Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2)

by Timothy Scott Bennett

"And all of that would help explain my silly reaction to The Families' elitist ways, and the idea that the aliens are looking for 'beautiful people?'"

  "I believe it would widen your viewpoint, yes," said William. "The thing is, I'm not certain that such an analysis would be helpful right now. What I do know, Madam, is that we in the Evolutionary Element have done our best to align with the actions and thought-patterns of the aliens themselves, and that their modern relationship with The Families was a matter of them coming to us."

  Linda leaned back in her chair, her head shaking almost imperceptibly from side to side. She inhaled deeply and sighed. "I don't know, William. It just... rankles. You know?"

  William nodded his understanding. "Perhaps it would help to think of the Earth as a training ground, a school for the evolution of human consciousness, as the force known as Seth has explained it. Seth would argue that the training here is karmic. Ethical. Spiritual. It's about learning to create responsibly, and usually takes repeated embodiments in the material bands for an individual knot of consciousness to 'graduate,' so to speak, to the more non-material or other-material bands. The consequences of circumstance must be real in order to be felt. Otherwise, we'd just be passing students up a level without first completing their lessons, something which school systems eventually learn creates more problems than it solves."

  Linda shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

  "Or we could liken the situation on Earth to the ancient tribal practice known as the vision quest. When the tribe sends a group of young folk out into the wilderness to seek their visions - the visions they require in order to find and take their places as initiated adult members of the tribe - you can be sure that there is a desire for them to all return safe and sound. And yet they do not all return, Madam. Some of them do not make it. And the tribe accepts the necessity for this, you see. As Ms. Kübler-Ross observed, we need the experience of defeat and suffering in order that we might grow in maturity and consciousness. We need the risk and the consequences to be real."

  Linda sighed again but did not speak.

  William sat forward in his chair. "Or I might observe that evolution always proceeds by choosing some small segment of a population and guiding it forward through time, while the unchosen majority sinks into the depths of history. It chooses those - whether we are talking about individuals, populations, species, or ecosystems - who are ready, willing and able, who are fit, who are suited, who have the characteristics necessary for survival in a changing environment. In all of these cases, whether we're talking about a school, a vision quest, or a species evolving on Earth, it seems to me to be a fundamental aspect of human experience on the physical plain that individuals are different from each in a multitude of ways. Some of those differences confer advantages in certain circumstances, and those differences are selected for, by teachers and tests, by medics on the battlefield, by the rigors of a vision quest, or by what we call, collectively, the forces of natural selection."

  Linda raised a hand for the Fisherman to stop. William relaxed back and watched, his expression calm and focused. The President closed her eyes and took a series of long, deep breaths. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, as though she were compiling and organizing both the Fisherman's words and her own jumbled thoughts. There was a war raging inside her soul. On one side stood William's fervent explanations and reasoned justifications. On the other side stood Linda's own heart: her love, her grief, her fear. There was something so... cold... in the Fisherman's words. As if he had no first hand experience of the countless millions of souls he and his Families and their alien friends were so casually consigning to the dustbin of history. As if his "breakaway civilization" had journeyed so far out to the extreme edges of the human experience that they'd lost all touch with the people from whom they had come.

  She'd just spent the last three years with her people, meeting with them on-the-ground and face-to-face as they tried, together, to respond to the great challenges they had been forced to confront. Were her people lost and confused? Dumbed down and anguished? Reactive and childish and filled with rage? Certainly. A great many of them were all of that, and worse. But to Linda that was only part of the story. She'd seen such good intentions in her people. Such longing. Such love. Such striving. As angry as she felt with them at times, as disgusted, as hopeless, she knew that, underneath their insanity and woundedness, the vast majority of them were, at the very least, trying as hard as they could to be good. Did that count for nothing?

  And how could The Families or the aliens claim to really, truly know exactly who it was who was fit to be selected, or was worthy of being saved? It didn't feel possible to Linda. She'd been surprised too many times, as people whom she had written off as insane or stupid or greedy had turned out to be wiser and smarter and more generous than she would ever have guessed. If it had been William who had encountered the scrawny, dirty old woman at the cordon gate, he'd have left her in the dust to meet her no-doubt imminent demise. But that old woman had turned out to be her dear, sweet Ness, a woman with more wisdom, more common sense, and more fierce loyalty than almost anyone else she knew. It was Ness who now stood guard over the bodies of the children! And she would have been selected against as unfit?

  Linda exhaled loudly. Shit. It was all so confusing. Maybe there was something to what William said. Maybe the aliens knew humans better than they knew themselves. But if this was evolution, then she didn't like evolution. Especially now, when William was asking her to be a force of natural selection.

  She opened her eyes to find William still watching her. She cleared her throat and spoke, her eyes cast downward to the dusty ground between them. "I don't know, William," she said. "I mean... I hear your words, and they kind of make sense, but they just... they leave me cold, William. You know? They don't feel right to me. They feel like they're... I don't know... too bound up with the world. With the physical world. With people in bodies. And I'm not sure that makes sense any more." She looked up at the Fisherman, expecting more argument and explanation. Instead she found him grinning and nodding with warm appreciation. "Brava, Madam," he said gently. He pushed himself to the edge of his chair, reached out, and took her hand in his own. "Brava," he said again.

  Linda shook her head in confusion. "Brava what, William?" she asked.

  The Fisherman squeezed her hand. "Upon my return," he said. Then he was gone.

  13.15

  Mary opened her eyes at the sound of animals scampering and saw that her father now stood facing the corner of her room, like a child being punished. The beings must returned him just moments before, floating him through the window on their beam of light and setting him gently into place. The fifth being, the robed one, touched his forehead with that small wand. His head fell forward, chin to chest, his shoulders slumped, and his arms hung limply at his sides. He was switched off. Mary smiled. Her life would be so much easier if she knew how to work his switch the way they did.

  It was Danny's turn next. He stood in the doorway where they had left him, and they didn't even bother to open his eyes as they floated him away. Danny's breathing was slow and easy, for which Mary was thankful. Perhaps he was not as terrified as she sometimes felt. Danny was gone in a moment.

  The robed being looked down at Mary as she lay on the bed, paralyzed. Mary eyed him in return. The moment felt so familiar that she could swear she'd been here before, not just in their presence, but in this exact instant. But then the being did something that shattered that: he nodded once, and spoke in her mind a single word. Amends, he said. Then he turned and followed Danny, and the other four, out through the window. This had never happened before.

  Mary closed her eyes so as not to have to stare at her scolded father. Amends? What the heck did that mean? She knew the word. Her father talked about amends sometimes when he was attending meetings for his drinking. But as far as she could tell from his example, making amends meant making excuses, and she didn't think that's what this being was talking about. Amends were like fixing things, r
ight? Mending them? What was Mary supposed to fix? And how was she supposed to fix it when she was stuck in their damned paralyzing fog?

  13.16

  How the entire island could be without electricity McAfee did not understand. The storm wasn't all that strong yet, and the undersea cables had all been beefed up and hardened off when they'd built the facility. But there was nothing coming through the grid, and their backup generators would not start. Techs could not explain it. The gennies appeared to be in perfect condition, and were fully fueled. They just wouldn't start.

  Which left Linda Travis's dead body still on its slab in the bottom level, with no furnace in which to incinerate it, and no refrigeration to keep it fresh. McAfee wondered when it would start to stink. And he wondered where he might find an undertaker to come and take care of the body for him. One they could dispose of afterwards.

  He took a big swallow of his highball and dug his fingers into the fur on Nicky's back. The cat was unusually needy tonight, it seemed. Distracted. Quiet. As if he didn't like having the power out any more than the Colonel did. He sat in McAfee's lap and hardly moved. No purring. No claws digging into his leg. None of his patented "death gazes." Just a nice little kitty needing some lovin' from his daddy. McAfee sighed deeply and finished his drink. He needed to get another one, but did not want to disturb the cat. Maybe he should call Osterman? Oh, wait. No phones either.

  DuPont had gone. McAfee had watched the little bastard zoom away in his wok. William was long gone, no doubt soaking in a hot tub in some fancy hotel in Urbem Orsus with a couple of young birds. Or whatever. Who knew what the hell those guys were into, really? McAfee sure didn't. Maybe William was a necrophiliac or something. Like, what the heck was that whole "saying goodbye to the President" thing about, anyways? What? Did those two have a fling or something? McAfee shook his head. What a world.

  So it was all up to him now. Him and his soldiers and his techs. Hopefully they'll get the gennies going soon and he can take care of that unfinished business down in the morgue. And he was running out of ice. And he couldn't even microwave some popcorn, now that he thought about it. He shook his head. Maybe he should just go to bed and get some sleep. Assuming they had power in the morning, these kids were going to need a clear-headed commander. Storm's-a-comin', y’all. There will be hatches to batten down and shit.

  McAfee scratched behind Nicky's ears, pushed back on the recliner, and closed his eyes. Maybe he'd just sleep here.

  13.17

  Linda had risen from her chair and was standing with her back to it, looking out over Rumi's Field toward the distant starlit pyramids. A bright ball of light had descended from the sky, circled the pyramid near its apex, and was settling to the ground near the pyramid's base. But it was far too dark to see anything else, no matter how hard Linda tried to tune her vision. Still bound to the near-physical, there was no way she could walk that far to check it out.

  Behind her William cleared his throat. Linda whirled to find him once again sitting in his armchair. "Let's see if we can tied some threads together, shall we?" he said with a smile.

  Linda, tired of fighting, tired of being angry, just nodded and took her seat. "That would be nice," she said evenly. "You did say that things were getting urgent back home."

  William flashed his eyebrows. "I bought us a bit more time, Madam," he said. "Pulled a plug, you might say."

  "Okay," said Linda, motioning toward him. "Let's use it wisely, shall we?"

  William nodded. "Indeed," he said. "So. Humanity finds itself standing on a precipice. Just as you are about to leap out into the universe and the greater Cosmic Community, you find yourselves sliding down the unraveling slope of unsustainable behavior, perhaps to fall into the black hole of extinction. The aliens watch you on your grand vision quest. It appears that many of you will die in the trial, but the aliens are there, as elders, as medics, to offer aide and guidance to those who might benefit." He leaned forward a bit and lowered his voice. "To you this all seems a bit cold. The aliens with their triage do not seem particularly interested in your opinions. And evolution's seemingly mindless, uncaring culling appears to be immune to your consultations." The Fisherman smiled warmly. "Does that about sum it up?"

  Linda raised a shoulder. "Sure," she said.

  "The thing is, Madam, and as you so deftly pointed to before I left, all of this talk of triage and evolution is conceptually bound to the physical realm of limitations and circumstances. Which is to say that, if and when we step more fully into an acceptance of the fundamental non-material nature of reality, in which all-that-is arises from mind and consciousness, then the discussion expands enormously, does it not? While the physical bands are as real as any other, and while they do operate under what can seem like cold and uncaring laws and limitations, those bands can be viewed as simply special cases, which exist inside of a much larger reality. In that larger reality, nothing is ever lost."

  The President shook her head from side to side. "You're going to have to tease that all apart from me," she said.

  William stopped a moment and looked at his watch, his face pulled into a frown. Then he looked at Linda. "It will take some time to flesh out, Madam, but I can give you two quick reasons why neither I, nor the aliens, nor the universe itself, deserve to be thought of as uncaring or elitist."

  "Okay."

  "The first is as I just said. Evolution beyond the physical is for all, because All is One. Nothing is lost. Every part of the human experience is captured, contained, and cherished inside the great Mind-at-Large. Every scrap of consciousness enters into the sacred process of the evolution of consciousness.

  "The second is this: because self-reflective awareness is particularly prized and tended in the larger meta-meta-reality, our alien cousins have extended their invitations across the board, meeting with members of the 'breakaway civilization' one day and showing up in the bedroom of some average Joe the next, to offer a glimpse of something beyond the confines of his or her paradigm. They have gone to great lengths to present new choices to everyone they could reach, Madam, including some Earth's other self-aware species. Many humans have taken steps to enter the new worldview the aliens have offered, and are as important to the evolution of consciousness as the Plan that The Families are enacting in the physical bands."

  Linda closed her eyes. "I need to think for a bit," she said, sighing. "Before you go on."

  William smiled. "That works perfectly for me, Madam, as I must now pop off once again to check on those cricket scores."

  Before Linda could open her mouth to respond, William had disappeared.

  13.18

  "So I'm not sure if they put an actual black cube in my brain or just the idea of a black cube. I mean, later, when I was working with them like my Dad, it was clear they could do all sorts of..." Ted stopped, frowned, cocked his head. "Oh," he said, looking at Carl. "You were there too. You worked for me. We called ourselves The People." Ted smiled, fluttering his eyelids. "Hey, Carl," he said with a wave.

  "Hey, Agent Rice," said Carl, also smiling. "Nice to see you again."

  Ted laughed. "Wow," he said, shaking his head. "This is so weird!"

  "It is that, Ted," said Carl.

  "Anyways," said Ted, "well, you know. If they wanted to put an actual black cube into a kid's brain and leave no blood or wounds, they could, right? But I don't know if they did. To me, anyways. Either way, the effect was the same. I had a black cube in my head."

  "And that changed you somehow," said Carl. "As a kid."

  Ted nodded. "I remember one night, this one being, little guy with a fetish for long red robes, came in and rushed to my bedside and grabbed my head with both hands and drew my face up to his and stared into my eyes. And it was like... I don't... either he was using that black box to communicate with me, or to hook me up, or whatever, but my mind was filled with, like, the whole of space. Stars, galaxies, nebulae, all sparkling and swirling in my mind. And I was out there zipping around from one to the next, and this bein
g was watching me to see how I'd act, what I'd do. And what I saw was reflected in his big black eyes, like a mirror. It was weird."

  "That was Spud," said Carl.

  "Spud!" said Ted with another laugh. "Right! Spud! It was that little bastard. Self-styled King O' the Grays and all-around meddling sonovabitch. Man, he used to drive me nuts..." Ted breathed a long, wistful sigh. "Man, oh, man."

  Carl glanced down at the Uncle Wiggily board. "You gonna take your turn?" he asked.

  Ted regarded the board. He was back on square 13, sent there via the Rabbit Hole. He leaned forward and drew a card and moved a few spaces. He looked up at Carl. "You think that little creep is involved with this place?" he asked, gesturing to indicate the room they were sitting in.

  Carl shrugged. "Dunno, Ted," he said. "You remember how we got here?"

  Ted frowned in thought. "A rubix?" he said, remembering only vaguely.

  Carl nodded. "You threw it, trying to take the President out of the game," he said.

  Ted grinned. "Those were the days, weren't they Carl?"

  Chapter Fourteen

  14.1

  Because Gabrielle was busily dreaming of that moment, dreaming it again and again, she and the President face to face in a dark corridor, because she was dreaming of those strange symbols showing up around the planet, of people traveling toward them and gathering around them, flying driving walking running to get to them in time, because she was off and away, seeing and hearing and acting in the realms beyond, she did not feel the quiet whoosh of air as the black ball came into the trailer and hovered right over her face. She did not hear the squeaking of the metal steps just outside the door. And she did not see the light in the sky that popped like a flashbulb before fading away. Because she did not feel or hear or see these things, she was destined to be caught by surprise by what she would encounter, upon waking.