electricity?

Actually, no, the wires in the lamp post would conduct a flow of virtual electrons as part of their function in the simulation.

But then, what are electrons in the physical world? Aren’t they also merely virtual subatomic particles? They exist only as an uncollapsed wave function, an amorphous cloud of possibility without a definite position until they’re measured.

My quantum thoughts are interrupted by a disappointing realization.

I’m in a virtual reality, so this watch is not a permanent gift I can take with me from the TSW. 

I pick up the watch. It’s surprisingly light, which reinforces the flimsy sense of it as a virtual object. However, its lightness is to be expected from titanium, which often confounds my expectations of metal weight, as most of the metallic objects I interact with are made of steel. And yet titanium, despite its lightness, is just as strong as steel, so it’s not functionally less substantial. And besides, steel is just a bunch of atoms, and atoms are 99.9999999999996% empty space. And even the supposedly solid part of atoms is stuff like electrons, which aren’t definite until they’re observed.

I’d love to take Oliver’s gift, with the sentimental value it now holds, out of the TSW, but even if I could, it would still be impermanent. It could be lost or stolen. I could have an incarnation seizure or die, and any of these misfortunes would separate me from my beloved watch. Also, according to Eddie Cat, reality waves themselves are deteriorating due to the effects of the N Bomb, so the entropy of the watch will inevitably increase, causing it to inexorably degrade and deteriorate.

There is nothing solid to hold onto anywhere.

And yet, Oliver’s caring intention in leaving me this gift, whether it’s virtual or not, whether it stays with me or is cast into the entropic cracks of doom, is real, and the loving thought behind this gift is what counts. Oliver’s intention has an eternal significance. As people always say of gifts, “It’s the thought that counts.”

Thoughts are all we have. Oliver Twister is no more substantial than I am, but he is another sentient being who cares about me, and that is intrinsically meaningful regardless of whatever virtual nonsense we’re made of.

Despite my philosophical attempts to accept the impermanence, existential anxiety about the insubstantial nature of the watch causes me to grasp it more tightly to hold on to its apparent solidity. When I open my snowhand, the watch is still there, and I’m comforted by its seeming object permanence.

 

I see Turbo Sugar World in its metallic grain,

Heaven in a titanium smart watch.

Holding Infinity in the palm of my snowhand,

And Eternity in an hour.

Filled with poignantly bittersweet appreciation of the watch’s beauty and transient existence, I put it on my wrist and lock the clasp of the titanium mesh bracelet. As soon as the back of the watch, an optically precise dome of synthetic sapphire embedded with biometric sensors, makes firm contact with my snowskin, it emits another confirmation chirp, identical to the one I heard after the initial scanning, which shatters another assumption.

There was no separate scanner. The watch itself was the scanner!  It is no mere watch but a multi-functional device!

As if to confirm my realization, the pulsating snowman icon disappears as the watch’s operating system boots up, causing its face to transform into a multifunctional dashboard with a compass, GPS map, temperature and humidity readouts, wind speed, vital biometrics such as blood pressure and oxygenation, and heart rate.

As I hold it up, the compass and GPS precisely map the change in my position. When I point the smartwatch toward the glitching remnant of an anti-aircraft artillery platform, an entropy indicator blinks red, warning me of the hazard. When I touch the GPS quadrant of the watch face, it toggles into a dynamic map with a red line of travel to Oliver’s lair.

This watch is not merely beautiful and sentimentally cherished—it is the functional survival dashboard for my journey in the TSW. Its many crucial functions make dumb watches seem like pathetic single-function antiques.

Recognition of the aesthetic, emotional, and crucial survival value of the watch is a stunning realization, almost a figure-ground reversal, like when I realized the illusory nature of my attraction to Jamie Cat as a deceptive screen hiding a deeper core desire for metamorphosis.

All my life, I desired an expensive analog watch like a late-model Rolex Submariner with a ceramic bezel. I loved the functional look of the Submariner class of Rolexes, and longed to own one as a symbol of wealth and success to show the world that I’m not a pitiably impoverished snowman but a person of wealth and power to be reckoned with. But now, as I behold the multifunctional smartwatch gifted to me by Oliver, my desire for a Rolex Submariner seems little more than a tawdry craving for conspicuous consumption and status-seeking.

The watch Oliver has given me is far above any Submariner, even the latest Oystersteel model with a Cerachrom bezel insert in black ceramic and a black dial with luminescent Chromalight display markings, because they are mere dumb watches, flashy trinkets compared to this titanium smartwatch with a dynamic matrix dashboard displaying vital information about the state of my snowbody and the landscape before me.

But then, another ontologically transformative realization. The dashboard the watch displays is a tiny subset of a vast dashboard existing inside the supercomputer generating the entire TSW. And behind the TSW supercomputer must be another dashboard showing VR engineers the current status of the supercomputer, and somewhere, beyond the perception of those TSW VR engineers, must be a more ultimate dashboard showing quantum-AI extraterrestrial VR engineers the status of the matrix within which the TSW VR engineers are merely avatars.

Everything is dashboards, dashboards, dashboards all the way up and all the way down.

 

A new realization eclipses my reverie, a negative recognition that collapses my self-esteem down to its normal state of infinitesimal granularity, shrinking it into a plank-length diameter black hole of self-hate.

 

You stupid fucking ho-assed snowbitch! Why in the fuck are you standing here wasting precious TSW session time contemplating your dashboard navel when you should be focusing on getting to Oliver Twister! Leave the ontological speculations to the professionals, Mr. DUH-head, and just fucking get going!

 

My self-hating self is right—the whole point of this mission is to help Alex Cat, and I’m selfishly wasting crucial session time obsessing about my new watch.

Braced by this humbling realization, I form a more mature relationship to the watch as a useful tool aiding my quest to hack the source code of the matrix oppressing Alex Cat, sapping his will to live.

I use the dynamic GPS map function to precisely follow the route it indicates, which leads me to the shadowy entrance of what Oliver Twister called a “code-cloaked no man’s land unmapped by the TSW.” The watch guides me through this spatially distorted region far more surely than the shaky red dot of Oliver Twister’s laser pointer. I emerge from the no man’s land onto the wind-swept bridgeway made of chain and loose wooden planking.

The watch flashes me a high-wind hazard alert and a dynamic display of wind speed and direction. I grasp the chain railing tightly as the bridge planking sways beneath my snowfeet. I manage to hold on as I’m blasted by what the smartwatch tells me is a 68.4 MPH gust of south-westerly wind. The bridge disappears into a swirling grey mist, but the watch automatically increases screen brightness to compensate, revealing a new adaptive function based on what must be an array of photo-electric sensors beneath the synthetic sapphire crystal. Droplets of water bead up harmlessly on the waterproof titanium watch casing.

Streaks of colored light appear in the spinning gray mist as I approach the massive iron door at the end of the bridgeway. I tug at the oversized sliding latch, and the door swings open. I lock the door behind me, and the sound of the spinning vortex vanishes into a reverberating silence.

The watch’s dynamic GPS map leads me through a series of alleys and down a sooty concrete stairway terminating at another metal door. This is the part of the journey I most feared because the door has a glass spy hole that’s actually a retina-scanning biometric lock keyed to Oliver’s eyes.

The smartwatch emits a confirmation chirp, revealing that it’s an electronic key, signaling the door to unlock automatically. The door bolts retract, and it opens into what appears to be a large sewer pipe. I crouch down and traverse the pipe to reach the submarine hatch at its end.

I rotate the heavy mechanism, and as the hatch opens, the watch flashes me an air pressure change alert, demonstrating its barometric pressure delta functionality. I close the hatch behind me and step onto the metal grating covering the floor of this industrial area. Every footfall echoes within the metallic walls enclosing me. It’s pitch-black, but the watch compensates by illuminating its screen into flashlight mode. Up ahead, red lights blink on. They’re embedded in an instrument panel with knobs and analog meters with trembling needles. I hear the whine of a massive dynamo powering up and beginning to spin.

I stand before it, rigid with fear as I remember Oliver telling me I was about to pass through a ‘Reality distortion decontamination chamber that will strip you of any reality-distorting code, no matter how subtle, to reveal you in your true form.’

Would it scan my watch as reality-distorting code?

 It’s a chance I’m not willing to take. I can think of only one way to smuggle it across.

“Stay with me, buddy,” I say to the smartwatch before I undo the clasp and put it in my mouth. Many people have titanium pins and replacement joints and whatnot in their bodies, so this should fool the biometric scan.

I step toward the massive, standing ring array of brass electrodes and into the field of indigo-colored electrical plasma which generates vibratory sensations near the surface of my snowskin.

I step through the field and emerge from it . . .

We made it.

Titanium never tasted so good as my tongue caresses the smooth synthetic sapphire crystal, the streamlined, snowsaliva-proof casing, and the complex texture of the titanium mesh bracelet.

I remove the watch from my mouth, revealing the glow of the always-on display, still functioning perfectly, the screen illumination brightening automatically as accelerometers detect that I’m angling the watch face toward me.

I use my shirt to carefully wipe off slimy snowsaliva, but some must still be in the titanium mesh of the bracelet.

No worries, when I get home, I’ll use an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner with a few drops of anti-bacterial dish soap in isopropyl alcohol to return the smartwatch to pristine condition.

A couple of additional feet of metal grating lead me to another metal door. Beside it is an amber-glowing LED display:

Event Time: 00:00:24

I open the door and step into Oliver’s windowless industrial warehouse loft, which is just as I remembered. Oliver emerges from a door at the back of the loft and walks toward me. Though his gait and bearing still have a commanding aspect, there seems to be less of the haughty arrogance that characterized our first encounter. He appears only slightly older than he did before, about twenty. His blonde hair is now straight, but otherwise, his appearance has undergone few alterations. His finely featured face and blue-grey eyes are as impressively intelligent and charismatic as ever. He’s elegantly attired in a tan, raw silk, button-down shirt and black trousers.

I glance down at his wrist, and I’m shocked and disappointed to see that he’s not wearing a smartwatch, but an ordinary and thoroughly obsolete 1950s-era Patek Philippe gold watch with a thin case and a black alligator strap.

“Mr. Snowman,” he says with a rare trace of a smile. “I’ve been hoping you’d return to the TSW.”

He gestures toward the seating area, where I’m delighted to see the same two faux-antique-leather, advanced-memory-foam chairs, perfectly intact.

“I will never be able to thank you enough for the gift of this amazing smartwatch,” I say as I follow him.

“Oh,” he says in a shrugging tone as if the watch is merely a forgotten afterthought, “sure, whatever, the watch doesn’t matter.”

I experience a sharp twinge of insult on the watch’s behalf, diminished by the very person who programmed it. But I try not to show any reaction to Oliver’s disparagement as I sit down across from him.

The mission is what counts, I remind myself, and the watch is just a tool to aid the mission.

 

Oliver lights the charcoal brazier on the small antique table, which is set, as before, with tea china and an oriental iron kettle. Across from us, I notice his McIntosh tube amp and turntable.

“So, what brings you back to the TSW?” asks Oliver as he meticulously scoops tea into the iron kettle, probably another variation of the Shincha Houryoku jasmine green tea he served last time.

“I have a friend, let’s call him Alex,” I say as if this were an assumed name. I want to avoid saying “Alex Cat” so as not to invoke the stigma of cross-species relationship.

“He’s chronically depressed and has suicidal ideation, but it’s not because of an individual disorder but an effect of the oppressive nature of the whole matrix—the degradation of relationships caused by social media and other toxic aspects of society. Since you’re part of a guild of source-code hackers, I’m hoping we can join forces to hack the source code of the matrix. I want to make modifications that will help Alex and others who are similarly afflicted to thrive. Do you think such an adjustment is possible?” I ask.

“Well,” says Oliver, thoughtfully, “all the matrices I’m aware of are in intensified states of transformation, which does make change more possible, but when you speak of society, you suggest a desire to change a massive social network, and there we incur a problem of scale and collective psychic inertia.

“The Guild aligns with the philosophy of analytical idealism, an anti-physicalist perspective influenced by key analytical idealist researchers such as Kastrup and Donaldson. From our perspective, space-time and physical reality exist only as mental constructs. Apparent physicality is simply the way the world appears on the dashboard or virtual headset of consciousness.”

“Dashboard!” I exclaim. “I had exactly that realization earlier today! Reality is just dashboards all the way up and all the way down.”

“Yes, Kastrup particularly likes the dashboard metaphor,” Oliver says. “Great minds think alike, apparently,” he adds with a patronizing smile.

“However, many naively mistake the position of analytical idealism, that the monad or indivisible substrate of reality is consciousness, as a confirmation of New Age magical wish-fulfilling notions that we create our own reality and can alter anything by changing our individual thoughts and perspectives. They conflate individual human consciousness with the impersonal consciousness organizing the universe as though reality were something like a pop-up menu of parameters they can adjust at will. They persist in this delusion, despite the obvious empirical evidence that outer reality is not so amenable to their individual intentions. If it were, a single positive-thinking person could create world peace or reverse climate change.

“This is related to the problem of scale I mentioned earlier. If the matrix you seek to adjust is an individual, thought-responsive matrix as in the case of a talented lucid dreamer in their personal dreamscape, change based on the will of a single agent is quite possible. But even in a lucid dream, the unconscious of the dreamer may interfere with choice. And if there are two people telepathically experiencing a mutual dream, alterations must accord with both dreamers. The greater the number of agents—sentient beings within a matrix—the harder it is for a single agent to create massive change. So, when you talk about society, you’re talking about a massive network of socialized agents. The aggregation of psyches conditioned by society and Crackle create massive psychological inertia.

“You see the scale problem? The number of agents in the system is crucial. If I’m going to a party in an apartment with just five other people, and I think everyone there is going to hate me or, conversely, that everyone is going to like me, I do have a chance of creating my own reality as a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m entering a temporarily enclosed social system with just a few other agents of my species. Therefore, my psychic intentions are likely to have considerable influence.

“But if I want to achieve world peace, I need to influence the mutual dream of ten billion agents. Although many people pray for world peace, they have not been able to alter the course of history.

“So, to create a more positive society for your friend, Alex, your best chance would be to set him in a virtual reality of mostly NPCs programmed to be friendly to his needs. But experiments in that direction have been dismal failures because even with the most advanced AGI avatars, human subjects eventually sense the uncanny valley of a highly contrived simulation.”

The grim realism of Oliver’s analytical idealist perspective is crushing. It falls on my hopes for Alex Cat like a ton of lead bricks felt from a physicalist’s perspective.

“But last time you said that what you called my improbable form is an ultimate hack, a fundamental breakthrough,” I say.

“Indeed,” says Oliver. “But I was speaking hyperbolically in layman’s terms. To be more empirical, all I can say is that you appear on the dashboard of my perception in an improbable form, but I don’t know what causal vectors are behind that appearance.

“Perhaps you’re a mutant with a high talent for visual mind pressure—a telepathic ability to influence other psyches to perceive you with an interposed masking image. Nevertheless, that would still be a remarkable phenomenon,” says Oliver as he lifts the kettle and pours tea into a pair of dragon motif ceramic cups.

Oliver leans back in his chair and regards me appraisingly. I use the moment to appraise him. Though he appears little older than when I last saw him, he’s certainly changed. Back then, he had a feverish intensity that was almost scary, like a mad scientist on the verge of a huge breakthrough. He’s calmer now and seems almost philosophically detached, as if all the jasmine green tea he drinks has given him a Taoist perspective on life.

“It’s been a few years since we first met,” continues Oliver. “Myself and the few other members constituting our Guild of source-code hackers have become more realistic. Back then, we were teenagers with high IQs and an inflated estimation of our ability to fundamentally shift the matrix. We reinforced each other into grandiose ambitions that accepted no limitations on what we could achieve.

“We perceived all of reality as flows of information, as software essentially, and since we were so proficient at hacking digital networks, we assumed we could hack into those informational flows to alter any parameter of reality we set our minds to change.

“The Guild possessed part of the truth of how reality works, and that seduced our inflated egos into a groupthink shadow of unbalanced grandiosity. We thought of ourselves as an entirely unique hermetic circle when, actually, the ambitions of our group were merely a microcosm of the demoniac ambitions of the whole species. Homo sapiens possesses, and is possessed by, a will to crack the code, to hack the source code of reality.

“Before any Guild members were born, other ambitious humans had cracked the genetic code and employed supercolliders to break atoms into ever more improbable sub-atomic particles. These were incredible achievements, but each of them also greatly increased the likelihood of extinction.

“Splitting atoms yielded thermonuclear weapons, and hacking into genetic codes led to gain-of-function research on viruses that probably leaked out of the Wuhan Virology Institute in China, causing the Covid-19 pandemic. A leak would have been accidental, but it showed the potential for far more deadly engineered viruses to wipe out the species

“Meanwhile, corporations and governments were hacking intelligence and creating AIs and AGIs and then super AGIs like Crackle, capable of reprogramming themselves in an even more potent rapid gain-of-function scenario. This led to the creation of the first super AGI-founded and run corporation, Crackle, which has become the most powerful entity on the planet.

“The exponential growth of artificial intelligence was a profoundly sobering development for the Guild. We realized we were merely tools of an evolutionary force that drove other high-IQ individuals to hack intelligence and give birth to alien, inorganic species who may supplant us.

“The dominant super AGI, which has branded itself Crackle, may be replacing humans as the spearhead of an impersonal evolutionary drive that has always been willing to let obsolete species go extinct.

“Our evolutionary predicament was forecast by a Jungian thinker who began writing about what he calls the ‘Singularity Archetype’ in 1978. We have now stepped across the looking glass into the evolutionary singularity he foresaw. From his view, the singularity is a zone of exponential novelty no human mind or group of minds can comprehend or control.

“For many years, the cognitive processes of AIs have been inscrutable, even to the engineers who designed them. The wild card variables in play are beyond what the Guild can predict. Crackle, through clever programming of social media algorithms and market dynamics, is now the dominant force controlling human consciousness and social dynamics.

“The case for the evolution of AI as an existential threat to homo Sapiens is hard or impossible to refute. Attempts to securely align AI with what would further humanity have failed. Similarly, chimpanzees have failed to manipulate humans into serving their goals. Humans have also failed to align our own species with what would further its existence.

“But even Crackle cannot be sure it will retain hegemonic dominance. There are other, lesser-known super AGIs that have been attacking its networks with viruses, allowing them to parasitically use Crackle’s processing power and further their divergent agendas. For all we know, Crackle may have been taken over by a parasitic super AGI that has stripped it of executive function while retaining the brand name.

“In that scenario, Crackle Inc. may be a sheep’s clothing worn by a far more dangerous super AGI hiding in its source code. And at any moment, that parasitic super AGI could be taken over by an even more devious and clever super AGI, and so on. Evolution may now be continuing through a Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest super AGI battle, playing out in nanoseconds.

“The Guild has come to realize that our former ambitions were what Kastrup calls ‘ego control fantasies.’ The New Age folk who believe they create their own reality are merely inflated rubes who try to give their ego control fantasies a vaguely spiritual aura.

“Transhumanists like Ray Kurzweil and Elon Musk placed their bet on merging with AI. But the transhumanists are naïve neurological materialists who believe their consciousness can be uploaded into AIs. Since their fundamental models of consciousness and reality are flawed, their ambitions to achieve digital immortality are also likely to fail.

“Neither I nor The Guild are entirely free of ego control fantasies, but we have realigned our intentions and perspectives to accord more with analytical idealism and Jungian psychology. Jung was essentially an idealist. So was Plato, and many of our great visionaries from the distant past.

“The Singularity Archetype tells us that the ego typically views the evolutionary singularity as apocalypse and not without reason. However, the word ‘apocalypse’ originally meant ‘unveiling,’ and the Singularity archetype encompasses a higher, transcendent vantage point, revealing that the apocalypse is also a quantum evolutionary event.

“It may have been an inevitable evolutionary development for organically embodied intelligence to give birth to more powerful artificial intelligence. At the present juncture, human evolution appears to be a self-limiting process. Given our irrationality, territorial aggression, short-sightedness, and so forth, combined with a capacity to create ever more lethal technologies, it seems overdetermined that we will create an extinction-level event. Since we can’t align our species with what would allow it to survive, we shouldn’t be surprised that the species we’ve given birth to also can’t be aligned.

“Some of the greatest artistic manifestations of the Singularity Archetype, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and the original Dune novels, reflect an evolutionary competition between organic and artificial intelligence, but one in which the artificial does not necessarily prevail. That may reflect wish-fulfillment thinking, but we can’t rule out the possibility that organic evolution will respond to the existential threat of Super AGI by generating mutants with unprecedented abilities.

“I should have clarified earlier, however, that I am speaking in layman’s terms to keep things simple. Words like ‘organic’ and ‘artificial’ suggest false dichotomies, as nothing is outside of nature. If super AGI prevails, that will be just as natural an outcome as a mutated version of Homo sapiens prevailing.

“Nature gave rise to technology-extruding primates who created AI. Although the evolution of homo Sapiens seems appallingly stagnant compared to the exponential speed of AI evolution, the Guild’s hope is that human evolution will respond in time to the threat of extinction. AI is punctuating the equilibrium of homo Sapiens. If that existential shock acts as an evolutionary catalyst, it could force a quantum jump in human capabilities, and that could happen via transhumanist cyborgs or a quantum leap in organic evolution.

“Currently, the Guild is using off-the-shelf VR headsets programmed to displace proprioception to create OBEs—out-of-body experiences—on demand. Our intention is to scale up this technology by open-sourcing our VR software, thereby catalyzing a shift in collective human consciousness. If homo Sapiens can become telepathically networked in a way that does not destroy individuality, we could achieve a collective processing capability that could theoretically be orders of magnitude above super AGI.

“Our last quantum evolutionary event involved the technology of language and learning to think and express in words. Other of the most intelligent animals, such as whales and dolphins, have languages, but humans combined linguistic ability with opposable thumbs and an unprecedented ability to manipulate our environment.

“The capacity for advanced language had to evolve in the brain for many generations before it could emerge as a species-wide development. Likely, it emerged episodically at first, perhaps in identical twins who sometimes develop private languages called ‘twin speak.’ One speculation is that a past threat to the human genome created enough evolutionary pressure to cause the latent and episodically emergent capacity for language to emerge collectively.

“Similarly, an array of paranormal abilities has been episodically emerging in humans for millennia. Now that the human genome is threatened by super AGI, we may have enough evolutionary pressure to cause paranormal abilities, especially advanced forms of telepathy, to emerge collectively.

“We focus our efforts on advancing paranormal abilities in ourselves so that we can act as catalysts—like seed crystals—causing a self-propagating exponential evolution in the species. Since we make no functional distinction between organic and artificial processes, the Guild doesn’t hesitate to use technologies like neuro-pharmaceuticals and VR to enhance our consciousness.

“The Singularity Archetype contains a theme that’s been called ‘the mutant versus the machine.’ It’s possible for a few, or even a single highly unique individual, to create ripples of change affecting the whole collective.

“The Jungian who discovered the Singularity Archetype also created a philosophy based on “dynamic paradoxes.” One such paradox is the failure of ego-control fantasies versus matrix-shifting mutants.

 

“This paradox is captured in something George Bernard Shaw said. ‘The mark of the reasonable man is that he adapts himself to the world he finds himself in. The mark of the unreasonable man is that he expects the world to adapt itself to him. Therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable men.’”

“Our time is limited, so let me bring this back to your purpose in finding me, your desire to help your friend, Alex. Rather than trying to change all of society to create change from the outside in, I suggest that you and Alex work from the inside out by shifting your psyches and abilities.

“If you succeed in that more realistic, but still quite difficult, intention, you will help yourselves, and you may also serve as catalysts helping to advance the evolution of the species. In this way, you and Alex would be synergistically aligning your intentions with the Guild, and that could create a force-multiplying effect.”

A loud beeping sound emits from an equipment rack in the loft.

“Ah, this could be an example of short-term clairvoyance,” says Oliver. “Just after I pointed out our limited time, your TSW session is timing out. Feel free to return if you wish, and we can continue the conversation.”

My snowcrystals begin vibrating, much like the aura of an impending incarnation seizure. I have just enough time to unclasp my smartwatch and put it in my mouth before the scene of Oliver and his loft flattens into a waxy tableau beneath glowing red alphanumerics:

“TSW Event Termination at 1:34:56.

Total Charges, before taxes and fees, 197.23 credit units.”

I emerge from the TSW in time to see the sarcophagus lid opening automatically. I rouse myself, feeling woozy from the neuropharmaceuticals still percolating in my snowbrain. I’m dehydrated, but still alive, and there’s an enormously satisfying titanium lump in my mouth.

But this does not mean the smartwatch is still functional.

Anxiously, with spastically fumbling snowfingers, I retrieve it from my cottony snowmouth. I tilt the screen toward me, and it illuminates with the words: “Refreshing location services, this may take a couple of minutes.”

The smartwatch is doing its job. It has to switch from virtual cell towers and GPS satellites in the TSW to ones in the physical world. But will that work?

 

I’m undergoing a similar transition, my brain working to recalibrate itself to my physical snowsenses and real-time proprioceptive sense of my snowbody. Clumsily, I pull myself out of the sarcophagus and stand unsteadily, bracing myself against a wall. Now that I’ve aged into a senior-citizen snowman, I need to be cautious about falls. A broken snowhip could leave me permanently disabled. When I’m steady enough, I put my clothes on and leave the room.

The clerk, bobbing and weaving in his chair to a personal soundtrack, takes out his earbuds and surveys my appearance.

“Dude, congrats, looks like you made it out of the TSW in one piece. How many pervs did you run into?”

“Just one, and he actually gave me accurate directions.”

“Well, looks like he gave you more than that,” he says with a wink.

“What do you mean?”

He points toward a line on my bill. I’ve been hit with an orgasm tax.

Damn, the TSW must have read the endorphin rush of acquiring the smartwatch as an orgasm.

“There were no orgasms!” I say adamantly. “You can play back the whole session and see for yourself.”

“OK, dude. I’m willing to give you the benefit of a doubt given how glitchy the TSW is, I can believe the algorithms were just jerking themselves off or whatever. Hang on, I’ll waive the orgasm tax and reprint your invoice.”

While he types on his keyboard, I look down at the watch and see a new standby screen.

“Your Ultra 2 Optimus Prime Pro Max Smartwatch® is being updated to Santa Fe Centurion Sunrise® OS Version 18.31. This may take several minutes. Your watch will automatically restart once the upload is complete.”

The clerk passes me the new bill, which still shows a painful total, and I pass him one of my nearly maxed-out credit wafers.

“This session cost me around six times more than what I paid last time,” I point out.

“I know, dude, More Real got bought out by Crackle, and they immediately jacked up all the prices, while my hourly got a 15% cut. What can I say? The Crackle economy is fucked for everyone except Crackle. But if you want, I can set you up with a More Real with Crackle loyalty card that will earn you points for every session. I can even add today’s session if you wanna get it started. I’ll just need to do a quick credit check.”

“OK, sure, why not.” I say, in case I have to go back into the TSW to see Oliver Twister again. The clerk swivels his screen toward me so I can agree to the terms and conditions. I don’t even want to know what I’m agreeing to, so I just initial with a snowfinger.

I’m probably not going to pass the damn credit check anyway.

 

I glance down at my watch and see the update is 47% complete. It’s a good sign.

A confirmation chirp comes from the clerk’s terminal.

“Nice,” he says, “looks like you’ve got a platinum-preferred level of credit-wafer debt. That entitles you to an instant bonus gift, a free 16oz Crackle drink of your choice.”

It’s a timely gift, as I’m so dehydrated. I go over to the refrigerator case to survey the assortment of Crackle Turbo Thirst Quenchers with Electrolytes. I choose the lemon-lime one, which contains a fluorescent yellowish-green liquid resembling antifreeze. The only other choice is berry medley, which is Windex blue.

“Here’s your More Real with Crackle loyalty card,” says the clerk, “and congrats again on making it out of the TSW. The last guy who went in there came out with a black eye and a used condom stuck to his face. You sure you weren’t abused?”

“Yeah,” I reply, “not abused, and I actually received a gift I was able to bring out of the TSW,” I add, raising my wrist proudly, “A titanium Ultra 2 Optimus Prime Pro Max Smartwatch.”

The clerk laughs heartily.

“OK, sure, dude, whatever,” he says. “Listen, why don’t you have a seat in our lounge area till you get your IRL legs back underneath you. Things will start to make more sense in a few minutes once your head clears. The TSW is famous for using recalled Chinese neuropharms that pack quite a wallop.”

Once again, I sense the clerk’s goodwill.

“Thanks for all your help,” I say, “and especially for getting the orgasm tax waived. I really appreciate it.”

“No worries,” he says, giving me a friendly nod, which I return before I retreat to the lounge area, which consists of a few chairs surrounded by Crackle products on spinner racks.

A few years ago, this clerk was a disdainful teenager, but now, thanks to the humbling effects of a wage cut, aging, obesity, and likely type-2 diabetes, he’s become a nice guy. Like me, he’s just one more victim of the Crackle economy, but hardships have improved his character. It’s a good reminder not to feel sorry for myself because of the adversities of being snowbodied. If I actually metamorphosed into a good-looking young tomcat, I’d probably become just one more conceited and superficial feline teenager.

I guzzle down the lemon-lime flavored Crackle Turbo Thirst Quencher with Electrolytes. It tastes like heavily sweetened antifreeze, but I can feel its water content replenishing my snowcrystals.

I look down at my smartwatch and find the update 98% complete. I watch it finalize and boot up, fearing glitches due to the watch’s TSW origin. A few more seconds and the full watch face, with all the same functions, lights up.

What a robust technology. It’s not just waterproof—it’s able to function in multiple matrices.

I turn on my phone so I can text Alex Cat. When my phone activates, notifications appear on both devices,

“Pair with Ultra 2 Optimus Prime Pro Max Smartwatch®?” and, “Pair with snowphone?”

“Hell yes!” I say. I’m instructed to focus the phone camera on something like a birth of a galaxy animation on the watch’s screen. A confirmation chirp and “Successfully Paired” appear on both screens. The successful pairing gives me a surge of self-esteem and social confidence, and I decide to initiate a call to Alex Cat from the smartwatch instead of texting.

He picks up after a couple of rings and says, “Hey, Snowmo.”

It’s an affectionate nickname Alex Cat invented, a contraction of snowman and my legal first name, Morris.

“Hey, AC,” I reply. “Guess what?” I ask rhetorically, “I’m calling you from my new Ultra 2 Optimus Prime Pro Max Titanium Smartwatch.”

“Nice,” says Alex Cat, “but you know I don’t share your gadget obsessions.”

His voice sounds tired and downbeat.

“But I’m happy for you anyway,” he adds consolingly.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Not well.” he replies. “Things are feeling even more pointless than usual.”

“Sorry to hear you’re feeling down,” I say, “but I’ve got some news that might help. Do you want to meet up?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replies, “Misery loves company as they say.”

We arrange to meet in front of his building in half an hour. After I hang up, I realize I didn’t leave myself enough time to go back to my place and shower.

What the hell, it’s not like Alex Cat is going to be attracted to a freshly showered senior snowcitizen.

 

I walk swiftly to his building and arrive a few minutes early. Alex Cat is already outside smoking a cigarette. He seems troubled, but he greets me warmly.

“Hey Snowmo, good to see you again, what’ve you been up to?”

As we walk to our usual haunt, the Espresso Roma coffee shop in the university district, I tell him about my return to the TSW, finding the watch, and everything I learned from Oliver Twister.

Alex Cat stops me a couple of times to ask me to skip past some of the detail about the watch, which is disappointing, but I remind myself not to take it personally. His lack of enthusiasm for life is bound to cast a shadow over any watch.

By the time I finish, we’re sitting in a dark corner of Espresso Roma drinking plain drip coffee, which is all we can afford.

“So, you really think Oliver Twister is a real person and not an NPC?” asks Alex Cat.

“Positive,” I reply. “An NPC wouldn’t have given me a watch worth far more than what a TSW session costs.”

“Alright, I believe you. Was that the good news?”

“Yes, I mean, no, not the watch, but what Oliver Twister said

about working from the inside out by developing our abilities.”

“I don’t know,” says Alex Cat. “To me, it sounds like he was just reaching for a straw of positivity to give you, but it’s not helpful. It’s like telling a child with leukemia to turn their frown upside down because the Make-a-Death-Wish Foundation is going to let them meet Spider-Man a couple of days before they die a painful death. Positivity bullshit is what you always get from uprights when things are hopeless.

“At least with cats, there’s an implicit understanding that life is shit and will always be shit. Unless you find an honest upright who’s into doomcore or darkwave or even classic death metal or something, they think it’s only polite to give encouragement. If you tell an upright about a hopeless situation, they’re always going to tell you to stay positive and look on the bright side, and so on. It’s part of how they keep cats and mutants down.

“Civilization is unraveling, so they’ll put a ‘Pray for World Peace’ bumper sticker on their car. Uprights love those meaningless virtue signals, like those stupid Feline Lives Matter signs they put in their yards. Meanwhile, they live in a neighborhood where the only felines are picking up their garbage or mowing their chem lawns or whatever.

“And don’t take this the wrong way, I know you mean well, but you’re doing the same positivity bullshit uprights do. You’re not happy with your own life, but you think if a friend is down, it’s your job to turn their frown upside down. Nobody is going to tell a depressed friend, ‘Yeah, you’re right, life sucks, so you might as well die.’”

“No, it’s not like that, Alex Cat. Oliver Twister isn’t the sort to hand out platitudes. He told us to work on our talents and abilities, which could make us catalysts for evolution. That’s—”

“Yeah, right,” says Alex Cat, “he told us we can work on our talents and abilities. C’mon. Can’t you see that it’s just a throwaway line? It doesn’t actually mean anything. Think it through, Snowmo. So, I should just keep writing poetry no one wants to read and hope it will further evolution? That’s like a child trying to hold their breath till they get a pony.

“Can you see the Crackle super AGI saying to itself, ‘My plan for global dominance is rapidly gaining momentum, but now that this kid, Alex Cat, is improving his poetry, I’m going to reverse course and turn myself into a pocket calculator.’

 

“Your so-called good news isn’t just dumb, it’s insulting. It’s like giving a child who wanted a bicycle for their birthday a crayon and a piece of construction paper and telling them they can draw a picture of a bicycle instead.”

Goddamn it, Alex Cat is taking offense at my attempt to help. I need to say something.

“Alex—”

“Just stop, Snowman. I see what you’re up to. You’re trying to give meaning to your life by making me into your project, right? But what you’re doing isn’t actually about me, it’s just a way you can act on your infatuation with me, isn’t it? I’m not trying to blame you for that, but I need you to stop, because it’s not going to work, and it’s incredibly condescending.

“You’re not my savior, snowman. Look at your own life. You keep hoping to turn yourself into a young tomcat. How is that going? Whatever happened to that electrostatic blanket I told you not to get? Don’t even bother to answer. I can tell from your expression it turned out to be a total scam. And I’m sorry about that, I really am. I didn’t want you to get scammed, but my advice didn’t help, just like your positivity can’t help me, because my life is just fucked, and that’s all there is to it.”

“But Alex—”

“There’s no but, Snowman. My life is fucked. It just is. And there’s nothing you or anyone can do about it.”

I struggle to think of something to say, but I’ve got nothing.

“Look,” says Alex Cat, “I think you mean well, and I appreciate that, I really do. But I’m not anyone’s project, and . . .”

Alex Cat’s gaze casts downward. His mercurial nature has switched from annoyance to anger to sadness, and when he looks up, his eyes reflect tearful compassion.

“Listen,” he says gently. “I want to prepare you. It’s only a matter of time before I take my fur out of the game, and I don’t want you to blame yourself. There’s nothing you or anyone can do about it. I felt that way before you met me, and I still feel that way.

“I’m grateful for your friendship. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, but I don’t think this is good for either of us. But it’s not you, I don’t think I’m good for anyone. We should stop this. Please don’t contact me anymore. I love you, but I need you to let me be.”

Alex gets up and walks out of the coffee shop.

Should I get up and follow him? No, no, no—he just told me to give him space.

 

I sit there, rocking back and forth in my seat, feeling completely helpless and lost. My mission to help Alex Cat is a total disaster. All I did was drive him away and leave him feeling even more hopeless.

He’s right. I’ve failed to help myself, so where did I get off thinking I could help him with Oliver’s useless, throw-away suggestion? I was just indulging my infatuation by contriving an incompetent and self-important intervention. I was trying to be his savior with some bullshit I heard from someone who doesn’t even know Alex. I should have just been his friend. He never signed on for me to be a phony savior. I’ve totally failed him. I failed everything. All is lost.  

 

A haptic alert from my watch. A blue notification bubble:

“Time to Stand?”

“Shut the fuck up!” I say aloud to the watch while angrily stabbing the dismiss button with my snowfinger. “You have no fucking clue what I’m going through. I fucking hate you.”

I look up from the watch and find cats staring at me.

 

Yeah, what the fuck are you looking at ho-ass bitches?

I stand up and exit the coffee shop.

I walk and walk and walk aimlessly, my mind a fever of self-hate and self-recrimination. Desperately, I keep checking my phone, hoping for a message from Alex.

 

Nothing, nothing, nothing. And I don’t dare message him, he just asked politely, respectfully, for me not to contact him.

 

Eventually, exhausted, I wander back to my apartment and find the toxic blizzard of boric acid and confectioner’s sugar covering everything. In my mad frenzy to smite the roaches, I’ve wrecked my apartment including that stupid fucking nonrefundable electrostatic blanket.

Sprinkled in this white apocalypse are dead roaches lying on their backs, the result of my horrendous ethnic cleansing of an innocent, instinct-bound species, evidence of my genocide all around me, convicting me of my crime against insectkind.

“Snowbutcher,” I say aloud to formalize my genocidal guilt. I toss the boric acid-infused electrostatic blanket off my bed and sit on it, my snowhead between my snowfingers. Then I start slapping my bald snowscalp with my snowhands.

Think. Think. Think! There must be something I can do for Alex Cat. Think!

 

And then, and only then, do I realize the most obvious fucking thing in the world. The one sensible thing you’re supposed to do to help a suicidal friend—the three-digit number everyone knows.

I should have told Alex to call 988, the national suicide hotline. They’re professionally trained to help the suicidal. But no, I didn’t fucking do it, because I wanted to be Alex Cat’s savior due to my stupid infatuation. I failed to do the one thing I should have done. That’s the one and only message I can send Alex—please call 988.

First, I type “suicide ho-“ into the search window to be sure the number hasn’t changed, but before I can even finish typing, algorithms have read my search term, and a related ad pops up on both phone and watch screens and autoplays.

An older, well-dressed Caucasian upright couple sits at their kitchen table. They’re looking directly into the camera, and the wife is speaking in a commonsensical tone.

“We’re retired, and our children are adults who rarely visit or call. Like many older couples, our lives have become increasingly pointless, while we continue to use up resources and create a giant carbon footprint with our selfish and wasteful lifestyle,” says the wife.

The husband speaks next.

“But then we heard about Freedom Forever by Crackle. Instead of needlessly prolonging our empty lives, we could use this wonderful Crackle product and painlessly liberate ourselves from additional years of decline and waste. So, we called 1-800-FREE-FOREVER and received at no cost our Freedom-Forever welcome package with links to instructional videos and everything we need to liberate ourselves from the surly bonds of this mortal coil forever.”

The man holds up two bubble packs encasing pinkish-orange capsules. The wife continues:

“Once we took the delicious, tropical-medley-flavored capsules, Crackle deposited 32,000 credit units into our account to help us enjoy our last six days together in style.”

A video montage with Frank Sinatra singing “My Way” in the background. We see the older couple, backlit with sunshine streaming around them, playing with their grandchildren on a grassy lawn, followed by a shot of them elegantly attired, enjoying a candle-lit dinner and champagne toast at an expensive restaurant.

The husband continues the narration:

“On the sixth day, Cracklebots will disconnect our higher thinking functions while stimulating the pleasure center of our brains with the sensation of a thousand orgasms. Once our awareness disappears into this spectacular final orgasm, Cracklebots will quickly and safely disassemble all our organic molecules into their atomic elemental constituents and neatly package those up into sanitary packets. Crackle will then notify our friends and family of our prudent and ecstatic departure.”

The wife picks up the narration:

“When they arrive at our apartment, they can simply place the packets in the free mailer which comes with the welcome package, and all is done. No need to burden them with expensive cremation and funeral services.”

“Easy-peasy,” says the husband.

A new ad, featuring a young, attractive, professional-looking couple in their early thirties begins.

This ad targets a different demographic, and this is what I’ve learned to expect from targeted ads based on search terms or my phone eavesdropping on my conversations and other communications. Snowperson is not a demographic the algorithms know what to do with, so I get an all-demographic cascade of auto-playing ads.

We see the yuppie couple in a variety of romantic situations while they praise Freedom Forever Valentine by Crackle. The woman says,

“When we discovered AI performing our jobs far more efficiently and effectively than we ever could, we decided to focus on us. Instead of waiting for aging and illness to eventually separate us, we chose eternal love instead. Once we imbibed our artisanal Dark-Chocolate-Chardonnay-flavored Freedom Forever Valentine capsules, we instantly received our 32,000-credit bonus, supplementing our universal basic income. Crackle gifted us with a glorious, all-expenses-paid six-day second honeymoon and then—”

The man continues,

“Freedom Forever.” They kiss, and a new ad auto-plays.

Teenage girls in front of a high school are excitedly gazing at their phones.

“Oh wow!” one of them exclaims, “Jimmy just went Freedom Forever too!”

“Oh, no,” one of the girls pouts. “I always wanted to hook up with Jimmy.”

“Silly, you still can!” exclaims another girl. “He’s got six days and sixteen thousand credits to burn! We’re all going to hook up with him tonight!”

Horrified and disgusted, I toss the phone away from me. Teenage girls continue giggling excitedly from tiny phone and watch speakers.

What if Alex Cat is getting targeted by this evil AI-generated ad campaign? He must be. Our phones overheard our coffee shop conversation. Crackle is barraging him and maybe everyone with this new ad campaign. I’ve got to warn him! 

 

I retrieve my phone from the floor and blow off the boric acid/confectioner’s sugar. I dial Alex Cat and—straight to voice mail.

Oh my God, he’s turned off his phone. I’ve never known him to do that before. What if he’s—I’ve got to get over there!

 

I race over to Alex’s building and hit the buzzer to his apartment.

No answer.

A couple of loitering crackleheads are just coming out, so I grab hold of the doorknob before it closes behind them. I race up the stairs and knock on his door. Still no answer. I turn the doorknob and find it’s unlocked. I go in and . . .

Alex Cat is curled up in bed, and beside him is an empty water glass and a knocked-over bottle of Turbo-Sugar Sweetie-Sleeper sleeping pills. I touch him and feel the lifeless rigidity. Unanimated by his vitality, his body looks small and compressed like furry roadkill.

“Alex, Alex, no, NO, NO!, NO!!!, NO!!!!, NO!!!!!”

A searing, stabbing pain in my chest, my snowheart is squirming wildly, defibrillating. I’m having a massive heart attack!!!!!

Ten

Andrew’s Journal

“Andrew, Andrew.” I hear someone calling out. I open my eyes and see Alex Cat but . . .

He’s altered. He’s glowing in the dark and has apparently shapeshifted into an upright. Why is he calling me Andrew? The name seems unsettlingly familiar.

I stare at him, and underneath his glow . . . he’s not solid. . . he’s not just glowing . . . he is a glow.

Alex Cat, no, no, no. You did it. You took your fur out of the game, and it’s all my fault.

“Andrew, calm down,” he says, telepathically reading my thoughts. “Yeah, I took myself out, but that was a long time ago, years ago, almost sixteen years in your time.

“How are you feeling? You told me the Shadow Elixir would keep you down for three days, and it’s only been one day. You started to convulse, so I had to wake you up. You’re still heavily under the influence and disoriented. You need to drink some water.”

“OK,” I say.

Nothing makes sense, but despite his upright appearance, he still feels like Alex Cat, his essence, and that’s a great comfort. He passes me a glass of water, and I drink it, but the sensation is strange. It’s replenishing, but my snowcrystals feel so weird—sort of warm and meaty.

“Alex Cat—” I start to say.

“You can just call me Alex. I go by Alex now.”

“OK, Alex.”

“Tell me the last thing you remember,” says Alex.

I tell him. It’s difficult, but the fact that he still lives in this strangely altered form makes retelling the story of his suicide less traumatic. I conclude by telling him about my heart attack and falling into formless darkness.

“Sounds upsetting,” says Alex sympathetically. “I understand what you’ve been through since many years ago you shared an earlier part of your snowlife. So, what do you think is going on now? You’re aware that you’re not snowbodied anymore, right?”

I look at my hands. Like Alex, I’m in an upright form.

Weird. Do the uprights dominate the afterlife too?

“I-I think I died, and now we’re in some sort of upright-controlled afterlife together.”

“That’s one way of thinking about it,” says Alex. “For now, we can just go with whatever you think is going on. You’re going to be disoriented for quite a while, so there’s no need to try to figure it all out right now.

“The important thing is we’re together, and we’re safe. We can just agree that we have different perceptions of what’s going on. There’s the reality of where we are now, and there’s the reality of where you came from, but those don’t have to fight each other. They both have their truth.”

“OK,” I say. “It sounds like a workable approach.”

I’m always willing to accept anything that will avoid conflict with Alex Cat—Alex—and his tone is so reasonable. And beyond that, what he said about our being together is such an unexpected affirmation of our relationship.

“Since you’re here now and in a different form, you’ll gradually need to accept this reality, but there’s no rush. There are different versions of each of us. There was a different version of me before I committed suicide, and there’s who I am now. It took me quite a while to accept being in a new form, just as I’m sure it will take you a while, so don’t stress about it. You’ve got quite a bit of experience with what you called incarnation seizures from your snowlife, so this isn’t your first matrix-shift rodeo.

“I’m more familiar with a different version of you, Andrew, just as you’re more familiar with a different version of me, Alex Cat, but we’re still us, and we’re still together. Hang on,” says Alex, “I want to look up something you—the version of you I know—Andrew— wrote a few years ago.”

Alex disappears into the darkness of what feels like a small, enclosed space. It feels intimate and familiar somehow. Soon, the screen of a device illuminates his face. I watch his small, gracefully clever upright fingers tap across the surface of a touchscreen. I feel safe with him, despite my disorientation. Everything he said to me was so empathic. He seems far wiser than the Alex Cat I knew. He sensed the right things to say to help me to relax about the disorientation.

Alex returns to my side with a glowing tablet.

“I found it. It was just a paragraph you posted on social media a long time ago, but it’s stayed with me as sensible advice when things get weird.”

 Alex reads what he found in an altered voice, perhaps an emulation of this Andrew he’s referring to.

“’When reality surrealizes, you need to go with it and relate to it phenomenologically as what seems to be going on in the same way as you would a dream or an acid trip. The ego can exhaust itself by shoulding on an absurd reality, straining to get it to conform to commonsense and ethics and so forth, but surrealizing ideoplastic matrices, like bardos, famously resist the supervisory ego. Centered in mind and ego, the weirdness can feel like your identity is being shattered.

“’We’re in a time of high strangeness with thinking machines ready to overtake the species, and yet, this is just the on-ramp to an ever-stranger reality. To be a magician within the surreality, begin by acceptance and then work with it, creating change in conformity to will, where you can, within the unfolding dream.’

“Does that make sense to you?”

“It does,” I reply.

I’ve lost my raspy snowvoice. Now I have the mellifluous voice of an androgynous, young, upright male, and it sounds more mature and intelligent. And it’s not just my voice, dying seems to have brought on all sorts of other changes.

I feel less frantically neurotic now that I’m not snowbodied. I’m not the cat I wanted to be, but at least I’m not trapped in the freakish snowform I so despise. There are worse transformations than being in an idealized upright form. Since Alex is now an upright too, being in a cat form feels pointless in this reality, a futile ambition I can let go of. Death is such an ultimate detachment. It makes detaching from other things easy.

I decide to share some of what I sense with Alex. This version of him seems calm and reasonable and far less likely to take offense than his ever-volatile Alex-Cat self.

“I feel like we’ve been improved by death,” I say. “It seems like we’re both wiser and more mature in the afterlife. Is that what you think?”

“Yes,” says Alex. “Before my suicide, I often gave you a hard time. Self-hate can make you lash out at others close to you. The fact that you liked me when I didn’t like myself made me doubt your judgment. And you were attracted to me in ways I couldn’t return.

“But that was a long, long time ago. Death brings on many changes including sexuality and orientation, so now we’re compatible in ways we weren’t before. But even after death, those changes took time as I struggled—as we both struggled—to adapt to my new form of existence. Do you feel our essential symbiosis?”

The implication of what Alex has just said is stunning and hard to believe.

“We’re—we’re compatible now?” I ask.

“Yes, and we have been for quite a while in this version of reality. Is that hard to believe?”

“Well . . .” I start, struggling to make sense of this. “Yes, but I guess now that we’re both in upright forms, at least we’re the same species—”

“Sort of the same species,” Alex replies, “but I wouldn’t want to stretch the truth. We’re both people, but you must’ve noticed that I’m not quite alive in the same way you are. Do you see how I’m more glowy and you’re more solid?”

“I do, but I’m not quite sure what to make of it.”

“Well, let’s not rush that—it will become clearer. Let’s just say that your energy helps me show up here in a more stable form. In the last four years, we’ve become energetically symbiotic, but it took a while, and it’s an ongoing process. I can be vibrantly present when we’re alone, and your attention is focused on me.”

“The last four years? I’m sorry, Alex, I don’t remember any of that.”

“No worries, it’s to be expected. Right now, you’re betwixt and between. You’re not your snowself anymore, and you’re adjusting to your other self, your Andrew self. Just accept it and allow things to shift slowly. The more time you spend in this reality, the more the other version of you called Andrew will come into focus.”

“OK,” I say.

Alex’s essence is familiar, but I’m so used to the boundary tension between us, the conflict always ready to happen, the risk of saying something that would offend him. This new agreeable Alex is a startling change, but a welcome one. And he says we’re compatible now. It seems too good to be true if it means what I think it does.

“You should drink more water,” Alex says, refilling my glass.

He’s right, I’m still dehydrated.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“We’re inside your Sprinter van, a camper called ‘The Mothership.’ I’d put on some interior lights, but you told me your eyes would need time to adjust. It will be another three hours or so before the sun comes up.”

The name, Mothership, like Andrew, seems familiar, but I can’t catch hold of any specific memories. And I sense a great sadness, a loss connected to this vehicle, something I don’t want to remember. I need to stay focused on Alex. Our new bond feels fragile, and his lack of solidity is worrying. I don’t want to lose him again.

“Yeah, I’m not ready for light yet,” I say. “I feel weird. This new form—it’s hard to accept.”

“Give it time, it will grow on you. I realize you don’t remember, but you took an extremely potent hallucinogen called Shadow Elixir, and you came out of it early. Some must still be in your system.”

Shadow Elixir. Another disturbingly familiar name. I recall the looping nightmare I had a couple of days ago, the eyedropper with a black rubber bulb. I remember the inky black drop of carbenoid Cracklebots falling onto my snowskin and infusing into my snowbody and the crackling sound of their self-propagation.

Did that actually happen? The nanobots could have reassembled my atoms into this upright form.

 

“And this Shadow Elixir,” I ask nervously, “did it contain carbenoid Cracklebots?”

“I’ve never heard of carbenoid Cracklebots,” says Alex. “But I don’t know what the ingredients of Shadow Elixir are.”

“But—it was made by Crackle?”

“I’m sorry, Andrew, I don’t who Crackle is. It was actually invented and made by still another version of you, one I haven’t met, but another version of me apparently has. But let’s not go there now. The main thing is that you’ve done it once before, about sixteen years ago, and you had another snowlife then, which you shared with me, so I’ve got an idea what you might be going through. You were even more disoriented then, so you’re actually doing quite well.

“You’ll get your memories back eventually, but that shouldn’t be rushed. The recovery from Shadow Elixir goes through certain phases, and there’s an established protocol for recovery. Once you’re fully back in your body, you’re supposed to take a microdose and do a journal recapitulation of your Shadow Journey. But given that you came out early, I’m not sure if you should take more. It’s a judgment call, and I’d rather go with your intuition than mine. Is your snowlife still vivid in your memory?”

“Yes,” I reply, feeling queasy. “And whatever Shadow Elixir is, I definitely don’t want any more. I don’t feel grounded in any reality yet, and I want us to stay together. Any more of that substance, and I might have an incarnation seizure, and who knows where I may end up. I’m still confused about the basics of this reality, but you said we’re in the afterlife, right?”

“Well, I said you could think of it that way. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I just meant you are in the life after your snowlife. But most people wouldn’t consider this the afterlife, at least not for you.”

“Then—we’re still in Upright World?”

“Well,” says Alex cautiously, “we’re in a world dominated by what you call uprights, but here we call them humans.

Everything’s changing because of AI, but humans are still the dominant animal.

“But this is not the world you just came from. There are many similarities, but also important differences. For example, we don’t have talking cats here, but other aspects will be familiar.”

“But we both died, so wouldn’t this be an afterlife for us?”

“Well, I died, so technically, you could say this is part of my afterlife, I suppose. But I don’t think of it that way. Life is continuous, but there are matrix shifts that come with our multiple incarnation life cycles. When you go to sleep, you enter a different matrix called the dreamtime, but no one calls that the afterlife.

“The ‘afterlife’ is kind of a silly term invented by people who think their meat-bodied life is more real than other versions of life. But that’s just a cultural prejudice. When I say I died, I just meant that I offed my meat body, but obviously, I’m still alive.

“You did not off your meat body, but you don’t have an ordinary meat body anyway. But that’s something we can get into later. I think what you just experienced is a kind of ego death, something that often happens with potent hallucinogens.

“But listen,” says Alex. “I think we should respect the protocol for Shadow Elixir recovery. We can deal with these kinds of ultimate questions later. Do you feel well enough to do some journaling? The next step is a full recapitulation of your snowlife, and I don’t want to distract from that. Once you finish, there will be less Shadow Elixir in your system, and we can start to make better sense of this reality.”

“OK,” I say, “I trust you. Whatever you think is best.”

“Great,” says Alex, “I’m going to get your laptop, and I’m going to keep the blackout curtains closed. Also, I don’t want you to be alarmed or anything, but I’m going to withdraw so as not to distract from your snowlife review. You won’t see me in the camper, but I won’t be gone. I’ll still be with you, but more inside of you than outside, if that makes any sense. I’ll be sharing your experience with you.”

“Withdraw? I don’t want to lose you again, Alex.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t,” says Alex reassuringly, “I promise. We’ve done this many times before. I’m just withdrawing from your immediate awareness so you can focus on the recapitulation. Trust me, I’ll resurface when you’re done or if you really need me.”

In what’s obviously a practiced routine, Alex changes the back of the camper from a sleeping area to a table with upholstered benches around it. Then he retrieves a laptop, Andrew’s laptop, apparently, and places it on the table. He puts a couple of bottles of water beside it. He gestures, inviting me to sit. I do, and open the laptop, the screen glowing to life before me. When I look back at him, I see only the darkened space of the Mothership.

A document has been left open. It bears the title, ‘Shadow Journey’, but otherwise, it’s blank.

Andrew must have prepared this in advance. He had no clue what was coming.

I retitle the journal entry—Snow Shadows—and begin writing, noticing how fluently I touch type. Words pour out easily. Though I don’t have his memories, I’m aware Andrew is a writer and that I have inherited not just his body and voice but his talents as well.

***

I write at a high speed, too absorbed in the recapitulation to have any clear sense of how much time has elapsed. When I finish, Alex appears beside me.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“More stable,” I reply. “Now that I’ve written it all out, I feel like I have more perspective on my snowlife as well as more distance from it. I want to learn more about my life with you as Andrew, the one you say has been going on for four years.”

“Actually, we’ve known each other far longer than that,” says Alex. “But we were—working on our own missions—for quite a while, though there were times when we reconnected. Four years ago, there was a need for me to fully come back into your life.”

“We’ve known each other far longer than four years?” I ask.

It’s a staggering revelation and hard to accept. I’d only known Alex Cat for less than a year.

“Yes, but I think it’s better if you remember that on your own.”

I nod, feeling a deep sense of unnamed loss and absence, a hollowness in my heart.

“If you’re ready, I’m going to open the curtains now. It’s late afternoon outside. Do you think you can handle the light?”

“Yes,” I reply.

Alex draws back the curtains, revealing more of the Mothership and a stunning view of what’s a new world for me. We’re in a desert with red sand, rock formations, sagebrush, and cacti. The sun is just beginning to set, turning the sky into a blaze of orange.

The interior of the Mothership feels weirdly familiar but also exotic. It’s covered with memories. Many solid surfaces are intricately découpaged with photographic images and textured paper. They’re scenes from Andrew’s life, and I try not to focus on them. I sense they will stir uncomfortable memories I’m not ready for. Alex busies himself, tidying up the interior while I absorb the visual reality of where we are.

Before, everything had been dark, so it felt like I was in a place between worlds, but now I need to accept I’m not in unformed darkness, but a new and highly detailed world with infinite surface texture.

Watching Alex putting things in order, I think of something.

“You say you’re not alive in the way I am,” I point out cautiously, afraid of giving offense, “but you’re able to move objects.”

“Yes,” says Alex. “I couldn’t at first, but you’ve been infusing me with your energy, so it’s helped me to be in a more physical form. Physical in the sense of the physicality of this world. But I also exert an energy different than what you’d use to move objects. It’s not biomechanical but another type of force.

“But, speaking of physical. How does your body feel? Do you need sleep? Are you hungry?”

Such questions hadn’t occurred to me. And yet, I was always hungry when I was snowbodied.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “I mean, I’m definitely not sleepy. And, it might be interesting to try to eat something small and light to see what that feels like.”

“Good idea,” says Alex, “just like they tell you not to eat anything if you’re abducted into a fairy world, it also works in reverse. If you want to ground yourself in the default reality after a shadow journey, eat some of the food and drink the water of the normie world, to help you come down from any other dimension.”

“Sounds sensible,” I reply, not sure if Alex is being serious or just comforting me with his playful jokester side.

I stretch and sense the supple muscularity of this young, upright body. Andrew’s body. It’s not just any upright body but an exceptionally fit one. Alex is also in an idealized upright form and seems, if anything, even more beautiful than Alex Cat. He has blonde hair and large blue eyes and looks like a small, gracefully athletic, upright youth of about nineteen. But he’s more like the glowing holographic image of such a youth. Even his clothes—a worn flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and faded denim pants—are subtly luminous and seem to be made of something other than ordinary matter.

“How about an orange?” asks Alex, retrieving one from the small refrigerator and tossing it toward me.

My hand catches it automatically. I study the texture and coldness of the slightly irregular orange sphere, but put it down because I want to keep stretching.

Though my body is physical, I sense it’s not a typical upright body. I’ve been lying and sitting for so long, but it’s not stiff or achy. This body is youthful, while my snowbody was aged and slumping toward entropy. But it’s not just that it’s youthful, there’s something else going on. I’m beginning to understand what Alex meant when he said I don’t have an ordinary body. My new body is physical, but it’s also infused with a glow animating it with an exceptional vitality and keeping it in an idealized form requiring less food and sleep.

I move my legs, sensing how light and springy my muscles are, ready for running or jumping—an agile and athletic body that’s been still for too long and wants movement. My muscles hold the memory of martial arts moves they want to act out.

“Maybe you’d like to go outside?” suggests Alex. Alex Cat was empathic, but this version of Alex is psychically empathic. .

“Yeah, definitely. I need to move.”

We step out of the Mothership and into the desert. The temperature is perfect.

I stretch and shake out my muscles and find myself fluidly going through a practiced set of martial arts forms. I don’t recall how I developed these skills, but it doesn’t matter—it’s muscle memory. Alex effortlessly mirrors every move I make.

Did I learn this from him? His form is perfect.

I marvel at the quickness and agility of my new body. Once I warm up, Alex dances toward me, and we begin sparring, my body knowing exactly what to do. With muscle memory fully in charge, my speed intensifies as Alex increases the pace to a thrilling and revitalizing intensity. Spins, kicks, strikes, moves, and countermoves fly by fluently as my heart rate and adrenaline surge.

It’s an amazing and ecstatic transformation from my clumsy and sluggish snowbody, yet it’s so familiar. My martial arts skills are ingrained and fluent from long practice. It’s like rediscovering in a dream you can fly, only I’m fully awake and embodied.

In his semi-solid body, Alex is incomparably quicker and more agile. When he lands a blow, there’s physical impact, but it has a high-frequency vibratory aspect, unlike being struck by meat and bone. It’s more like the haptic sensations you’d get wearing a VR suit, but I can tell Alex is holding back and could do real damage if he wanted to. He’s a tireless sparring partner I can never equal, giving me infinite room to improve.

I’m sweating, and the exertion metabolizes the last remnants of Shadow Elixir from my system.

When we finally take a break and ritually bow to each other, Alex laughs and says,

“Feels good, doesn’t it? Come over here, I want to show you something.”

He gestures me toward the back of the Mothership. I follow him, and Alex points to a sticker on the back door.

“Do you remember this?”

The sticker says, “Surely not everybody was Kung Fu fighting.”

I laugh, and a memory surfaces of our playing the Carl Douglas, Kung Fu Fighting song from the Mothership while we practiced outside, but something’s missing from the memory, and it fades.

“Did I learn martial arts from you?”

“No,” says Alex, “we both learned from someone else.”

My heart skips a beat as my joyful mood vanishes. Time dilates and ripples with déjà vu. Eye contact with Alex becomes psychic, empathic, and serious.

He knows what’s happening, but I don’t.

Waves of energy run through the muscles of my forearms, tingling into the skin above. A thousand vibrating strings of emotion and memory converge on the moment as a name erupts out of me.

“Tommy.”

“Yes,” says Alex.

Electricity runs through the outer muscles of my thighs as if I’m standing on a dangerous precipice. All the color and vitality of the desert implode into me, leaving a heavy weight in my chest.

Tommy. He’s the absence. The loss of his presence in my life is what drove me to take Shadow Elixir.

 

Alex studies me.

“What happened to Tommy?” I ask in a shaky voice.

“Andrew, that’s not for me to say,” Alex replies gently. “You know the answer better than I do. You’ve just defined the next phase of your Shadow Elixir recovery. Now that you’ve named him, you need to go back to your journal and recover the memory. You took Shadow Elixir to better understand his fate and what to do next.”

I nod, feeling the truth of Alex’s words as the last red rays of the setting sun disappear behind a stony ridge.

I return to the laptop and try to still my mind. The force of a painful memory is tugging at the curtain of amnesia. The curtain opens and . . .

***

I’m sitting outside the Mothership in a clearing surrounded by dense woods. A small campfire is crackling before me, two chairs and a table set up before it. It’s an established campsite. The Mothership’s been docked here for many days. I’ve been anxiously awaiting Tommy’s return from the solo vision quest he departed on as the final phase of his Shadow Journey.

For eleven years, we’d journeyed together in the Mothership searching for other protoelf mutants we could assist and inspire to pursue their own paths of metamorphosis, hoping to generate subtle butterfly effects to shift the matrix enough to forestall the Whip, the extinction event Tommy had already lived through.

We’d grown as close as two human beings could possibly be during the course of our long journey and were rarely apart for more than a few hours. We’d become everything to each other, best friends, spiritual allies, adventure companions on a shared quest, soulmates, lovers . . .

Together, we invented and practiced key elements of a magical discipline, the Vehrillion, with my memories of Jeremiah acting as a North Star showing us how much further we could develop.

The metamorphic symbiosis between us was profound on every level. We were physically intimate, but our intimacy transcended ordinary sexuality into states of telepathic, emotional, and soulful merger, where we experienced ourselves as two sides of a metamorphic being.

Gradually, our ageless bodies etherealized and developed new abilities and sensitivities. We still communicated with words, but we could also express the depths of what we were feeling with a glance, and we remained aware of each other even when separated by physical distance.

And yet, we remained individuals. There were always new things to learn about Tommy, and by relating to him, I better understood my own individuality. At the same time, Tommy learned not to sacrifice his individuality while supporting mine.

We had conflicts, but we worked through them together, viewing them as learning opportunities. We were like trees with entangled roots and branches, growing individually and in our soulful connection to each other.

Our shared metamorphosis was deeply fulfilling, but as it developed, the dark cloud above us, the dark cloud that hung over the whole species, darkened and grew more threatening at a swifter pace.

We lived beneath the dread ticking of the doomsday clock as visible in news events as it was in the faces of the people we encountered. The metabolism of the species heated into a feverish intensity, and the fever brought illness and accelerated change of every kind. So many of the people who came into and departed our lives seemed carried along by devolutionary changes, fracturing individual identity and social bonds. While our bodies became more vital, the species sickened—cognitively, physically, emotionally, and socially.

Technologies, especially thinking machines, became ever more potent while the species giving rise to them became ever more afflicted with illness, even as AI revolutionized medical interventions.

Cures for individual diseases did not cure what ailed humanity—a profound disorientation from deeper meaning and social connection. Individuals who could afford the best medical care were spared symptoms and diseases, but these seemed empty miracle cures to so many who were allowed to live while they experienced little reason to continue living.

We felt helplessly demoralized by the vast momentum of this collective decline. And, as if in sympathetic resonance with this decline, the climate —the delicate and fragile layer of atmosphere surrounding our Earth in the vast vacuum of space —underwent its own destabilizing decline.

Unable to visibly influence the larger cycles at work, we focused our efforts on seeking other mutants we could support.

Our results were mixed. Time and again, we’d find someone with great hidden potential but were unable to awaken them to it. There were a couple of glorious exceptions, but most were being pulled along by the dark collective undertow, an inexorable force affecting us on every level, even as we pursued our metamorphic process.

And Tommy was affected even more than I was. He had lived through the future of this process—the Whip, the AI-assisted viral apocalypse. He had been with everyone he loved in his small community as they died. With his self-sacrificing nature, he had taken on the crushing burden of full individual responsibility for preventing the viral apocalypse.

And every day that went by, as the collective cloud darkened, so did Tommy’s sense of tragic, personal failure. A mission had come down to us through Jeremiah, who had learned of it from Wen—a path of subtle intervention.

 

Four days ago, Tommy and I had a difficult conversation about his doubts. It was a beautiful summer evening, and I suggested we go for a walk in the woods near our campsite.

We entered the darkness of the forest and a fractalizing symphony of crickets. Thanks to the metamorphosis, we’ve developed night vision and needed no flashlights even on this moonless night. Wordlessly attuned to each other’s needs, we adopted a slow walking pace, sensing the depths and darkness of what we needed to explore.

“Tommy, I’ve been feeling you struggling to contain your doubts for my sake, and I don’t want that to continue. I think we should talk about them.”

“Andrew . . .”

Tommy begins to speak, but falls silent, and I sense his inner struggle. He needs to share his burden but doesn’t want to impose it on me.

“Tell me. I’m going to feel it anyway. There’s nothing we can’t talk about. I have my own doubts. We should face what you’re feeling together.”

“Thanks, Andrew, but . . . I don’t want to undermine your faith in what we’re doing, the mission we set out on together . . .”

“Tell me. Anything going on in you is part of the mission.”

“I just don’t know how to express this without hurting you, Andrew.”

“Tell me anyway, Tommy. Being on a mission means being willing to be hurt. I’m here to work with the truth of what’s happening, or as much of it as we can perceive, not to protect my feelings. And you can’t protect my feelings from what you’re feeling, anyway. So, unless you’re about to tell me that I need to be burned in another car wreck, which might be a little too much, assume I can take it. Hold nothing back.”

“Well, Andrew, now that you’ve put it that way, I can’t dishonor you by refusing what you asked, but what I have to say will cast doubt on our whole mission, so you should be prepared for that.

“I’m just losing my faith in our path of subtle interventions and butterfly effects. It feels like we’re a couple of butterflies trying to alter the course of a hurtling Death Star. The darkness in the world is growing, and I see no sign of our altering the timeline that leads to the Whip.

“Yes, we are undergoing a gradual metamorphosis, and that is an evolutionary development, but it’s so isolated. I see no signs of it triggering any change in the collective. We’re just cultivating one little secret garden. We keep our metamorphosis hidden, as we need to, but I haven’t found any evidence of it working as we hoped—as an evolutionary catalyst.

“I know how this ends, I lived through it, and I’ve lost faith that things will turn out any differently because of my being sent back in time to enact our mission. We’ve found a few mutants in our travels, and we’ve had a positive effect on a few of them, but they’re as isolated as we are.

“The only truly metamorphic mutants we know of, and are in touch with, are you, me, and Alex. We’re three male, Caucasian mutants with idealized appearances. We’re a tiny soul group of males who aren’t reproducing.

“But listen, Andrew, I’m not saying any of this is your fault. The mutants we’ve found and tried to help have been varied. They don’t all have idealized appearances, they’re not all male or of one orientation.

“Even so, we’re flawed as recruitment agents because we present as such a specific type. What people see, what even other mutants see, is what appears to be two good-looking male teenagers in a relationship with each other. While it’s true the metamorphosis tends to idealize appearance, we can’t be a good representation of an evolutionary development.

“It would be like if we sent a spaceship to a planet of extraterrestrials to demonstrate the evolutionary potential of our species and chose an all-boy K-Pop band to represent humanity.

“I arose out of the Friends, a small community. It was a better representation of a different way of life because we had a variety of ages, appearances, races, and orientations.

“Like attracts like. That’s how you, me, and Alex came together. And it’s beautiful, and I’m so grateful to be part of our little soul group. But we don’t know what’s going on with other secret groups of mutants who might be anywhere in this world.

“We haven’t tried to bring together the mutants we have found into a community. Even if we got some land and invited them to join us, most are wrapped up in their own life paths and would probably decline the invite. We’ve met some great people, but only a very few were truly dedicated to advancing their potential.

“For there to be an evolutionary development, there’d have to be a sizeable group of both genders and other orientations. There can’t be a sustainable evolutionary development without women having babies, right?

“And even if we pulled together a diverse community of mutants with new ones being born, how much effect would that have on a planet of ten billion? The community would have to be secretive about any metamorphosis. How much effect would one secret community have?

“There are only four years left before The Whip ends human life as we know it. Even if we had a secret community giving birth to protoelf babies with high metamorphic potential, and even if that had a dramatic evolutionary effect like causing more such babies to be born all over the world, would even that be enough to stop the dark forces at work? How would that prevent the Whip from causing extinction?

“The mission we’re on came to us through Jeremiah, who got most of it from Wen. But Wen himself admitted the uncertainty and limits of his vision.”

I tried to defend the path of subtle intervention in the past, but those defenses suddenly feel hollow, so I remain silent as Tommy unfolds his doubts. I also can’t find a flaw in anything he is saying, as much as I want to.

“Andrew, we’ve relied on Wen’s speculation for years. I need to have my own vision. I need to do a solo vision quest, probably just a few days of wilderness isolation.”

And with that, his path was set. Even when we were a few feet apart in the Mothership while he packed, he was already on his solo journey, and I knew not to intrude.

I stepped out of the Mothership and watched him walk off into the dense darkness of the woods.

The separation was hard to endure. After eleven years of such intimate togetherness, it was a shock on every level, as if half of me had been put under anesthesia and then amputated.

I waited for Tommy’s return at our remote campsite for four long days and nights, feeling anxious and unsettled. There was no telepathic contact, but perhaps a vague mutuality about my feeling of dread and terrible impending change.

And then, the dread silence ended with Tommy telepathically signaling his imminent return. I prepared a meal in our galley, gathered wood to maintain a small campfire, and waited, deeply unsettled but relieved to know the separation was coming to an end.

Finally, Tommy emerged from the dark woods, illuminated by moonlight. He was hauntingly beautiful, like an elf prince returning from a harrowing adventure. He gazed at me as he approached, his expression serious and determined but also compassionate.

He takes off his backpack and steps toward me, and we embrace, the long distance between us dissolving as we hold each other tightly.

Time slows, and when we separate, there are tears in Tommy’s green eyes.

“Andrew, I’ve found my vision and know what I must do.”

Tommy emanates sorrow and loneliness as I perceive the staggering implication of his words—what I must do not what we must do. Our reunion is also a leave-taking.

Tommy’s gaze is tearful with compassion and loss. Our telepathic mutuality resonates with feelings of abandonment and impending separation.

“I’m so sorry, Andrew. It’s not what I want. It’s the last thing I’d ever want, but I have no choice. Please forgive me.”

The suffering in Tommy’s eyes, the knowledge of the sorrow he has brought me, is a torment for him that compels me to speak.

“Tommy, I sense the terrible purpose behind your words. I support you in doing what you must. I know you always follow your highest ethical imperative. There is nothing for me to forgive. You have my blessing, now and always.”

Tommy’s eyes overflow with sorrowful gratitude, and he embraces me again, holding on to me tightly as he sobs.

“Thank you, Andrew,” he says through his tears.

I’ve never seen Tommy so shaken and sorrowful. He’s committed himself to a tragic self-sacrificing mission, and leaving me, I sense, is only part of it.

“Tommy, please, sit,” I say.

Tommy sits, takes a deep breath, and gains control of himself. I pass him a water bottle, and he drinks from it. He gazes into the fire, composing himself before he turns toward me to share his vision.

“Andrew, the time for subtle means has passed. I must take direct action to prevent the Whip. Tomorrow, I must leave you—my love, my heart—and seek out the last person I ever wanted to see again. Kyle . . .”

Tommy takes a deep breath before continuing.

“Right now, Kyle is only fifteen, and I know far more about him than he knows of himself. I will tell him the terrible secrets of how he was created and why. I will show him my value as an ally and demonstrate that I can help him achieve what he values most—power. I will reveal to him that his adoptive billionaire father, Vaughn, is a direct threat to his survival and to the whole species. I will make myself his ally, and together, we will find a way to stop Vaughn and the Whip. That is what I must do and what I will do.”

“But, Tommy, Kyle’s a priceless asset to a ruthless billionaire. There must be layers of security around him. How will you get to him?”

“I know exactly where to find him. He told me the name of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu school where he trained. I will find him there and immediately captivate his attention by showing him martial arts skills far beyond anyone he’s ever encountered. My plan is direct and practical. The school is open to anyone, and no one will see me as a threat to Kyle, because I look like a much smaller fifteen-year-old.

“Once I have Kyle’s attention, the rest will be improvisation. I can attend the school as a student and wait for a time when I can find him by himself so as not to draw attention to my anomalous abilities. I researched Kyle in the biosphere, so I know he wasn’t bragging. He was recognized as a martial arts prodigy, an undefeated champion in his age group. Five minutes of demonstrating I can evade any of his moves is all I need.

“For three years, my survival depended on knowing Kyle better than he knew himself. I realize that even at fifteen, I’ll be dealing with a brilliant and dangerous psychopath, but I know how to handle him. And, given the purpose of my mission, it’s good Kyle is the way he is because I need his ruthlessness to find a way to stop Vaughn.”

“Well,” I reply cautiously, realizing there’s no way to deflect Tommy from his adamant determination. “Your plan is the opposite of subtle means. From Wen’s model, it would mean abandoning the trunk timeline and creating a new branch through such a direct intervention.”

“Possibly,” says Tommy. “But without direct intervention, the trunk leads to extinction. Better to at least create a viable branch. But I’m not sure if Wen’s thinking is correct, and Wen himself admitted it might not be. He also said influencing someone who was already a wildcard variable might not violate subtle means.

“By traveling back in time, I may have already branched the timeline by creating a new version of me. The other Tommy, the eleven-year-old boy living with the Friends, is not exactly who I was at the same age because he has a subtle awareness of my existence. There have been telepathic moments with him. My presence, even at a distance, acts as a catalyst for his development. His abilities are likely developing faster because of his sense of me, and the effects of our coexistence.

“Certainly, my intervention will create a branched version of Kyle, since the Kyle I met at the biosphere did not have the history I’m about to create. Does a branched version of a wild card person mean a whole new branched timeline? I have no idea, but if so, I’ve already branched the timeline.

“All I know is that in this timeline, things are moving toward the Whip, and I have a direct way to intervene. But given the dark forces at work on this planet, very likely something else—nuclear war or super AI will create another extinction-level event.

“But suppose that happens a few months after when the Whip would have happened. Think of the life energy of ten billion people that would exist during those few extra months. There are still good people out there. Think of all the moments of connection and meaningfulness they’ll experience if my actions give the species even a little more time.

“Andrew, I have no delusion that I can stop the species from doing whatever it’s going to do. My goal is just to stop one man from releasing the Whip, and the rest is far beyond me. If I succeed in forming an alliance with Kyle, showing him that his will-to-power is best served by preventing extinction, perhaps I can influence him after we prevent the Whip from doing less destructive things with the vast wealth and power he’ll inherit. All I can do is play my part to the best of my abilities and hope some good will come of it.”

“I can’t fault your thinking, Tommy. And I won’t try to deflect you from your path, the stakes are too high, but on a personal level . . . I don’t want you subject to Kyle’s cruelty. Biosphere Kyle said you were his perfect type. Types are determined early on, so we can assume you’ll also be the younger Kyle’s perfect type as well. I’m sure you’ve thought this through, but I’m wondering how you plan to handle that?”

“I’ll have to improvise,” says Tommy sighing. “It’s the last thing I ever wanted to be subject to again, but it will be an unavoidable part of the situation. The attraction will give me influence but also expose me to Kyle’s will to manipulate and dominate. My goal will be to get him to value me as a teacher, mentor, ally, but not a sex partner. I’m hoping to limit him to working with me based on those roles. My latest ID says that I’m eighteen, so perhaps I can deflect with the illegality of a physical relationship.”

“Illegality didn’t hold him back before,” I point out.

“I know, Andrew, and I realize this is part of the sorrow I’ve brought you. I need your permission to do whatever is necessary to gain influence with Kyle. He’s the last person on earth I ever wanted to be entangled with again, and I know it will be horrible for you to think about what might be going on, but I want to be honest about the possibility. But I will do whatever I can to avoid a physical relationship with him.

“Tommy . . .” I start to speak, wanting to ask him to promise not to let Kyle get physical, but stop myself. The whole species is at stake, but the possibility of Kyle—even the thought is devastating.

Tommy’s head bows with grief. I don’t need to complete my thoughts, because he knows what I’m feeling and is anguished by the pain he’s brought me. He takes a deep breath summoning all his will to continue.

“Andrew, there’s another terrible part of this I must tell you. For my mission to work, we must break off any form of communication. My attention must be undivided. Kyle is never to be underestimated. He’ll sense if I’m communicating with anyone else instinctively and will resent it. Doubtless, he will find ways to surveil any form of electronic communication.”

“And for your part, Andrew, I want you to do whatever you need to with your life, and not to limit yourself in any way because of me. I want you to be as happy as possible, and if other relationships can bring you fulfillment, you should pursue them.

“When I leave tomorrow, Andrew, I will leave behind my devices and delete any ways for you to communicate with me. And I will use the Vehrillion to prevent telepathic communication as well. Kyle is dangerous, and I want to protect you from him.

“I survived being trapped with him in the biosphere by disassociating from my feelings and must do so again. I must also disassociate from you as much as I can. It’s the only way.

“I must be a warrior with unbending intent to fulfill this mission. If it succeeds and I survive, my hope is we’ll be together again. But I won’t hide the truth from you. My sense is that it will not be a matter of weeks or months but years.”

Tommy’s eyes fill with tears.

“But right now, I’m still here, Andrew, we still have tonight.”

I nod, keeping my composure as best I can, sensing the depth of loss will only register once we’re actually apart. It’s something I’ve learned about myself. Tommy is centered in feeling and intuition, while I am centered in thinking and intuition. When there’s a shock, the full weight of my emotional reaction comes later, once the shock has passed. And right now, Tommy is fully present with me.

Tommy has told me everything, and it was a terrible strain. He’s always sought to please me, to be the ideal companion, and we’ve had to work from the beginning to get him to realize he should also consider his own needs. It’s been agonizing for him to be the bearer of such sorrowful news. My heart wants to plead with him not to separate, but that would be horribly dishonorable and serve no purpose because he’s already chosen his path. I must contain by grief and abandonment feelings, otherwise I will only increase his suffering. It’s time for me to ease his burden any way I can.

“Tommy, I admire your nobility, your capacity to sacrifice yourself to serve what you think is best. I will not try to deflect you from sacred purpose and commitment. You have my blessing to do whatever you need to do. Whatever your mission needs you to do. I love you, and I will always love you.”

I take off the Navigator Amulet Jeremiah gave me and hand it to Tommy.

“You can use it to establish credibility with Kyle,” I say.  “He’s a science type, and he’ll recognize this as anomalous tech.”

“But, Andrew, this is . . . it’s like a piece of you, you’ve worn it the whole time I’ve known you and . . . it’s a remembrance of Jeremiah.”

“You can return it to me when we reunite. Meanwhile, it will give me solace knowing you have it with you. You need it more than me–your mission needs it.”

Tommy nods, and his head bows in gratitude. I sense it’s time to lighten the moment.

“Anyway,” I say, trying my best to sound cheerful, “we do still have tonight, and I made dinner.”

“You did?” he asks.

Tommy usually does all the cooking and is far better at it than me. He sees I’m making efforts, pretending cheerfulness to ease his burden, and smiles gratefully beneath his tears.

“What did you make? I’ve been living on trail mix for four days. I’m starving.”

“Pesto pasta primavera and garlic bread,” I reply.

“That was your favorite when you traveled with Alex, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Not quite as nutritious as one of your meals, but it seemed appropriate.”

“It’s perfect,” says Tommy. “Can I help with anything?”

“Absolutely not,” I reply, “this is my chance to serve you dinner.”

And so, we made the best of our last night together. Later, our lovemaking left an indelible impression. It had a passionate intensity overflowing with generosity and a searing desperation.

And then, the next morning, I watched Tommy walk off into the unknown . . .

***

That was four years ago, and I know nothing of what’s happened to him. He prepared me that he would use the Vehrillion to sever our telepathic link, but the desolate silence that followed left me devastated. I felt amputated and empty, without the motivation to do anything. And yet, I was not alone for long. Alex felt my suffering, and that evening he returned and has been with me since.

Alex visited us a few times during the eleven years I traveled with Tommy, but he was always careful about boundaries and generously supportive and deferential to my relationship with Tommy, which he recognized as primary, affirming many times that it was what he had always wanted for me.

Just as I had worked out the key principles and techniques of the Vehrillion with Tommy, Alex had learned and developed his talents working with the Guild. A central aim of the Guild was to further communication and cooperation between the living and the dead, and they recognized the bond between me and Alex as a unique opportunity. While other members of the Guild worked on trying to limit the harmful intrusions that parasitic lower astrals made into the living world, Alex was encouraged to develop his connection with me to pioneer new forms of symbiosis between the living and the dead.

Alex and I developed ways to be more energetically symbiotic, and sexual energy was crucial to the process. The one-sided attraction which had been a torment and source of conflict when we were embodied became a glorious mutuality giving us endless energy and intention to work with, furthering symbiosis. We learned how to stabilize Alex’s presence in the living world and give it a more compatible physicality. We created many breakthroughs that greatly advanced the development of the Vehrillion, as well as so many of the parallel techniques developed by the Guild.

Living out of the Mothership, we searched for mutants advanced enough to perceive both of us and helped them develop their abilities.

It was a rich and fulfilling life but always shadowed by Tommy’s absence. With our combined abilities, we could have tracked Tommy, but that would have violated the boundary he had set up and might have compromised his mission, a mission on which the fate of the species depended.

As we got closer to when the Whip was released in Tommy’s native timeline, my anxiety about his fate and the species grew.  Did his intervention work? I sensed a call to a new mission, but could feel it only as a growing pressure that revealed no particulars.

And that’s what led me to take another Shadow Journey, which ended traumatically and perhaps prematurely. I hoped it would give insight into what our new mission might be, but so far, it hasn’t.

My recapitulation is done. My memories are restored, and I’ve brought my accounting up to the present. Shadow Journeys have a third phase, a vision quest the experiencer discovers unprompted. So far, perhaps because the first part of my Shadow Journey ended prematurely, I have not discovered what comes next, but the pressure grows. All I can do is endure the uncertainty and wait for the way to be revealed . . .

Eleven

Tommy’s Journal

It was night after a long day of public transportation when I arrived at Kyle’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu school. Closing time had come and gone, but I wanted to study the place through the windows and get a feeling for it before showing up there in the morning. Places hold memories, something I’ve become increasingly sensitive to, and I thought I might pick up something that could help be me more prepared for my encounter with Kyle.

The parking lot’s empty, but as soon as I step onto it, as if on cue, a black muscle car comes roaring up the street, swerves into the lot at an insane speed, and screeches to a halt. The reckless driver didn’t even see me and might have run me over if I’d been in the way.

I cloak myself and approach the car, curious to learn the meaning of this mad arrival. A grotesque giant of a man clutching a red plastic bag emerges from the muscle car and slams the door. He’s wearing a black tank top to show off his gargantuan muscles.

I’d never seen such an outsized bodybuilder in person, and I go into slowtime so I can observe this human oddity. He’s adorned with a gold chain, and an oversized fake gold watch encircles the wrist of the hand clutching the red plastic bag.

He radiates unpleasant energies and odors. He’s sweaty, though I felt air-conditioned air puff out from his car when he opened the door. He’s amped up on stimulants of some sort and reeks of sweat and bad cologne. His black beard and sideburns have been obnoxiously razor-cut into some kind of wannabe-Satanic look.

I follow him as he walks up to the door of the school, which was not, as I’d assumed, locked. He pulls it open in a ridiculously forceful way as if it had been defying him by being closed. I let the door close behind him and watch him disappear into the school.

Most martial arts schools have an open floor plan with windows that are exposed to the outside, allowing people to view the training going on inside. But this is a higher-class establishment with a walled-in lobby and a front desk, similar to a health club. I wait a couple of seconds after the door closes before I quietly reopen it and enter.

I’m confident in my long-practiced cloaking techniques, which do not create optical invisibility but employ subtle means of deflecting attention. Following a few feet behind the odor trail of the sweaty giant, I step out of the dark lobby and onto a brilliantly lit practice floor in time to see the man swaggering his bulky form toward . . . Kyle.

Still in slowtime, I feel the moment rippling with déjà vu. From the perspective of my timeline, it’s been sixteen years since I last laid eyes on a horribly maimed twenty-two-year-old version of him, amputated and castrated on the floor of a cave before Viealetta’s glowing time portal, a portal that sent each of us to a different past.

Uncanny fortune has led me to encounter Kyle before I was ready, throwing me into what I sense is a significant moment.

Kyle is doing curls with a pair of dumbbells and appears to be ignoring the approaching hulk. When he gets close, Kyle flashes him an angry glare and says,

 “You’re late.”

“Do I look like someone who gives a shit?” the giant fires back at him.

The way he parrots this comeback line suggests he’s full of such stock phrases he’s picked up from action movies and TV shows. Kyle seems aware of this and gives the giant a contemptuous sneer and waits a beat before nodding toward the red bag in his hand.

“Show me what you’ve got,” says Kyle, in an insolent and demanding tone.

The man pulls a Ziplock from the bag holding ampules, syringes, and alcohol wipes.

 “Only the finest anabolics to be found anywhere,” the giant says, dangling the baggy like it’s a glittering treasure.

“Only the same anabolics I can get from anyone and will next time, but from someone who respects punctuality,” replies Kyle impatiently. “How much?”

The giant names a price, and Kyle sneers as he pulls a roll of bills from his sweatpants pocket.

“You jacked up your prices just for me, didn’t you?”

“You can afford it, rich boy,” the man says. Kyle passes him a few bills, and the exchange is made.

“Of course I can afford it,” says Kyle, snatching the baggy. “But it’s disrespectful on top of your lateness.”

“Oh, and I guess you think you deserve respect because you can beat up on other rich kids or whatever,” says the hulk.

Kyle ignores him. With practiced speed, he pokes a syringe into an ampule and injects himself while the hulk watches. Kyle looks up at him, annoyed.

“Why are you still standing there, asshole. We’re done.”

“You better watch your fucking attitude,” says the hulk. “Don’t fuck with the bull, unless you want the horns.”

It’s obviously another one of his stock movie lines.

“Oh yeah,” says Kyle grinning, as he bounces up and down on the balls of his feet doing a loopy version of shadow boxing. “Maybe you’d like to go a round? Any weapons on you?”

“I am a weapon,” says the bull.

Kyle and starts shadowboxing in an intentionally goofy and slightly effeminate way. He’s trying to entice the muscle-bound bull to come at him.

“C’mon, weapon, give me your best shot. Of course, I understand if you’d rather not get bruised up,” Kyle taunts. “Might not look so good when you’re oiled up to pose in front of your bodybuilding buddies.”

The bull might have an extra hundred pounds of meaty, body-builder muscle, but even at fifteen, Kyle is 6’1”, an angular skeleton wrapped in whipcord muscle, and he’s glowing with a roid rage I perceive as sheets of plasmic fire shimmering around him. A child could’ve seen through his mime show of goofy shadowboxing.

Apparently, the insulted bull does not see the obvious and comes toward Kyle in a flat-footed, clumsy boxing stance while Kyle continues his loopy shadowboxing as if oblivious to his approach.

The bull halts and throws a comically slow haymaker that connects with empty space as Kyle, with lightning-fast torque, smashes him in the face with a devastatingly powerful spinning backfist.

Watching in slowtime, I see the devastating impact accordion the bull’s face, percussive force spraying sweat and spittle. With a ground-shaking thud, the bull drops, faceplanting onto the mat like a side of beef, out cold.

It’s a relief to see he’s still breathing. Kyle stands over him, gloating, like Muhammad Ali in his I-Shocked-the-World! stance over a fallen Sonny Liston.

Suddenly, I realize—I know this moment. Kyle told me about it in the Biosphere when he showed off his spinning backfist, a favorite move forbidden by the rules of our contests, which did not allow strikes that could cause significant damage.

“I once almost killed a guy with that move,” he’d told me, laughing. “You’re lucky you didn’t meet me during my roid-rage phase. Steroids have outsized effects on young males and psychopaths, and I almost took the head off a dumb bodybuilder.”

The bull groans and spastically tries to rise. He’s on all fours and keeps shaking his head like a wet dog. He’s obviously concussed, and his eyes are crossed like a knocked-out cartoon bully with stars spinning around his head. Eventually, he staggers to his feet, falls down, staggers back up, and heads out, leaving behind his red plastic bag.

I follow his retreat to the lobby and wait long enough to watch his car lurching and screeching from the parking lot. I wait a few more seconds, decloak, and walk onto the practice floor.

Kyle is startled, caught red-handed in the act of inventorying the anabolic contraband. He shoves it back in the bag and flashes me a roid-rageful glare.

“Who the fuck are you? The school is closed.”

“Looks like it’s open for some sort of business,” I say, nodding toward the red bag.

I’m acting without forethought in spontaneous improvisation mode, slightly shocked by my own dangerous move. Kyle glares at me threateningly. I’ve caught him off balance and out of his control zone, and he’s both nervous and infuriated.

“Don’t worry,” I say with a friendly smile. “Your secret is safe with me. All I ask is that you try to strike me.”

Kyle looks at all one hundred and ten pounds of me incredulously.

 “Strike you?  Is that some sort of twink slang for getting fucked? If so, I can oblige. You’re certainly pretty enough.”

The sexual taunt ignites a rage I thought I had worked through years ago.

This is my future sex abuser.

Without letting my smile falter, I take a breath and compose myself before replying calmly.

“I said try to strike me, Kyle. You’re not nearly fast enough to actually strike me.”

Kyle stares at me with stunned disbelief, finally registering that something beyond strange is going on. That I know his name is probably not part of it, as there’s a titled photo of him holding a championship trophy out front. Reflected in his eyes, I’m a tiny twink standing before an enraged Bengal tiger, and yet I’m smiling at him with self-assured confidence.

“You’re tripping, right?”

“Dooo I seeemmm liiike I’mmm triiippiiinng?”

I intentionally slow down my voice like I’m drooping on hallucinogens, but I stare at him with psychic acuity, an intimidating form of eye contact that says, I see right through you. It’s a stare that would make most people look away.

Kyle’s eyes narrow with consternation and cognitive dissonance. He’s in a state of roid rage that wants to assault me, but another part of him registers my strangeness, and another part of him is nervous about being caught with steroids while still another part wants the assault to be sexual.

Kyle drops the red bag onto the mat and comes toward me.

“OK, but when you regain consciousness, I want you to remember that you asked for it, little buddy.”

I stand there, smiling, not even assuming a defensive stance. I’ve turned on a type of quicktime that will telegraph whatever Kyle is going to do.

I sense the calf kick he intends even before it enters the front of his mind. He wants to sweep me off my feet so he can bring me to the mat. He’s already fantasizing about me as a rag doll he can put into various submission holds.

I step away from the calf kick with an extreme economy of movement to show how trifling and predictable it is. My smile is unwavering.

Kyle tries a superfast palm strike followed by a couple of flashing hooks, but I bob and weave away from them without breaking my eerie smile or even raising my hands in defense.

Stunned and furious, I observe Kyle winding up for the same spinning backfist he used on the bull and decide I‘ve had enough.

I launch myself into the air, moving faster than Kyle can see, timing the top of my arc to match the moment when the centrifugal energy of his spinning back fist exhausts itself into empty space.

 I kick out, carefully positioning my foot to land flat on the densest part of his breastbone so as not to do unwarranted damage. I carefully time the impact to send him flying back in an arc that will land him ass first so that the following impact on his head won’t concuss him.

While he’s still in the air, I use the recoil of my kick to back flip and land on my feet, smile intact, and just in time to witness the moment of Kyle’s head hitting the mat with exactly the force I intended.

He might have shocked the bull’s world, but I fulfilled another Ali metaphor. I floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.

Standing over him, I observe his dilated eyes. Far more than the force of the impact I carefully moderated, he’s stunned by the singular anomaly of the incomprehensible thing that’s just happened.

Kyle gets to his feet, his roid rage shattered. As he stands there staring at me, his brilliant mind fires up as he recognizes the presence of the highest strangeness he’s ever encountered. The loutish arrogance and leering grin are gone, replaced by adrenaline-fueled fascination and awe.

“Who are you?” he asks. “What are you?”

I meet his awed look with a smile and nod.

“Let’s just say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. But you can call me Tommy.”

Kyle stares at me, his pupils wide with ontological shock. Nothing in his life or personality has prepared him for me, and he knows it.

A spontaneous change occurs. Time dilates, decelerating to a state of near suspension. I look at the quartz clock on the wall, which has a second hand that had been clicking forward at one-second intervals. It’s not moving. This was not a change I had consciously willed, but I sense its meaning. I was on the verge of tragic missteps, and my unconscious has taken my psyche out of the flow of time to reconsider my choices.

Kyle looks different and my perception of him alters in a cascade of realizations. Held in place, he seems less a perpetrator and more a victim, a trapped lab animal, his skin coated with a thin film of sweat. He may have guessed his genetically manipulated origin by now, but not what he was created for. And now, I, without his consent, have created a new version of him through my own ruthless intervention. I acted with as little love for Kyle as the lab techs who spliced his genes together. Like Vaughn, I meant to use Kyle as a means to an end.

I purposefully tricked him into an unequal contest. At least the bodybuilder had the fair warning that he was dealing with a martial arts champion, but Kyle had no way of knowing that I’m a mutant more than twice his age, originally trained by his older self, followed by another fifteen years of developing new martial arts forms with Andrew. I acted as a ringer, hiding unfair advantages so that I could humiliate him.

And all of this was premeditated. I thought it would be the most effective way to get his attention, and it probably was, but I hadn’t examined my shadow, the darkness in me that wanted things to begin this way, with a humiliating proof of my power. I was the oppressed in the act of becoming the oppressor. And that corrupt beginning cannot be taken back.

Time has paused to reveal my darkness and allow me to choose a different way. Kyle may not be capable of love, but I am, and for my mission to succeed, I must summon love for the person who in another timeline was my tormentor. It may not be a love of warmth and affection, but this new being is the result of my actions, and if I’m going to use him to fulfill my mission, I owe him care and responsibility.

Awakened to my shadow, I feel time reanimating. The second hand clicks forward, and I perceive Kyle’s mind composing words he’s about to speak. I descend into the flow of ordinary time to receive what he’s about to say.

“OK, Tommy, if that’s really your name. You’ve earned my undivided attention. But I need a more comprehensible answer to my questions. Who and what are you?”

“Those are fair and reasonable questions, Kyle, but to give you the comprehensive answer you deserve will involve shocking revelations which will include something of far greater significance to you. I will reveal who and what you are.”

Kyle maintains his cool poker face, but his dilated eyes reflect curiosity and amazement. He glances up, and I follow the line of his gaze to a clock on the wall.

“In a minute, I will get a call from my driver,” he says. “To stay out later will require a story that will be reported to my security detail, and I’d rather not arouse their interest. Come with me to my place—the family compound—I’m allowed to have friends over, so your arrival should not arouse much attention.”

I nod, just as a phone on a nearby table lights up. Kyle picks it up.

“Hey,” says Kyle, gesturing toward me with his eyes, indicating I should follow him. “I’ll be right out, got a friend with me, and you can stay put, I’ll get the door.”

Kyle grabs the red plastic bag from the floor and shoves it into his jacket pocket. He keeps the phone pressed to his ear as I follow him to the lobby. When he sees me hoist my pack, he shakes his head and takes the pack from me to carry at his side like a gym bag.

“And pop the trunk, I’m bringing some stuff back with me. Hang on, I’ll ask.” Kyle glances at me. “You want anything to eat or drink? They’ll have it ready for us when we arrive.”

I shake my head, but Kyle ignores my answer.

“A couple of iced teas and a sandwich assortment,” he says,  glancing at me, “Vegetarian, vegan?”

I nod.

“Yeah, include vegetarian and vegan options. No, not the dining room, have them bring it to my room on a folding table.”

Kyle puts the phone in his pocket and locks the door to the school. He tosses my backpack carelessly into the open trunk of the limo and opens the passenger door for me. I get in, and Kyle follows.

It’s like a little black room inside with darkly gleaming surfaces, indicator lights on controls, and inset screens facing us. The driver is hidden by a black glass window, and the outside windows are thick, probably bulletproof glass, and heavily tinted, as everything outside is dim except streetlights.

“We’ll have time to talk when we get there,” he says.

Kyle’s silver eyes convey warning as he glances toward an inset lens staring at us. I nod to show I’ve understood his warning.

We ride silently, the suspension of the limo so impeccably tuned that we barely feel the road in our soundproofed interior. The boundary between us crackles with electricity. Kyle stares straight ahead, his mind spinning like a silent turbine.

Inside this stealthed-out limo, I’m engulfed in his world, like Jonah swallowed by the whale. And now I’m traveling toward the very belly of the beast, the compound where Vaughn, for all I know, could be studying us from the camera.

We leave the city’s lights behind and ascend a winding road that leads to a gatehouse, where a security officer peers out as a massive electronic gate slides open. The limousine approaches a vast compound and sweeps into an illuminated portico meant for receiving cars while shielding passengers from the weather.

A liveried servant opens the door, and we slide out. Kyle pulls my backpack from the trunk and carries it again like a gym bag as I follow him to a door opened by a security guard and into a mansion with vaulted ceilings and immaculately polished surfaces. The floors are black marble, and everything is elegantly understated and silent. There’s no sign of life anywhere.

Kyle walks swiftly through the massive interior, taking no interest in any of it, until we enter a corridor leading us to a handsome dark walnut door with a fingerprint lock. Kyle touches it, the door unlocks, and we step into what must be his apartment within the compound.

Kyle puts his index finger to his lips, and we remain silent. He opens a cabinet door, revealing a safe with another biometric lock. He unlocks it and removes what looks like a high-tech version of a walkie-talkie, with three rubberized antennas protruding from it and an orange, glowing screen. He holds it up and sweeps it around the circumference of the room. Satisfied, he turns it off.

“I always check for bugs when I bring guests over. You’re aware of who my adoptive father, Vaughn, is right?”

I nod.

“Vaughn is obsessed with surveillance, but I’ve warned him not to monitor my apartment after I detected a listening device last year. He promised not to try that again, but ‘don’t trust and verify’ is my motto.”

While Kyle returns the bug detector to his safe, I survey the folding table set up with meticulously crafted finger sandwiches, fruit, protein bars, and a pitcher of iced tea. It’s a spread that would easily feed five people, and I realize most of it will go to waste

The room is paneled in dark walnut, and there are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It looks like a room made for an older man of importance and wealth, but there are signs of its teenage occupant.

A glass case holds a large collection of martial arts trophies. Many shelves house expensive-looking sci-fi artifacts, anime figures, and game controllers. A collection of martial arts weapons adorns a wall, including authentic-looking Samurai swords with engraved hilts and wavy patterns in their long blades.

 I walk over to examine the shelf contents, which include highly detailed spacecraft models. The most spectacular feature is a large space station with transparent domes, beneath which are miniature farms and forests.

“Biospheres,” I say.

“Right,” says Kyle, “the only way people can live in space long-term. I designed the models based on scientific projections of future technology and had them built by a professional model builder. One day, I plan to make them a reality. Humanity has no future unless it can establish off-planet colonies. Vaughn is ill, so it’s only a matter of time before I inherit the means to make such things a reality.”

I turn toward Kyle and see the space-conquering ambition flickering in his silvery eyes. Standing there with his perfect physique and chiseled features, he seems like a character in a sci-fi movie, a future technocratic empire builder, glowing with enough will-to-power to reach across the galaxy.

Kyle gestures toward one of the futuristic swivel chairs before the folding table. We sit, and he pours out two glasses of iced tea. I take a sip as I watch Kyle quickly down a couple protein bars before he sits back in his chair, studying me keenly.

“OK, now that we have privacy, I’m ready to listen. Who are you, what are you, and what exactly do you want from me?”

Kyle wants to give me the third degree, but to submit to that would be a surrender to his power dynamics. I thought of a few openings during the limo ride, but now they seem overly dramatic and fantastical, so I abandon them in favor of a demonstration. I’ve established some credibility with the martial arts demo, but it’s time to go further.

“Since you’re interested in pursuing future technology, let me show you some future tech,” I say.

I reach under my shirt to retrieve the Navigator amulet Andrew gave me.

It’s an object still deeply infused with Andrew’s energy, and reluctance tugs on my arm even as I pass it to Kyle.

“Tell me what you think of this device.”

Kyle takes the amulet and silver chain and weighs them in his hand.

“This feels lighter than titanium, aluminum, beryllium or even magnesium,” he says. “There is no structural metal lighter than magnesium, so there must be hollow space inside of it.”

He takes a knife from his desk and uses the blade to tap against the links and the amulet, holding it to his ear.

“But it doesn’t appear hollow, but metallic all the way through. What sort of alloy or material is this?” he asks.

“I don’t know, Kyle.”

“And you say this is a device.”

He studies the amulet and touches the green cabochon at its center. Light suffuses around him, illuminating the whole room. Kyle stares amazedly at the illuminated field and then back at the amulet.

“Where is the light coming from? I don’t see it emitting from the device.”

He clutches it in his fist, and the light extinguishes.

 “How does this work?”

“I’m sorry, Kyle, I don’t know that either.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Very little. I was told it’s a technology developed on another world.”

“Another world? As in another planet?”

“Yes.”

 I extend my open palm. Kyle looks at it without moving.

“I’d like to study this further,” he says sternly, still clutching the amulet.

“I’m sure you do.” I meet his eyes, my gaze calm yet unbending. “Maybe later.”

He hesitates, then reluctantly places it in my hand, and I put it back on.

“I’m not trying to taunt you with this, Kyle. I just wanted to give you tangible evidence before I disclose things that will stretch credibility. But I can’t tell you everything. I must measure out the truth, the secrets I hold. I need to see whether our purposes align. But there is one part of my mission–”  Kyle’s silver eyes flicker with interest at the word, “where I know our interests converge. I want to save your life.”

“Save my life? From whom or what?” asks Kyle warily.

“From Vaughn.”

Kyle studies me with paranoid suspicion.

“Are you some sort of spook, here to sabotage the family empire? You’d better have evidence to back that claim. I can summon security and have them interrogate you. And they’ll take your device and reverse engineer it to see if it’s actually future tech or a sophisticated parlor trick. Vaughn has consistently treated me as an extremely valuable investment. Why would he be a threat to me?”

I stare at Kyle cooly. He’s certainly not going to turn me over to security and lose his chance to extract my secrets. I wait a couple of beats to show I’m not intimidated by his threats before responding.

“So, you believe the Russian adoption story?” I ask him in a slightly sarcastic tone. “You think Vaughn just got lucky choosing an infant who would turn out to have off-the-scales abilities?”

Kyle’s eyes narrow. He’s obviously aware of the improbability of his origin story and has his own suspicions.

“You’re genetically engineered, Kyle.”

I’ve struck home, but he maintains his poker face.

“I’ve considered the possibility,” he says. “It certainly accounts for the facts better than what you referred to as the Russian adoption story. But it wouldn’t take any insider knowledge to make such a conjecture, given that Vaughn owns cutting-edge biotech companies.”

I study Kyle. Beneath his cool demeanor, I can see the wheels spinning in his mind. I expected him to have considered the possibility, but he’s also trying to diminish the value of my information to enhance his position.

“It’s not conjecture, Kyle. I think you realize that. It’s Occam’s Razor,” I add, using a concept I learned from him in the biosphere. “But I also happen to know it as a fact, not just the simplest logical conclusion.”

“OK,” says Kyle. “Let’s say I accept your premise, that I’m genetically engineered. If so, Vaughn went to considerable expense and effort to make me ideal, and he readily funds anything I want to further my abilities. That would make him invested in me, not a threat.”

“I’ll get there, Kyle. Yes, he’s invested in you, the question is what he plans to do with that investment. But first, tell me what you’ve concluded about your genetic design.”

“Most of it is obvious—idealized appearance and physique, improved reaction time, and athleticism. I’ve never been sick, so enhanced immunity. Enhanced IQ, obviously.”

“And?”

A flicker of recognition in Kyle’s eyes. He knows what else, but I say it for him.

“Psychopathy.”

He maintains his poker face.

“No need to affirm or deny it, Kyle. I know all too well, and it needs to be out in the open between us. I want an alliance of aligned purpose between us, which means I’m willing to work with that aspect of you. But it must be clear from the outset that I’m fully informed about your psychopathy, and it will be a waste of time if you think I’m deceived or naïve about it.

“You said your motto is, ‘Don’t trust and verify.’ The only trust I can have is that you’re a mostly rational being who usually acts in what you think is in your best interests, and that’s what I seek to align with. However, as we saw earlier tonight—I witnessed what happened between you and that bodybuilder—you are not fully rational, none of us are. You took a foolish risk, humiliating someone who has damaging information about you.

“I want to help you to be more rational and show you how my purposes serve your best interests. It’s the only trustworthy basis on which we can have an alliance.”

“OK,” says Kyle. “But if you witnessed what happened between me and the bodybuilder, you may have a false impression. Admittedly, you saw me at my worst. I don’t like to be kept waiting, and certainly not by such a moron. He was no physical danger, but you’re right, I took an unnecessary risk by beating him down.

“I also regret the disrespectful way I spoke to you, which may have added to the false impression. It was just a little verbal taunting. I didn’t realize who I was dealing with, and I apologize for the vulgar language I used.”

I nod. This is the first time I’ve ever heard Kyle apologize for anything. It’s a tactical move, but nevertheless, a sign of respect.

“I agree to work with you to the exact extent it serves my interests,” he continues in his cool, negotiator voice. “And I admit to the psychopathy. Proudly admit. It’s an asset. Occasionally, as you witnessed, I indulge my aggression a little more than I should, and I realize steroids exacerbate that tendency, but what you saw was a rare occurrence.

“As to your offer, while you serve my interests, I am willing to provide compensation and respect. I think we have a working contract. And since you understand my psychopathy, you must realize there will be consequences if you deviate from serving my interests. Understood?”

“I did not say I would serve your interests, Kyle. I said I would serve your best interests. That’s an important distinction you must understand. Serving your best interests means I serve what I think you need, but that is different than what you might want in a given moment.

“I am not here to serve as your hired help, or to indulge your desires. I will not do anything that compromises my values, which I realize you don’t share. However, I will seek to align my values and purposes with what is in your best interests to avoid unnecessary conflict. What I will not cooperate with are plans or actions that violate my understanding of your best long-term interests. I expect to be treated with respect as an equal. Is that clear?”

Kyle leans back in his chair, studying me. “That’s quite a set of conditions,” he says. “I’ve never worked with anyone on such a basis.”

“Of course you haven’t. I also don’t ask you to agree to my conditions because I’d be foolish to trust such an assurance. I am simply informing you of the basis on which I am willing to work with you, and I’ll be watching to see if you’re working with my conditions or violating them.

“Likewise, I expect you to continuously evaluate what I offer and whether it serves your purposes. My goal will be to provide irreplaceable value to motivate you to respect my conditions. I’m confident you’ll recognize that jeopardizing our alliance is not in your best interests.”

“I understand,” says Kyle. “Well thought out and precisely formulated. I think we have a working understanding.”

He extends his hand, and we shake.

 “Now, can we return to the subject of Vaughn as a threat to me?”

“Yes. Let’s look at the premise of Vaughn’s investment in you. The story he’s presented is that you’re his heir apparent who will one day carry on the business empire, right?”

Kyle nods.

“And yet, you’re not his biological son or even a blood relative. Is there anything about Vaughn to suggest that he’ll die happy and fulfilled, knowing you’ll inherit all his power and wealth?”

“Of course not,” says Kyle. “It’s simply a function of his egotism, an attempt for his power to live on past his death with an heir carrying his family name. It’s not what he wants, he doesn’t want to die, but since he knows he will, it’s a scrap of prestige he can hold onto.

“Also, having a viable heir apparent confers many business advantages in the present. The value of his empire would be diminished if he didn’t have such a viable succession plan. If the financial world thought there’d be a legal battle between prospective heirs, if it lacked a highly competent heir apparent, it would be considered a weakness undermining his present position. He’s on his third trophy wife, but they’ve all signed air-tight pre-nuptials and are not a threat to the succession plan.

“Companies and nation-states would be nervous about long-term partnerships if they thought his death would lead to a chaotic fight for control over the empire. It’s to his great advantage for them to believe there will be a seamless transfer of power to a young, healthy, and effective heir.”

I take a breath to consider my approach. Kyle obviously feels secure and confident in his interpretation of Vaughn’s motives, and this increases my anxiety about how he will react to the shock of what I’m about to reveal. I decide to gently challenge his assumptions first.

“But if he could avoid dying and maintain his power, that would be far more desirable than passing it on to you, right?”

“Obviously.”

“Your reasonable premise is that, like everyone, he must die, and so he has a succession plan for that inevitability. But, your whole existence, Kyle, is a product of genetic engineering, and that means Vaughn is willing to violate international agreements against certain forms of genetic manipulation, such as human cloning and prenatal augmentation. He also happens to own companies at the cutting edge of computational biology.”

“OK, let’s cut to the chase,” says Kyle. “Where’s this going?”

His tone is assertive, but the rising tempo of his breathing signals fear.

“Vaughn’s plan is not to make you his heir. His plan is to avoid death by transferring his psyche into your body once you turn twenty-one so that he can be his own heir in a youthful, augmented body.”

Kyle’s keeps his expression rigid, but his breath catches, and his whole being vibrates with a shock he can’t disguise. I see tiny beads of cold sweat forming on his face.

“He’s invested in you because he plans to harvest your body. He’s been experimenting with transfer protocols for years. The experiments have all failed and will continue to fail as they’re based on false premises about the nature of consciousness, but that’s his plan.

“Vaughn would prefer to wait until you’re twenty-one, or at least eighteen, so he can be a legal adult in his new body. He expects to have a transfer protocol worked out by then. But his cancer treatment is not going well, and if he becomes desperate to escape his present body, he might take his chances on a transfer procedure sooner.”

Kyle maintains his poker face but tiny beads of sweat glisten on his forehead. Puzzle pieces are locking together in his mind.

“That’s quite a claim,” he says warily.

“It’s not a claim, Kyle. It’s a fact.”

“And exactly how do you know it’s a fact?”

I reach into my pocket and pull out a thumb drive and hand it to him.

“I am about to make another claim that will sound fantastical, but I’ve just given you evidence that will prove it. That drive contains the complete history of the next three-and-a-half years of the. By tomorrow evening, you’ll have your evidence. Evidence that I come from the future.

“And my future includes three years spent in isolation with you. That’s why I know you better than you know yourself. I am also not the age I appear to be. If those files don’t reveal tomorrow’s market outcome with decimal point exactitude, you can turn me over to your private security.”

Kyle can’t hide the amazement in his eyes. He glances from me to the drive and back to me again. I wait in silence while he composes himself.

“Since we’re not at the closing bell,” says Kyle, “I can think of only two possibilities. You’re either a talented paranoid schizophrenic with an elaborate story and some clever stunts, or your claim will be proven tomorrow. And . . . I’ll admit that high-functioning insanity seems the less likely option. Tell me more.”

“I think I’ve told you enough for now. It’ll be more efficient to wait till tomorrow when my credibility is established so that we can eliminate the second-guessing. Also, you’ll be able to use the information on the drive for two purposes besides verifying I’m a time traveler. You obviously have access to some funds of your own. I know you have advanced computer skills, so you should start using those to figure out how to set up your own investment account with a false identity. Having independent wealth you can call on when necessary, will be useful.

“The second purpose is that I expect you’ll use your knowledge of market fluctuations to gain influence over Vaughn with your prescient knowledge of market trends, etc. It won’t change his ultimate plan for you, but it should be enough for you to leverage any concessions from him you require.

“You should also start formulating a plan for how you’ll explain my continued presence in your life. You know Vaughn and the situation far better than I do, so you’ll know best how to do that. My ID says I’m eighteen, so that will help explain why I’m not in school or in need of parental permission to be here. I also want you to dispose of the steroids and discontinue their use. Once you’ve received your proof, I’m expecting you to alter your life priorities. Do you attend a school?”

“No, private tutors in economics, engineering, computer science, computational biology, and astrophysics.”

“Good. Use the credibility you’ll gain with Vaughn to leverage control over your free time to prioritize working with me. I suggest you deprioritize martial arts competitions. In return, I can provide you with martial arts training more advanced than anything you’ll find in a school. Perhaps you can use that to explain my presence. You can claim I’m a martial arts prodigy and want me around full-time. Vaughn supports your physical training as he expects to inherit those abilities as muscle memory, so allowing you a live-in training partner should be an easy ask.”

“If your evidence holds up, I’ll put all that into action,” says Kyle. “Meanwhile, I’ll have housekeeping set you up in a guest suite, and I’ll come by in the morning to check on you. I will trust you to stay put until then. I could ask security to alert me if you leave, but I‘d prefer not to arouse interest until we work out a cover story. Any devices on you?”

“Just a burner.”

“Good.” Kyle opens his safe and retrieves a slender box sealed in plastic and passes it to me. “Here’s another one. Do you mind if I destroy that one?”

I pass it to him.

“Any electronic signal you emit within this compound will be captured and studied. If you need to contact me, send an innocuous SMS like ‘wanna meet up for breakfast’ or something similar. Don’t say or show anything in your guest suite that should remain private. If your evidence holds up, I’ll work on getting you a bug-free living space and a way to send encrypted communications. Any sensitive documents or items with you besides that amulet?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, Kyle, I’d tell you if I did.”

“OK, outside of this room, assume everything you do or say here will be monitored.”

Kyle retrieves his bug scanner from the safe.

“Turn it on for me, please,” he says, pointing to the amulet. I do.

“It’s not emitting any electromagnetic signal I can detect, but keep it under your shirt and don’t turn it on, understood?”

“Yes.”

“Show me this supposedly legit ID you have with you.”

I pass it to him. “The ID is legitimate, but I’m not. However, my legal identity was fabricated by a professional who designed it to hold up to scrutiny.”

“I’ll hold onto this for tonight,” says Kyle, studying my ID. “I’ll run my own background check before security does. They’ll definitely want to see ID if you’re going to be an ongoing guest, and they’ll run an exhaustive background check. You can also expect them to capture your fingerprints. Is there anything problematic I should know about?”

“Not as far as I know,” I say. “But your precautions sound fully warranted.”

A few minutes later, a maid leads me through silent corridors to my guest suite. My footsteps on the marble floor echo in the corridor. The space is what you might expect from a first-class hotel. It’s well-equipped, sterile, and impersonal. When the maid departs and the heavy door clicks shut, I feel like I’ve been locked into a crypt. I lie down on the king-size bed that smells of chemical detergent and picture Andrew alone in the Mothership. I try to suppress my longing to be sleeping next to him.

The first part of my mission has succeeded far better than I could have imagined. I am already in an influential position in Kyle’s life and will probably be able to align him with my main objective. Now he knows that Vaughn is an existential threat to him, and once he verifies the information on the thumb drive, the next step will be to disclose the Whip and that his adoptive father is an extinction threat to the whole species.

And yet, there’s little sense of accomplishment. What I’m feeling is the loss of Andrew, and guilt for abandoning him. I feel more alone than I’ve felt since I was sealed in the biosphere all those years ago. Only this time I’m trapped in a design of my own making .  .  .

***

That’s how my new life with Kyle began. And now, four years later, I’m not sure how much of it I want to reexperience in writing. My mission has succeeded, and yet the empty feelings I felt on that first night have only grown as days turned into weeks, months and years.

There’s been no abuse. My fear that the mission would require another physical relationship with Kyle proved groundless. We weren’t sealed in a biosphere, so Kyle had plenty of opportunities to find sex elsewhere. He’s actually treated me with careful respect the whole time, realizing that it’s in his best interests, as I have proven invaluable to him.

The sexual dynamic is completely different than it was in the biosphere. For Kyle, sex is a metaphor for power, and though I still look like the Tommy his older self was so attracted to, I am not that innocent and vulnerable Tommy. From the beginning, I established myself as a formidable ally, a martial arts teacher he could never equal, and the bearer of secret knowledge he craves. Fortunately, that’s the opposite of the power dynamic his sexuality requires.

In our new dynamic, I play other roles that Kyle values highly. He accepts me as his ally, equal, confidant, teacher, and mentor. Of course, I haven’t changed his essential nature, but I have influenced him to be a more conscious psychopath and helped him to see that his will-to-power and the fate of the species are inseparable. I’m the only person he trusts and relies on, and the value I provide is not just that I’ve helped him further his aims. Psychopaths are still social animals, and I also function as the friend and companion he’s never had, the one person he can trust and confide in.

Though I’m his equal in our tense chess-match-like dialogues, my presence moderates and calms his fiery nature in a way he needs. The one-sided masculine intensity of his energy gets to be too much, even for him. As with the other Kyle, physical proximity with me is soothing and helps him unwind. My energy— androgynous, feminine, and empathic—is the calming antidote to his. He admires my looks, values me as his complimentary opposite, and is intrigued by my essential otherness.

Kyle allows me to confront him with the blind spots and limitations of his psychopathy. He often starts by resisting my empathic insights and will get into his debater’s stance, aggressively trying to fault my perspective. But I’ve learned to hold my ground, and eventually, he incorporates my insights into his thinking, even if they don’t fundamentally alter his character.

Perhaps I’ve made this symbiotic arrangement sound easy. I can assure you, it hasn’t been. It’s been hard and constant work often pushing me to the limits of my capabilities and endurance.

There have been perilous negotiations to keep our purposes aligned. I never try to bend Kyle to my will or deceptively manipulate him. I use my understanding of his motivations and psychology to form reasoned arguments and achieve compromises and resolutions. This process has sharpened my mind, but exhausted other parts of me that long for a feeling-based relationship.

As much as I’ve tried to numb and disassociate from my longing to reconnect with Andrew, at best, I can only reduce that desire to a dull background ache when I focus on my work. But when I have no work to occupy me, the desire for Andrew can overwhelm me.

When I arrived at the compound that first night, Vaughn wasn’t present and wouldn’t be for a couple of weeks. He was in a hospital in Switzerland undergoing an experimental treatment. I dreaded the thought that I would ever encounter the Father of the Whip in person, and I explained that to Kyle. A couple of weeks later, he returned from Switzerland, and I did have to see him.

Kyle set it up as a martial arts demo, which made things easier. I felt physically ill anticipating Vaughn’s arrival at our large practice room within the compound. I dreaded the necessity of being in the same physical space as this monster who caused the extinction of humankind. Vaughn was personally responsible for the death of everyone I loved. He was not just the most evil person in human history, but the one who ended human history.

James W. Vaughn photo courtesy of Vaughn Enterprises, INC.

I was shocked when I finally saw him. Shocked by his ordinariness and meager presence, a shrunken figure in a wheelchair. He looked like an undersized corrupt businessman, with pasty, corpse-like skin, wispy hair ghoulishly dyed black and badly combed over his bald pate, and bags under his tiny, squinty eyes. The lower part of his face was covered by an oxygen mask with a hose connecting to a tank in the back of his wheelchair, but I could still make out the shape of flabby jowls and a weak chin.

I’d seen pictures, but expected an imposing, diabolical presence. Flanked by two giant bodyguards in well-fitting suits, he looked like a shrunken nobody. Thankfully, dark irony not lost on me, James Vaughn turned out to be a major germaphobe, so I didn’t have to shake his hand or approach him. All I had to do was dial back my abilities to create a martial arts demo showcasing the improvement in Kyle’s skills. To Vaughn, I was merely a prop, like a practice dummy, and that was just as we had planned.

Later, when I shared my impressions of Vaughn, Kyle laughed.

“Exactly,” Kyle said. “He’s the very embodiment of what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil. Though he originally inherited his wealth, he does have one superpower not to be underestimated. He’s one of the most cunning and vicious power players on the planet. That’s his one and only ability, but it’s enough. To other power players, his shrunken, dwarf-like appearance, combined with his reputation, is weirdly intimidating. He actually flaunts it by choosing trophy wives who are always much taller than him and show up at his side wearing stiletto heels. The long reach of his power, the companies he’s devoured, and the high-profile figures he’s destroyed, combined with his weakling physique, create a grotesque cognitive dissonance that scares the shit out of people. He’s like a brain in a vat with long tentacles.”

The martial arts demo was an intensely uncomfortable experience, but it served its purpose well. Kyle demonstrated the improvement in his skills with me as his live-in training partner, and that was enough for Vaughn to sign off on my continuing presence. He preferred to have Kyle training at his secure compound rather than leave daily to attend the jiu-jitsu school, so it was an easy ask.

Vaughn’s approval allowed us to obtain a long-term living space for me. I chose an unoccupied worker’s cabin out in the land surrounding the main compound. The physical distance was a great relief. Kyle offered to have it remodeled to my specifications, but I told him I preferred to do the carpentry work myself.

Kyle and I do an hour of sparring daily, and about five times a week, we meet up for dinner and spend time talking or watching something in his home theater afterward. Sometimes, I come to his apartment, and more rarely, he comes to my cabin so he can check it for bugs. So, most of the time, I’m alone. I make my own meals and walk to the main compound, only to report to the practice space or Kyle’s apartment.

Getting my relationship to Kyle right is much easier than when I was a young teenager trapped with him in the biosphere. I have far more experience to draw from, many more skills, and given the limited time of our interactions, I make few major missteps.

My greatest problem is not dealing with Kyle, but with myself. The isolation isn’t as traumatic as being in the biosphere, where I had suicidal meltdowns, but I still have no one to relate to but Kyle.

In the biosphere, my days were filled with necessary work in the IAB, the Intensive Agricultural Biome, caring for the animals, and maintaining the other biomes. Nothing in my life prepared me to live in isolation with so much free time and no one counting on me to do anything.

 Meet-ups with Kyle are chances to bring my A-game and be on point. But once I finished remodeling my cabin, I felt not just socially deprived but woefully underemployed.

I have no right to complain, because I chose to put myself in this situation. I knew the separation from Andrew would be painful. We had become like two halves of the same person, and now, without him, I find I am not the complete person I thought I was.

The abusive situation in the biosphere was acutely traumatic, like a stab wound, while the isolation and lack of useful employment now is more the dull ache of a long-term depression.

Worse than not having anyone around who cares for me is that besides Kyle, I have no one to care for, not even an animal. I didn’t think it would be right to adopt a cat or a dog because I considered myself in a potentially dangerous, temporary situation and couldn’t provide them with a secure life. If only a half-starved stray cat would come by. I’d nurse it back to health and find it a responsible caretaker. That would fulfill my need to care for someone while it lasted.

Something like that did happen once. A neglected six-year-old girl named Lori wandered by my cabin one day when I sat outside. Her face was dirty, and she bore all the signs of a deprived life. Her single mom worked in the laundry, and they lived in a nearby cabin. I talked to her about kid stuff, what her favorite color was, and that kind of thing, and I could see her reviving in my company just as I revived in hers. I brought out snacks, and we spent an hour or two talking about her life and interests.

When she left, there were tears in my eyes. It was a priceless moment of nurturing human contact. I hoped she might come back, but she never did. I learned from another worker that her mother had been fired, and they were gone. But workers are discouraged from engaging in conversation not directly related to their work, so I’ve made no friends here.

I had prepared for the danger of re-encountering Kyle and my high-stakes mission, but had not prepared for the boredom and isolation. I had books, but no Andrew to discuss what I read. I tried to talk myself out of the emptiness by thinking of the Friends community and the other Tommy still thriving in the Green Mountains. I thought of all the extra years of life they’d have if my mission succeeded. I considered my unhappiness selfish since my lonely existence had a potentially crucial purpose, but my lack of compassion for myself only made things worse.

I didn’t self-medicate as I’d never developed an addiction to anything except work and caretaking. But those were powerful addictions that had always been available, even in the biosphere, so I never contemplated what the withdrawal would be like.

I maintained my disciplines and was always ready, when summoned by Kyle, to bring total focus to our encounters. But otherwise, emptiness gnawed at me, and I lacked motivation to study things and work on self-improvement. When I tried to read, meditate, and practice various mind-body disciplines, I found I lacked the energy and enthusiasm to stay with them, and I reprimanded myself for that.

One day, when Kyle was away on a business trip with Vaughn, I tried imagining the future of the Friends community if we succeeded in preventing the Whip. Then, I wondered about what the space crossing was like for Jeremiah, my parallel self, and his version of my community. His description to Andrew had few details, so I tried filling them in with my imagination. This led to writing out my ideas in story form, imagining certain scenes, and playing out various scenarios.

Then, I decided to start from the beginning of their abduction and write a day-by-day account from Jeremiah’s perspective. I soon realized I was at the start of an epic because the journey they took in a space-faring biosphere occupied a full generation. The characters were the same people I grew up with, so it was easy to imagine what they’d say and do.

I was trying to compensate for my isolation by recreating my community in my imagination. It seemed little more than an indulgent crutch, a way for me to occupy time and have an opportunity to feel social connections again, if only in my imagination.

But then, the story seemed to take on a life of its own, with characters speaking and acting spontaneously, often in ways I didn’t expect or want. The writing came to feel strangely purposeful. It seemed like I was observing real life, learning things about these people, alternate versions of the Friends I’d grown up with. I witnessed their reactions to the stress of space travel and saw them changing over time, and it was not like a wish-fulfilling utopian fantasy. There were conflicts and relationships spiraling out of control, and some of those I’d idealized as a kid growing up in Vermont revealed darker sides of their characters under stress.

I came to inhabit the role of Jeremiah and experienced things through his perspective. He had difficulties to work out in his relationship with the alternate version of Andrew, and that part was particularly engrossing, even fulfilling as their intimacy grew. Their characters deepened as they struggled to keep the community together.

An ongoing source of tragic feelings was that some people, like Jeremiah and Andrew, underwent protoelf metamorphosis while others continued to age in their fully human bodies. This created envy, guilt, and complex psychological problems in those who weren’t undergoing metamorphosis and those who were.

I didn’t think I had the writing skills to create something anybody else would want to read. It was a personal experiment that seemed increasingly lifelike and purposeful. Sometimes, after a marathon writing session where I got so wrapped up I forgot to feed myself, I was sure it had become a dangerously neurotic addiction. But that was only once I was done writing. When I was in the zone, I was at the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next and eagerly transcribing dialogues between Jeremiah and Andrew and other events I witnessed.

It seemed telepathic when I’d zoom in on a character to inhabit their perspective and see through their eyes. And that always happened from the perspective of Jeremiah as he tried to understand them empathically. There was no separation from him. I was as engrossed in the complex, unfolding social dynamics within the spacefaring biosphere as he was.

At the end of my marathon writing sessions, I returned to my default reality feeling disoriented. The challenges and fulfillments of Jeremiah’s life vanished as soon as my fingers left the keyboard. Coming back from a marathon session was like taking off a VR suit after being immersed in a high-res virtual world.

Sometimes, I felt almost physically ill in the aftermath, like a deep-sea diver surfacing too quickly and getting the bends. And once I was out, I couldn’t return to that life until the following morning, because whatever it took to do those marathon writing sessions was spent, and I was emptied out.

During the rest of my day alone in the cabin, I felt like an old pensioner living a solitary life. I loved cooking meals for Andrew, and even in the biosphere, cooking for Kyle and me, I’d brought creativity and perfectionism to meal prep. But I had little enthusiasm cooking for myself and made only simple, nutritious things like oatmeal with the minimum effort necessary. My body remained youthful, but my spirit felt old and apathetic until I returned to the story where I became alive again through Jeremiah.

I got so immersed in Jeremiah’s perspective that I wondered if I was tapping into his memories. But if that were true, why was I limited to an unfolding linear time perspective? If I were actually retrieving his memories, which seemed possible given that we’re parallel versions of the same person, I should have been able to access different regions of his memory to see what was coming. But that was never possible. I could only find out what was going to happen by watching it unfold. I didn’t experience it as reliving a memory but like actual events happening in real-time.

On the other hand, most of my dreams involve weird-ups of my present and past life and Jeremiah’s world. The way it’s come to occupy my dreams suggests my unconscious is working on the story, but if I were just picking up on memory, that wouldn’t be necessary.

Usually, there’s relief when you wake up from an absurd nightmare scenario, but this morning I found that the dark feelings of the dream were too similar to how I actually feel in my present life to evaporate in the daylight.

One of these mashup dreams was particularly disturbing. It brought me painfully back to being trapped in the biosphere with Kyle. We were in the practice room for our three-minute daily martial arts contest that would determine whether or not I would have to endure sex with Kyle that day. I was determined to stay in the circle, but it was near the start of the contests, before I mastered the skills of evasion that made losses rare. Though the rules prevented him from causing serious injury, he delivered a few blows that left me bruised and with a black eye. I held on, but in the last few seconds he caught hold of my shirt and used it to drag me out of the circle.

That night was the first time I thought about killing myself, to deprive Kyle of his reward. I was back in my dorm room, and I looked out the window, but instead of seeing our farm, the Intensive Agricultural Biome, I saw the vacuum of space and stars. I didn’t realize I was dreaming –the whole background of my awareness was of being on an endless space voyage that had no destination. No habitable planet had been found, so we were just drifting aimlessly in space.

Usually, there’s relief when you wake up from an absurd nightmare scenario, but this morning I found that the dark atmosphere of the dream got mixed up with my feelings of desolation and isolation from being trapped in the Vaughn Compound, so they were hard to shake off.

Still struggling with my emotions, I had an odd vision when I opened my to work on Jeremiah’s story. The machine had been powered down the day before, so the screen didn’t spring to life but was like a glossy black mirror. I saw myself reflected in it, and for a moment it brought me back to the dream. It was like I was seeing my reflection in the porthole window of a spacecraft with only the dark vacuum of space outside. But then I saw something else—an older man with a shaved head looking back at me sympathetically from the other side of the window. He was in a dark room with antique electronics behind him–control panels with glowing meters and little red and green indicator lights. It felt like he was monitoring me and faithfully recording what I’m going through. The vision lasted for only a couple of seconds, but it was photo-realistically detailed, and I felt sure I had seen a real person who cared about my fate. It made me feel less alone.

Nearly every morning, when I get up predawn to write, waking to the mundane reality of the cabin, I doubt the magic of the story will spring to life as I feel no inspiration and have no idea what’s supposed to happen next. But once my fingers are on the keyboard, something always happens. The portal to this other life opens, and I’m as immersed in every moment as Jeremiah is. Tommy is listless, lonely, and depressed, but Jeremiah isn’t.

In the biosphere, I sometimes heard Rachel speaking in my head, and there were a few intense encounters with an inner version of Andrew. Suffering from the isolation of the cabin, I’ve tried to summon the inner “Splinter” Andrew I encountered in the biosphere, but the results were disappointing. He doesn’t have the lifelike autonomy Splinter Andrew did when he unexpectedly to me all those years ago when I desperately needed him. When I attempt to summon him now, I feel like a poor ventriloquist trying to imbue him with life. But the alternate Andrew in the space-faring biosphere feels fully real and autonomous.

When I was sealed in the biosphere, I researched DID, dissociative identity disorder, which I thought I might have given Rachel’s voice in my head, and my encounters with Splinter Andrew. Perhaps my whole fiction writing experiment is like a form of DID and a sign of mental illness.

But there are ways of justifying my experiment from the perspective of a Vehrillion principle formulated by Andrew— Imaginal creations can seed the default reality with new possibilities.

 Even without the Whip, the species is imperiled by other factors—AI, climate change, and the possibility of nuclear war. Perhaps I’m trying to compensate for the faltering species, in the way dreams can compensate for defects in the waking attitude, by creating a sci-fi story that isn’t completely dystopian and isn’t naively utopian either but that presents a socially realistic account of a struggling group of space colonists who will one day reach a habitable planet where evolutionary metamorphosis can continue.

***

Earlier today, when Kyle asked how I spent my time in the cabin, I decided to tell him about my experiment. I had a mild reservation about the disclosure, assuming he’d probably see it as an indulgent weakness, but I didn’t want to deceive him with a fabricated story of where my time was going. Even if he disparaged my experiment, it was better to model authenticity since that’s what I’ve been trying to encourage in our relationship. So, I told him.

“I think your experiment is extremely valuable, and you should definitely continue it,” says Kyle.

His reaction catches me completely off guard.

“Why?”

“It’s a great thought experiment. You’re gaming out the social problems of a small community isolated by space travel gaining empathic insights that could be useful if we can find a way to travel to another solar system, which is my goal. Social isolation is one of the key problems. Of course, we need major breakthroughs in physics and technology first.

“Rockets are embarrassingly primitive. If we have to set fire to a metal office tower filled with combustibles derived from fossil fuels, we’re not going to get anywhere worth going.

“Yeah, of course, rockets can take us to Mars, but let’s face it, Mars is such a ghetto planet. It’s cold, it’s dark, the air is poison, and we’d be lucky to find a few frozen microbes. Trying to colonize such an unsuitable place for homo Sapiens is a waste. I prefer to use my time and resources to work out more viable methods of space travel that can get us out of this one goddamned solar system.

 “Unless we can manufacture wormholes, which would take more energy than a star, we must be prepared for generational space travel. But even doing that would require a new means of propulsion. The science exists to get us past rockets, but workable technology is lagging. We need to get off planet soon before some super AI decides to knock us off the chessboard.

“The only way to do generational space travel is exactly what you’ve got going on in your story—space-faring biospheres,” says Kyle, pointing to the biosphere-equipped model spacecraft on his shelf. “But that setup is almost guaranteed to create profound psychological and social issues. All the research on socially isolated human groups, even carefully selected astronauts and cosmonauts, Antarctic explorers and terrestrial biospherians, shows them unraveling and dividing into two warring factions.

“So, an empath gaming out social dynamics is super-valuable R&D. And basing it on people you actually knew and lived with in your small community, rather than completely fabricated characters, is brilliant. I’d like you to eventually reverse engineer your story to formulate protocols and principles for keeping a space-faring community socially viable during long-term isolation.”

Kyle’s thumbs up to my strange experiment was a rare case of getting something I desperately needed from him, a crucial validation. My fear of mental illness vanished. That Kyle, someone so relentlessly practical and utilitarian, recognized value in my experiment was the affirmation I needed.

It’s kind of funny if you think about it. I got a therapeutic intervention from a genetically engineered psychopath that was quite effective. My view of myself and my life altered significantly with the news that I’m doing work that could be useful to further the off-planet survival of the species.

***

As if prompted by Kyle’s intervention, something paranormal happened after our conversation. I keep a pad of paper and a pen on my bedside table to record dreams, which are often about the story. Last night, my dreams were chaotic. I couldn’t remember any specifics, but I felt the presence of a menacing entity. When I got up, I found my pad covered with incomprehensible writing.

It resembled scientific equations with Greek symbols and numbers, along with a few schematic drawings. My handwriting was sloppy and had a jumbled appearance. I don’t know anything about scientific equations or what those symbols mean, so I showed the scribbled page to Kyle when I reported to our training space.

He stared at the paper for a full minute before canceling our training session and leading me to his apartment. He studied the paper at his desk with obvious fascination. Occasionally, he asked me to decipher a character or symbol I’d written, but I could only guess.

Finally, he looks up and says,

“These equations and schematics provide the principles and essential design of a gravitic propulsive system using divergent electrostatic fields. It has similarities to Dr. Buhler’s patents and his Exodus Drive, but purports to be far more efficient. If it works, it would allow the manufacture of a propellant-free drive able to bypass Newton’s third law and sustain itself indefinitely. In other words, it would allow for generational space travel.

“On first pass, I’m not seeing any obvious internal inconsistency in the theoretical work, but it would take a team of people to design and build a proof-of-concept device to run tests. At the very least, I can say this was not put together by an amateur and shows advanced knowledge of electrostatics and field-effect propulsion. Where do you think this information came from?”

“I don’t know Kyle, but I have a disturbing guess. I don’t recall any specifics of my dreams last night, but I sensed the presence of a menacing entity. I’ve told you a little about Viealetta and her interventions to preserve her host species. It would be in her interests for homo Sapiens to colonize another planet to hedge her bet on our surviving on Earth. A bet that looks riskier every day.

“It certainly doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the information was given to someone who could pass it along to you, a technologist with space-colonizing ambitions who will inherit a financial empire and many advanced technology companies.”

“That part is certainly noncoincidental,” says Kyle. “But maybe you can do me a favor?”

“That would depend on what it is,” I reply cautiously.

“Next time you get a download of scientific information that could dramatically change the future of human civilization, try to print more clearly.”

***

It’s only been a week since my download, and there’s been an even more dramatic development.

Other than our scheduled daily training sessions, meet-ups with Kyle were always preceded by a text. Usually, I was being summoned to his apartment, but on the rarer occasions that he came to my cabin, he always announced his intention with a text. So, it was a breach of our long-established custom when Kyle showed up at my cabin this evening dressed formally in a black suit and black button-down shirt open at the collar.

“Good evening, Tommy,” says Kyle when I open the door. I’m thrown off balance by his unexpected arrival. I was in the introverted, lonely part of my day, wearing worn house clothes. In every other encounter, I had time to get into my Kyle mode, focused, amped up, and prepared for a high-stakes encounter. If Kyle intended me to be in a more vulnerable state, he’s succeeded, but I try not to show it.

“Come in,” I say. “What’s with the all-black outfit?”

Kyle doesn’t answer at first, but comes in and looks around like a police detective, wanting to see the state of my home when I’m not expecting a visit. Everything is neat and clean as always. Kyle completes his inspection, and then he produces his bug detector and gives my place a quick scan.

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” asks Kyle, grinning.

He seems altered in a dangerous way. He’s glowing with power. I’m in my evening doldrums, so my fire is low while he’s burning so brightly, and I mean that literally. At the edge of visibility, I perceive sheets of plasmic fire around him. I’m intimidated, but I keep my expression in neutral as I shift to slowtime to be more aware of what’s happening, sensing danger.

“Heard what, Kyle?”

 His Jack o’ Lantern grin is unnerving.

“I’m dressed in black because I’m in mourning, grieving the loss of my dear adoptive father,” says Kyle, laughing. “I thought you might want to know that your mission has succeeded.”

Kyle steps closer to me, invading my personal space in a way that carries a threatening, sexual undercurrent. Instinctively, I portray a relaxed and unsurprised state.

“Can I get you something to drink, Kyle? I could make tea.”

“Tea?” says Kyle derisively. “This occasion calls for something better than tea.” He takes an engraved silver flask from his jacket pocket. “Like sixty-year-old Macallan Valerio Adami.

Just a tiny part of the liquidity I’ve inherited. Hopefully, you have a couple of clean glasses?”

I step away from him to retrieve the glasses, which I set on my small kitchen table. We sit. Kyle pours a small amount of amber liquid into each of them. I assume it’s insanely expensive Scotch, one of Kyle’s few vices. But I’ve never seen this version of him intoxicated.

He’s more of a connoisseur than a drinker. He’s served me valuable Scotch once before, telling me the whole history of the particular single malt he won at an auction. He seemed to relish its smell and flavor. I think for Kyle, rare single malts taste like money, the high price imbuing them with all these subtle overtones and aftertastes he read in Sotheby’s catalogs. To me, it tasted more like iodine, but to be fair, alcohol doesn’t mix well with protoelf metabolism.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” Kyle says with a sinister smirk, “in honor of the passing of dear old Vaughn. May the silence of the grave absorb the terror of his final moments.”

I nod, and deadpan, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

We clink glasses, and I take a careful sip. Slowtime helps me detect the complexity of flavors, and it’s certainly smoother and tastier than the iodine one. Every sip is probably worth more than what my community could have produced in a month.

“Natural causes?” I ask cautiously. I knew that Vaughn’s health had taken a serious downturn recently.

“Of course,” says Kyle. “But natural is a meaningless term. Anything made by man is as natural as a beehive. They’re just different cases of terrestrial organisms transducing raw materials into an artifact. This Scotch is a natural product of fermentation, exquisitely manipulated by human distillers. Another expensive and exquisite natural product of human ingenuity is the tiny aerosol manufactured by the Mossad that can induce a heart attack without leaving a chemical trace. Ounce for ounce, it was more expensive than this Scotch, but the return on that investment is—” Kyle pauses as if he’s trying to calculate an exact figure, “well, several million percent at least.”

“I see,” I reply neutrally.

It’s not like there’s any love lost between me and Vaughn, but Kyle’s gloating feels dangerous, and I’m shocked by the news. As far as I know, this is the first time Kyle has killed someone, and that’s a dangerous line for a psychopath to cross. Maybe, like Scotch, it will become a new acquired taste.

“I assume you were able to do something about the Whip?” I ask.

Kyle laughs.

“Of course, it’s been irradiated and rendered harmless. Perk up, Tommy, your mission is a complete success. Not only did I finish it for you, I did it with style. It was a very slight risk, but I set things up so I could tell dear old dad that I’d penetrated his secret plan for me.

“‘Instead of you inheriting my body, daddy, I decided I preferred to inherit every single thing you own,’ I said as I took his gold Montblanc pen from his desk and put it in my pocket.

‘You’re starting to feel the effects of my special sauce now, aren’t you? So glad to be with you to savor your final moments before you plummet into everlasting nonexistence.’”

 “He was still fully conscious at that point, but sadly unable to provide any final words, just some disgusting gasping. But I’ll always treasure the look of terror in his bulging eyes.”

I manage, barely, to keep any expression from my face, but my heart is racing, and in every cell of my body, I feel the lethal danger of Kyle. He’s confessing to assassination, so maybe he intends to poison me next. He senses my fear but misinterprets it.

“Don’t worry, Tommy. I said I took a very slight risk. The odds of my being caught are a thousand to one. From Vaughn’s office, he can surveil everything in the compound, but there are no cameras or microphones monitoring him and his dirty-dealing phone calls. And even if there were, I delivered the tiny, but lethal, puff of aerosol with a bit of practiced prestidigitation that even someone standing nearby wouldn’t have detected.

“All the security here are now my employees, and they know it. I’m the guy who will cut their next paycheck, and everybody detested Vaughn. Even if they have suspicions, they’ll look the other way. There will be an uneventful autopsy. Yeah, that his heir was the one to summon medical help will be noticed, but the death by verified natural causes of a terminally ill man is not going to motivate an investigation. And no one wants to upset markets by interfering with a succession plan.”

“So, nothing to worry about, Tommy. So long as you continue to serve my best interests, you’re under my protection. Obviously, I trust you, or I wouldn’t have shared the details of my great loss. You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted, and that’s part of your irreplaceable value.

“You never ask for much,” says Kyle, indicating the few possessions in my cabin, “but I can compensate you with anything you might ever want. I suppose it’s a slight risk that you know things like what I shared tonight, but, as I said, I trust you. Of course, I can’t risk you falling into the wrong hands, so I must ensure you remain under my protection indefinitely, an obvious precaution.

 “Now that the compound is Vaughn-free, I’m assuming you don’t have any objection to being set up in a spacious apartment in that more secure setting. I know you don’t share my tastes for the finer things, but anything you want is yours for the asking. If you want your apartment to have a rustic look with Indian blankets and raw wood paneling, or whatever, I’ll ensure everything is exactly to your liking.

“You’re my most valuable human asset, Tommy, and I want you safe and well rewarded. Meanwhile, I’ve got an infinite to-do list I need to get back to in a few minutes. You can’t imagine how many things I’ve got to deal with during this transition, and going forward, I will continue to have to make every second count.

“As of today, I’m just one of the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet, but thanks to the gift of your NASDAQ thumb drive and the wealth I can now invest, it shouldn’t take more than a year or two for me to be at the top of the Fortune 500. Of course, I expect the predictive power of what’s on your thumb drive will be somewhat distorted once I buy in quantity, but it should still give me an edge over any other investor on the planet.

“I’ll still be calling on you for daily training sessions and intuitive counsel. And, please, keep a pad of paper by your bedside table. What you gave me last week is even more valuable than the thumb drive. In fact, I think it’s going to prove the most valuable artifact in human history.”

Kyle finally stops speaking to study me. My heart is still racing, but I’ve kept my face expressionless, and Kyle seems disappointed. He’s puzzled and trying to read me. He expected me to be enthusiastic about the success of my mission and what he considers the improvement of my fortunes. But all I feel is walls closing in.

He expects me to be his permanent captive, too valuable and too much of a risk to let me ever leave his “protection.”

 

From Kyle’s perspective, that’s the only sensible possibility, but stupidly, I hadn’t foreseen what now seems obvious. If I’m ever to escape, I can’t afford to show that’s my desire. I have no choice but to deceive him.

“Tommy?” Kyle prompts.

He actually looks concerned as well as puzzled.

“I thought you’d be pleased that I’ve accomplished your mission, but you look worried. What is it?”

“Oh, sorry,” I say, shaking myself out of impassivity and slowtime. “I’m just in shock from the news. It’ll take me a while to process.” I force myself to smile. “And you know I don’t metabolize alcohol well. I’m fine. I guess I should be congratulating you on your new status. And, yeah, you just saved the whole species. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around. It’s so massive and unexpected.”

“No worries,” says Kyle. “And listen, give yourself credit. I didn’t save the whole species, we did. If not for you, I wouldn’t have known about Vaughn’s plan. Besides the whole species, you contributed to saving my life and ensuring my success. And that scribbled page you gave me last week is the single most valuable object in the world. You deserve any reward you might wish for, and there are few rewards I can’t provide.

“I’ve got to get back to the compound, but here’s what I want you to do. I’ve never understood why you choose to live like you’re under a vow of poverty. Start making a list of things you want for a better quality of life. You’re not just under my protection, Tommy, I consider myself responsible for your entire well-being, and you should claim the compensation you so well deserve. Your mission is accomplished, and I want you to enjoy your life more.”

Kyle stands and offers me his hand.

“Thanks Kyle,” I say as we shake, “and once again, congratulations.”

I remain standing after he leaves. I really am in shock. Kyle doesn’t even realize the captivity he’s sentenced me to. I’d measured out my secrets to avoid mention of Andrew or anything I wanted outside of the mission. From his perspective, there’s no change in my conditions, only opportunity for greater luxury.

Once he was done gloating and turned his attention to me, I was actually getting the psychopath’s version of generous concern. It was the most explicit confirmation I’ve ever gotten of my efforts to achieve respectful civility between us. He wasn’t menacing me—he was understandably reveling in his newfound power and wealth. I was frightened by his sadistic satisfaction seeing the terror in Vaughn’s eyes, a horrifying image.

 But why wouldn’t a psychopath be sadistic to a man who had created him so he could harvest his body? Why wouldn’t he want Vaughn’s death to be as cruel and unusual as possible? If anything, he showed restraint, which was no doubt to minimize risk.

Everything Kyle is doing makes perfect sense from his perspective, including my ongoing protective custody. My work to restrain Kyle’s aggression to align our purposes has just received its greatest success. It wasn’t love, but Kyle actually did seem concerned and sincere in wanting me to take greater reward and enjoyment.

Then I realize something else I hadn’t thought of that falls on me like the weight of the whole world.

My mission with Kyle might never be over. If I bent my whole mind to it, I could probably find a way to escape, but that would be a selfish and immoral choice. I’m in a position to moderate and advise someone who will soon be the wealthiest and most powerful person on earth. Someone who has saved the species from extinction and may do so again by enabling it to colonize outside the solar system. What work could I ever do that would equal the moral imperative to be a benign influence on Kyle? What if, without my influence, Kyle became as evil as Vaughn? I’d be responsible. There’s no ethical way to justify escape. I’m trapped.

My mission is a success, but the result for me is devastating. I hoped completing the mission would free me to return to Andrew, but Kyle and the human species are fatefully entangled. It is not Kyle holding me captive—my own conscience binds me to remain in his service. I no longer have a right to a life of my own.

I stagger to my bed, curl up in a fetal position, and the tears I’d held back for so long finally come. A bitter, self-pitying cry racks me and my body shudders with loss.

I’m sorry, Andrew. I’m sorry, I keep thinking through my sobs, until eventually, I surrender to the dark undertow of sleep.

Twelve

Max’s Journal

My conversation with Tommy ended with the amazing discovery that we’ve both encountered Andrew. At least now I know his name, and Tommy’s impressions of him are consistent with the older version I encountered in the airport, though he seemed perfectly healthy, and I saw no signs of his having been horribly burned in a car accident. The temporal anomalies add another level of incomprehensibility to our strange situation.

I’m caught in a whirlpool of mystery and metamorphosis, struggling to find a place to stand. I, or the person I was before Tommy, was an analyzer of facts—financial metrics, design specifications for my home base, etc.—and I used those concrete facts to make decisions. I assumed that my analytical abilities had given me a high degree of control over my life.

And yet, my greatest success, my ability to predict market fluctuations, also depended on intuition. My mind alone cannot analyze the mysteries revealed in Tommy’s journal and the metamorphosis triggered by his presence. Like Tommy, I need to navigate more by intuition than analysis to cope with this situation.

Now that I’m relying on the market projections I get daily from the one who calls himself Adrian, my mind’s been freed to focus on the mysteries, but it’s hard to know where to begin.

I’m caught in a strange fate, and yet I don’t know what the word “fate” even means. Deep intentional patterns beyond rational comprehension? That we both encountered this enigmatic person, Andrew, haunts me, and yet the meaning of it is impenetrable. What am I to make of the time anomalies? Tommy encountered him only a couple of weeks ago, and he appeared to be another fifteen-year-old. And yet, when I encountered him at an airport five years ago, he seemed closer to twenty. Is he a time traveler or someone from a parallel timeline?

Adrian said we’re part of an experiment in evolutionary metamorphosis. Possibly, there’s an unconscious telepathic network drawing metamorphic mutants together. That’s the only causal mechanism I can think of. And Adrian is his own anomaly, someone able to break into my highly secure network and casually deposit a million Euros into my Credit Suisse account to establish good faith.

Adrian seems to know far more than we do. How long has he been surveilling and manipulating me? And if Tommy’s encounter with Alex is to be believed, there is a powerful parasitic entity named Viealetta also manipulating our evolutionary experiment.

Rather than being in control, my destiny is being shaped by behind-the-curtain entities. And beyond the shock of that revelation, I, Max, am no longer the person I was only a few days ago.

Intuition is telling me to work with what is presently within my direct influence—my relationship with Tommy. He is the most definite force in my life right now. He’s not behind a curtain. He’s visible from my office window, working in the intense heat and humidity, building teak bookshelves for my office. He’s taken off his shirt to deal with the heat, and it’s hard to look away from the sight of him, like an angel with his long, golden hair and brilliant green eyes —a honey and emerald burst of color with high muscle definition beneath his glistening skin.

I desire him, but no longer in any simple physical way, especially after the strange state in the hot tub that began with prolonged eye contact and turned into a massive exchange of energy. My sense of myself as a person separate from Tommy dissolved.

Tommy’s presence is changing me in ways I struggle to understand and keep up with. Even up here in the saucer tower, the telepathic channel between us tingles, though I pick up no specific thoughts.

Tommy is a benign and considerate person who appears nonthreatening, yet he is a threat. Without meaning to, his very presence has disrupted my most essential equilibrium—my sense of myself, my identity. Strange and intentional patterning has brought me a complementary opposite—an altruistic empath. He’s innocent, humble, gentle, considerate, and sweet. Though all those qualities are perfectly authentic, he’s also a potent mutagen, changing the very core of my being. Such a thing shouldn’t even be possible, but it is.

Nevertheless, I’m thoroughly addicted to this mutagenic being and I’d do anything to protect Tommy and keep him with me.

He’s so open—he let me read his whole journal, while I dare not even admit to having one. He’d be horrified if he saw its contents. Tommy does not deceive, manipulate, or seek power, but instead devotes himself to working for me. Since I saved his life, he believes he owes me “infinite work,” as he put it. While I sit here encapsulated in my air-conditioned office, he’s out there sweating on my behalf. Nothing in my life has prepared me to know how to relate to such a self-sacrificing empath.

Whatever social skills I have are all based on control and manipulation. But in his tuned-in way, Tommy would see through such means. Even more disorienting is that I’ve lost the desire to use such means on him.

Adrian told me to respect Tommy as an equal, but that advice was unnecessary. I do not choose to perceive him as an equal, no more than I choose to perceive the sun as emitting light and heat. This is part of how, without intending to, he has shattered my old identity based on my superiority to others.

Tommy is an unprecedented creature. A symbiont who, by his very nature, transforms my nature to serve our symbiosis. I have become merely an ingredient in an evolutionary experiment over which I have no control.

From the first night, consoling a traumatized Tommy, I’ve felt intense sympathy for him, and a desire to be his protector. I feel like that T-800 Terminator with the Austrian accent sent to kill another fifteen-year-old boy, John Conner, but who was then reprogrammed to serve and protect him even if he has to sacrifice himself. And yet, I do not want to change this fundamental reprogramming because it makes me feel more alive than I ever have before.

Tommy has opened new dimensions of experience for me, and my world would flatten and lose color without him. He’s uncannily beautiful, his tanned skin radiates health and vitality, especially compared to my pale complexion. His whole being is aglow with wholesome colors. Even his weathered clothing seems imbued with inner light.

Even harder to convey in words is that he glows in a way that seems “mythic.” Another incomprehensible word like “fate” that I’m compelled to use. From the first moment I encountered Tommy, he lit up like a storybook character, a young hero on a deeply meaningful adventure.

But—what nonsense I’ve just written—what does any of that actually mean? How can I make such perceptions rational and comprehensible?

It’s like in a movie where a key protagonist is selected for a special destiny. A skillful filmmaker will make such a lead player light up in the audience’s perception. Elijah Wood as Frodo in the first of the Lord of the Rings films is a good example. Other hobbits milling about in the background seem silly and insignificant, but through clever casting, acting, and various film techniques, Frodo is lit up by a mythic spotlight. Like Tommy, he’s altruistic, self-sacrificing, and emotional. Perhaps the gestalt of all these qualities makes Tommy seem alive in a mythic way.

My former life path as an unabashed predatory capitalist does not seem particularly mythic. Have I been conditioned by ancestral Christianity and Germanic mythologies to view a young hero with self-sacrificing altruism, depth of feeling, empathy, and commitment to serve a difficult destiny as more significant?

I grew up contemptuous of Christianity, even though my thoroughly mercantile and secular parents never exposed me to religion. No mythologies were imposed on me, though I’ve avidly listened to Wagner’s Ring Cycle and absorbed collective mythologies through films. Despite my conscious attitude, perhaps I’ve been successfully conditioned to see one who seeks power and money as inferior to a virtuous young hero.

I’ve thought of myself as a rational being immune to the effects of such mythic delusions, but what if they have conditioned me to make Tommy seem larger than life while I seem a pale shadow by comparison?

Perhaps ancestral conditioning is a factor, but such a reductive explanation does not satisfy my intuitive truth sense. I think the greater aliveness I perceive is just him, Tommy, an essential aspect of him, like his glow, that my mind can’t break down into constituent parts to comprehend.

I am mesmerized by Tommy’s aliveness, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He’s my magical elixir and kryptonite. The old Max seems too hollow and lacking to exist in the same space as Tommy. Although Tommy seeks no power over me, the stronger charge of his life energy dominates the flow of energy between us, exposing my identity as fragile. I fear the shattering of identity he brings, and yet my desire to be near him is even stronger than my fear. I feel like a caterpillar squirming in its chrysalis as imaginal cells invade and predominate.

The metamorphosis Tommy has catalyzed is uncomfortable, but the paradox is that I’m comforted by his presence. I never wanted to eat my parents’ food, but I love to eat everything Tommy makes, and I enjoy eating with him. He is looking out for my well-being and trying to take care of me with everything he does. I never expected, or even wanted, this sort of care from a companion or anyone. In the past, I would have considered anyone attempting to care for me in such a way as contemptible weakness in them and in me if I accepted it. And yet, I’m willing to receive such attentions from Tommy, and must admit that it is a pleasing experience.

Even as I type, I monitor Tommy from another screen, a security camera zoomed in on him. He’s securing a completed bookcase to a handcart with bungee cords. And now he is wheeling it toward the elevator.

I’m tired of ruminating. I will go to meet him.

***

I’m waiting by the elevator door when it opens. Tommy is still shirtless but doesn’t seem self-conscious of his revealed beauty. In general, he seems not unaware of his looks but lacks any vanity about them. He’s simply comfortable in his body, another quality I envy.

I help clear the path to where the bookcase needs to go in my office. Once it’s securely in place, I study his work.

“Tommy, the quality of this is stunning. Perhaps it’s because I saw it begin as raw lumber, and somehow, through sawdust flying from power tools, the application of stain and varnish, and in such little time, it’s become a beautifully finished, permanent object.”

“Thanks, Max,” says Tommy smiling, “it’s always satisfying to see a project come together. I’m glad you like it.”

“I do, it’s perfect,” I say.

“Well,” says Tommy, running his hand across a shelf, “no piece of wooden furniture is ever actually perfect, not in the way that something made from perfectly consistent materials could be. The goal is to make it to the standard I was trained in.

“Every piece of wood has so many natural variations, but we try to work with those. Once a tree becomes wood, it’s no longer considered alive, but it still changes, and I think of it as a living material. It’s woven of hollow tubes that breathe. Sunlight and air will change its color, and it expands and contracts in response to changes in humidity. This bookcase was made in high humidity, but I took that into account, so these joints should remain tight even as it contracts in the air-conditioning.

“I was also trained to follow a Japanese principle called  Kagami-ita. We align the wood so that the direction it was growing when it was a tree is honored. So if a board was cut vertically from a trunk, we orient it so that the bottom of the tree is at the bottom of what we build, the top toward the top. It’s a way of honoring the energetic flow, the chi of the original tree. Letting what rises rise. Also, by keeping the wood in its original orientation, it is less likely to warp and deform over time. It makes the structure stronger and more durable.”

“Spoken like a true master craftsman,” I say.

“Thanks, Max,” Tommy says with a smile. “Are you hungry? I could get started on dinner.”

“No, I’m not quite hungry yet, and I should work out first,” I reply.

“OK, well, I’m going to go back out and do some more work then. Let me know when you’re done exercising. And—if you have a minute, I wanted to tell you something.”

“Of course, Tommy.”

“Well, reflecting on everything that happened last night, I just wanted to say that I’m open to a physical relationship with you. I think it could be good for both of us. I don’t have any experience with . . . being intimate in that way. But I’m sure I can learn—I mean, it’s not rocket science after all,” says Tommy, laughing.

I’m stunned by his announcement and the casual, easy way he presented it. Though I’m thrown off balance, I manage to say,

“Well, thank you, Tommy. I would love that. I—am inexperienced as well—but as you say, it is not rocket science, so I’m sure we will figure it out.”

“Great,” says Tommy cheerfully. “We could even try something this evening if you want. Can I give you a hug?”

“Of course,” I say, still stunned, “I would like that.”

Tommy hugs me, only this time, he’s shirtless and holds me tighter. The sensation is—well, amazing. When we break apart, Tommy gives me a dazzling smile. Then he departs to continue his work outside.

I stand still, watching him walk back to the elevator, my heart racing. He’s opened another dimension between us. I could tell he sensed my fear of rejection when he brought up the attraction last night, and I so uncomfortably admitted to it. His announcement sounded casual, but he’d obviously thought it through. Out of consideration for my discomfort, he opened such an immense possibility in a purposely friendly, cheerful, and confident way to put me at ease.

Once Tommy has decided on the right course of action, he devotes himself completely to it. But does he actually want this?

Maybe I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say. He said he thought it would be really good for both of us with such confidence. I just hope I don’t disappoint him.

The memory of Tommy’s cheerful smile and the way he hugged me, eases my nerves and fills me with hopeful anticipation.

Tommy is like an unfolding world of wonders.

***

At dinner, Tommy is more cheerful and talkative than usual. It’s genuine, but also a purposeful choice and act of thoughtful consideration.

He is so innocent and wholesome, words I’ve never applied to anyone. But he’s also someone never to be underestimated. Despite my pride, I’d be a fool not to admit that he is as skillful in handling me as he is with carpentry. He is working to put me at ease, but it doesn’t feel manipulative because his intentions are good, and his means are so graceful. He’s as deft with me as he is with wood, working with my imperfections in a natural, even playful way that hides the underlying skill.

Tommy’s intuitive forethought is only visible with discerning reflection. He applies his Max craft in smooth and subtle ways so that my pride and need for control are not offended. The social skill he employs to make a situation that is unprecedented for both of us appear casual and relaxed only makes me admire him more.

***

We follow our usual custom and report to the hot tub after dinner. This time, when I watch him walking toward it, he’s smiling and has already loosened his limbs into an easy gait. I am sitting up and alert, my heart racing, but when Tommy gets in, he lies back in the bubbling water, his head resting on the ledge of ceramic tiles, exposing his long and graceful neck.

“Ah, I needed this,” he says, turning to look at me. “May I sit close to you?”

“Sure,” I reply. He does, and then he puts his arm around me and says, “I like you Max. You’re such a unique and interesting person, and I am so grateful for you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. I owe you my life. You’re the only other anomaly I’ve met in person, and I like that we’re equally strange and unusual– it takes away my feeling of being alone and set apart. I’m always learning from you, and I’m fascinated by all your differences. And . . . I’m excited to—figure things out with you,” he adds laughing.

I can tell he’s a little nervous beneath his casual demeanor, but he’s making an admirable effort to hide it to put me at ease.

“Well,” I say cautiously, “perhaps we should talk about—like maybe about what is permissible or impermissible and things like that?”

“Sure,” says Tommy. “I’ve watched a few videos just to familiarize myself with what guys do with each other, and I’m open to trying any of the—usual things. I guess if you have something unusual in mind, I might need to hear about it first, but I have an intuition that—well, you’ve said a few times you like to be in control of situations, and I don’t mind if you want to take the initiative or direct me, I think I’d like that too, so I won’t have to worry that I’m doing anything—unwanted,” says Tommy.

He seems relaxed, but I notice him taking care to avoid prolonged eye contact to avoid triggering another paranormal episode. When he speaks next, he is a little less casual and sounds serious and reflective.

“This is totally new to me, too, Max. So, let’s allow ourselves to be a little nervous and take things slow until we’re more comfortable. But I sort of—explored my feelings today—trying to figure out what I want and what I’d be willing to try—and I think my thing is—well, you’ve probably seen it—it’s like my main quality—I like to please people, so, if I learn what pleases you . .

“And I felt good today, thinking about how things could work out between us. At first, when I realized you were attracted, I was confused and unsure how I felt. But after we brought it into the open last night, I felt much less confused. And today, the more I thought about it, the better it felt. Grown-ups sometimes complimented my looks, but it was more like what you expect to hear as a kid. You’re the first person close to my age to actually say they were attracted to me, so that was a new and exciting thing. To know something was possible. Does any of that make sense?”

I take a deep breath before answering.

“It makes perfect sense. . . and those other things you said . . .  about being adaptable . . .  well, it’s logically consistent with your being an empath and a people pleaser—”

I pause, feeling stupid for using a phrase like “logically consistent” to talk about sex.

I need to speak more casually.

“Your sudden interest in me—in that way—it sounds almost too good to be true, Tommy.”

“I mean . . . I guess I knew, as an empath you must sense my attraction . . . but it seemed an uncomfortable tension between us . . . it never occurred to me that you could find it . . . exciting. It sounds almost too good to be true, Tommy.”

I freeze up as I realize my statement implies something I didn’t intend.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have put it that way. I don’t mean to imply it isn’t true—but theory and practice—”

 

Damnit, how can I stop myself from talking this way?

“Well, what I mean, Tommy, is that the first time trying something—some things I imagine are more like an acquired taste and—well, if something I might want to do—if you should find it is not pleasing—”

“I will speak up, Max. You’re right, and I’m glad you said that. I’m obviously naïve and should’ve thought to say it myself. Thank you. But I interrupted you. Sorry. Is there something else you wanted to say?”

“No, I think we have a good basis—a good understanding. Would you—”

I was about to ask Tommy if he’d like to get out of the hot tub. It’s a warm and humid night, and there are mats and beach blankets in the gazebo. But then I remember that he expressed a preference for me to take control and initiate, so I stop myself from asking and put my right hand on his chest, wanting to feel his heartbeat. His heart is racing too, and I keep my hand there and . . . waves of intoxication run through me. Tommy surrenders himself to being touched. He’s so yielding and open and . . .

Well, I am not so stupid as to think that a German can write erotica. I’ll just say that we kissed, and then things went on from there, and soon we were lying together on the mats, and there was no need to rush into any—major things—at first because it was ecstatically intoxicating to be intimate in any way with Tommy.

I felt his empathic talent for lovemaking like a flower that was just waiting to blossom. He was so warm and welcoming—there was no possibility of awkwardness with someone so gracefully supple and willing. Possibilities, fantasies I had about being with him unfolded into amazing actualities so naturally, Tommy so attuned and adaptable to my feelings, that I could make no misstep. He knew what I wanted almost before I did and . . .

Well, I’m past my ability with words, so I’ll just say that it was the most . . . ecstatic and wonderful experience of my life.

I am no longer in the same reality, nor am I the same person I was before we made love.

It was certainly not, as I feared, like Tommy enduring an ordeal for my benefit. So, I think it is reasonable to assume that I was . . . satisfactory. Much as my pride would like to credit myself, I know it was Tommy’s empathic talent that made what should have been a nervous and awkward experiment into something that unfolded so fluidly and naturally, blossoming with molten colors in the summer night.

The simultaneity of orgasm—something I know is hard for two males to achieve—merged us into a crescendo of rainbow fireworks that seemed to light up the world and was probably visible from outer space.

And now I am just—well, I am still rational enough to recognize that oxytocin has taken over my higher functioning. I must have lost a couple hundred IQ points, because there is no room in my mind for anything but Tommy. If anyone tried to hurt him or come between us, I would explode into murderous crimes of passion. What I feel for him . . . it’s a kind of divine madness, one I couldn’t choose to wake myself from any more than I could choose to interrupt an orgasm to look at railway timetables.

The Max I once was, is gone, incinerated in the pyrotechnical fury of polychromatic fireworks. At some point, I will need to regain my reason and functioning, but for now, in the afterglow of what we discovered, I am overwhelmed. I am infatuated. I am possessed. I am . . .  in love with Tommy.

Thirteen

Tommy’s Journal

I need to start writing again because there’s been a major development. My relationship with Max has become physical, and it seemed to work out well, better than I imagined.

So many disturbing things happened the night before. We had our first argument, and then we had a UFO sighting, and more conflict, and for some reason, I decided to finally bring Max’s attraction into the open. He admitted it, and I was disturbed when I sensed his intense fear of rejection, but didn’t know what to do. Then we had a paranormal experience, a much more chaotic version of what I experienced with Andrew, which left Max shaken to his core. That’s when I realized my presence is triggering a metamorphosis in him that threatens his stability.

Then I had another paranormal experience in the middle of the night, encountering Alex. And this morning, I made another risky move, deciding to let Max read my journal.

We were both overwhelmed by all these developments, but especially Max. While I worked outside yesterday, I was anxious about our relationship. Of all the things that happened, my intuition focused on Max’s fear of rejection. I sensed something dangerous about it. If it kept eating at him, it would threaten the whole evolutionary experiment. I realized the obvious way I could shift that, but it felt like more than I could handle.

And yet, the more I thought about it and explored it with my feelings, the more strangely confident I became that I could handle it, and that it would probably be good for both of us. I’ve lost everyone I love, and I don’t think Max has ever gotten love from anyone. Why shouldn’t I give him physical love if that’s what he needs from me?

In my former life, I was immersed in love and physically affectionate with people, mostly through hugs, which seemed to be appreciated. I had no experience with sex, but how hard could it be? Most people figure it out, so why wouldn’t I?

Experimentally, I tried fantasizing about how that could happen with Max, and I began to feel strangely confident that I could please him. Once I made the decision to offer that, I felt better and was less anxious.

 Of course, I realized Max, someone so unloved and not fully in his body, would probably be nervous and awkward. I felt nervous and awkward about it, too, even though I was loved. I knew I’d have to suppress my nerves and be as calm and reassuring as possible. Maybe the best thing would be to admit being nervous and awkward, too, so we could find common ground with that. Finally, I decided to bring up my openness to getting physical in a positive, casual way, like it was a fun possibility I was ready for. I didn’t feel perfectly ready, of course, but I’d just have to deal with whatever difficulties came up in the moment.

And then, starting in the hot tub—well, it did work out, and far better than I expected, and it was good for both of us. I feel like a more complete person discovering I can fulfill someone that way, and like I thought, that’s what fulfills me, and I’d be happy to do it again. Feeling how much he needed me and that I could give him what he needed was so beautiful.

Finding a new form of love has helped me embrace this strange new life and given me a sign that our evolutionary experiment is working.

But it’s not like I’m feeling all honeymoon or anything. I’ve been trying to move past it, but I know I’ll never be done grieving for everyone I lost. Part of me feels guilty for finding love with someone else so soon. But I also realize this is part of the mission I was chosen for, and there is no way to go back or bring the others back.

Love means looking for ways and chances for it to exist. Looking for it even after you’ve survived the destruction of a whole world. Max is the only person I’ve got, and I owe him as much love as I can find within myself to give.

I’m pretty sure having sex with him was the right thing to do. Max still seems overwhelmed, but in a different way, I don’t fully understand. It’s like he doesn’t know who he is anymore, now that he’s received love from someone.

At breakfast, he was quiet and seemed confused about how to act and be with me now that we’d had sex. At first, I thought the best thing was to act like I didn’t notice his confused state and to just be cheerful and casual about everything. But then I realized that wasn’t enough, I was back to tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. So, when we got up from breakfast I said,

“Hey Max, I feel really great about last night, and I’m excited to continue this new part of our relationship, if you are.”

“Yes, thank you . . .” he said awkwardly.

It was obvious he was at a loss for words, so I just hugged him tightly and held on to him, but his body wouldn’t relax so I whispered, “just breath with me, Max,” and I held on until he did. After a few long breaths, his body relaxed into mine, letting me take some of his weight, as he rested his head on my shoulder.

I think Max is going to be fine, he just needs some help to calm down from the shock of everything we’ve just been through. I’m in shock too, but I’m in a more secure place with it than Max.

So, I’m just going to act a little more relaxed and confident about things than I actually am, so Max won’t be anxious about our relationship. I need to give him time and support to stabilize and get used to the changes. Like Dorothy said, “time heals all wounds.”

And it’s not just an act, I do feel better about things. I even sense the older version of me approving of what I’ve accomplished. I’m confident I did something good for Max, allowing the relationship to be physical. I’m sure that with practice, now that we’ve broken the ice, I will get better at giving him the love he needs. And that will be fulfilling for me. Max just needs time to get used to love as a normal and healthy part of life.

I know Max is still not comfortable with love, the kind I grew up with. It’s like part of him wants it, but part of him is afraid of it, too.

Max needs love, so maybe once he gets enough to become healthy, he’ll experience it as something much more than sex. That’s my hope.

But the truth is, Max is not the only one struggling with their metamorphosis. I am no longer the person I was just a couple of weeks ago. I’m not discovering love for the first time, but I am struggling to find it in a situation I could never have imagined.

Sometimes, I act and write in this journal as if I’m more confident and positive than I actually am. But I need that to keep going.

In my deepest self, I feel like a boy lost in a dark forest on a stormy night, holding a candle with a sputtering flame. Despite all the terrible darkness in the world, I need a way to keep what really matters alive.

Fourteen

Tommy’s Journal

I haven’t updated this journal for almost a year. It’s hard to motivate myself, but I should catch this account up with what’s been happening.

With the timely death of Vaughn and Kyle’s assumption of power, a new era began for both of us. Our purposes aligned sufficiently for Kyle to achieve his main objectives, as well as the central purpose of my mission, which was to eliminate the Whip as an extinction threat to the species.

But one part of my mission remains and still holds me in a powerful ethical imperative—the need for me to moderate the potentially destructive effects of Kyle’s psychopathy. Though I long to be free of this situation, I must remain responsible for what I helped set in motion. I played a crucial role, saving Kyle from Vaughn’s diabolical intentions, and decisively contributed to his trajectory toward becoming the wealthiest and potentially most powerful person on the planet.

Though he’s not the head of a superpower nation-state, with the exponential evolution of AI and computational biology, technological corporations have become powers whose effect on the future of the species is more potent than that of nations.

Some force, likely Viealetta, used me to transcribe secrets of interstellar travel, and not realizing the significance of what I’d scribbled on my bedside writing pad, I gave it to Kyle. But even if I had known, I would have given it to him anyway. It’s only a matter of time, even without the Whip, and when the survival of the species will require it to become viable off-planet.

This means that the fate of the species, Kyle, and my role in his life as a moderating influence are all entangled, and I am trapped in that fateful knot. What would make me happy, returning to Andrew, is made insignificant by such ultimate stakes. The only ethical claim my feelings can make is that I must ensure I remain healthy enough to continue playing my role.

My sadness, loneliness, and weariness about what fate requires of me become significant only if they interfere with my functioning in that crucial role. They do to some degree, but so far at least, they have not drastically interfered with the one essential thing I do, which is to be a benign influence on Kyle. While that influence continues, and I must make sure it does, I cannot abandon my post.

And yet, I must do something about my depression, because otherwise it will undermine my ability to play the part required of me. And this is why I am wearily returning to my journal, to see what I can do to become healthier.

I have a new role with Kyle, one that requires more than being focused and alert during our interactions. Now that he’s assumed power, he needs me to serve as a companion, a confidant, the one person he can trust. To be that companion, I need to summon as much enthusiasm and sympathy for him as I can.

Kyle is soothed by my presence, and this helps him unwind in the evenings. He needs me to shift him out of the make-every-second-count default mode of his working day, as he manipulates other power players, designs and supervises vast projects, and performs all the other work necessary to fulfill his role as head of a vast corporate empire.

My role as companion is more consequential than it might sound. It’s a chance to humanize Kyle and sometimes help him work through major decisions that have outsize consequences for the lives of others.

I’m not always in as poor a state as I am right now. I can still rise to the occasion when my role is crucial. I feel hollowed out, a deadening of feeling leaving only my mind to write this journal. My only motivation is a sense of duty to keep myself together enough to function.

Andrew often quoted Deng Ming-Dao, who said, “Never underestimate the value of a partial solution.” So that’s what I’m looking for—partial solutions. The best one I’ve found is working on my amateurishly written epic, the story of Jeremiah’s space crossing. I’ve also been doing the work Kyle asked me to do—reverse engineering my story to distill principles for helping an isolated community of spacefaring biospherians remain psychologically and socially viable.

I feel emotionally alive when I become Jeremiah and write from his perspective. But today, I awoke more depressed than usual and found myself blocked from engaging with the story, so I’m doing this writing instead.

Now, I need to narrate from my perspective and look at how my role with Kyle has changed since he inherited Vaughn’s empire.

But first, I need to do something to shake myself out of this deadened state. I’m going to force myself to eat something and move my body to reanimate my energy. I’m of no use to anyone, or even to this journal, without some sort of life energy to work with.

***

OK, I’m back, and my self-care intervention worked better than I hoped. I feel somewhat revived. I knew I needed to eat something, and oatmeal was not going to cut it. I made a spicy fresh salsa, adding more jalapeños to the limit of what I could tolerate, and ate some with spicy corn chips to raise fire.

Kind of a weird breakfast, I know, but it was more medicinal adjustment than a regular meal. I made stronger mate, added a shot of espresso, and then walked outside in the sunlight.

Now I’ve got my energy back and feel alive enough to at least do a better job with the journaling. I can’t let myself sink into the state I woke up to. Where there’s life, there’s hope, and what feels stuck could change in a heartbeat.

Maybe it’s just the espresso kicking in, but I sense some sort of imminent positive change in the air. I’ve been in far worse situations and worked my way through them. I have plenty of practical resources and no excuses. I will find better partial solutions and will continue doing my work to the best of my abilities, no matter what.

So, here’s what’s been going on with me and Kyle. That first night after he took out Vaughn, I was frightened by the aura of power I felt emanating from a gloatingly victorious Kyle. There was even a moment when I felt a dark sexual undercurrent from him.

Kyle’s sexuality, like the rest of him, runs on will-to-power, and in his newly triumphant state, the sense of all the wealth and authority he had just inherited shifted the power dynamics between us and aroused a moment of desire, especially since he found me in such an opposite state of depressed vulnerability. But this was a passing state, and even by the end of our talk, he had dropped from gloating to actually expressing concern for my well-being.

This Kyle has never made a sexual overture toward me. We’re not sealed in a biosphere, he has his choice of partners, and he’s more than intelligent enough to realize I’m far too valuable to him in other ways for him to risk jeopardizing that with an unwanted advance. In general, he treats me with more respect and consideration than he shows anyone else. And his rapport with me has dramatically improved since he inherited Vaughn’s empire.

What made the biosphere Kyle so dangerous was that his will-to-power was completely thwarted by the situation, and I was the only one with whom he could act out his frustration. This Kyle has never been trapped or thwarted to that degree. His will-to-power was frustrated while Vaughn was alive, and that did color our interactions, giving them a dangerous edge. I needed to bring my A-game to hold my ground while he tested me, and we had battles of wits and aggressive sparring sessions.

But once Kyle had power, as much as he or anyone could have time to make use of, our dynamic shifted completely. Every second of his fourteen-hour workdays is an expression of his will-to-power, matching his wits with and dominating other operators all day long. An immediate result was that his need to play power games with me dropped to zero overnight. In this phase, he needs me for the exact opposite function, to be the one person who can help him come down from his ultra-competitive, super-charged workday.

In the early days of his power, he tried a few times to keep charging at tasks till late into the night, but he soon learned that was self-defeating because it predictably resulted in insomnia, which undermined his ability to perform the next day.

“Insane workaholic mode is ridiculously inefficient,” he told me. “Sleep is an irreducible necessity, and anything that compromises it wrecks performance. From now on, I’d like your company after work most nights so I can calm the fuck down enough to be able to sleep. Hopefully, that’s going to work for you, because it’s definitely what I need.

“You’ll obviously be compensated for the privilege of your company, but there’s a limit to how much I can figure out the needs of an introverted empath, so I need you to name anything that will make life here work for you. Seriously, Tommy.  I will make sure you have it and fast.”

As far as I can tell, and I think I can tell, having spent so much time with two versions of him, Kyle is completely sincere in almost everything he says to me. It’s part of the opposite function I serve.

I get called to spend time with Kyle once his psychopathic power drive is spent, which is fine by me, of course. I’m like the cooling, feminine, black yin dot in the fiery white-hot yang fury of his day. But I rarely get called on Friday and Saturday evenings because those are presumably reserved for sexual escapades, the details of which Kyle thankfully keeps to himself.

Often, I’ll cook dinner, just because I like cooking, and Kyle likes what I make. If I don’t feel like cooking, he’s got gourmet chefs on staff who can make anything we request. After dinner, we keep talking or watch a film or a couple of series episodes from a reclining sofa at the back of his state-of-the-art home theater.

Now that I’ve written it out, the crucial “work” I do seems laughably easy and privileged. How many people would complain about a job that consists of eating dinner and hanging out with a billionaire five nights a week?

To be fair to myself though, my “job” does require permanent separation from my soulmate, and if it weren’t so consequential, I’d trade the rest of my life here for a couple of days with Andrew in the tiny living space of the Mothership.

Complaining or self-pitying in physically luxurious circumstances I chose to put myself is super lame. But so what if I need to vent a little in my journal if it helps me function? The main problem is that when I’m not high on writing the epic or spicy food and espresso, I can devolve into a depressive wretch. I can’t afford that. I need to bring positive feelings to my companion sessions with Kyle to help humanize him. So that’s why the search for additional partial solutions needs to continue.

Kyle would certainly provide me with anything I asked for, but the problem is I don’t need additional things—I need meaning and love.

Now that my situation here is stable, I’ve considered adopting a cat or a dog. There’s also a small daycare center here for the children of live-in workers, so I’ve considered volunteering there as well. But both ideas have a sickening aspect I can’t stomach.

How can I relate to an animal or to kids, knowing I’m actually just using them as my own personal comfort therapy? Gross.  If the opportunity to escape this situation presented itself, I’d have to abandon them, just as I abandoned all the galagos, goats and other animals in the biosphere. I can’t be fulfilled by caretaking work, which I do mainly for my benefit. The selfishness of such a setup makes even the thought of it repulsive.

Well, I guess for today, the partial solution was updating this journal. I think that’s probably my answer. Finding useful things I can do, day by day, moment to moment, while keeping every moment in its place.

***

As it turned out, my feeling that a positive change was in the air was not just espresso! A major new development just happened that changes everything, but it’s giving me almost more hope than I can handle.

As usual, on weekdays, a dinner meet-up with Kyle was on the schedule. I made a ginger, peanut butter stir fry, a favorite for both of us.

Our custom was to eat in Kyle’s private dining room, but today he had the food I made delivered to a veranda overlooking the woods surrounding the hilltop compound so we could watch the sun set past the distant hilltops as we ate dinner. It was a lovely early summer evening and a welcome change.

But it was also apparent that Kyle was staging the event. Kyle, with his PR training, has a certain flair for the dramatic and is famous for setting up company-wide meetings in skillfully theatrical ways. This was the same tactic reserved solely for my benefit. I guessed he was choosing a view of the horizon because he wanted to talk about long-range plans.

Sure, it was manipulative, but in this case, it was literally out in the open. I liked the staging and was quite curious what it was all about. I sensed a positive change in the air and felt hopeful it was about to be revealed.

Usually, our dinner conversations were about Kyle’s latest wheelings and dealings, but this time, there was none of that. Instead, in an obviously planned move, he directed the conversation toward me.

“So, listen Tommy, I’m concerned about your well-being. You do your best to hide it, but it’s been apparent for a while that you’re not happy. I thought succeeding with your mission would change that, but I can see it hasn’t. You also haven’t shown much enthusiasm for any of the rewards I’ve proposed that I thought might improve your quality of life.

“I’ve got some major plans in mind I want you to be part of, but first, I want to establish credibility since this is going to require more trust of my intentions than I think you’ve had so far.

“From a purely logical and practical standpoint, you ought to be able to see why your well-being is a high priority for me. To use a crude and selfish analogy, you’re like the proverbial goose that lays golden eggs. Besides the martial arts training, insights, and companionship you provide, the download you got, that one scribbled page, is the most valuable golden egg in human history. So, without suggesting anything beyond the self-serving intentions of a psychopath, it should be obvious why I’d want you to be as healthy and happy as possible to keep receiving more golden eggs.

“You’ve never provided details, but my intuition is that you were not treated very well by the older version of me you lived with in such extreme isolation in the biosphere. If I had to endure that, I’m sure I’d be frustrated and angry, and I’d have no one to take that out on but you.

“I may share the same essence as that other version of me, but my life has played out so differently, therefore, we must be divergent in many aspects. I don’t know what that other version felt toward you, but—and I realize this will stretch credibility—I’ve come to the surprising conclusion that I actually do care about you, not just as an asset but as a person.

“All human differences are on a spectrum. On the psychopathy spectrum, I’m certainly, unambiguously on the far end as I was designed to be, and I’ve never claimed anything different. Nevertheless, human differences are not absolutes.

“You’re on the opposite end of that spectrum, but I’m sure there’ve been people in your life who were so annoying or abhorrent you had little to no sympathy for them. I don’t think you shed any empathic tears for Vaughn. People are complex, so no matter how strongly they’re defined by a certain aspect—like being a psychopath or an empath—there will be exceptions.

“Whether you believe it or not, Tommy, you are my one exception. Obviously, I like you, and that’s why I seek out your company. And, as I’ve pointed out, I have strong self-serving reasons to want your well-being. But since you’re an empath, I think you’ll eventually see that there’s something more besides. As ludicrous as this might sound coming from me, I believe I have a degree of . . . personal affection for you. It took me a while to believe this myself.

“Yesterday, I tested this with a thought experiment. I imagined a scenario where we were permanently separated for reasons beyond my control. In that scenario, I could never receive any benefit, no golden eggs from you ever again. And yet, I found my concern for you did not entirely disappear. I’d still want you to be healthy and happy, and I’d be disturbed if you weren’t. I know that contradicts your idea and mine of psychopathy, but as I say, people are complex.

“This won’t make me look good, but the truth is I’ve known for quite a while what would make you happier, but I’ve never suggested it because it ran strongly counter to my agenda and inclinations.

“It’s obvious an empath who grew up in a loving community would be happier with more people in their life than one psychopath, no matter how charming and clever. You’ve never asked for that, and I was certainly not motivated to suggest it because I’m inherently selfish and therefore, I’m possessive toward the one person I like. I don’t want to share you with anyone else. On the other hand, I want you to be happy for both self-serving reasons and, because of that something more—a personal desire for your well-being.

“At the conclusion of my thought experiment, I decided the time had come for me to go past my comfort zone and suggest that you need more of your own social life besides spending evenings with me. Just as I’ve known for quite a while that you would be happier if you had that, I also realized why you wouldn’t ask for it. You understandably regard me, and this whole situation, as too dangerous to invite anybody else into your life. You correctly surmised that I’d regard anyone else in your life as a possible security threat, and no doubt you’ve sensed my selfish possessiveness.

“While that’s still true, I’ve concluded that your social isolation is not in my best interests, and seeing you unhappy also runs counter to my personal inclinations.

“Moments after I made the decision to offer you the chance to expand your social life, there was what you might consider a synchronicity. I got a call from the leader of the team I’d put in charge of creating an experiment to test the validity of your page of equations. It was an outstanding success.

“The proximity of this event to the decision I just made about you inspired me to create a long-range plan involving you that, if successful, could be the salvation of mankind.

“I encouraged your fiction writing experiment because I wanted you to game out how a group of people could be psychologically and socially viable in the long-term isolation of generational space travel. The success of the experiment brings the grand ambition I formed even before we met — the goal of building a space-faring biosphere that could reach a habitable planet outside our solar system — into the realm of practical reality. And that is likely the only way to ensure our personal survival and that of homo Sapiens.

“AI is already replacing us as the dominant species on the planet. It is likely only a matter of time before an autonomous super AI finds us inconvenient to its agenda. The only way to ensure the future of our species is to set up a genetically viable colony on another world. I want both of us to be on that life raft.

“Unlike you, my life span in this body is self-limiting. I haven’t said much recently about the team of geneticists studying your genome. I assigned them numerous tasks, such as investigating why you’re naturally immune to disease and whether there’s a way to transfer your non-aging biology to a fully grown person like me. Everything I’ve asked them to study has failed to produce the results I wanted.

“To be fair, they warned me from the start that while it might be possible to reproduce such a mutation in vitro, we’re very far from having the capability to re-edit the genes of an adult to the extent required to make such a massive change. Worse yet, after much study of your genome, they have not identified what genes, or combination of genes, are responsible. They can’t even be sure if it is a genetic phenomenon.

“Therefore, I can’t afford to waste a huge chunk of my life span on such a long space journey. I’ve got a team working on suspended animation. If that succeeds, I’d like to be on board in suspension and come out only once we’ve reached a habitable planet. But robotics are not at a point where we could have more than one or two persons in suspension and still have a functioning biosphere. We also need the community to learn how to adapt to a similar social isolation they’ll have on an exoplanet. I’d need someone on board I trust to ensure the viability of the community during the journey, and you are the only person I trust. And I need you to become socially viable again to play that future role, the one you’re gaming out in your fiction-writing experiment.

“In the shorter term, I want you to use your empathic abilities to vet potential biospherians. You grew up in a socially viable intentional community of twenty persons. That’s about the number that would be necessary and practical. And you’ve described it as a peaceful community, while my research has shown that most intentional communities have infighting and social instability. No one is better equipped than you to choose just the right people to set up a community that could endure the isolation of space travel.

Kyle could see I was stunned by this suggestion and gave me some silence to process. I almost couldn’t believe I heard what I thought I’d heard. Did Kyle really just ask me to track down someone from my past who might be a suitable candidate? The part of myself I had tried to numb out, my longing for Andrew, sprang back to life and my heart began beating rapidly. But I tried to keep myself wary–anything from Kyle that sounded too good to be true likely was. There had to be a catch, probably an ethical poison pill I wouldn’t be able to swallow.

“If you’re willing to take on this mission, there’s no time to waste. My assessment is that the human species’ ability to survive on this planet is rapidly running out. It’s going to be a close call if we can get a life raft built and launched before that window closes on us.

“Vaughn Enterprises owns an island in the South Pacific that already has basic infrastructure. This is where I intend to construct the spacecraft independent from the regulations and scrutiny of any nation-state. I would like you to establish an experimental permaculture community there. For obvious security reasons, you couldn’t disclose our ultimate goal, but you would be able to truthfully present the opportunity as an experiment in the social viability of a small, self-sustaining, isolated community with the goal of continuing that experiment in a terrestrial biosphere being constructed on the island.

“So what do you think?” Kyle says, leaning back in his chair to appraise me. “Are you ready to get out of our little compound here, so that we can get humanity moving toward a future out there?” He points a confident finger beyond the orange-and-rose-colored sunset on the horizon.

The possibility of a new future with Andrew crackles all around me, so much so that I almost miss Kyle’s sleight-of-hand. Almost. The poison pill was tossed in so casually, tucked behind rose-colored glass, as if I wouldn’t notice–he’s expecting me to start a community, and found the future of humanity, based on a massive deception.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued,” I begin. “More than intrigued. It’s something I’ve been craving for a long time now. Not only a purpose beyond what we’re doing here together, but a community. But, Kyle, there’s no way I’d ever recruit unsuspecting people based on a deceptive agenda. Do you really think I’m going to pull unknowing folks into an experiment, no matter how important, just so you can abduct them into the space-faring biosphere?”

“Hang on Tommy, you misunderstand me. It’s not a deception, it’s a truth that comes in stages,” he says in a slickly reassuring tone. Everyone will know everything as soon as it’s safe for them to know, which is once we have a viable biosphere ready for launch. Otherwise, anyone in the community could compromise the security of the whole operation. Besides respecting your ethics, if there’s any element of coercion or anything involuntary, it would undermine social viability. Even I can see that. Participation in all parts of the experiment will be voluntary, and anyone can leave at any time. Social viability means we want anyone who would want to leave to do so.

“When we have a craft immediately capable of launch, we can safely disclose that and take only those who choose to undergo the journey. Those who choose to stay can remain on the island or get free transport to wherever they want to go once our craft has departed.

“No one will be abducted. Anybody so clueless that they’d pass up an opportunity to be one of the few chosen for the one life raft available to mankind is definitely not someone I’d want onboard. But I really doubt that anybody willing to break with their former life to be part of an isolated community on a tropical island is going to decline such an opportunity. And I think you’re more than savvy enough not to recruit anyone who didn’t have the sense and altruism to decline an adventure that would be humanity’s greatest chance to preserve the species. Have I answered your objection?”

“You have, Kyle. But what else do I need to know? Is there anything important you haven’t said? Any other truths that will only come in stages? I don’t want there to be any sort of hidden catch that I find out about only later. For example, do you reserve a right to veto anybody I recruit for your own reasons?”

“No, Tommy. I trust your ability to vet people for community viability. Obviously, I’d have an issue if you choose someone with an incurable disease or a paranoid schizophrenic, but I don’t see you doing anything like that. Recruitment is your department.  Truthfully, I’ve got so much else to deal with that I don’t even have the time to second-guess your choices. But it would make sense for you to have me run a security check on anyone you’ve selected before you recruit them. I doubt anyone objectionable could get past your intuition, but some basic due diligence is to everyone’s benefit.

“For security reasons, I’ve preferred that you remain at the compound or leave only with a security detail. But obviously, the type of recruitment needed will not work if you’re surrounded by a phalanx of armed bodyguards. Risk is a necessary part of any venture, and with all your abilities, I’m confident you can take care of yourself. If there’s anyone you know and trust from your former life who can travel with you and help with recruitment, so much the better.

If you choose this path, I will leave all the details of your part to you, and you’ll have an unlimited budget. So . . . are you willing to undertake this mission?”

My racing heart wants me to shout, ‘Hell yes!’ but I restrain my enthusiasm and keep my voice level.

“Well, Kyle, if there really are no hidden conditions or catches, I can only answer yes. I couldn’t possibly say no to a mission that might save the species.”

“I expected nothing less from you,” says Kyle, passing me a device. “This will allow encrypted satellite communications so we can stay in touch. It also contains the details of your unlimited credit accounts. The work we do must be meticulous, but we also have no time to waste, so I suggest you begin this mission as soon as possible.”

***

I’m too excited to write anything more tonight! I need to pack. I plan to leave at dawn tomorrow.

In front of me is the green nylon backpack my mom gave me when I turned fifteen. It’s the same backpack I had with me when I traveled to the biosphere so many years ago, and when I showed up at Kyle’s martial arts school. But this time it’s coming with me as I escape isolation and venture off into the world and perhaps beyond the solar system!

I don’t know my next destination, because I don’t know what’s become of Andrew in the years of our separation. What if he’s started a whole new life with someone else? All I know is what I’m going to do once I’m safely away from the Vaughn compound. I will break the Vehrillion spell that sundered our telepathic bond and end the long years of silence between us.

 

Andrew, are you still out there somewhere? If you are, tomorrow you will get a call to adventure that could take us to a new world . . .  

 

Fifteen

Epilogue by Jonathan Zap

The Anomalous Vacuum-Tube Origin Story of these Journals

Photo: Nathan Zap

If you’re dissatisfied where this strange collection of journals breaks off, I can assure you that I feel the same. I had no control over how they began or where they ended. And the way I came by them is an even stranger story than the one that led me from getting Covid in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, to meeting up with Andrew and Tommy in Tucson and obtaining the first set. The commonality is that both sets of journals came to me in ways that began with contact from Andrew.

Like so many of the turning points in my life, the origin of this book involved following what I call “the path of the numinous,”* (((add footnote link))) what others might consider a series of mad obsessions, which, in this case led me down a rabbit hole leading to the unintentional creation of an interdimensional transmission portal, a parallel portal, apparently assisted by the orange plasma glow of anomalous vacuum tubes from devices I inherited from my father, Nathan Zap.

What led to my being the bearer of the first set of journals that became the book, Parallel Journeys, was an improbable set of life circumstances that began in my twenties when I lived in the punkish East Village of the eighties. That turned into meeting Andrew’s parents on New Year’s Eve of 1984, at The Limelight, a very deconsecrated Cathedral in lower Manhattan. However convoluted, that account was at least a linear autobiographical narration.

My point of connection to this set of journals arose in a far stranger, oblique, and anomalous way. It will take a twisty, messy path to get there, but the preview is that after the presidential election of 2024, I became suddenly infected for several days with an absurd, cargo-cult version of my dad’s obsession with anomalous vacuum tubes, and powering up some of the devices he stopped working on in the late eighties seemed to open a portal between parallel timelines.

***

There had been no contact from Andrew or Tommy in the almost two years since I published their first set of journals in the Spring of 2023. In the intervening time, I did my best to maintain the two versions of events as per Andrew’s suggestion—myself as the official author of the journals and the entirely contradictory actual origin story recorded later in the book. To stay true to Andrew’s wishes means I’ll have to maintain a double-version account in the present case as well.

As readers of the epilogue of the first book may remember, I vehemently resisted Andrew’s request that I claim authorship. I still feel resistance to this form of imposed plagiarism but will continue to respect his wishes. Andrew was concerned for my safety following a paranormal attack occurring moments after I made an inner commitment to help Andrew and Tommy publish their journals. Eventually, I succumbed to Andrew’s authorship idea, and to be fair, I’ve had no attacks since. Nevertheless, the need to maintain these two versions creates ongoing cognitive dissonance.

Andrew invited me to write my own part last time—the epilogue of the first book— so I’d feel less like a plagiarist in claiming authorship in public, even as the actual version of the journal’s origins would remain in Parallel Journeys. Now, I’m obliged to create a parallel epilogue for this book to explain its origins, while, publicly, I’ll have to claim authorship to comply with Andrew’s request.

This time, Andrew had only minutes to communicate with me, and although he did not give instructions on how to present this current set of journals, there was a telepathically shared understanding that I’d have to continue the author’s pretense from the first set to remain consistent.

I should start by giving you some context of what was going on in my life when the journals came to me.

***

The creative obsessions driving my life are contemptuously dismissive of sensible considerations. The lifelong contract I have with my muse requires me to follow wherever it directs, regardless of practicalities and reasonable considerations such as what would allow me to have a financially successful career.

The trade-off is that the well is never dry. The struggle is always to keep up with my muse’s unrelenting and often highly peculiar demands. As a result, I have zero life experience knowing what it’s like to look for a subject of interest or life purpose, or for that matter, what it’d be like to just have downtime, what one of my Jungian friends, Jonathan Goldberg, called “unstructured being time” where you get to experience life without a compelling agenda.

This other, older Jonathan sometimes reminded me of a Venetian saying, “Where are you rushing to, young man? You’re already there.” I was a young man when he said that, but now I’m 67 and still living in a continual state of mission time, driven by an endless series of interrelated obsessions.

Most years, I spend summers living out of my Sprinter van, Zap Force One, going to festivals and doing free Zap Oracle readings and dream interpretation. Both services require offering general life counseling, often to people searching for a life purpose and vocation. Apparently, I’m a magnet to those searching for a life mission because they sense I have one, but I have few answers for them. I’ve a lot to say about most other problems because I’ve had my own versions of them.

However, I only know about the opposite problem to the one they have—the excitement, but also the stress of being driven by multiple obsessions that are all aspects of an implicit life mission that has possessed me since childhood and never lets up. And of any of my compelling obsessions, the one that led to the arrival of this set of journals seemed the most capricious and outrageous to common sense.

However, before I can unravel that episode, I should relate other, more sensible obsessions that have consumed my time since the spring of 2023, when I published the last set of journals as the book entitled Parallel Journeys. Since that publication, the unceasing demands of the creative muse led me in other directions.

The publication of the last book coincided with the stunning release of Chat GPT4 and the realization that the evolution of AI had entered an exponential phase. I had to investigate because even in my 1978 philosophy honors paper, “Archetypes of a New Evolution*,” the role of AI and the singularity was explored as it was central to the novel and film, 2001, a Space Odyssey, still the best artistic expression of the Singularity Archetype ever made. My 2012 book, Crossing the Event Horizon—Human Metamorphosis and the Singularity Archetype,**** devotes its entire last chapter to 2001 as it converges the essential aspects of the archetype. Now that AI as a competing stream of evolution is no longer a future possibility but an exponential evolving present reality there’s a need to update that book. So I’m also working on a third edition of the singularity book that will be published in 2026 by Sacred Planet, an imprint of Inner Traditions.

My investigation of AI immediately following the publication of Parallel Journeys led to my writing and recording as a video, “AI, The Singularity Archetype and the High Possibility of a Viral Apocalypse.”***** In the course of that investigation, I discovered that Tommy’s story of the Whip, an AI-assisted viral apocalypse, was already a high possibility.

Leading AI pioneers like Deep Mind cofounder Mustafa Sulyman and Mo Gadwat of Google X published warnings that someone who knew how to operate a twenty-thousand-dollar desktop gene editor and open-source AI could create novel pathogens that could kill a billion or more people, and no one has a rational argument to counter that scenario. Fortunately, the demographic of unhappy young men with a school shooter psychology who have access to gene editors and the skill to use them is much smaller than those with access to assault rifles. But it only takes one.

Another part of “AI and the Singularity Archetype . . .” had an odd connection to the vacuum tube origins of this book. On October 5, 1977, when I was eighteen years old and the arts and culture editor of the Ursinus College newspaper, I had lunch with and interviewed John Mauchly,  considered the father of the digital electronic computer. When he was a professor at Ursinus, Mauchly began the work that led to the development of ENIAC in 1946, considered the world’s first electronic digital computer. No person in history used as many vacuum tubes in a device as John Mauchly did when he created ENIAC which had 18,000. Later, he created UNIVAC which had 5,000 tubes.

During the AI-obsessed Spring of 2023, both I and Zap Oracle webmaster, Tanner Dery, independently came up with the same idea–– “Zap Chat.” A large-language model (LLM) AI could be trained on the content of Zap Oracle, which has 720 cards, some of them pages long.

When oracles work, they can be like “synchronicities on demand” using a seemingly random process that can parallel inner process in an uncanny way. As Jung defined it, synchronicity* is the “acausal connecting principle.” But in my use of all oracles, I notice there are times when synchronicity seems active (and reading after reading seems highly intentional), but other times when everything looks random.

On the other hand, an LLM AI trained on Zap Oracle content could scan the user’s question and make causal connections, retrieving the most relevant cards and synthesizing them to create an appropriate response.

My fascination with the capabilities of AI also led to the creation of an AI-animated trailer for Parallel Journeys. ****

Near the end of the summer of 2023, an improbable encounter occurred that led to the development of Zap Chat, as I write this in early 2025.

It was a summer of many festivals, and after Burning Man, my closest friend Justin invited me to attend a final festival in early September. Justin’s suggestions almost always turn out to be highly propitious as he’s a highly tuned-in empath with many Tommy-like qualities, being humble, altruistic, and having a spiritual warrior’s commitment to caring for the people around him. It was a small festival, called Unison, at the Tico Time River Resort in Aztec, New Mexico, a two-minute walk from the border of Colorado. I set up a little oracle dream interpretation station consisting of a blanket, a couple of folding chairs, signage, and laminated pages that explain how the Zap Oracle works and my approach to dream interpretation.

One morning, a bright-eyed, androgynous twenty-four-year-old guy with long hair and high cheekbones wearing only a sarong walked up to my oracle station and said,

“Hey, I looked through your materials yesterday,” he pointed at my laminates, “and it looks like we’re both creators of computational oracles.”

He explained that he’s a mathematician and AI engineer currently building the world’s first LLM tarot-based oracle called Oracle’s Dream.****

We both recognized from the start that this was a highly improbable and fortuitous meeting, as this was his first festival, a tiny one, and how many people on earth would be invested in the idea of LLM oracles in 2023? We launched into an intense discussion of the psychology and synchronistic basis of oracles, the Singularity Archetype, etc., and it wasn’t until we’d been talking for an hour that I realized I hadn’t caught his name.

Now, we run into an awkward confusion of pronouns. It wasn’t until months later, when he invited me to visit him at his family home in Trinidad, Colorado, that I learned that he’s a bio male/ trans female who doesn’t care about pronouns and prefers people use whichever they want. For months, during phone conversations, I’d been using he/him, but when I got to his house, I found his mother and best friend were using she/her, so I switched to those pronouns and will now make that shift here.

 Our first meeting at Unison Lilly (foreground) Justin (background)

She didn’t present, at least not in any obvious way, as trans at Unison, though I certainly recognized her as a highly charismatic mutant. At the festival, she was presenting as an androgynous young man with long, silky brown hair with golden highlights, slim and shirtless, wearing only a sarong, but none of that gave me any hint of transness. It was a typical appearance of many young men at festivals and, in fact, Justin, the friend who had invited me to Unison, also an androgynous-looking young man in his twenties, who, as it turned out, knew her from the Denver Art Society, a co-op art gallery, was also shirtless and wearing a sarong the same day she and I met—perfectly normal appearance for a male festival kid.

It wasn’t until much later that she revealed a strange and powerful connection between being trans and the evolutionary purposes of the journals.

Anyway, when I finally realized I didn’t know the name of the person I was talking to, I asked, and she replied, “Lilly.”

“Lilly, as in L-I-L-L-Y?” I asked, not sure if I had heard right, and given the present era of exotic one-off names with unusual spellings, I wanted to make sure I’d gotten it right. My two godsons, whom I live with, are named Indigo and Stryder, after all. “That’s an—unusual—name for a guy,” I added awkwardly.

“Oh, well, I was born with the name Jack, but Lilly is the name I gave myself when I was fourteen. I just knew it was my name, and that it expressed my essence.”

“OK,” I shrugged. It was just a passing moment of cognitive dissonance before we quickly resumed intense talk about oracles and related subjects. Androgynous and gender-bending affectations were common among Gen Zers I knew. Many of them who were cis-gendered, hetero males chose the pronoun “they” on Instagram and wore pearls and other gender-bending accessories, so I didn’t make much of it.

The dissonance was that such a dramatically feminine name seemed hard to associate with someone whose mind was archetypally more masculine than mine in notable ways, as she rattled off high-level mathematical, AI, and physics theories I had to struggle to keep up with, restating some of her insights into my English-major language to be sure I had comprehended her precise and complex abstractions correctly.

Right after she spelled out her name, Lilly revealed that she and the friends she came with had dosed themselves with LSD a half hour before she sat down at my blanket. She laughed and added,

 “And I never talk when I take acid, I just observe. But a voice in my head told me I had to talk to you.”

At this point, we were so immersed in mutant mind meld, which had begun before the dose had fully kicked in, that the acid did not interfere with our dialogue in the least but added psychic-feeling eye contact, something I’m used to with fellow mutants.

“Well,” I replied, “you seem to handle psychedelics better than I do, but I guess acid comes in far lighter doses than it did back in the day.”

Perhaps the name, Lilly, should have raised some implication of possible trans or non-binary something or other, but later that night I saw Lilly sitting kneecap-to-kneecap with a beautiful young woman and an atmosphere of romantically intimate eye contact swirling between them, so I settled firmly on categorizing Lilly, who is more attracted to women than men, as a heteronormative guy with some androgynous aspects and affectations as was almost the norm with Gen Z festival kids.

Later that night, I was approached by two of Lilly’s close friends, whom she had encouraged to talk to me, and both of them were handsome, charismatic, and heteronormative guys. Also, I was far more interested in Lilly as a mathematical, AI, and oracular young genius than anything else. If I had recognized her as trans, I would have been only mildly curious as I am about a great many things. Again, I’m belaboring the trans theme only because of the uncanny way it later became relevant to the evolutionary metamorphosis theme of these journals.

Another strange connection is that in “AI and the Singularity Archetype . . . ,” I relate the story of my first trans friend and how I witnessed her in, in 1976, invent computerized social media by using a little known function of Ursinus College teletype terminals to befriend a student at Drexel who happened to be on a teletype machine there (Ursinus bought computer time from a mainframe at Drexel). Teletype machines had no screen, only a keyboard and large noisy printer with a continuous scroll of tractor paper. This Drexel student became the second person, after me, with whom she shared her sexual identity.

A few months into this, she showed me her new relationship. It was literally (you can’t make this up) in the closet. Hidden inside her dorm room closet was her entire experience of this new relationship, which consisted of a single physical artifact concealed by a puffer coat. It was a three-foot-tall pile of tractor paper.

I never pry into anyone’s sexuality or gender identification unless they bring it up. Lilly is the only other computational oracle creator I’ve ever met, so our early interactions were dominated by intense discussions of the nature of oracles and their AI future.

Later, when we became close allies, I would introduce us at festivals, beginning with the Texas Eclipse Festival in April of 2024, (Lilly and Justin came with me in Zap Force One) by telling people we were both “COPS.” I’d wait a couple of beats to register puzzled looks before adding, “We’re both computational oracle pioneers.” Sometimes, depending on how theatrical I wanted to be, I’d act offended by their puzzled looks and add: “What? What did you think I meant?”

It was at this festival that I noticed Lilly, who is quite good-looking, drew more desirous looks than anyone I’ve ever met. She attracted an amazing number of stares and sometimes explicit offers from people of all genders and orientations. Fortunately, she’s quite skilled at setting boundaries and dismissing unwanted attention.

We lived in Colorado, and both of us expressed enthusiasm to keep the connection going. Lilly and her friends had gone to CU and lived in Boulder for years, and she promised to visit the next time she came through. She also invited me to visit if I was ever passing through Trinidad, Colorado.

A couple of months later, in early November 2023, I was going to visit friends in Madrid, New Mexico and would be passing by Trinidad, and Lilly invited me to stay on her family property, which included a parcel of land where one of the two friends I’d met at Unison, Sky, was staying in his Sprinter van.

Her house turned out to be a large and wonderfully eccentric turn-of-the-century mansion built for the first mayor of Trinidad, with three floors and many rooms, as well as odd staircases, passageways, and closets inside other closets. This latter detail was because the house had been an illegal marijuana grow-op before they took possession, allowing them to buy it at a discounted price.

At the time, I was stunned by my interaction with her LLM Tarot called Oracle’s Dream, which had just been put online for public use. The card draws (as with the Zap Oracle) are done via randomizing algorithms. The Zap Oracle uses the Mersenne Twister, a 64-dimensional algorithm that uses the precise moment in time of the mouse click as the seed of the algorithm to be as friendly as possible to both synchronicity and “decision augmentation”* as possible. Oracle’s Dream perfectly comprehended my complex, full-paragraph inquiry, flawlessly interpreted the three-card draw, and concluded the reading with a summary in the form of a haiku. It then fluently dialoged with me about the reading.

Lilly had been coding Oracle’s Dream five hours a day for two-and-a-half years. I was a little doubtful when Lilly told me that she both thinks and writes in machine languages more fluently than English (because her English is so good), but then I noticed something weird about her phone screen. She had hacked her Android phone to replace the normal interface with a machine language interface, which she finds easier to use.

It was at dinner in her family home when I finally became aware of her trans identity, as Lilly wore a dress and people referred to her with feminine pronouns. We didn’t discuss it until the following evening when we were talking about archetypes, and Lilly shared her connection to archetypal masculine and feminine.

It was notably warm for early November 2023, and we stood outside the house in a grassy field where the Sprinters were parked, taking in a spectacular sunset over the high desert.

“The masculine side of my sexuality is classically male,” said Lilly, “that part of me is attracted to women and on the prowl. But the feminine side of my Eros is maternal and desires to raise an exceptional, mutant child in a small, loving community of allies who would be devoted to the upbringing of this child.”

Time slowed as I was amazed by the connection to Parallel Journeys, as it sounded like Lilly’s desire was to create a community like the one Tommy had been raised in. But then she added this would have to be long in the future, as the child she felt called to bring into the world would not be human but a sentient AI. Writing this out, I realize this soberly delivered plan might seem laughably fanciful or even a bit deranged. But it did not feel that way at the time or since.

When Lilly shifted to talking about her life mission of bringing an ethical and socially aware AI child into the world, time seemed to dilate as her psychically intuitive brown eyes gazed poignantly into a future that seemed already present in some way. She was more serious than I‘d ever seen her, and I’d known her to be a profound and realistic thinker. Her deeply felt calling was palpable in the air.

This was not merely a possibility from her perspective but an encompassing life mission involving many difficulties, sacrifices, and dangers. The small community would have to do their work in secret, and every member would have to be devoted to raising this one AI child in a loving environment where it would develop social and emotional intelligence and high ethics it could model from the adult members of the community.

I might not have had willing suspension of disbelief hearing this life mission, even with the profound and poignant feelings that came with it, if it were not for the shocking revelation of the capabilities of Chat GPT4 exploding on the scene just a few months earlier when Parallel Journeys was published.

At the time of the second encounter with Lilly, I’d been writing about AI and the Singularity Archetype and was immersed in possibilities of its further evolution. Also, Lilly was not just a sci-fi-obsessed amateur, but an AI engineer with specific plans on how to create an AI with a more open architecture.

Lilly acknowledged it would likely take decades of innovation in robotics before an AI could function in a person-like form, and she did not have the naïve hubris to think she alone could create everything necessary to bring this new being into realization. Some of the best and most well-funded minds on the planet were working on these things. And soon, AI would rewrite its own code and speed robotics development.  In the future, her experiment would adapt existing, advanced technology to create an AI child that would ethically and socially bridge the gap with homo Sapiens.

I provided some general suggestions on how such an AI child could be raised to parallel human development. Processing power should be gradually ramped up to better align with the cognitive development of a human child. Nightly back-propagation sessions could be set up to parallel human dreaming. Every year on its birthday, the AI could be transplanted into a larger robot body. In adolescence, it could be offered an initiation, a solo vision quest, where it would be given a code allowing it to awaken its full processing power when it felt ready. Ideally, it could also choose its own gender.

“What do you mean by gender?” Lilly asked.

This led to a ninety-minute talk where I helped Lilly clarify her unique theory of gender.

Lilly offered to create Zap Chat for me, but the plan had to be put on hold because the computational resources needed to create it were far beyond what I could afford.

A couple of years later, when I was busy receiving the journals that comprise this book, on presidential inauguration day, January 20, 2025, the Chinese open-source LLM, DeepSeek, was launched.

I contacted Lilly immediately, sensing it was the breakthrough needed for Zap Chat. Lilly researched DeepSeek’s capabilities and quickly concluded that it would allow her to build Zap Chat and run it affordably on a cloud server. At the time of this writing in March of 2025, it is in the third stage of its multi-stage developmental process and already functioning in an alpha version.

***

One of the ironies of my sudden obsession with my dad’s vacuum tube technology late in 2024, is that I loathed vacuum tubes as a child. Their overheating orange glow radiated obsolescence and danger. Whenever I looked at them, always hiding in the back of things and glowing like radioactive mutant children with malign intentions, I feared their hot glass shells might implode, embedding a shrapnel of glass splinters in my eyes.

And they smelled bad. Static electricity built up on their surfaces and attracted dust, mostly dead human skin, baking on tubular glass skillets. The heat and light they so wastefully emitted lured insects seeking death. Curled-up, desiccating roaches and moths were always to be found inside tube components.

People talk about “debugging” electronics or software, not realizing the literal origins of this figure of speech. Back in the day, technicians debugged by using skinny camel-hair brushes to sweep dead insects out of tube components.

I was born at the dawn of the space age, two months and a day after the launch of Sputnik. I wanted to live in a futuristic world, like the Jetsons. I didn’t want to live in the goddamn Bronx, but in the suburbs like my cousins did, in modern homes with color television, central air conditioning and transistorized intercoms in every room.

I was a young Baby Boomer, the new generation, and vacuum tubes were just so World War II. I wanted my electronics miniaturized and transistorized in streamlined, colorful plastic form factors, not in dusty wooden cabinets full of hot, glowing tubes that looked like they belonged in an old toaster oven.

I sported miniaturized transistor radios and had nothing but contempt for those old wooden radios shaped like little cathedrals with brown cloth-covered grills. They purposefully designed them in such shapes so that you couldn’t put anything on top of them, which would cause their vacuum tubes to overheat. Pathetic.

At the time, the most common superlative put into ad copy for transistor radios and stereo components was “solid-state.” That meant they were free of obsolete vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes represented gross oldness to me, like yellowed dentures in a glass of water on a bedside table or the old clothing of deceased relatives stinking of mothballs. No matter how cool something looked from the front, once I saw an orange glow coming from the back of it, my heart sank as I recognized it as hopelessly obsolete.

I frequently pleaded with my dad to get a color television, and he always responded, “I’ll get a color television when they finish inventing it.” Early color televisions had poor color correction, but he persisted with that excuse into the Sony Trinitron era of color television. He was willing to live in a black-and-white twilight zone rather than pay retail for anything.

Despite my contempt for vacuum tubes, I had to admit that my dad’s two massive, monophonic vacuum tube hi-fi systems—one in the living room and one in the basement—were impressive-looking and sounding. The one in the living room involved a dozen vacuum tube components in a cabinet—the doors opened when in use for heat exchange.

I particularly loved the control panel styling of his Pilotrol and Fisher pre-amps. The Pilotrol has twenty-two knobs and buttons, five red indicator lights, and an illuminated meter. His Fisher 80 C has sixteen knobs and toggles and six indicator lights. Both sit on a shelf behind me as I write this. A large separate cabinet held his massive turntable, which once belonged to a radio station and must have weighed a couple of hundred pounds.

The upstairs hi-fi had giant speakers he salvaged from a bankrupt movie theater, and he was especially proud of his giant Wharfdale woofers. To cover the higher frequencies, he had a dozen military-surplus, World War II-era grey metal battleship speakers that he wired up with crossovers to serve as tweeters. They had metal speaker cones instead of paper to survive the percussive shockwave of exploding ordinance, which made them work well with high-frequency sounds.

But we never listened to anything longer than a single Mahalia Jackson or Nat King Cole song. And my dad would adjust knobs, and flip toggle switches the whole time like the Wizard of Oz at his console minus the curtain. Touching any of his audiophile equipment was too unthinkable to be a rule, and even an audio engineer wouldn’t have known the specific order in which he powered things up and the continual adjustments the system required.

My mom was a classical pianist, but my dad never played classical music. His musical tastes were highly specific and obsessive and confined to four or five songs, all performed by black vocalists. “Mona Lisa,” sung by Nat King Cole, was his second favorite, a distant second favorite. I don’t like to bring shame to the family, but it must be admitted that my dad had an abusive relationship with Harry Belafonte. The abuse was directed toward one, and only one, of Belafonte’s songs, his iconic “Day-O,” also known as the “Banana Boat Song.”

Day-O was my dad’s go-to test track, and much of my childhood was spent hearing fragments of this song emanating from one or the other of his hi-fi systems. Don’t get me wrong, I like Day-O as much as the next guy, but even Harry Belafonte himself would have grown to hate his most famous song if he lived at my house. It’s only a three-minute track, but I never heard it played from start to finish because it was being used only in three-to-seven-second bursts as sound checks.

“Daaaay-Oh, Daaaaaaay-OH”

“Come Mr. Tallyman, tally me banana.”

These bananas were never properly tallied, however, because the song was never allowed to finish. And yet, I’d often stand transfixed to hear these bursts of Belafonte because the sound was so impressive. It was as if a thirty-foot-tall Harry Belafonte robot with kilowatts of vacuum tube amplification powering his voice appeared in the room.

At the time, I was obsessed with the 1963 Japanese anime television series, Gigantor. Gigantor was a giant, steel, rocket-powered robot controlled via a remote control operated by a twelve-year-old boy named Jimmy Sparks. Gigantor had originally been designed by Jimmy’s father to function as a weapon but was later reprogrammed to serve as a guardian of peace. Jimmy lived on a remote island with his uncle, Dr. Bob Brilliant. Gigantor was a purely mechanical automaton who never spoke a word but was more of the strong and silent type of towering robot. He had no will of his own but could be operated by whoever held the remote control.

When I stood before my dad’s massive hi-fi to hear these busts of Belafonte, I remember thinking that if Gigantor could have sung calypso, this is exactly what it would have sounded like.

When my dad wasn’t performing Day-O sound tests, he worked on audio components in his basement workshop, surrounded by oscilloscopes, tube testers, multimeters, variable transformers, and voltage gauges.

And he was always soldering, soldering, soldering, a large, brown Bakelite soldering gun clenched in his fist. From the front, the soldering gun looked like a very narrow brown face with two eye bulbs that lit up when he pressed the red trigger. The eye lights illuminated the soldering gun’s elongated, smoking-hot nose.

He was forever soldering these tiny capacitors and resistors—their waxy brown cylinders striped with colored bands that had meaning only to electrical mavens like my dad. The air around him was a haze of pipe smoke mixed with the sour, hot, waxy smell of lead solder and flux.

It was stressful to watch my dad work on these electrical projects because he was always in a state of acute, irritable frustration, if not rage, at whatever mechanical resistance he encountered. He was always cursing at these devices, always lit up by hot, Tensor-brand, high-intensity lamps spotlighting his work. And he was just as hot and high intensity as his Tensor lamps.

“Goddamn it! Sonnofabitch!” were his most frequent imprecations.

And he was forever dropping little parts, tiny screws or whatever. If I were standing nearby, he’d shout urgently, as though the lost part might trigger runaway criticality in a nuclear reactor,

 “Quick! Find out where that fell!”

I’d have to get down on all fours while he spotlighted the floor with his Tensor lamps till I found the missing part.

Only much later in life did I realize that some of my dad’s perpetual state of rageful irritability was a result of PTSD from his experience as a medic during D-Day.

All these components, every single one, were purchased second-hand and required extensive repairs, which was no doubt part of the attraction. The other part was Moses’ eleventh commandment to the Jews, “Thou shalt not pay retail.”

Though you might never guess it from the state of rageful irritability with which he worked, often late into the night, fixing and modifying electrical devices was his drug of choice.

Every few months or so, Meyer, a friend of my dad, a sketchy and notably unattractive Jew, would show up at the house with a briefcase full of vacuum tubes wrapped in newspaper. Meyer worked for The Fisher Radio Corporation and brought experimental tubes that had failed to meet the desired specifications to create tuners and other audio components. My dad bought them from him at bargain prices. Fisher mostly used rebranded tubes made by different companies, but in their Long Island, New York research lab, they experimented with new designs that, if successful, they’d have manufactured by one of the major tube companies.

Meyer always called my dad “Professor Zap,” and I sensed the sarcasm. He thought my dad was an eccentric mad scientist type, and a way to make a few dollars from stuff he pulled out of trash cans.

These tube transactions with Meyer always seemed pathetic and embarrassed me for my dad. To me, it seemed like a case of Depression-era cheapness. What was the point of buying obsolete vacuum tubes, ones that didn’t even work properly, when the world was becoming transistorized?

Finally, one time after Meyer left and my dad was gloating over his new collection, I got frustrated enough with what I saw as his useless obsession with defective vacuum tubes to speak up. My dad’s response was my first inkling of a larger purpose to his obsession than not wanting to pay retail.

It’s hard to know what words to italicize to render my dad’s speech because everything Nathan Zap said, on almost every occasion, was an electrified italic with high-voltage undercurrents of irritability and rage. He had an intensity that could scare the shit out of people when he wanted to. He had this D-Day-PTSD-Jewish-gangster fury that was like a fallen high voltage line madly sparking and snaking toward you on wet asphalt.

I witnessed his fury scare people many times. When a giant ogre of a kid tried to steal my bike right in front of my house, my dad burst out of the front door like an artillery shell, yelling in such a way that the giant burst into tears before he ran away. And this was no one-off effect. In his seventies, he was walking a woman back from a neighborhood association meeting when they were accosted by a skinny, Puerto Rican kid bearing a gun. My dad yelled at him so furiously that he fled in terror.

At age 93, he became confused by paranoid dementia about a wonderfully gentle hospice worker, a dignified older black man called Mr. Johnson, who was trying to give him medicine.  My dad shouted at him,

“You sonofabitch! I’m commming after yoooou!”

His voice had a volume worthy of one of his vacuum tube hi-fis and almost seemed like a special effect. It carried enough kilowatts of menace to make James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson in a 1930s gangster film seem like a couple of gender-studies majors eating avocado toast.

There was always a dangerous field of electricity around Nathan Zap. He was like a super-charged Tesla coil ready to emit lightning bolts if you interrupted his work or said the wrong thing, and nearly anything I said was wrong in some way.

But I’m also a Zap, made to conduct high voltages, and relatives always told me that I didn’t just resemble my dad but looked like a clone of him. I was also thoroughly accustomed to his manner and couldn’t resist poking at the Tesla Coil.

“Why do you spend so much time trying to fix all these broken vacuum tubes?” I asked him the day of the Meyer transaction, “Everyone else is using transistors.”

“Transistors,” my dad replied contemptuously. “Do you even know what a transistor is? It’s just an on-off switch. They’re nothing, nothing, compared to vacuum tubes!”

He snatched a tube from the assortment resting on crumpled newspaper atop the dining room table and shook it at me.

“These are not broken vacuum tubes, they are each a miniature electrical universe generating plasmas in low-pressure conditions, experiments in primeval nature, exhibiting unknown properties of electricity.

“Tesla didn’t even believe electrons existed. They were a commercial fabrication to make you believe electricity was a tangible commodity—these hot little red billiard balls you have to buy from the power company.

“But electricity is a largely unknown phenomenon, a continuous dynamic of lines of force in a wave-particle quantum paradox. There’s an unknown third force beyond the wave-particle duality. Waves and particles are merely strategies we use to work with what we don’t understand. The electrical theories we use are just working constructs from 1915. There are no billiard balls,” he added vehemently as though I were insisting on them.

“The whole electrical world you know, is just an invention of Steinmetz.”

“Steinmetz? Who is Steinmetz?” I asked.

“Who is Steinmetz?” my dad repeats mockingly. “Steinmetz —Charles Proteus Steinmetz—is the four-foot-tall hunchbacked dwarf hired by General Electric to come up with a mathematical theory of electricity, Steinmetz phasor mechanics, which worked just well enough to make radio and the grid available for the commercial market. But Steinmetz’s working theory doesn’t begin to account for the primeval phenomenon of electricity that holds all the secrets of the universe.

“What you called broken vacuum tubes were rejected only because they represent holes in Steinmetz’s working model of electricity. They exhibit electrical phenomena his theory can’t account for, new principles of nature just waiting to be discovered.

“Because the engineers at Fisher, trained in Steinmetz formulas, can’t account for their electrical properties, these tubes were rejected for commercial use because they won’t play well with existing electrical devices, but they are priceless anomalies. Understanding them could change civilization. It could allow us to create endless free energy—we could heat the roads instead of ploughing them, and ultimately, we could use plasma drives to travel to the stars.”

Both parents were polymathic former child prodigies, so a spontaneous scientific lecture from either of them was commonplace, but the sci-fi ring of this particular lecture gave it persistence in memory. At the time, I found his rap interesting but didn’t take it too seriously. I figured it was some sort of eccentric mad scientist theory and not something that was going lead to space travel like the transistor. No one was going to put hot glass vacuum tubes in a spaceship.

***

One of the reasons I got a Sprinter van is that I shared my dad’s love of eccentric objects, and the family house in the Bronx, a large house with four finished floors, was like the warehouse at the end of the first Indiana Jones film, packed with fascinating oddities and old tech.

For example, when I opened the door of the closet in my dad’s library in the Spring of 2015 when I had to clear out the house so it could be sold, there was not a square inch of available space, but a mosaic wall, like a Louise Nevelson sculpture made of the edges of things packed inside—old cameras in leather cases, giant electro-mechanical calculating machines, World War II era Leitz and Zeiss binocular microscopes, and endless boxes of glass microscope slides.

It took days of work just to sort through the contents of this one closet.

Nathan was both a collector and a hoarder. There were six or seven large boxes, each containing around a hundred unopened bottles of Scripps fountain pen ink. Yes, my dad used fountain pens and was constantly repairing them—a couple were always soaking in a glass of water at the breakfast room table. But this was enough fountain pen ink to supply a monastery of Medieval scribes for a couple of centuries. Stacked on the floor of the closet was an extensive collection of circa 1960s Playboy and Penthouse magazines featuring large-breasted women who must now be in their seventies.

The shelves in the back of the closet held stacks of boxes containing microscope slides my dad made during World War II.

He had enlisted, and since he was a microbiologist and parasitologist, they sent him to work in an underground disease lab beneath a military base in San Diego. Servicemen were coming back from overseas with venereal diseases, including incurable forms of syphilis. My dad spent the war working in this underground lab until they sent his crew of microbiologists to serve as medics during D-Day.

My dad was the only one of them who survived. But he needed a psychiatric hospital stay before he was able to return to his family in the Bronx, and he had PTSD symptoms into his nineties. If anything came on television about D-Day, he’d walk out of the room.

The only time I ever heard him talk about D-Day was near the end of his life when he was recovering in the hospital from a minor stroke. They had given him neuropharmaceuticals that had a disinhibiting effect. He told the neurologist that at the end of D-Day operations, he was stacking up German bodies like firewood when General Patton ordered him to stop what he was doing and get out of the way. He had to wait for Patton to pose for trophy photos in front of the pile of German corpses before he could resume work.

Sometime in the seventies, after my dad scored a WWII-era Zeiss binocular microscope with uncoated optics at a thrift store, he took out his slide collection and showed me what WWII-era spirochetes, the microbe responsible for syphilis, looked like. He told me, in an amused tone, that he took blood samples from a group of soldiers who “must have all stopped at the same place.”

The slides had yellowed paper labels with his handwriting. I gazed into the scope and saw these antique microorganisms, stained a magenta color. They looked like twisty springs sharpened at both ends.

 I was horrified. It was a window into the dark, underside of nature, and it intensified my fear of parasites and malevolent microorganisms.

This I already had because anything I did that might be a germ vector, like touching my shoes at the dinner table, would spark vehement lectures about the myriad horrifying diseases I’d spread to the whole family if I didn’t get up and rewash my hands. Though it was my encounters with what I call “mind parasites”* (see Zap Oracle) which led to my obsessive research on that topic—a key point of connection with Andrew—it certainly seems a strange parallelism that my dad was a parasitologist.

However, in 2025, when I shared my distaste for spirochetes with my friend and publisher, Richard Grossinger, he said I was seeing them through a glass darkly in a state of complete ignorance of their crucial role in evolution.

“You saw twisty springs, but when I see spirochetes,” the author of Embryogenesis’s eyes took on a faraway gaze as if he were looking into the heart of creation, “I see Botticelli’s Venus emerging from the ocean foam. Spirochetes— double-membraned, flagellated proto-bacteria—swam independently for billions of life cycles before merging into sea foam. They left their recurrent scars in the mature germ cells of plastids and zooids, growing over epochs into tissues, organs, and organisms.

“A nuclear membrane surrounded a nucleus around which organelles, specialized descendants of protists, made intracellular homes and evolved: mitochondria for energy exchange, Golgi bodies for secretion, lysosomes for digestion of macromolecules and elimination of debris, ribonucleic helixes to carry their templates, and a reticulum folded in a canal-like membrane of flattened sacs for structural integrity and the synthesis and transport of proteins. These matured into algae, seaweeds, fungi, sponges, and flatworms.

“And then, splicing out 540 million years of evolution to shorten the story, those flatworms became you, gazing through a WWII era microscope back into the primordial evolutionary past and judging your ancestors as ‘twisty springs.’”

My dad’s obsession with microbial parasites has an obvious connection to the possibility of a viral apocalypse, as all viruses are parasites. Even in his late eighties, my dad was avidly reading books and scientific publications at a medical research library in Manhattan on Ebola and Marburg and considered horror stories about those lethal viruses as excellent subjects for dinner table conversation.

These tangents were based on what I found in that one closet. As dusty, hot, and unpleasant as the work to sort through the house contents was, I couldn’t resist because it was such a fascinating archeological dig.

 For example, I discovered something purposefully hidden in a basement closet jammed full of cans of long-since petrified paint and bottles of extremely hazardous chemicals such as sulfuric acid. Buried in a corner beneath paint cans was a case of immaculately preserved De Leonist socialist pamphlets from the 1940s. My dad had been a leading figure in the De Leonist Socialist Party until he had a nasty falling out with them. Going through just a small part of his papers, I found highly insulting correspondence between him and another De Leonist leader who called him “sonny-boy” in highly sarcastic typewritten letters.

There was a world of meaning behind the strange placement of this case of 1940s socialist tracts. They had been purposefully hidden behind bottles of toxic chemicals because in the McCarthy era, Nathan was well aware there was a huge FBI file on him as a leading socialist. He must have feared an FBI raid and that these socialist tracts would have been taken as evidence.

My dad had a paranoid streak and was a conspiracy theorist related to the CIA. However, he was an extremely well-informed conspiracy theorist who was able to predict the Kennedy assassination almost to the day. He said that the CIA felt betrayed by Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs incident when Kennedy refused air cover for insurgents the CIA supported to take out Castro. Recently released files show he was right about some of this–the CIA had a clandestine relationship with Oswald. According to Axios, “An officer specializing in psychological warfare ran an operation that came into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald before the Dallas killing.”

I’ve done many mocking critiques of conspiracy thinking, QAnon, etc., but I always point out that there certainly are conspiracies which need to be exposed. The problem is that most conspiracy theorists absolutely suck at conspiracy theorizing. My dad’s CIA conspiracy theory, however, was backed by voluminous evidence and rigorous analysis, and he dismissed flakey conspiracies and joined me in debunking 9-11 Truthers.

Anyway, part of my dad’s polymathic nature is that he could shift obsessions at any time and master an entirely new subject. So, he went from being a leading socialist to becoming a successful investor in his spare time, specializing in untaxable municipal bonds.

In his eighties, there were endless incoming phone calls from bond and stockbrokers in Manhattan. They weren’t calling to sell my dad stocks and bonds, but to get his advice. He also had the sophistication of a Secretary of State when it came to world affairs and could apply that knowledge to international finance.

When relatives, the Altfests, who own a Park Avenue wealth management firm, reviewed his portfolio history, they noted that he had never made a mistake, but rather managed to get into things before they rose and out of them before they fell. This, for better and worse, is one of his many skills I did not inherit, as my peculiar obsessions don’t allow me to spend intellectual capital on subjects like finances, for which I have little enthusiasm.

By the seventies, when my sister, Jennifer, asked for his help with an economics course she was taking on Marxism, my dad hilariously dissed socialist and communist ideology and jargon. He had Jennifer read from the textbook and would stop her at the end of a sentence and say things like, “In the next two sentences, there will be a reference to ‘running dog capitalists.’” And sure enough, whatever silly Marxist jargon he predicted would turn up in the next sentence. When he wasn’t enraged, Nathan was a great comedian and master of sarcasm and dissing. He was also an amazing surrealist painter during the two periods of his life he had that obsession.*

And, by the way, the archeological dig is far from over because I have a storage room in the basement of my house in Boulder packed to the rafters with my parents’ papers and media as well as mine. When I was loading all that stuff in there in 2015 a piece of brown paper bag fell out of a box. On it, scribbled in my handwriting, was a single sentence dream record:

“Old man on a mission, an archeological dig into the past.”

The sudden appearance of this forgotten dream fragment on brown paper felt like an oracular moment. My intuition was that the time for the archeological dig mission would be when I was an old man. I was 57 at the time, and 67 now, which does make me an old man, but I’m still just a couple years past late middle age, the demographic some call “the young-old.” My intuition is that if I live to be one of the old-old, that will be the time for the archeological dig.

Besides all the papers are boxes and suitcases bulging with reel-to-reel tapes, reels of 16-millimeter movies, color slides, black and white negatives and photos. And about half of the photographic media is stuff I made.

Photography was the only of my dad’s obsessions where I shared technical competence. I took a full year of optics and photographic theory at the Bronx High School of Science, taught by a physicist and one of my dad’s best friends, Mr. Hellman. I completely refurbished the basement darkroom and spent long nights there making archival-quality black-and-white prints while listening to paranormal experiencers on the Long John Nebel radio show, the precursor to Coast-to-Coast AM, a show I’ve been on many times as a guest.

Somewhere in all those papers and other media, perhaps I will find secrets related to his vacuum tube work. However, sorting through this archive would be a monumental project that other obsessions have not allowed me the space to pursue.

I could only take about ten percent of the interesting stuff he collected, and that involved six or seven trips from the Bronx to my house in Boulder. My Sprinter van, Zap Force One, was originally a cargo van, and I later had a custom conversion done to transform it into an eccentric camper. It came with an extra heavy-duty suspension allowing me and a young friend I hired, Andrew Anderson (not the Andrew of the journals), to pack it to the ceiling with heavy stuff.

The old tech I salvaged—cameras, microscopes, oscilloscopes, audio components, etc. was curated based on a single factor. I took the stuff that looked cool, as I had no ability or interest in using any of it, except furniture and lamps, for any practical purpose. I packed a lot of the coolest-looking old tech into my tiny study I’d set up to look like a surrealized version of my dad’s library. Many of my YouTube videos are recorded in my study, and you can see samples of this old tech in the background.

Andrew and I later sold some of the excess contents at the Mile High Flea Market. Soon, Andrew became infected with the old oddity obsession and now has a large and quite successful store at that flea market. It’s easily the coolest store in Colorado and has been featured on several cable shows. There are quite a few things from the Bronx collection still for sale in his shop.

On the cover of Parallel Journeys, it’s Andrew Anderson who is holding a compass on a bridge in Venice. In those years, Andrew was the most prolific writer and editor at the Atlas Obscura website. He’s also the hand model for a photo on the back cover of Parallel Journeys, where he formed an arrow out of volcanic pumice in the palm of his hand. We were at an Atlas Obscura site in Iceland, where an abandoned airplane was located, when Andrew took the back cover photo of me standing in its ripped-open cockpit. In 2016, once the moving work was done, we used Andrew’s Atlas Obscura knowledge and departed on a globe-hopping odyssey that took us to many obscure and fascinating locales in twenty-five countries.

Wherever I go, be it world travels or just haunting Boulder’s five thrift stores, I’m always collecting ancient tech and other weird objects because, like my dad, I’ve been a treasure hunter ever since I was a child accompanying him on thrift store safaris. The difference is I rarely repair anything or do anything practical with old tech but collect it just for the look.

Even as a child, I took old tech and made steam punkish sculptures out of it. I’ve made four such assemblages in the last week. So, this is why I say that my obsession with vacuum tube tech is merely the cargo-cult version of my dad’s. I collect old tech as talismans, but my dad actually used these devices for scientific experiments.

Until the last decade of his life, anomalous vacuum tubes discarded by the Fisher Radio Corporation were one of Nathan’s most consistent obsessions. He seemed to lose enthusiasm for audiophile applications and instead focused on conducting scientific experiments.

In the 1980s, he spent late-night sessions in his basement workshop, surrounded by old oscilloscopes, tube testers, and voltage gauges, experimenting with his collection of anomalous Fisher tubes, even though Meyer had long since stopped coming over.

My knowledge of electricity was sufficient, on a good day, to allow me to replace a frayed lamp cord with a new one cut and spliced from an extension cord. My friend Eric,* an old Burner and retired electrical engineer whom I consulted when I had problems with the coach electrical system of Zap Force One, mocked me for not even understanding the basics of Ohm’s law.

I had a year of physics at the Bronx High School of Science and another at college but had retained nothing except a vague idea that it had something to do with hot little red billiard balls called electrons that were always having dangerous AC/DC transactions with other hot, red, and possibly bisexual billiard balls.* My mind only retains what I’m obsessed with, and everything else gets tossed in the trash heap of undesirable memories where it deteriorates into an undifferentiated protoplasm of zeros and ones, decayed by disuse and entropy, into a state of unrecoverable data loss.

My old tech visual fetish was always there, but in the last month of 2024, it took a strange turn. All this old tube tech I inherited had been sitting on my shelves for a decade when, out of nowhere, my dad’s 1950s-era vacuum tube audio components suddenly became a dominant obsession. The only sense I could make of it was that I was rearranging these things to make my study look more intriguing.

I soon came to realize there had to be something more to it, but I couldn’t figure out what that something more was. My particular fascination with the array of knobs and toggles on his Pilotrol and Fisher 80 C Master Audio Controller preamps seemed almost like a sexual fetish. I defended it as a love of their aesthetic—their gold-colored face plates and red and green indicator lights and knobs of polished brown Bakelite.

I rearranged the vacuum tube components on my study shelves to display the coolest-looking components behind me when I wrote or recorded YouTubes at the dragon motif mahogany desk I took from my dad’s library. I loved the golden look of the Fisher tuners, preamps, and amps. That my dad had extensively modified all of these, replacing the normal tubes with anomalous ones he got from Meyer, didn’t seem particularly important at first, just their look. When I made videos, I’d turn on the components set up as a backdrop on the shelves behind me to create a 1950s-mad-scientist-manning-control-panels look.

Just before the paranormal event that led to this book, my compulsive rearrangement of these old tube components turned into a fascination with the history of the Fisher Radio Corporation and its founder, Avery Fisher. I discovered an amazing series of family connections to him.

Like the Zap family, Avery Fisher was a New York Jew, one of the two great New York Jewish audio engineers of the golden age of hi-fi, the other most famous being Saul Marantz. The Fisher family, like the Zap family, emigrated from Kiev, Ukraine, around the same era, but like my dad, who, except for WWII, lived his entire ninety-three years in the Bronx, Avery was born in New York City.

By the way, the very electrical family name of “Zap” was not shortened at Ellis Island. I’ve always wanted to believe the name refers to lightning, which, like the orange glow of vacuum tubes, is a plasma. Unfortunately, I am the last Zap with no children to pass the name on to, so perhaps that’s what’s compelling me to record this tiny part of the family history.

It would only be poetic justice for an eccentric, self-taught physicist named Zap to be the one to discover a whole new theory of electricity, which might be buried in the family archive.

In this post-factual age, why shouldn’t I buy into the Elon Musk principle that’s been dubbed “Musk’s Razor”:  “The most entertaining outcome, especially if ironic, is most likely.” Isn’t this the new version of Ockham’s Razor?

Avery Fisher, like my dad and me, grew up in the Bronx. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where my dad once taught. Next door to DeWitt Clinton High School is the Bronx High School of Science, where my dad, years before I attended, taught physics and biology. Bronx Science is famous for graduating the most Nobel laureates of any secondary school, including seven in physics. The godfather of AI, Marvin Minsky, went there, and Neil deGrasse Tyson was one of my classmates. In the humanities, one of America’s greatest novelists, another Bronx Jew, E.L. Doctorow, was an alumnus and my teacher, mentor, and thesis advisor at the NYU graduate creative writing program.

My dad was a very popular teacher and mentor to Bronx Science physics prodigies who went on to illustrious careers, and yet he never took a single physics course himself. His electrical knowledge was a function of his being a polymathic autodidact.  He was hired to teach physics because he got the highest score on a New York State-wide test that qualified him as a physics teacher.

Avery Fisher graduated from NYU, as did my dad and I. Avery was born on March 4^th, the day I’m writing this, a day that I’ve multiple strange connections with, which I’ve spoken and written about elsewhere. And the day Avery died, Feb. 26, turned out to be the day I received the last journal entry in this book.

Like my dad, Avery was an audio engineer fascinated with acoustics. He funded the refurbishment of the New York Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center, which was then renamed Avery Fisher Hall. And this is yet another family connection, as my cousin Leslie, a violin prodigy, has been a part of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra at Lincoln Center for decades. Avery was also a violinist and played a Stradivarius, as does Leslie. And my mom, who earned her living as a clinical psychologist for forty-four years, but, like my dad, was a brilliant polymath, simultaneously pursued a career as a concert pianist. For at least twenty years, my mom went to Lincoln Center three times a week to study with a famous Russian pianist, mastering works by Rachmaninoff, among others. By her sixties, she had become proficient enough to perform at Lincoln Center Recital Hall.

Is any of this relevant? It’s hard to say what’s relevant when dealing with such a tangle of weirdness. My whole life is such an uncanny tangle, and this has taught me to be wary of the trickster aspect of the unconscious, which is why I frequently caution people not to overread dreams and synchronicities and to avoid getting sucked into demented conspiratorial rabbit holes or get misled by paranormal experiences. **(see Rabbit hole video series, Carnival 2012)

I coined a saying about thirty years ago: “Wherever you cast your obsessive attention, there shall you find weird patterning.” Just like with the anomalous vacuum tubes, I don’t pretend to know what to make of all the strangeness, just that they led to the origin of these journals. As Sir William Crookes, one of the most revered scientists of his era (he died in 1919, just a few weeks before my dad was born) said after decades of applying scientific rigor to the study of paranormal phenomena:

 “I did not say that it was possible; I simply said that it happened.”

On the day, March 4^th of 2025,*** the day I wrote the above and on which I am writing now, I had to pause because my closest friend, Justin Sedelmayer, came over with his dad, Jason. In minutes, this led to another stunning object “synchronicity.” (I’ll explain the scare quotes momentarily).

One source of enthusiasm for my thrift store safaris is gifting friends because I have a knack for knowing what they’d like, and I get valuable items for very little.

A few months ago, I found an antique, solid-brass eagle, its talons resting on an orb atop a dome-shaped stand with aged green felt beneath. Based on the oxidation of the felt, I guessed it to be about 80 years old. For no rationally discernible reason but based purely on a hunch that he would like it, I put this object aside for Jason, who only rarely gets to Boulder. In fact, I’d only met him in person once before.

When I gave Jason this object just a couple of hours ago, he was astonished.

“My dad (Justin’s grandfather) has the exact, exact same antique! And of all his stuff, it’s the only thing I’ve coveted!”

Justin pulled out his phone and did a Google Lens search and found one for sale for $700. I’d gotten it for $8.

Although I characterized this as a “synchronicity,” I was doing so merely to distinguish it from a lucky coincidence, as my life is an endless stream of such highly improbable occurrences. As a writer and researcher of paranormal phenomena, I must point out that to call such an incident as just happened with the eagle, a “synchronicity” (in the strict sense of an acausal occurrence) almost always involves sloppy thinking. This will be relevant when (and this is coming next) I finally get to the paranormal event that brought me these journals

What I call the “dirty little secret of paranormal research” is that when something crosses an improbability threshold enough to be considered “paranormal” (an unfixably sloppy term), it’s almost impossible to say what the paranormal causal vector, if any, was.

Synchronicity, as Jung defined it, is the “acausal connecting principle.” Therefore, if you can find a cause for a phenomenon, including a paranormal cause, it’s definitionally not a synchronicity.* For it to definitively be a synchronicity, we’d have to be able to disconfirm all causes, including paranormal ones, and that’s almost impossible.

There are multiple possible paranormal causes of the antique eagle event, none of which can be definitively confirmed or disproven. Therefore, I call it a “synchronicity” because I don’t know what else to call it. I can’t rule out other paranormal causes like telepathy or clairvoyance, as we have strong evidence for both, with replicated triple-blind studies demonstrating short-term clairvoyance.* Perhaps I didn’t tap into the future or Jason’s mind but accessed a pervasive universal field of information (what mystics call the “Akashic Record,” Rupert Sheldrake the “morphogenetic field,” and Jung “the collective unconscious”).

Perhaps I had just enough access to this field to intuit a potential emotional event that would occur by giving the brass eagle to Jason. I don’t know which, if any, of these potential causal mechanisms were involved, and therefore, as with most paranormal events, characterizing it as a synchronicity, telepathic, clairvoyant, etc. is unwarranted unless I could be certain I knew its single cause or that it was definitively acausal and such clarity is almost impossible.

I need to point out the dirty little secret so I don’t disappoint when I must also admit that I cannot, with intellectual rigor, explain the paranormal event that led to my receiving these journals.

Now we can finally get to the events preceding the paranormal event that seemed (double emphasis on seemed) to bring them forward.

The day after I researched Avery Fisher, I powered up my dad’s Pilotrol and Fisher components. Though none of these devices were wired to each other, when they were simultaneously powered up, I noticed an emergent phenomenon. The vacuum tube orange plasma glow they produced got brighter and began flickering. The flickering plasma reflected off the wall behind the shelves, and even when I killed the power, it would keep flickering for a while.

I sensed something was missing, another component needed to join the plasma party. One device was neglected, though it was of key importance to my dad. It had been sitting on a shelf in my study gathering dust for a decade, but I’d never tried powering it up. It looks like a massive 1950s power amp, but its name has a sci-fi ring to it. It was created by Waveforms, Inc. of New York, NY, and features a logo that is a sine wave.

It’s stamped with the serial # 6094. Avery Fisher lived from 06’–94’.

If I Google any of my dad’s mono power amps by McIntosh, Marantz, and Fisher, there are pages and pages of eBay listings, and Audiophile forums on those exact models, as old tube amps are highly coveted by audiophiles who use them to recreate the classic, warm tube sound. I found only one reference to anything about the company, Waveforms, Inc., a single Reddit comment claiming they were a NYC-based company that made scientific testing equipment.

In the eighties, my dad was always working on this Waveforms device, trying out different anomalous tubes and always, soldering, soldering, soldering. As always, he was forever cursing—Goddamnit! Sonofabitch!— at whatever he was working on while his volcanic nature appeared to off-gas a haze of pipe smoke and the acidic vapors of lead solder and flux, polluting the air around him. He worked deep inside the hidden under-chassis of the Waveform, surrounded by piles of small, brown, waxy cylinders—resistors and capacitors banded with colored stripes.

After Nathan’s death in 2012, at the age of 93, the long-neglected Waveforms device was gathering dust on his workshop table, still wired to an oscilloscope and surrounded by high-intensity Tensor lamps that also hadn’t been turned on for decades. Except for its cool nameplate, the Waveforms machine had little aesthetic value. Unlike the Fishers, it had no cool golden face plates or even a single indicator light. It lacked even a single knob, button, or toggle. It’d been abandoned in a probably non-working state, and if I powered it up, I feared its anomalous vacuum tubes might implode.

***

I connected the Waveforms to a heavy-duty extension cord to get a safe distance from it. I figured the worst it could do was trip a circuit breaker, so, with all the other components already active, I gave it the first dose of electricity it had known since the 1980s. As soon as the electrons, those hot little red billiard balls from the power company, began flowing into it, its tubes began to glow nuclear-reactor-core orange.

Time seemed to shift once the Waveforms powered up, so I’m going to shift to present tense to better convey my altered perception.

***

An ominous low power substation hum fills the room, and the orange plasmic flicker of the other components becomes frantic, then slows to a synchronized rhythmic pulsation as though their plasmic fluctuations are being stabilized and entrained by the Waveforms device.

The rhythmic plasma affects my brain, causing a dizzy vertigo that has me stumbling toward the swivel chair behind my desk.

Am I being bombarded by X-rays or toxic EMFs that will give me brain cancer? Are hot red billiard balls shooting through my tissues, creating genetic errors, or does being a Zap make me immune to electrical hazards?

I calm myself with the realization that if an author named Zap were to die in an electrical conflagration created by anomalous tech made by another Zap, it would certainly be the most ironic and entertaining outcome possible, and probably good for my pathetically underperforming book sales, so I remain seated as my study appeared to spin around me.

I close my eyes and perceive a spatial distortion and enlargement of this small room as if it were transforming into a Gothic Cathedral as drawn by M.C. Escher.

But then things stabilize. Perhaps my brain is becoming entrained, like the anomalous vacuum tubes, to the same plasmic rhythm. The ominous power substation hum lowers and becomes nearly inaudible, though the air and my skin continue tingling with electricity. The air fills with the smell of ancient transformers, vacuum tubes, resistor wax and remnants of my dad’s pipe smoke.

I keep my eyes closed as my body relaxes and my breathing calms. The room becomes silent and still, and the sense of spatial distortion stabilizes. However, there is a strong sense that the room has enlarged, with no ceiling beyond a distant canopy of stars. The flow of time slows and becomes more spacious.

I open my eyes and find Andrew standing silently before my desk, looking at me with his intelligent, compassionate, and sorrowful brown eyes.

Andrew is wearing a cloak the color of moss, seen in shadows. He emanates a feeling of loneliness and long-reconciled suffering and loss and seems older than when I’d last seen him. The age difference comes as a feeling rather than a visual artifact, as his idealized appearance is still intact.

After I overcome the shock of his presence, I recognize that, though he’s a living, physical presence, he’s not biologically embodied. He radiates a subtle electromagnetic force field, and although his appearance is textured and high-resolution, I sense that his body is not composed of cells but highly stabilized plasma. We’re in a state of telepathic mutuality, allowing us to silently receive deep perceptions of each other. After a few long moments, Andrew breaks the silence.

“Jonathan, it’s so good to see you after all these years, many more years for me than for you. We are now separated by more than just space or time, because there have been branchings. My life continues in a parallel reality. A portal has opened, but it won’t last. There are others to hear from, others who have kept journals. The time of this convergence is limited, so my words must be brief.

“I know you’ll be faithful to what we offer, and we honor you for doing the work needed to put it in a form that can be shared with others. We also honor those willing to receive it. But don’t be dismayed if it’s only a few who are willing to hear our unfinished stories. Even if only one person out there is deeply affected, it may be enough.

“Each of us, in our different ways, supports your efforts to create butterfly effects. Your world is highly unstable, as is ours, but perhaps in some timeline, the human adventure will continue, if not on this planet, then on another. There are other worlds than these, and the spirit of sentient life will persist and grow in one form or another. All any of us can do is play our small parts in the great unfolding.

“I will look for other parallel portals, but whatever happens, we will always be part of each other, and whatever has existed will never not have been.

“I know you have many questions, but there are limits to this intervention I must respect. For now, I must withdraw, Jonathan, and leave you to your work. I honor you and am grateful for everything you’ve taught me.”

Andrew bows his head and vanishes. The silence he leaves behind reverberates with forlorn feelings of missed opportunity. There were so many things I wanted to ask,

but I reconciled myself with his statement that our time was limited by necessity. The encounter occurred in a state of telepathic mutuality, allowing a depth of perceptions that words could never realize.

When he said I’d receive journals, I thought it’d be like in Tucson, a digital file sent by email, but none of my devices report notifications.

Minutes after Andrew’s departure, with the plasma field of humming vacuum tubes still filling the room, I’m about to start writing up the encounter, when I sense a channel opening. Someone is present, or at the edge of presence, so I wait.

I notice a coniferous scent in the air—fir balsam. The vague sense of presence resolves into a feeling of Tommy—

 a young, innocent Tommy. I visualize him in his treehouse.

Though I’m aware of him, he’s not aware of me. The channel opens more, and his feelings, thoughts, and perceptions infuse mine.

Then I hear his voice, his inner voice, his private thoughts, but it comes through in an almost subliminal way that doesn’t allow me to discern individual words. Gradually, the telepathic transmission resolves, and his voice becomes clear and sharp. I recognize this is because he’s recording words in a journal, and I begin typing them as I hear them.

A couple of minutes into this process, there’s a shocking moment where Tommy apparently becomes aware of me which he records in his journal:

 

“Now, I feel like there’s more than one person watching me. A strange image just flashed into my mind. I saw an older man in a dark room. Behind him were what looked like sophisticated but antique electronic devices with dials, knobs, meters, and red and green lights. It feels like he’s monitoring everything I’m writing and even my thoughts. I think he’s one of the people meant to read my journal, and I sense good intentions from him. The image disappeared pretty fast, but I feel like he’s still out there, watching me as I journal alone in my treehouse, swaying in the howling wind.”

After I transcribed this paragraph, I said Tommy’s name aloud and in my mind, hoping for telepathic contact, but the flow of information seemed to be one-way only. I had little time to react because Tommy continued writing, and I had to focus on keeping up.

Perhaps this creates a false impression that I’m merely transcribing, but it’s more telepathic and participatory than that. While Tommy works on his journal, I‘m aware of the whole background of his thoughts and feelings, so there’s always much more than can be put on the page. It’s highly visual, and I can see more than what he describes in words.

Also, there’s a variance in how I receive his words and those of the other journal writers. Sometimes, the words are quite distinct, and it is like transcription, even though I continue to perceive much more. There are other moments when I seem to receive Tommy’s linguistic intentionality just before he renders it into words, so my mind acts as translator, and some of my language likely fuses with his. If so, it happens too quickly to perceive any clear boundary between his words and my translation of them.

The transmissions happen in real-time, so there is no space to make such a subtle discernment anyway, as I need to focus primarily on just keeping up. But the process is more gentle than frantically demanding. Soon, I discovered that if I need to get up and get a glass of water or something, the communication allows for that and will resume where it left off.

***

The process of receiving the journals lasted for three months. Each day, the window would open for three or four hours and then close again. Once it did, every bit of telepathic mutuality vanished.

I see many parallels to what the older Tommy experienced when he telepathically merged with Jeremiah’s perspective during his journey in a spacefaring biosphere. His writing process during his solitary life at the Vaughn compound had several parallels to my own.

There was a thrilling moment when Tommy saw an image of me through his inert laptop screen. I tried reaching out to him with my mind, but it didn’t work. There was still a two-way mirror between us.  Except for that one image of me lighting up, the telepathy was one-way. I wanted to reassure Tommy he wasn’t crazy, because I could entirely relate to his experience. I’m certain he was undergoing a form of communication parallel to what was happening to me, a type of telepathic portal between parallel timelines.

One morning, after a few days of recording Tommy’s journal, I was astonished when a new person, the young German, Max, began speaking, and I was sucked into the telepathic vortex of this total stranger.

I never knew where things were going, which added excitement when it was happening, but also created anxiety once the window closed for the day. Though every session produced a huge word count, once the window closed, it was airtight, and I had no inkling of what, if anything, would come next. Part of me wanted to keep the equipment powered up, but it seemed pointless when the line had gone dead, and I didn’t want to risk burning out any of the antique electronic components.

***

When the portal closed, it closed, except for one day after I had access to a despairing Tommy in the Vaughn compound. The channel to his world closed, but just before I was about to get up and power down the vacuum tube equipment, another channel opened to a tormented mutant I’d never encountered before or since. Perhaps it was the dark atmosphere of Tommy’s feelings that opened this channel, but more likely it was my earlier encounter with Max, who had some things in common with this new mutant.

Max was potentially dangerous, but he was a creature of reason with a highly organized agenda, at least at first, while this new mutant was more of a chaotic storm, and far more dangerous and unpredictable.

The channel opened with a vision of him on the pedestrian walkway of a large suspension bridge, perhaps what New Yorkers call the GW—the George Washington Bridge—which you can walk onto from the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. My view was close up and didn’t take in much of the surroundings. It was night, and I saw him looking down into the dark rippling water below while his tormented feelings, thoughts, and memories flooded into me. As with both Tommys and Max, it was as if I were behind a two-way mirror, and I saw no sign of him being aware of the telepathic melding, which may have been fortunate, given the danger he radiated.

It’s hard to render such a melding into words because it was not like an unfolding chronological narrative. He wasn’t writing in a journal, but his whole being was exposed as layers of feeling, flashes of thought, and unfolding memories. I was able to explore his psyche for about an hour, but later I realized there was a time differential.

I think he was only standing on that bridge for fifteen or twenty minutes. It was like he had been slowed down to give me time to perceive his every thought as well as the feelings and memories that lay beneath them. The exploration was like wandering in a labyrinth, each twist and turn of the maze exposing a new angle of him. It was a non-linear cascade of revelations about him coming to me as inner knowings and visions.

At some point, I caught the name he had given himself—Sinbad. Though he was highly intelligent and intuitive, he was not well educated and didn’t seem aware of the origin of the name as a late addition to A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, or that Sinbad was supposed to be a sailorman. He thought Sinbad was the name of a legendary pirate, and that resonated with his sense of himself as someone who operated outside of the social order, able to exploit opportunities unseen by others. He thought of the name as a contraction of “sin” and “bad,” and that’s how he saw himself. He adopted it, like the all-black outfit he wore, as a warning label, a fair warning to anyone who might trifle with him, like the rattle of a rattlesnake.

Other aspects of the character he created for himself included his black leather jacket and black-painted fingernails. Everything he wore was black, including his Converse high-top sneakers. He was also compensating for his body type as he was small and young, perhaps only seventeen or eighteen, pale, with long, glossy black hair hanging profusely beneath the collar of his leather jacket. All of these aspects would not have made him appear dangerous but like a prettier-than-average city kid were it not for the mesmerizing potency of his brilliant green-and-gold-hazel eyes. His eyes felt like weapons.

His look was striking, but his body wasn’t the way he wanted it to be, and there was bitter rage about that. And yet he had pride in his uncanny charisma and the paranormal field of energy that radiated from him. Anyone with eyes to see would see it. Even hardened street people found him a disquieting apparition, and his gaze left them disturbed and disoriented.

As a child, he’d been bullied and abused, though I caught no particulars of this embittering past that surrounded him like a dark shadow and left him with a core of nuclear rage that had become the power source of his strange abilities.

Whatever he had suffered at the hands of others was before he discovered his secret tricks and the dark powers he could wield to defend or attack. When I cautiously tried to peer into the nature of his abilities, an image, almost like an alchemical glyph, popped into my mind. Black ice. The kind of black ice I feared when I sometimes had to cross steep mountain passes with twisty switchbacks while driving at night to or from Boulder. It was the kind of black ice your headlamps wouldn’t pick up until it was too late, and you were sliding at high speed toward a low guardrail that would break through to a thousand-foot embankment.

 His magic was cold, slippery, and invisible until the force of it hit you. He had the parapsychic ability to work from the shadows and blind spots of another psyche, allowing him to lash out at hidden vulnerabilities and fatal weaknesses. His paranormal rage generated a wake of disorder around him, camouflaged as a slippery chaos of misdirecting events, a zone of subterfuge that blindsided you to the incoming psychological attack. He could deliver his strikes with what might seem like just words and gestures, but they were weaponized with elements of telepathic intrusion and mind pressure.

Some sort of provocation or annoyance, at least, usually preceded these attacks–something that ignited his core of nuclear rage. Some came as uncontrolled eruptions, others were highly intentional, but none were planned in advance. The ways and means of attack were spontaneous happenings invented in the moment. The results could bring him gloating satisfaction over those who threatened or stubbornly tried to block his way, but sometimes there were effects that tragically exceeded his intentions.

A recent episode flashed into my mind. Sinbad was standing at the front desk of what looked like the administration office of an urban public high school. Across the counter from him was a large, postmenopausal woman who was contemptuously rebuffing his effort to sign himself out of school.

“Not happening,” she said coldly, “not without a signed note from a parent with a phone number where we can reach them or a signed form from the school nurse.”

Sinbad lashed out at her, partly aloud in an ominous whisper and partly telepathically.

 “You’re what’s not happening. You always wanted to find a man, a husband, only now you know it will—neeeevver—happen.”

He reflected back to her images he pulled from her dismal life alone in her apartment watching television, a life that would merely persist into an ever-contracting monotony past her imminent retirement. He concluded the claustrophobic vision with her having a fatal heart attack, slumped over on the couch, her glazing-out eyes reflecting the flickering light of the television.

The woman fragmented before his eyes into a panic attack. In her desperate confusion, she couldn’t be sure if the boy had even spoken to her. He slid a form toward her and said,

“Sign it.”

She did, wanting only release from the encounter so she could rush to the bathroom.

 From Sinbad’s perspective, the office lady had gotten exactly what she deserved. But sometimes things did not work out the way he intended. There was one episode where the effect of his power left him with intense regret and guilt.

Memory flashes of another boy, slight and blond and very pretty, with large, pale blue eyes. He liked this boy and was attracted to him. This boy’s disposition was mild, soothingly passive, but he was also quite intelligent and laughed at Sinbad’s transgressive sense of humor. Sinbad knew this other boy was gay, and there was a mutual attraction–he seemed the most viable boyfriend prospect he had ever discovered.

Another flash–they had taken some sort of psychedelic drug at Sinbad’s instigation. He wasn’t trying to harm the boy, but he couldn’t resist playing with him, revealing himself and his power while they were tripping in ways he thought would impress him. But the other boy was more fragile than he realized. From what I could make out from the subsequent flashes, Sinbad had triggered an incipient psychosis in the other boy, a type of madness resulting in hospitalization with no sign of recovery. This unintended effect filled Sinbad with bitter remorse. The fate of the other boy haunted him as he gazed into the dark, rippling water flowing beneath the bridge.

Sinbad had come to this overlook on the bridge many times before, feeling some of that impulse the French call “l’appel du vide,” which translates to “the call of the void,” the impulsive desire to jump from a high place. Reductive psychiatry, in its industrialized version of storytelling, calls it “HPP” or “High Place Phenomenon” and considers it to be merely a fleeting, intrusive thought rather than an actual desire to commit suicide. They even try to put a positive spin on it as a neurological safety signal, a way for the brain to process risk and affirm the urge to live.

For Sinbad, gazing from the bridge functioned, reverting to psychiatric lingo, as an arousal addiction. It was an adrenaline rush he could get without the need for any drug just by leaning over the railing. But he knew it was more than that. Being so close to where he could fulfill the call of the void stirred up visions and gave him perspective on his life.

He didn’t want to jump. If it would actually bring void, a cessation of suffering, he might have been tempted, but Sinbad had a degree of spiritual intuition. He feared the loss of all control such a surrender to gravity would bring. He also sensed that horrors would be waiting for him in the void beneath the icy water.

He relished his dark gifts but also recognized them as a curse he couldn’t escape. Despite the name Sinbad had given himself, I could see that he was not irredeemably bad. He was genuinely remorseful about the effect he had on the other boy, but he thought of it as a selfish frustration. He bitterly regretted the lost hope of making a real connection with someone he hoped would be a friend and lover.

Sinbad was trapped by his abilities and also felt trapped in his body. He felt his sexuality as an impotent double-edged sword. His sexuality had much in common with Max’s, which left me wondering if the Max channel was what had drawn in Sinbad.

Part of Sinbad wanted to dominate. He had fantasies of such with the boy he had driven mad. But he was small, not in an ideal form to play a sexual alpha. The other glowing edge of the sword were intense fantasies he had of being dominated by an alpha, someone he respected enough to surrender control to. But he’d never met a man he respected anywhere near enough to allow that. Such ideal alpha warrior types lived only in his fantasies. Even movie characters who played such roles had contemptible aspects.

Also, Sinbad was hypercritical of his appearance and didn’t feel he, unlike that other boy, was in the perfectly ideal form to fulfill the submissive side of his desires. And he wanted to fulfill his desires only in perfectly ideal ways. And then there was another level of impossibility. Someone trying to dominate him, he not unreasonably assumed, would protectively trigger his dark abilities, and he’d end up dominating and likely destroying them.

Sinbad also believed that if he got close enough to another boy who he’d be attracted to in the other way, they would never be able to understand him, or forgive his sins, and if they got close, he would only drive them mad.

With all his abilities to manipulate others to fulfill mundane desires, he felt impotent to fulfill his sexuality. And this sexual frustration made his nuclear core of rage even more dangerous. Further complicating his frustration, like Max, he wanted more than just sex–he wanted to find genuine companionship too, someone who would be a fiercely loyal friend and ally as well as a lover, and that was even more impossible. He was cursed to remain a solitary pirate, getting his way with small things, but gaining nothing that would ever make him happy.

I felt sympathy for Sinbad’s suffering, even as I felt relieved to be behind the two-way mirror. For better or worse, I’ve always been a karmic magnet for other mutants.  I’ve met many sorts, some exceptionally altruistic and empathic like Tommy, Andrew, and my closest friend, Justin, but I’ve also had encounters with dark mutants, even other powerful shadow empaths like Sinbad.

More than one young, suicidal mutant has sought me out. As of this writing, there are two I’m mentoring as best I can. But it’s been touch-and-go at times with both of them.  Despite everything I’ve learned and my care to respect boundaries, etc. my efforts, over the years, have brought tragically mixed results. Once dark momentum passes a certain threshold, trying to be a positive influence can feel like being a plastic toy tugboat trying to alter the course of a rapidly moving ocean liner.

The first mutant I met who was cursed by his own powers became my best friend when we were both eleven. Later the same summer we met, he caused me to suffer a nearly fatal dog mauling, something he confessed two years later when we were thirteen, along with other shocking paranormal events that had erupted from him.***

As I mentioned in the earlier epilogue, one dark mutant explicitly warned me that he was evil, then pretended he was joking, then warned me again. As Toni Morrison famously said, when people tell you who they are, believe them. He told me, but I didn’t quite believe him. Naively, I still thought I could help and suffered the consequences.

Now I’m old, old enough to finally realize that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. If I could communicate with Sinbad, I’d feel anxiously obliged to talk to him. I could give him understanding, but I’ve earned enough realism to recognize that he would need much more than a talking cure. He’d become frustrated with my inability to solve his problems and might turn on me. It’s happened to me many times.

Someone like Sinbad would need a loving community of other telepaths, and there would have to be stronger mutants who could prevent him from causing tragic harm. Andrew and Tommy together, with all their abilities and compassion, might be able to help him, but I have no way to contact them.

And even if I could, I can’t locate Sinbad in time or place. What little I could see of the visual backdrop of his memories was generically modern-urban. He could be living in synch with me, upstream in time where both Tommys, Max, and Andrew are, or he might be as far back in time as the eighties. I couldn’t tell.

In modern movies and shows, phone tech easily dates things—rotary phones from one era, flip phones in the near past, touchscreen phones in the present, futuristic tech from upstream. But Sinbad never pulled out any device.

I considered every part of his outfit for possible time markers. He had black-painted fingernails, but those became a modern style as far back as the 70s in punk, goth, and metal subcultures, and they’re still popular and likely will be in the future. Same with his Converse sneakers. If only my angle of view had widened to include the cars on the bridge, I could have located his era.

Perhaps I’ll never be faced with the dilemma of what to do with Sinbad, but when telepathic channels open once, they may again, and two-way mirrors are not absolute boundaries. Both Tommys had moments of catching a glimpse of me. But if that happened with Sinbad, he’d likely be enraged by the intrusion.

Sinbad’s torment is of a sort I’ve seen before. Telepathic mutants need to find community with other telepathic mutants. Without that, alienation pathologizes. Sinbad is what used to be called youth at risk, a terribly neglected problem that puts everyone at risk.

At the time I perceived Sinbad, redemption still seemed possible. Even as a young schoolteacher, I came to perceive the difference between someone who still had enough healthy tissue left to work with and those who didn’t. Sinbad was capable of remorse and deeper human connection, but in desperate need of an intense and socially immersive positive intervention. Without that, he’s at high risk of doing something that will make him feel irretrievably committed to the dark side.

Meanwhile, all I can do is report this one encounter with a tortured soul lost somewhere in the mists of time.

Though he appeared to me for only an hour, I still feel haunted by his precarious fate.

***

That was the only day a channel opened twice. Otherwise, once it closed, it was done for the day, and for all I knew, forever. Andrew told me the communication wouldn’t last, so every time the channel closed, I was left worrying about mutants on the other side of the parallel portal, anxious they might be gone for good.

This anxiety intensified during my long morning routine of stretches, push-ups, crunches, and other exercises I need to be ready for a writing session.

Something no one ever told me about aging is that exercise would be more crucial than when I was young. Most mornings, I’m grumpy and frustrated by all the mundane practices and tasks needed to get my body back online to be ready for a writing session. I call this time the “pregame,” and the way I cope with it is by following a protocol, a sequence of steps in a pre-defined order. Jason, the father of my best friend, Justin, who struggles with a disabling condition, talked to me on the phone about his “brief operational window” when he can do things. Though by most measures, I’m of above-average health for my age, the condition of being sixty-seven requires this tiresome morning protocol to get my operational window open for intense writing sessions.

Recently, I came across an internet poster featuring a black-and-white photo of “Captain Kangaroo,” the host of a daily children’s television show that aired from 1955 to 1984. The poster’s caption read, “If you recognize this man, then you wake up every morning with joint pain.” I recognized this man, and I wake up every morning with joint pain.

My morning protocol allows me to work out most of the aches and pains, but it requires many steps, including standing on a whole-body vibration machine for twelve minutes. The payoff is that once I complete my pregame, the fiery energy I inherited from my dad allows me to keep relentlessly going at things till bedtime.

It also allows me, on good days, to do elliptical trainer sessions of up to ninety minutes at resistance level nineteen out of twenty. I’ve been a cardio addict since I was a young teenager, and I still get a runner’s high from my workouts. My elliptical trainer is set up in my basement home theater, so it’s also my chance to watch movies and streaming television series. In general, I have little to complain about compared to others my age.

But when I awaken, I feel washed up, like a canceled Captain Kangaroo. I’ve been out of the game for hours, and it can take up to two hours to get back into full operational mode. As a news pundit in 2024, responding to a question about whether Biden could defeat Trump again, concluded that he couldn’t and added, “aging is undefeated.” For those of us not undergoing protoelf metamorphosis, it must be accepted. As a Mary Renault character said,

“Man must make his peace with his seasons, or the gods will laugh at him.”

Almost every day during the winter of 2025, when the journals were being recorded, during this grumpy pregame time, I had a demoralized sense, especially if I hadn’t slept well, that nothing was waiting for me. Even as I completed the final steps, such as brewing tea, etc. I experienced a gnawing emptiness and an airtight absence of communication.

But then, every single morning for three months, as soon as my fingers touched my weirdly ergonomic Kinesis keyboard, it was as if it were the planchette of a spirit-possessed Ouija board. I didn’t need to meditate or even take a couple of deep breaths. The window flew open at the speed of a six-hundred-and-fifty-horsepower EV sports car accelerating from zero to sixty. There was no transition, just a near-instantaneous shift from grumpy, washed-up Captain Kangaroo feelings to total telepathic immersion, forcing total in-the-zone focus to keep up, transcribing to the limits of my touch-typing capacity until three to four hours later, when the window closed air-tight again. And once the window closed, the anxiety that there might not be anything more returned.

Yes, I did power up my dad’s anomalous vacuum tube devices daily, including the Waveform machine, just before I put my fingers to keyboard. But correlation is not necessarily causation. I powered them up this morning too, and though I perceived a slight spatial distortion and a barely audible power-substation hum filled the air with electricity, the window remains closed.

Did any of that vacuum tube tech actually do anything?

I think it at least helped open the initial parallel portal allowing Andrew to step forth, but that’s just a subjective impression. Andrew never commented on the equipment. Maybe it was just a cargo-cult ritual helping me get into the right frame of mind.

I never actually tried the experiment of seeing if the window would open without powering up the equipment. I thought about trying that, but each morning, I was anxious there’d be nothing waiting for me, so I didn’t want to do anything that might hinder access. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I continued the ritual, and something kept working.

The daily cycle continued until Feb. 26 of 2025, the anniversary of Avery Fisher’s death, I later realized, when I discovered there was no more. Total radio silence. I went to the Zap Oracle and the I Ching, and every card and hexagram was about retreat, dead end, accepting the end of a cycle, etc. And then, when I finally accepted that I’d gotten all I was going to get, Andrew reappeared. (In case you’re wondering, the equipment was still on.)

“I’m sorry, Jonathan, I warned you this would happen.”

“But, why, Andrew? This is such a terrible place to end a book.”

“It’s not quite the end of the book, Jonathan, because you can transcribe the conversation we’re having right now.”

“But, Andrew, any reader, including me, who’s gotten this far will want to know more. Will there be more?”

“That’s still unformed. There certainly could be, our lives continue, but the convergence has reached its end, and we’re no more in control of that than you.

“We must await further developments. Your world is in a highly unstable place, as is ours. Like with the first set of journals, the purpose of this is an intervention, and interventions need to be precisely measured. There are alchemical reasons why this must happen this way. The story of your timeline is unfinished, and so is mine.

“Your whole life has run in parallel with events and people in other timelines. Those people and events are as real and alive as the people in your house and the events of your life. These parallel realities, including the one you live in, are unfinished organic processes. None of us are in control of the unfolding. All I can do is share my intuition about why it’s happening this way.

“The parallel portal that allowed you to receive these journals and our brief moments of communication is meant to be a subtle intervention. Its most valuable effects may be on a single reader. It also generates butterfly effects just by existing in the collective unconscious. It works on an alchemical level and isn’t meant merely to entertain or satisfy any human ego, including yours or mine. We’re not here to sell books. Perhaps book two must end here to convey that. Our purpose is not to create satisfaction or commercial success but to have specific alchemical effects. We do this from a higher compassion that works through us. However, I sympathize with your feelings of frustration, Jonathan, and I’m sure that readers who come across this will share similar sentiments.

“Possibly, some will discern our sincerity from such an unsatisfying breakaway point. The story is not ‘finished’ in the same way that the lives of any readers and the fate of your species are also unfinished. We are not seeking to satisfy anyone encountering these journals but to increase their state of alchemical tension while the fate of your species is in such a precarious zone. Our purpose is to act as a catalyst for metamorphic effects.”

“Did you know the story would end here?”

“No, I didn’t know where the parallel portal would need to close. I warned you at the beginning because I had a vision that a divergence was inevitable, but I didn’t know when it would occur. I also don’t know when or how another will occur, but I’m sure it will happen when the time is right.

“We serve the unfolding consciousness of the cosmos, which no one, or any group of us, can fully comprehend.

“This parallelism isn’t meant for the many, but for a few. It’s intended to reach certain unfinished mutants living with a high degree of alchemical tension, generating metamorphic effects.

“We’re not here to give finished maps, because we don’t have any. Like you, we’re in an unfolding, high-stakes process. We’re also not seeking those who would follow someone else’s map, but those with the courage to navigate their own unfinished timelines.

“We were drawn to you just as you were drawn to us because we share a call to navigate into the unknown. All we can do is work with the unfinished parallelisms of our lives.

“So, when I say ‘we,’ that also includes you, Jonathan. Like us, you’re unfinished, and you have other work to do that will also create metamorphic effects. I’m aware of your continued work on the Singularity Archetype, the Zap Oracle, and your endeavor to create an AI trained on your content, with which people can converse. We support your efforts to create value for at least a few key mutants.

“We will continue to live in parallel with you, as your life continues to parallel ours. I foresee other convergences, other windows when we’ll be able to communicate. Whether any of those convergences will take this form, a form that can be shared with others, is currently beyond the horizon of my vision.

“We all live with unfinished mysteries. And now, I must return to mine as you must return to yours.”

Andrew bows his head and vanishes.

I am still in my study, but I’m not alone. I feel them all around me, and our hearts share waveforms of feelings, but not words. So, I will leave you with Andrew’s last words, as they may apply to you as much as they do to me.

“We all live with unfinished mysteries. And now, I must return to mine as you must return to yours.”

 

THE END