by Linda Hawley
“I’d suggest you stay underground, just in case. Let us come up with a plan, and we’ll be in touch soon.”
Doc reached into his wallet and retrieved a business card, handing it to me.
“We can never express how grateful we are for all you’ve done for us,” I said, sniffling. “But we don’t want to further endanger you.”
“I know y’all are like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but we’ll go when the Lord’s good and done with us,” Doc said simply.
I just nodded.
“I’ll get a couple of phones,” Charlie said as he left the room.
“The only entrance up top has six remote cameras fitted with motion sensors. Some might call this ol’ Doc paranoid, but I’m just careful,” Doc said. “Even if it’s blacker than midnight under a skillet, I’ll know if a cockroach gets near this place,” he said definitely.
I smiled at the image.
“Do you have a bank of monitors that we need to watch?” I asked.
“No, ma’am. This here gadget…” he said, patting his cell phone in his hip pocket, “will buzz right away if even one sensor goes off.”
“That’s good news. Has it buzzed since we got here?”
“Not a once,” he said with a smile. “Been in my pocket the whole time, too. If it was unfriendlies, they’d be as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.”
I heard Chow hold back a chuckle as Doc delivered his last euphemism. I smiled.
“Got ’em,” Charlie announced as he entered the room, holding the prepaid phones in his hands.
Chapter 35
“We’ll be there in two minutes,” the GOG contact said.
I hung up the phone and removed the battery, and Charlie destroyed it.
“They said they’ll be here in two minutes,” I exclaimed.
“They must have found us from our tracking dots,” Chow said immediately.
“I don’t have mine,” I exclaimed, still grieving the loss of my special boots.
Chow held up his leg. “I do,” he said, showing me the shoes he’d been wearing when we were kidnapped.
“Good thing you put the Dots in our shoes,” I said to Chow.
He smiled.
“Before y’all leave us, I gotta tell ya somethin’ Grace wanted y’all to know.”
“I’ll get the elevator up top,” Doc said, tipping his head and then leaving.
“What is it?” I asked Charlie as he lowered Chow’s recliner, preparing us to leave.
As Chow put his feet on the ground, I noticed him wince.
“Grace wanted y’all to know two things: FEMA facilities across America are filled with tens of thousands of Americans who are considered a threat. Not the one here in Eden—just the others.” He paused, ensuring we understood.
I nodded grimly.
“The second thing might help y’all in your cause. She said to tell ya that the government can’t see the future. They can correct things after they happen, but they can’t see what’s comin’.”
“Did she say why they can’t see the future?”
“She wasn’t sure, but she thought y’all’s crystals had somethin’ to do with it.”
Nodding again, my mind flashed back to all the events I’d experienced with the Herkimers. Then I remembered what Armond had been telling me in the visions. He kept reminding me of the power of the Herkimers.
“They’re here,” Doc announced as he popped his head in the door.
“Right on time. Y’all better high-tail it outta here,” Charlie said. Then he moved over to help Chow.
As Chow moved off the chair, the color drained from his face.
“Whoa, there. You okay?” Charlie asked him as he held his shoulders.
Chow wavered, then said, “Yes” and stood tall, using sheer will.
Charlie guided us out to the garage we’d arrived in, and descending was the car elevator, with a black SUV on it. Turning to Charlie, I put my hands out to hug him. Unable to form adequate words to express my gratitude, I squeezed him hard. He returned it twofold and then took me by the arms, holding his face inches from mine, his round brown eyes peering into mine.
“Remember your promise,” he said strongly.
“I will. Her death won’t be in vain.”
He tipped his head to me, then paused.
“Remember, just because a chicken has wings doesn't mean it can fly.”
* * *
As Doc and Charlie helped Chow into the SUV, his eyes went big when he saw Vanessa in the driver’s seat and Edwin alongside her. It was certainly a day of surprises. Doc slammed the SUV’s door and rapped on it twice. Then the car elevator began to move.
“Just like old times,” I said to her.
“Quiet until we get to the safe house,” she said in response, looking back at us. “Buckle up,” she said, trying to be gentler, probably in response to our beat-up condition.
Some things never change, I thought, remembering her words when I introduced myself to Calvin when she rescued me in D.C.
That seems like years ago.
Once the elevator reached the top, Vanessa took off as though she were racing in NASCAR in the pitch dark; it’s a good thing we had our seatbelts on. After several minutes grasping the handholds to stay upright, Chow motioned me to him.
“You okay?” I whispered in his ear.
He nodded, turning his mouth to my ear. “What did Charlie mean, ‘Just because a chicken has wings doesn't mean it can fly’?”
Chuckling, I whispered in his ear, “I think it means that appearances can be deceptive.”
He nodded, processing it thoughtfully.
Edwin passed us each a bottle of cold water, then mouthed the words one hour. We had a drive ahead of us. He looked from me to Chow, clearly taking in our battered appearance, and then turned back around.
* * *
An hour later, Vanessa navigated off the road and onto a long, graveled drive lined thickly by trees and scrub brush. After about a mile, we stopped at a steel gate with four-inch-thick round bars that extended up from the ground. I counted three cameras focused on us. Vanessa held up her hand to the top left corner of the windshield and then put her index and middle fingers out and down. It looked like an upside-down peace sign. In a moment, the gate began to open.
As we drove through, I noticed that there were no more trees inside the gate. About one hundred feet ahead, our headlights illuminated a sprawling, one-story Adobe building. Vanessa pulled around to the back and into what looked like a fortified six-car garage. The garage door closed behind us automatically.
Vanessa and Edwin rapidly exited the SUV, heading to Chow’s door. The ride had been hard on him; he looked pale.
* * *
I heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I called out.
Vanessa entered the bedroom I’d been given, dressed in her usual head-to-toe black attire, with her long black hair in a ponytail. “Hey, just checking on you. Got everything you need?”
“Yeah, all set. The bath was glorious. And you have no idea what it was like to put on fresh clothes. Thank you for them,” I said with a smile. “How’s Chow?”
“Medic cleared him. Your Doc was right—he needs to see a specialist about his nose, and we’re watching him for signs of pneumonia. The medic sedated him. He’s sleeping now.”
“That’s good news.”
“I’ll debrief you both after you rest. You need anything to help you sleep?”
“Just that bed over there,” I said, nodding to it. “I feel like I haven’t slept in a week.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said, then turned towards the door.
“Vanessa,” I called out.
“Yes?”
“Why did you come here…all the way from D.C.?” I asked her.
She pursed her eyebrows, seeming to consider whether to tell me something.
She focused her cat-shaped black eyes on me, then said, “Thank you for bringing him out of
that FEMA facility alive.”
She then turned abruptly and left my room.
Chapter 36
Awaking rested after vividly dreaming, I realized that I felt safe for the first time in a long while. Like a gopher in soft dirt, Charlie had said. I chuckled to myself.
After dressing, I went in the bathroom to brush my teeth. It looked as though the bruises on my face were just starting to ripen. Blue, purple, and pink adorned my cheeks, eyes, and mouth, all of it Psycho-doc’s handiwork.
I opened my bedroom door to find the team and ran right into Edwin. “Guard duty?” I asked him.
“Yes. I assigned myself,” he said, seriousness filling his features.
I could see him reading the state of my bruised face like a book. I looped my arm through his and began walking.
“Why don’t you guard me on the way to the kitchen? I’m hungry.”
Edwin chuckled; he sounded exactly like Chow.
* * *
Vanessa had debriefed us, and the four of us finally sat in the living room. The walls were rounded with interesting glass inlays. Nine huge wooden beams showed along the ceiling. The floor consisted of large, clay-colored tile. Three alcoves were sculpted into the Adobe walls, with the benches covered with thick cushions and throw pillows against the backs. I noticed that there were no windows to the outside, even though we were in an area with exterior walls. The room was lit with abundant warm light bouncing off the earthy golden walls. I sat next to Chow on the enormous curved leather couch, which faced one of the alcoves. Snakeskin lined the seat back. Vanessa sat on the other side of Chow. Edwin faced us, sitting in a chair. Chow’s color had returned, and the swelling on his face was reduced a bit.
“Everyone settled?” Vanessa asked, looking at Chow and me.
“Yes,” Chow answered. It was the most alert I’d seen him since he’d been tortured.
“The situation then…let me recap. We’ve got a director-level guy called Smith—”
“I call him Humpty,” I said, interrupting her.
She stared at me harshly. “What’s his name? Smith or Humpty?”
“He says that it’s Smith, but I didn’t believe it, so since he reminded me of Humpty Dumpty, that’s what I called him,” I said.
“You called him Humpty to his face?” she asked.
“No. He would have killed me,” I said.
“Ann…I don’t care what nicknames you have for our enemies,” she said.
As my eyes opened a little wider from her chastisement, Chow chuckled.
“As I was saying…” she said, glaring at me, “Smith has already terminated one GOG operative—Grace—by tripping nanobots in her brain. We’ve also got a friendly—Charlie—who’s wired with the same kill switch. He’s temporarily safe but in grave danger in the long run. Another friendly—Charles Senior—is also in danger by having sheltered you after your escape. Then we’ve got an enemy who’s tortured the both of you and thinks he’s the reincarnation of Carl Clauberg—”
“I sure would feel satisfied to stick a knife into him myself. I’d like to gain revenge for all the women that his namesake sterilized,” I said emphatically, interrupting her.
“Okay…” Vanessa called out, “Ann gets first dibs on the Nazi-lover.”
I nodded my head, contented.
“We’ve also learned that the entire Project Continuum remote-viewing group is hot-wired. Another gift that Grace gave us is the knowledge that only the Wisdom Keepers can see the future—the government viewers can’t. Anything I missed?” Vanessa asked.
“Every time the Project Continuum viewers correct history, the earth absorbs the shock of it, and there are natural disasters,” I said.
“Yes. Forgot that. Thank you, Ann. Anything else?”
Both Chow and I shook our heads.
“So there it is. Anyone have solutions they’d like to offer up?” she asked.
I spoke up. “I’ve been pondering the power of our Herkimers. Remember what Philippe said during our discussion of crystals? He said that quartz is used to focus and transmit energy in all laser technology. We know that only the Wisdom Keepers can see the future—Project Continuum couldn’t. What if it’s the Herkimers that are transmitting the energy of the future so that we can see it?” I said, looking at Chow and Edwin to see how they were receiving my ideas. They were listening intently, so I continued. “Philippe also reminded us that quartz can amplify energy. We’ve always kept the Herkimers separate, even though we wear them on our bodies. I’m wondering what might happen if we bring them together.”
“It sounds like it’s time for a little experiment,” Vanessa said.
“I agree. One other thing…last night, I had a dream. The three of us were outside, holding our Herkimers point to point. Of all places, we were outside Eden’s FEMA facility.”
“You’re kidding,” Vanessa said.
“No,” I said, looking at her seriously. Then my eyes went to Chow. “When you were unconscious in Doc’s office, Charlie and I had a conversation about the history of Eden, Texas. He showed me a coffee-table book revealing very early pictures of what the area looked like in the 1800s. There was a picture in the book showing Eden’s FEMA center now. Beside it was another photograph—taken in 1882—that showed what that same location looked like then. It was open land—mainly scrub, with a few spindly trees,” I said, looking to the three of them. “In my dream, the three of us stood outside the FEMA facility and imagined it as it looked in that photograph from 1882. As we touched the Herkimer points, a beam of blue light erupted from the center of the triangle we’d created with the quartz.”
“Light—as in energy?” Chow asked.
“Yes…energy that we could see,” I said excitedly.
“What happened?” Vanessa asked.
“I woke up from the dream.”
Vanessa exhaled loudly.
“It sounds like it is time to find out,” Edwin said, then stood.
“Now?” Vanessa asked.
“Sure. Why not? Are you up to it, Chow?” I asked him.
“If all it requires is that I walk outside and hold the quartz in my hands, then yes, I can do it,” he agreed.
“No need to walk. We can ride the ATVs,” Vanessa said. “Let me alert the team that we’re going outside, so they can set up a perimeter,” she said, then left the room.
“Any guesses about what will happen?” I asked Chow and Edwin.
“We could time warp,” Chow said in jest.
“As long as we don’t warp right back into FEMA’s custody, I’ll be okay with that,” I responded.
“What was one of Charlie’s phrases?” Chow asked. “It is easier to let the cat out of the bag, than it is to put it back in.”
I laughed out loud. “Yeah, Chow, and hearing you say it is a delight.”
* * *
Just before dusk, we stood far from the Adobe house, in the middle of nowhere, but within the gates of the hundred-acre ranch. We’d arrived on All Terrain Vehicles. From the internet, Vanessa was able to pull down images of the FEMA site in 1882, and Chow and Edwin studied them. The three of us intended to keep that visual image in our minds during our experiment.
We stood facing one another, with Vanessa standing twenty feet away. Edwin had suggested that we enter a Transcendental Meditation for fifteen minutes, just as we had practiced before we remote viewed together. It would clear our minds, and then as other images fell away, we would focus on the single image from 1882.
“Ready for the meditation?” I asked them.
They both nodded.
“Okay then,” I said, signaling that we would begin.
Immediately my mind filled with all the what ifs that could happen from what we were about to do. Clearing my mind took considerable effort. After I had achieved this, I imagined seeing the image for the first time in the coffee-table book. Letting it marinate in my mind, I imagined myself actually walking through the scrub and the feel of the plants against my legs as I moved through
them. Taking in a breath, I believed that I smelled sage as I hiked through the tract. Having filled my senses, I opened my eyes.
Both Chow and Edwin were already ready, serenity oozing from them. I held out my phantom Herkimer with my forefinger and thumb, holding it by the mid-point, the ends exposed. Next, Chow held out his the same way I had. Then Edwin extended his.
“Now,” I said.
We very slowly touched the double-terminated ends of the three quartz crystals to one another, forming a triangle. Immediately I felt a current run through the Herkimers, and then a blue light—energy—shot down from the center of the triangle into the earth, then straight up into the sky. It was accompanied by a roaring sound, like water rushing past. We held the Herkimers in position. I could tell that something was happening within my body, but I was keeping the visual image of the photograph front and center in my mind, unwilling to ask other questions about what was happening. The visible, blue energy extended up as high as we could see, and as it mesmerized me, I began to lose the image in the photograph. I felt the power of creation, and I never wanted to let it go.
I was jerked back suddenly, pulled to the ground, and with our triangle now broken, the energy immediately retreated and disappeared. Realizing arms were around me, I turned around to see that Vanessa had pulled me down onto the ground.
“What are you doing?” I yelled at her, popping up to my knees.
“What am I doing? Look what you’ve done!” she exclaimed, gesturing around us as she stood.
“What happened?” Edwin asked, lending a hand to me.
Chow stood, watching us.
“You created an earthquake!” Vanessa exclaimed.
“You’re kidding,” I said, dumbfounded, looking around to the surrounding area. There were rocks scattered around and shrubs uprooted. “How bad was it?”
“I grabbed you before it got worse. It kept increasing in intensity, like it wasn’t going to end,” she spat.
“You didn’t feel it?” she asked Chow.
“No.”
“Did you?” she asked Edwin.
“No.”
“I know you didn’t feel it,” she said to me, exasperated.
