“The Catalyst” Series
Chapter 28: Would Energy by Any Other Name…
Alex awoke to the sound of the hotel room door opening. He
wasn’t quite aware of anything yet, so he simply rolled over and glanced
wearily at the door.
“Hey, just came by to bring you something to eat,” Cate said
by way of a greeting. “I figured that none of you would manage to get moving
yet.”
“Man, how come my sister never brings me stuff to eat
in the morning?” Brittany complained, as she tried to find a sheet to pull up
over herself.
“Hey, I think angels just have very angelic sisters,” Jamie
suggested. “She certainly watches out for him.”
“So how’d it go last night? Did everyone get boosted?” Cate
asked as she tossed Alex a bag full of goodies, just to show she wasn’t that
interested in her brother. Gail, who’d come in with Cate, was anxious to find
out how everything went as well.
“It went wonderfully,” Jamie replied cheerfully.
“In case you couldn’t tell, she was the control group,”
Steph explained. “She had her mind officially melted. She passed out for a
while.”
“I would have worried,” Brittany said, “but Alex had just
finished with me and I could feel her emotions as she went under. It was the
weirdest thing. I could literally feel an inkling of what she was
experiencing.”
“That was nothing,” Steph added. “I had a little orgasm when
she did. That got me so ready for my own.”
“We meant did you each get boosted, not how it was sleeping
with my brother,” Cate pointed out, letting the girls think she didn’t like
hearing about Alex’s sex life.
“They each did,” Alex explained as he started eating things
from the bag that Cate had thrown at him. Jamie tried to sneak some grapes, and
he playfully slapped her hand before sticking a couple in her open mouth before
continuing. “As Steph explained, Jamie got the full treatment. Steph had the
build up but I skipped the simultaneous orgasm, and poor Brittany drew the
short straw. She didn’t get the big build up but I tried to give her an orgasm
when I did, but I was off by a few minutes.”
“So I was right, then?” Gail asked, trying to drive her
point home. “You don’t really need to work so hard to achieve the same
results.” Alex agreed with her summation, so she continued. “I think that just
demonstrates that you’ve been standing in the way of your own abilities. Maybe
if you stopped trying to analyze and control everything you might be able to
figure out this spontaneous boosting ability.”
“I prefer the old way, myself,” Jamie replied as she
stretched out, not bothering to be as self-conscious as Brittany was. Brittany figured she was fighting a losing battle, so she dropped the sheet she was
covering herself with and started picking up the scattered pieces of clothing
she found lying around the room.
“So it worked with everyone?” Gail stressed. “Did you try
communicating with anyone?” she asked Stephanie.
“Yeah, I said hello to Anh just to see how well my telepathy
worked. By the way, Alex, she said she’s anxious to speak to you today.”
“Yeah, she can wait until we hit the road later. Right now
we need to get cleaned up and dressed. I think we’re all ready for breakfast.”
The three girls agreed.
“I think Steph and I should get to share the shower with you
this morning, to make up for not getting the full ‘mind melting’ treatment last
night,” Brittany teased as she handed out the various pieces of underwear she’d
collected. Once Cate was sure they were all moving in the right direction, she
returned to the other room to give them a little more privacy. She’d learned
what she’d wanted to find out.
“So, what do you think about this ‘spontaneous boost’
issue?” Alex asked, once they’d escaped the heavy downtown traffic, allowing
them focus on Alex’s outstanding issues. They’d gotten an early start, since
they had no one to meet and were anxious to get out of the city. Gail had
informed them she had a late morning public meeting with the mayor where they
were going to give her a key to the city for saving people from the attack at
the Cotton Bowl Stadium, so Alex and Cate were on their own for the day. She’d
try to catch them when they stopped for the night, but she didn’t know how soon
she could get away, or how long it would take her to catch up with them.
“Well, as usual it’s complicated,” Cate said diplomatically.
She turned to watch him as she got comfortable, preparing to discuss the issues
at length. “First of all, I’m not sure ‘spontaneous’ is the best word to use. I
was thinking of ‘autonomous’, since it occurred independently of your conscious
mind, but that doesn’t seem to be much better. But aside from that, there are a
lot of outstanding issues about it.”
Alex was pleased to see Cate getting back into her ‘science
mode’, which is where she felt the most comfortable and enjoyed herself the
most. He knew she was uncomfortable constantly watching out for him, and he
knew she was much better exercising her mind instead. What’s more, Alex had
been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to explore the issues that had arisen
lately. There were a lot of things they had no explanations for, and they
really needed some handle on them to know how best to approach them. He knew
that Cate was the best person for that role.
“And those issues would be?” he prompted her, even though he
already had his own list.
“The whole premise behind your boosting the women during sex
was predicated on the extreme mix of hormones in the brain during sex combined
with the heavy brain activity occurring during orgasm, and the necessary
emotional link that you seem to need to make the connection. It just doesn’t
make sense that you can bypass all of that.”
“But you heard what happened last night. Apparently all
those steps I was taking were unnecessary. I boosted the girls without them.”
“But that’s just it, just because they don’t need a
simultaneous orgasm doesn’t mean they don’t require the hormones, the increased
brain activity or the emotional connection. There’s clearly more to it than
that. There’s something else that we’re missing, although the rest is a part of
it as well. If you don’t need the other things to achieve the spontaneous
boost, then you probably don’t need them otherwise. But our focus needs to be
on how you achieved that in the first place.”
Alex could see that Cate, once again playing the role of
scientist, was again calm and detached, evaluating the issues on a logical
basis, not on the emotional one he was considering them on.
“So what do you suggest as an alternative?” Alex prompted
her again.
“The idea that you could do such a thing from a distance, to
people that you hadn’t even gotten to know yet, goes against everything we’ve assumed
about the process up to this point, so clearly those assumptions were incorrect.”
“You do remember that incidents of violence have generally—”
Alex began.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, but then continued as if he hadn’t
said anything. “Thus we have much of the same ingredients. You have the
emotional connection, because you’re concerned about the women due to the
perceived threat to them, and you have the excitement level that seems to be a
major component for you, but what’s missing is the women’s responses. Apparently
they don’t need the big build up. Apparently the only requirements are your
own. Whatever you manage to do you do on your own, with no requirements on
their part.”
“You don’t think the adrenaline rush they got from being
shot at made a difference?” Alex asked.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think it was a major component.
Instead I think it was a component for you, and as I said, the worry about one
of your ‘followers’ was threatened would force you to identify with them. I
suspect the long process is so you’ll trust someone enough to relax, but if
forced, you can make the jump that much sooner.”
“So you’re suggesting the hours long lovemaking is just to
make myself feel better about the whole process?”
“I didn’t say that, but we may need to examine it as a
separate issue. Right now I want to examine what’s essential to the process and
what’s not. I’m thinking this is more about your ability to create and enhance
links in their minds. Again, I’m thinking the boosting, at least for the Seers,
involves recreating or enhancing the existing links you’ve already created in
their minds.”
“And the Watchers?” Alex countered.
“I suspect you’re doing something similar, but it doesn’t
involve anything nearly so complex it would show up on a brain scan. I think
you’re probably doing something with a quantum-mind, you’re essentially sharing
a portion of your mind, or possible the Seers’ minds, with the Watchers.”
“Wait, this is the same quantum mind you think I’ve somehow
accessed in another dimension, and that fosters both the telepathy and gives me
my extra energy from?”
“Yeah, and we need to come up with another term for that
energy,” Cate said. “It gets too difficult talking about two different types of
energy using the same terms. The energy you give off is clearly different than
the biological process of converting fats and food into biochemical energy to
propel muscles. It’s a whole different beast.”
“Well hold off on that thought for now, since I’ve been
debating that myself. I’ve got an idea, but I want to discuss it with the
others first.”
“The others?” Cate asked, although she had a good idea what
he was saying.
“But if I do it by triggering the link that I created in
their brain, then wouldn’t it mean that all I need to do is tweak that linkage
again?” Alex asked, avoiding answering her question immediately. “Couldn’t I
then boost someone without doing anything specific? Couldn’t I just access
their minds directly, make a slight adjustment and get out again, without
getting anyone worked up?”
“That’s something we may never know,” Cate advised him. “You
have no conscious control over the aspect of your mind that handles these
things, so we don’t know how to control or even access it. Thus we’ve got to
rely on what we know will work, and try to refine that process. Simply
hoping for the impossible won’t advance anything.”
Alex was still mostly convinced it was a combined process
between him and the girls, but he wasn’t quite willing to rule anything out at
the moment, especially since their best theories had just been knocked for a
loop. The idea that he may be able to boost people without having to take them
to bed was vitally important to Alex. He continued to feel bad about what he
was doing, like he was using everyone’s perceptions of him being more
than the naïve young man that he was to take advantage of people he barely even
knew. What’s more, the conflict over who to boost, and whether they were
currently involved or not, was a constant source of worry for him. The incident
with Megan and Ryan still bothered him tremendously. He’d made a stupid mistake
in ignoring his better instincts and had almost responded by inflicting
permanent damages on someone who couldn’t handle the situation. Such a scene
just illustrated why this whole process was so dangerous. He was playing with
people’s lives here. And although he had powerful motives for doing it, he
couldn’t shake the perception that he was only doing it to get his own rocks
off, effectively making him no better than any of the other high profile people
who have a string of sexual dalliances then proclaim shock and dismay when
eventually exposed. Alex could only imagine when he was eventually exposed.
Man, the number of people who could publish a book about their experiences with
him would be almost unlimited.
“The shared quantum-mind would certainly explain a lot. That
would explain the tremendous link we share between us. You know I feel as
strongly about my Watchers as I do the Seers, despite the direct brain
connection I share with the Seers.”
“Yeah, while that’s one of the more ‘far out’ conjectures,
it also makes the most sense,” Cate said, blowing a stray hair out of her face.
“Luckily we don’t have to account for how it could occur, since we’re simply
assuming you’re utilizing a pre-existing quantum mind that you’re using to
share your own abilities with the girls. If I had to explain the whole thing in
a science paper, it would take another hundred years, at the very least, but if
we simply assume it’s an already working system, we can skip most of those problems.”
Cate was frustrated not by her brother and her inability to
answer his questions, but because she was distracted at the moment. The back of
the small car was filled with cages of hyperactive mice whose continual
chittering kept diverting her attention. Since they’d had to leave town ahead
of Patricia and her band, and would probably be separated from them for over a
day, they’d decided to bring Cate’s lab mice with her so that Alex could
continue giving them their twice a day exposure to his energy, testing how they
responded to it over time so Cate could determine the effects of long term
exposure to Alex’s energy.
She’d dedicated certain mice to specific tests, namely the
‘Alex mice’ (who’d get a massive exposure equivalent to what Alex was getting),
the ‘Seer’ mice (who’d get a much smaller dose representative to what they’d
get), and the control group, who’d receive none at all. She was currently
trying to settle both Anh and Brooke, two mice named after two of his earliest
followers. Alex had already spent enough time with them he could actually
identify which little furry creature was which. Neither Alex nor Cate felt
comfortable riding in a car full of mice, since all it would take would be one
simple accident, or his hitting the brakes too hard, and Cate’s precious
experiment might be seriously compromised. But they couldn’t leave them behind,
and there was no way to secure the cages like they had in the touring van.
Still, they tried to ignore the disruption and continue the conversation.
“So, if we agree there’s something in me that could achieve
this spontaneous boost without my getting physically involved with the
women—excusing any obvious puns, since I can’t imagine anything more
‘physically involved’ than monkeying around with someone’s brain—then how do we
figure out how it operates, so that we can figure out how to access it?” Alex
asked, starting to feel frustrated since they weren’t coming up with any clear
solutions to his central underlying problem.
Cate simply shrugged her shoulders. “You can’t. There could
be any number of different factors occurring, and we have no way of tracking
any of them down since we don’t have access to your unconscious mind. But we
have some decent ideas, so hopefully we’re narrowing it down. You just can’t
get frustrated yet. This is a big step, as you said, so it doesn’t make sense
to rush it unnecessarily. It’s worth taking a structured look at it. If we can
crack this particular nut I have a feeling we’ll figure a lot more as well. So
that makes it even more important than it is at the moment. After all,
this one little detail, the unlocking of this mystery, could mean the
difference between boosting dozens and thousands of individuals.”
“As if I’m not feeling stressed enough about it at the
moment,” Alex groaned, but he knew she was correct. Just as she usually was. He
sat there for a moment considering it.
“I think I may have to take Anh’s advice on the topic,” Alex
suggested.
“Anh’s?” Cate asked. “What did she say about it?”
“Just what she’s always said, that there’s more to what’s
happening than simple science can account for. She keeps harping on my spirit
having crossed over from the spirit realm to guide me in this, just like the
other girls keep telling me that I’m being led by God. Maybe that’s the
simplest explanation. Maybe there’s some outside influence pulling strings that
we simply can’t see.”
“Alex, while I still believe in God, I don’t believe in a
paternalistic deity that has the time to sit around listening and responding to
individual prayers of each individual animal in his kingdom, nor that he
controls each and every physical response in the entire universe in each second
of its existence. I believe that he set the universe up to operate according to
very specific rules, and that those rules are what governs its functioning.
Science has answered most of the major questions for the last 2500 years, the
same questions that religion has failed time and again to answer, so I can’t
see any point in abandoning a reasoned response now.”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” Alex calmly explained to
her. “All I’m saying is that, given our inability to come up with a rational
explanation, we may have to forego explaining it right now. I’m thinking that
maybe someone else is doing the activations instead of me, for their own
reasons. So instead of stressing about what’s causing it, we need to focus on
what we’re going to do about it.”
“Oh,” Cate responded, looking momentarily surprised by that
response. She waited a few moments before responding again. “Well, what’s the
next step? You’ve been trying to repeat the process without any luck, so it
doesn’t look like you can force it to occur. And both you and I need to figure
this out. You because it will solve a major problem, and me because it seems it
might provide a clue to how everything works. And, frankly, leaving it in the
hands of an ‘unknown entity’ seems like just throwing our hands in the air and
giving up.”
“Again, that wasn’t my attempt in suggesting it. I was
simply trying to say that maybe I’m not directly responsible for it. But you’re
right, it’s too soon for us to assume that. Gail seems to think I ‘need to get
out of my own way’ in the matter,” Alex reminded her. “That’s a familiar
refrain, as Anh always said that as well. They may have a point. Maybe if I
just stop stressing about it, I‘ll stumble across how to do it.”
“That’s hardly a plan of attack,” Cate said. “Telling
someone to relax is almost guaranteed to make them tense up. Telling you to
just ignore it means you won’t be able to.”
“OK, it looks like we may need the big guns to figure this
one out. Why don’t you try calling Anh and ask her if she has any ideas? I
wanted to speak to her about what happened to them anyway.”
So Cate got her phone out and dialed the number, putting it
on speakerphone as soon as it started to ring.
“Hello? Cate?” they heard Allison answer.
“What’s this? No ‘Angel Vision Foundation’? We leave for a
couple of weeks and suddenly everyone forgets the proper way to answer the
phone?” Cate teased her.
“No, it’s just that we’ve been anxiously waiting for your
call. We checked it was you calling before I answered,” Allison replied.
“And who is ‘we’? We were hoping to ask Anh a few
questions,” Cate told her.
“I’m here,” Anh responded.
“Yeah, Anh, Shani and Liv are all here. We knew you were
anxious to discuss what happened, so we took the day off just so we could be
here for this call. That’s why I was so nervous when I answered,” Allison
responded.
“Was there something specific you were looking to say?” Alex
asked, slightly concerned.
“Not specifically,” Shani responded, “but we had some things
we wanted to convey that we figured out from our little mishap, but mostly we’re
just here for you. After all, we hear from you so infrequently, and we’re used
to you relying on us a lot. Plus, we figure you had a lot to tell us about what
you learned in New Orleans.”
“Yeah, can’t we just be glad to talk with you?” Allison
asked.
“OK, sorry for asking then. It’s good to speak to you all
again, and I’m glad you’re all there,” Alex said. “So how are you feeling? Have
you recovered from the other day?”
“We’re fine,” Shani assured him. “It’s just like you always
do, we just needed to eat and we eventually recovered, though we seemed to take
a bit longer to recover than you usually do. I’m guessing the energy you have
constantly pouring through you makes a pretty big difference.”
“What about you, Anh, any after affects with your head
injury?”
“No, I’m fine. If there was any injury, they seem to have
taken care of it. I had a bit of a headache, but no more than I used to get
once a month, so it wasn’t anything major,” she explained.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about what to call this energy
I’m taking in. Simply calling it ‘energy’ causes a lot of confusion. By
referring to everything as energy we aren’t being very precise.”
“I agree, we’ve found ourselves caught in the same word
trap,” Liv replied. “Do you have any suggestions on what to call it instead?”
“Actually I do,” Alex responded. “I definitely don’t want it
named after me. First of all it would sound boastful, which just isn’t like me,
but more importantly I don’t want anything that refers back to me, since it
would make talking about it in public difficult.”
“So…,” Shani prompted him, knowing he’d already come up with
something.
“I was thinking of making it personal, but still nonspecific
enough so no one would be able to figure out what it was. I’m thinking of
simply calling it BCM energy, or just BCM for short.”
“BCM?” Cate asked, glancing at her brother.
“It stands for ‘Becky, Cate and Melissa’,” Alex answered.
“That way it gives credit for what they are each doing for me, since I know one
of the three will likely eventually unlock the secrets to it. I figured I might
as well give them credit for it upfront, rather than creating some meaningless
abbreviation.
“What’s more, it’s nonspecific enough that no one will know
what we’re referring to. If anyone manages to overhear one of us referring to
it, and asks what we’re talking about, we can always claim it stands for
‘British Comedy Measure’, meaning it refers to how dry or abstract the person’s
humor and personality are. That way we can make it sound like we’re talking
about individuals, rather than about a scientific principle, but it would also
be so esoteric it would never catch on and anyone hearing it would quickly
forget about it.”
“You’ve clearly given this some thought,” Shani replied.
“And you seem to be the resident expert on esoteric names,” she said with a
laugh.
“Actually I think he may be onto something,” Cate said. “It
would be easy enough to drop in conversation, it wouldn’t mean anything to
anyone listening, and it’s got a quick response if anyone does ask about
it. Although it hardly slips off the tongue, I think it does everything we’d
need a name to do for us. Although I take exception to the idea that Becky may
isolate and document it before I do,” she added with a little edge to her
voice.
“You know, speaking of names, how about we change what we
call the Watchers,” Shani suggested. “Every time someone says it, I see Natalie
wince.”
“What’s wrong with Watchers?” Alex asked, clearly surprised
to hear that anyone had an objection to it.
“Well, frankly it’s a little demeaning, as if they aren’t as
committed or as motivated as the Seers are,” she replied.
“And it’s not just the Watchers who feel that way,” Allison
told him. “I see the girls from your school who help out around here react whenever
the term comes up. They glance at each other, as if asking ‘if they say that
about them, then what chance do we have?’”
“So what would you suggest we call them?” Alex asked a
little irritably.
“Hey, you’re the man in charge,” Allison told him, “you
should be the one to choose. After all, BCM was nicely handled. We’re just
bringing a problem to your attention.”
Alex looked a bit frustrated to be presented with this at
the moment, especially since he had no ready response to it.
“Well, I’ll take it under advisement. What other topics did
we want to discuss?”
“So is Becky there?” Cate asked. “I had something I was
going to ask her as well.”
“No, she had school today,” Allison said. “She was
interested in talking about what was happening, too, but she’s been busy doing
her work trying to sequence your genome. We told her we’d take care of this and
let her know what we found out.”
“What did you want to ask her?” Shani asked.
“It’s not worth getting into just yet,” Cate answered.
“We’ve got a lot of things to discuss, and I’d rather get to the more important
things first.”
“So what’s first on the agenda then?” Liv asked.
“I’m very worried about my inability to duplicate the
spontaneous boost I achieved yesterday. This is something that’s vitally
important, since it means the difference between boosting one or two girls at a
time and boosting everyone we meet.”
“Not to mention it also eases your guilt about having to
sleep with everyone,” Shani guessed, once again knowing just how Alex’s mind
worked.
“Guilty as charged,” Alex answered. “I’d love it if I didn’t
have to continue making love every damn night, nor having to worry about
crossing some unseen line each time I do. It’s stressful enough doing what I
have to do, but adding making love to a string of strangers at every stop just
makes it uncomfortable for everyone.”
“Well, not everyone,” Shani answered with a quiet laugh. “We
all seemed to appreciate it, and I’m sure each of the girls you spend time with
treasures it tremendously. Methinks you focus on the negatives too much. I
don’t think it’s as much of an issue as you’re making it into.”
“Well, we had an embarrassing scene the other night when I
went against my own better judgment and took an established couple to bed,
simply because the guy said it was alright. It almost went tragically wrong.”
“Wait, you took another guy to bed?” Allison asked,
sounding shocked at the very idea.
“Alex wanted to boost a specific person,” Cate explained,
“and her boyfriend agreed it made sense, but he insisted on being there just to
ensure she didn’t fall for Alex and out of love for him. Everyone agreed, but
the guy turned into a real ass about it when they got down to it. Alex was
about to do something very stupid when we jumped in, saving his ass yet again.”
“Yeah, I could see where that would be problematic,” Shani
answered. “But that kind of thing hardly happens very often. I still think
you’re making a mountain out of a molehill here.”
“That may be so, but it’s important to me,” Alex responded.
“It makes it unfair to the women who chose to not make love to me, like
Caity or Kelly Ott, plus it makes me feel like I’m taking advantage of everyone.
It makes me feel like I consider myself more important than anyone else, and it
causes me nightly stress as well.”
“Alex, I hate to tell you this, but in regards to this
mission of yours, you are more important than anyone else,” Liv reminded
him. “Only you hold the key to the future of this new race. If you can sire an
heir with your genetic ability then it could very well live on and form the
basis of a large community. But if you start getting self conscious it could
mean the whole thing goes nowhere and we all eventually die out as a simple
momentary blip on the evolutionary scale.”
“Well, debating the merits of Alex’s worry isn’t answering
the question,” Cate pointed out. “Does anyone have any ideas about how we may
be able to unlock this new ability of Alex’s?”
That got everyone focusing, and they tried various
suggestions, although most simply duplicated the things that Alex and Cate had
already either discussed or tried. No one seemed to be getting anywhere.
Finally Alex grew frustrated.
“Anh, you always seem to come up with amazing new insights
when everyone else is stymied,” Alex said. “What do you have to say? You’ve
been pretty quiet up to now.”
She took a moment to respond. “I think yours is an old
problem, older than time itself. You have to ask yourself, what does the turtle
do when it encounters something it no understand?”
“A turtle?” Alex asked, surprised by the question.
“Yes, a common turtle. What does it do when it runs across
something it cannot figure out?”
“Uh, I have no clue,” Alex answered, sounding befuddled by
the question.
“It simply goes around it,” she answered simply. “It no
worry about what it cannot understand. If you get more information, then you go
back and try again. But if you no understand enough to answer question, then
it’s simply not worth bothering with.”
The simple wisdom of Anh’s advice surprised everyone. Alex
wasn’t happy having his worries effectively shunted aside, but he had to admit
that no one seemed to know enough to offer any significant advice, so he
figured that Anh had a good point. If there’s no way to figure something out
you simply put it aside, only going back once some new information offers you
the chance of unlocking it.
However, Anh’s advice pretty well shut down the
conversation.
“OK, there are other issues, as well,” Cate pressed.
“What did we figure out from your misadventures the other night?”
“Just a second,” Alex said, interrupting her, “what did you
figure out about Frank Osmon? The two of you talked the other morning, but you
never told me what you figured out about him. Is he like Peter and David in New Orleans, you know, having an extra X-chromosome?”
“Well, he wasn’t aware of it if he was, although it seems
that many people with that condition never know it. It’s estimated that it
occurs anywhere from one out of every 500 to one out of thousand men. They
wouldn’t show any symptoms as long as the NRY region of the Y-chromosome, the
noncombining genes, prevents the expression of the female-specific genes on the
X-chromosome. However, if that were the case then I’d expect they wouldn’t be
able to utilize the gene in question, since we have good reason to think the
gene which governs the Watchers and Seers are within the sex specific region of
the X-chromosome. A more probable hypothesis is that they’re actually chimeras,
or someone actually possessing two different chromosome pairs. If parts of
their brain had some XX chromosomes while the rest of their body was a normal
XY it could account for it, although it would be difficult to test for.
Generally, you can only determine it if a specific medical issue points out a
specific region of the body to examine for it. Chimerism is generally
associated with the body’s absorption of a twin’s body before it can develop.
It’s fairly complicated.”
“Well, that’s more than I really needed to know. The
question is can we learn anything from Frank, and more specifically, could it
be possible for me to discover a male Seer because of the same mechanism?”
“I don’t think so. In order for it to occur, the normally
blocked sex-specific regions of the X chromosome and the NRY Y chromosome
region would compete with each other, producing some significant medical
issues. Basically it wouldn’t be a pretty thing to see someone suffer from, and
they’d have a fairly short lifespan.”
“All right, I’ll take that as a no, then. Now is there
anything we can learn from the three men who’ve managed to express the Watcher
gene.”
“Actually, I suspect the Watchers and Seers utilize the same
gene, but I think the Seers have two separate occurrences of it, whereas the
Watchers only have one. A normal male could carry the gene, but it would
normally be inhibited by the NRY gene on the Y-chromosome. That’s why I suspect
they only have a few specific regions of the body with an XX chromosome pair.
But no, I haven’t figured out how this will help us understand anything,
although it looks like you’ll occasionally meet more of them.”
“OK, so no new information then. Now, Cate was asking about
what you girls in Carbondale learned from your attempt to heal Anh. Is there
anything you’ve figured out?”
“We’ve been discussing that amongst ourselves,” Liv answered,
taking charge of the discussion from their end. “Aside from our figuring out
that we really aren’t equipped to try it very often, we decided it had some
specific uses for Alex.”
“Yeah,” Allison echoed the thought. “If you were to give up
this pointing at wounds like a spirit from on high, you may actually accomplish
more. If you’d used your forehead, instead of your finger, you might not have
worn yourself out so much with Jennifer Weston back in New Orleans.”
“That’s a good point, Alex,” Shani said. “You’ve got to be
less preoccupied with trying to appear inconspicuous and go with what’s the
most effective. If you accomplish something amazing no one’s going to care how
indifferent you appeared. They’re going to react to what you did however you go
about it. Pressing your head against someone’s wounds may seem a bit too religious
for you, looking more like a praying motion than a ‘laying on of hands’, but it
would clearly work better than what you’re doing now.”
“OK, I can get on board with that,” Alex replied. “Though
let me point out I wasn’t doing it to be any less inconspicuous. I just didn’t
have any reason to think there was any more effective way of doing it. After
all, I’d only done that the first time because Shani suggested it and it seemed
the most obvious way of doing it. But I’ve got no problems in being more
efficient.”
After that they discussed the issues Alex had tackled in San Antonio at the Brooke Medical Center. Liv and Allison were especially interested in
discussing the topics raised there, and each of the Carbondale girls were
interested in what he’d learned about handling mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)
cases. But nothing they discussed seemed to offer much in their own treatment
of such injuries at the high school, not that they had many of them to worry
about, as it was.
“So what was it you wanted to ask Becky?” Shani asked Cate
when the discussion finally ground down.
“Before you get to that,” Liv interrupted, “let me tell you
that she’s been having more success than she led you to believe the other day.
Apparently the machinery she has access to is pretty sophisticated, so it can
do a lot of work. What’s more, she’s made some assumptions which seem to be
making things much easier. Instead of doing a full genome analysis, like she’d
originally suggested, she’d been focusing on a few specific regions. I’m not
sure I understand it, but she thinks she can come up with some answers pretty
quickly.”
“That sounds impressive and we’ll have to talk to her about
it, but what I wanted to ask her was a bit more generic than that,” Cate
responded. “I’ve been thinking a lot more about what Alex does when he
activates someone. Each of you know what I’m referring to, and most of you were
there when Alex activated Gail, so you could actually see what happened. But
I’m interested in why nothing occurs until Alex looks someone in the eyes. Even
when he activated Mattie, nothing happened until he looked into her eyes, so it
can’t have anything to do with their individual responses. Do you have any idea
what this thing of making eye contact is about?”
Everyone considered that, but it was Liv who answered first.
“There’s more to the eyes than just being ‘the windows to the soul’. While he
may be simply getting to know them on a personal basis, much like he does when
he has to figure out their ‘psychic phone number’ in order to communicate
telepathically with them, the eyes typically reveal what’s happening in the
body as well. I don’t have to tell you how the eyes convey sicknesses in the
body, like with dialysis patients. The eyes are close to the brain, so they
typically offer insights into what’s happening there more directly than any
other method. That’s why people use them to determine whether someone is on
drugs or how they’re responding to them in a hospital environment.”
“Frankly, Cate, I think we were all focusing on Gail’s brain
when Alex activated her,” Allison responded. “None of us even considered
looking into her eyes.”
“I think Liv has the right idea,” Cate answered, as if she’d
been struck with a revelation. “It may have nothing at all to do with
communication, or with recognizing each other. Instead it might have everything
to do with how the eyes respond.”
“So what do you think it might reveal?” Shani asked.
“If he’s looking for some indication of how their bodies or
brains are responding, then the most obvious thing they’d be responding to
would be his BCM energy. That’s why they’re responding in the first place. The
idea has always been that what separates the Watchers from the Seers is the
strength of their response. I’ve assumed that since only women seem to be
affected by Alex’s ability, that it requires the double X-chromosome to respond
to him. Thus it may be that Watchers have a single necessary gene, which I’ll
call the ‘S’ gene, while the Seers have a double dose of it from having the
same gene active on both their X-chromosomes. That could account for why
they respond so differently.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Liv asked. “That the Seers
have some receiver in their brains that the Watchers don’t, that they’re
picking up some invisible signal Alex is broadcasting?”
“Oh, it’s invisible alright, but I don’t think Alex is
actually broadcasting it, and I don’t think they need a specific mechanism to
receive it. I think it’s what we’ve been discussing all along. I think the ‘S’
gene they both possess controls how their bodies respond to Alex’s abundance of
BCM. It isn’t that Alex’s abilities parallel their own so much, but that he
knows they’ll respond to his energy.
“Look, think of it this way,” she said, taking a moment to
reorganize her thoughts. “We’ve always thought that Alex’s genetic ability was
related to that of the Seers. But I screwed up that concept when I surmised his
gift wasn’t in activating someone’s native ability, but was instead in his creating
a physical link to a different dimension somewhere. A place where he could take
in more of this BCM than he could elsewhere. What I’m suggesting here is
similar to that. It isn’t that Alex is determining whether they have a specific
ability or not, instead, I think he’s measuring how they’ll respond to his BCM.
“If we assume the ‘S’ gene controls how people respond to
BCM, where those without it don’t respond at all, the Watchers respond to it
positively, but the Seers respond the best of all, then it reduces everything
to that responsiveness. Alex isn’t broadcasting anything for them to receive.
Instead he’s simply radiating BCM, and they’ve been genetically predisposed to
respond to it.”
“So how would that work?” Allison asked, figuring Cate was
onto more than what she’d said so far. “What’s so important about how they’d
respond to this BCM energy?”
“That’s the point,” Cate said. “They don’t have any specific
abilities of their own. What abilities they showed before is tied into their
body’s reaction to people’s varying levels of BCM. Thus when he establishes eye
contact with them, he’s measuring how their bodies will respond to the BCM.
Specifically how their bodies can utilize it. Look, if he’s actually creating
portals between dimensions or between their brains and his, then there’s more
to it than just the simple creation of said portal. That was shown when he
accidentally created one in Rakeem’s head. It simply didn’t work. The portal
itself doesn’t do anything. Instead the recipient has to be able to grow
enough new tissue to be able to respond to the new input.
“What I’m suggesting is that while the Watchers respond to
his energy, the Seers are actually capable of using the energy to grow new
tissue. I’m guessing that if Rachel had been a Seer, or a potential Seer, that
she would have responded much quicker to his attempt to force her to grow new
tissue. As it was, she responded much faster than Jennifer did. Essentially
what Alex is measuring when he looks in their eyes is how well they can grow
the new tissue that’s needed to respond to the new links he creates in their
brains.”
“You know, you may be onto something there,” Allison
responded. “We know that the activated Seers’ brains undergo some rapid growth.
We know he actually affects two separate areas in their brains, one
specifically in the communication and cognitive area of the brain, and the
other outside of the brain itself along the optic nerve. In both cases we’ve
documented that the Seers grow new tissue that would be necessary for them to
process these new abilities.”
“Right,” Cate replied. “And Alex can apparently tell who’s
capable of growing new tissue by how their eyes respond to the BCM he gives
off. Thus he doesn’t try to activate the brains of Watchers or type 3s, already
knowing they wouldn’t respond to it.”
“But wouldn’t that require a lot of a priori knowledge?”
Shani asked. “I mean, how could he possibly know that? After all, he supposedly
hadn’t done anything like that until he’d first met me.”
“Not that we’re aware of,” Cate replied. “So far, we’ve
surmised that he created his first portal in his own brain when we were both
young, based on how long I’ve been feeling the effects of his BCM. That leaves
years before he activated you. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t trying in all of
those years. For all we know, there could be hundreds or thousands of people
walking around Shawneetown with little gaps in their brains that they never responded
to or ever noticed. After all, we know that Alex doesn’t create them in the
brain itself. Or at least we know he hasn’t in any brain other than his.
Instead he creates it in the gaps in the brain, inside the brains’ sulci. Thus
he’d never really affect anyone who couldn’t respond to it by rapidly growing
the necessary brain tissue in response to the BCM.”
“That makes sense,” Allison said, getting excited herself at
Cate’s newest proposal. “We’ve already theorized that the gap in our brains
holds the mechanisms to physically transfer our thoughts, which gives us our
telepathy. But the gap along our optic nerve is smaller and not as well formed.
Chances are it doesn’t actually transfer anything, but was created simply as a
way of giving us a quick boost of BCM to trigger the growth there.”
“Which still begs the question of how Alex could ever have
known how the brain would respond, or which areas of the brain to create which
structures in?” Liv responded. “Hell, I’m a damn surgeon who’s studied the brain,
and I couldn’t give you a specific location to try something like that in.”
“Again, that’s something we’ll probably never know enough to
answer,” Allison answered, “but this idea of Cate’s manages to answer several
important elements with an elegantly simple solution. There is no underlying
ability in the Seers that Alex is acting on when he activates them. Instead
he’s simply working on their ability to respond to BCM to grow new tissue.”
“But the Seers could already identify people’s
emotions before they encountered Alex,” Shani argued. “Just take Brooke’s
explanations of her own history. She describes how she always knew what to
expect in emergency situations.”
“But again, that can be explained by how someone responds to
BCM,” Cate responded. “They can differentiate the BCM they receive enough so
they can tell the differences between them. Just as I can, even though I don’t
possess the supposed ‘S’ gene. Because I’ve been exposed to it for so long, I
can tell the difference between his BCM and that of others. If I can
differentiate that much, then surely someone like a Seer, who is attuned to it,
may be able to deduce something from the differences they pick up from someone.”
“Maybe, but there’s a hell of a lot of unanswered
questions,” Liv answered.
“Hey, you can’t expect me to solve every issue we’ll
ever encounter all at once,” Cate argued with a relaxed laugh. “Let’s take what
we have. Knowledge is the slow accumulation of fact, and theory is the best
attempt to explain it. We just added a little more. Let’s take it and see what
we can figure out with it, rather than worrying about what we don’t yet know,”
she answered.
It was clear that Cate was in a much better mood, having
just figured out one of the long outstanding mysteries of Alex’s abilities. She
was sure she’d cracked an essential nut in their understanding of the
underlying genetics concerning Alex and his women, and she was anxious to
discuss these newest theories with Becky, to see if she could put these newest
ideas to use in identifying the genes responsible for those abilities. Man, it
was a great day to be a scientist, she told herself.
After they hung up the phone the conversation in the car
died out temporarily, leaving the car filled with nothing but the sounds of the
traffic outside and of scurrying rodents in the back seat. To alleviate the
awkwardness, Alex asked about what Cate had discussed the previous night,
meaning her secretive talk, but she wouldn’t tell him.
“It’s a new theory, but I don’t have enough information to
make an informed decision yet,” she told him.
“Oh, well, you also mentioned you needed to call Becky about
it, do you want to do that now?” Alex prompted.
“Not really, it’ll be fairly involved and I’d rather not
discuss it while we’re traveling, as I may not be able to hear all the
technical details.”
Alex wasn’t quite convinced that made that much sense,
especially since she could always send an e-mail using her iPad instead, but he
held his tongue. It seemed she was reluctant to discuss it, so he figured he’d best
leave it alone. Besides, it probably had to do with her genetics investigation
which Shani had alluded to, in which case she may need to do some research
before she talked to her.
“So what are your plans for Oklahoma?” Cate asked, trying to
shift he conversation.
“I’m just planning on lying low. I’d like to avoid calling
attention to myself for a little while until the excitement in Dallas fades a little.”
“Yeah, now that’s likely,” Cate observed teasingly.
“No, really, I’ve thought it out. I’d originally been
planning on staying in Dallas for a couple of days, so there’s no rush to
accomplish anything in Oklahoma. Since I’d only planned on spending a day there,
I should be able to establish a small community there in about a day. Now I
won’t turn anyone that shows up away, but it also doesn’t mean that we have to
park ourselves downtown where I’ll attract a lot of attention. In fact, what do
you think about staying at a smaller outlying hotel?”
Cate seemed thoughtful for a few moments. “I’m not so sure that’s
a good idea,” she said, but didn’t immediately explain. Instead she seemed to
be searching for a satisfactory response. “I think it makes sense for you to
avoid public appearances, but I think it’s a mistake to avoid the city
altogether.”
“We did that after we left New Orleans, and it didn’t impact
anyone,” Alex pointed out.
“Yeah, but still, why don’t we go ahead to the hotel that
Patricia got for us? We can check in early and just stay in the hotel. I can
check the lobby occasionally and bring anyone who shows up to the room. Oh, by
the way, I’m … uh, having my period so I’ll probably sleep alone tonight.”
Alex turned to glance at his sister. “You know that isn’t an
issue with me. We don’t have to have sex, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sleep
with me. After all, I know how much it means for you to spend time with me,
soaking up my energy as it were.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m just having an off day,” she said,
“I think I’ll skip it for one night. Maybe two, we’ll have to see how things
go,” she concluded.
Alex glanced at her again, a little taken aback by her
response. This wasn’t typical of her and he wondered what might be going on,
but once again he decided to not press the issue. While it bothered him that
she didn’t want to spend time with him, he knew it could be any number of
things, and he didn’t want to stress her out if she had a good reason for her
decision. He knew pushing her for information would just make her defensive.
“I’ll see if I can find something for us to do in the
evening at a somewhat less crowded venue,” she said, as she busied herself with
her little device, hurriedly typing in search requests. Alex just shook his
head and thought about other issues. He was still upset he didn’t have any new
leads on his automatic boosting. Such an ability would mean a big difference,
not just in who he had to make love to on any given night, but also in how many
people he could reach in a limited amount of time. He really wanted to figure
this riddle out, since he had so much depending on it, so both of them kept to
themselves for the next hour or so.
They arrived in Oklahoma City relatively early, before
lunchtime, and drove directly to the Skirvin Hilton in the downtown area. It
was located near several different convention centers, but seeing as how it was
Sunday there weren’t that many people on the streets. Alex still wasn’t
comfortable being downtown, preferring to avoid any public interactions, but
Cate had a point, he couldn’t just hole up in the hotel room indefinitely. He’d
attract attention no matter where he was. Besides, he’d really enjoyed being
able to wander the streets in San Antonio. Hopefully here, in a smaller city,
he may be able to do so again.
After Alex parked the car in the garage, they entered the
hotel to check in with Cate carrying the animal cages on top of her luggage
rack, perched above her single suitcase. While Alex headed to the reception
desk, Cate told him she had to make a phone call and wandered off, standing to
the side by her curious mice, before he could ask who she was calling.
Shrugging his shoulders, he went ahead and did what he needed to.
Approaching the reception desk, the receptionist looked at
him like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Since she met his
eyes and only reacted by looking even more awestruck, he assumed she was a
Watcher. She was young, with dirty blond hair pulled back into a short
ponytail. She had light freckles across her nose and cheeks. Glancing down
before addressing her, he noticed her nametag read “Georgia Cantrell”.
“Good morning, Georgia.”
“Good morning, sir. Can I do anything for you? Anything at
all?”
Another older man, standing at the end of the counter
examining the computer, looked up.
“Is there a problem, Georgia?”
“No, sir, it’s just … this man is clearly …” Georgia seemed unable to phrase how she was perceiving this man she clearly didn’t know. “I
just want to make sure we offer this gentleman the best service we can. He’s
clearly very important, and I’m sure he needs his privacy and anything we can
offer him.”
“And you are?” he asked. Alex glanced at the nametag and saw
his name was Andrew Peters.
“Let’s just call me Alex Jennings,” Alex said, playing up
the role of a celebrity in disguise.
“Georgia, I think you can handle this. And yes, make sure you
give him every amenity he requires.”
Alex was amazed it was so easy to get upgraded, even though
he had no intention of asking for any special favors. After all, if they
discovered he wasn’t anyone special he’d not only get himself in trouble, but
he’d hurt Georgia’s reputation with her boss as well.
“The room we reserved is fine. I realize that we’re here
early; there’s no problem with leaving our bags here until check-in time, is
there?”
“Nonsense, Mr. Jennings, I’ll have someone take your bags up
to your room right away. Your room is already available,” Georgia responded,
signaling someone over to take care of them.
“OK, a couple of other things, although they’re all minor.
First of all, one of the people staying with us isn’t here yet, so you’ll need
to hold a key for Gail Sanders. Secondly, we need to discuss something with
you,” he said more quietly. “If you could give the room a call when you get off
I’d appreciate it.” Georgia nodded eagerly that she’d be sure to do that for
him, no questions asked. “Finally, if you notice anyone looking lost in the
lobby, tell them to come up to my room, I’ll be expecting them. Chances are
they won’t recognize the name, but that’s not unexpected, I’ll know who they
are.”
“I can take care of those things for you, Mr. Jennings. Will
you need anything else?”
“No, that should take care of everything. But please, call
me Alex.”
She glanced at her boss, then back at Alex. “I’m afraid I
can’t do that, sir.”
“Well, at the very least, don’t call me sir. You know, I’ve
got a good feeling about you, I have a feeling you’re going to be running this
hotel one day.”
Alex had no idea why he added that last bit. It had sprung
unbidden into his head and he’d said it before he could stop himself, but Georgia looked surprised by it, then she smiled and stood up straighter and she took his
credit card.
The rest of the check-in went by without any problems, but
as Alex was walking away he overheard Georgia telling her boss, “You know, I’m
going to take over your job in a couple of years.” Alex felt very good about
that.
Cate joined him and they headed to the elevator accompanied
by the porter, who Alex had gotten to load up the mice cages as well. He was
very professional and never asked why they were carrying rodents into a hotel
room. Alex reminded himself to supply him with a nice tip to ensure it wouldn’t
become an issue in the future. Cate just looked at the man and back at Alex
without a word.
“Who was the phone call to?” Alex asked.
“Oh, I’ve been trying to contact Becky for a couple of days
now. I couldn’t reach her before,” she answered.
“You couldn’t have called her from the car?” Alex asked,
remembering she hadn’t even attempted to call anyone beside the one call to the
loft in Carbondale.
“I didn’t think you wanted to listen to us talk details.
It’s not very entertaining,” she said, looking down at her feet.
Alex looked at her again. If anyone was interested in their discussion
it would be him, since it directly impacted him. He was about to say something
but the elevator arrived then, so they climbed in and rode up in silence. Alex
simply figured she had something planned, and he trusted her enough to tell him
when he needed to know when he needed to know it. Again, there were several
things it could be, and several of them, like Becky’s genetics research, might
need to be fleshed out before she could discuss it with him.
“There aren’t many people around today,” Cate said, changing
the topic after they rode the elevator in silence for a few long seconds, “from
what I can see, how about we wander the streets and see if we can find a nice
place for lunch. I’m not crazy about your idea of staying in the hotel all
day.”
Alex shrugged, Cate seemed to be in a strange mood. “That’s
fine by me. I’m kind of anxious to get out, too. I just wanted to avoid any
public scenes for a couple of days if I can. But since there don’t seem to be
that many people around, maybe we can slip by if we’re careful.”
They put their bags away in the room and Cate carefully
stored the animal cages along the bathroom wall, under the sink, while Alex
tipped the porter. Once he left, Cate brought up a subject she’d been holding
back while they were in mixed company.
“Alex, I think you need to find a couple of new followers
today and make love to them.”
“Huh, what?” Alex said, thrown off by the subject coming in
out of the blue.
“You need to boost a couple of women tonight, you can’t hide
out here until the concert,” she said, clarifying her thought.
Alex was thrown by this newest statement of Cate’s. While he
had been concerned that Cate didn’t want to spend time with him, this was
something completely different. It wasn’t ‘I need my space’, instead it was, ‘you
need to do this, and you need to do it soon’ There was clearly something she
wasn’t telling him.
“And I need to do that tonight? How about if I just make
love to you and Gail instead?”
“I already told you, I can’t tonight. Besides, it’s
important that you boost someone. A couple of someone’s, to be more precise.”
Now this intrigued Alex. There was clearly more to this than
met the eye. She wanted him to do something, she didn’t want to be a part of it
for some reason, and it had specific conditions to it. What could she be trying
to do, and why couldn’t she just come out and tell him what was up?
“But why … wait, this is concerning something you discussed
with Becky isn’t it? What did you … this is about the spontaneous boosting,
isn’t it?” Alex asked, guessing what she was trying to arrange.
“I can’t say,” Cate answered obliquely. “It would impact the
results if I did. But you need to find and invite a couple of women here
tonight, and it can’t be either Gail or I. You need to boost someone.”
“Two people,” Alex said, confirming what she’d just told him
now that he had a better idea of what she was driving at. “I take it the idea
is that, while I boost one, I may somehow boost the other one as well?”
“Again, I can’t say. But you’ll do it anyway?” she asked.
“Cate, if this will give us more insight into what’s
happening with the automatic boosting, you can count on it. That’s going to
make a big difference, and we need to give it our priority. It will impact a
lot more people than we’d be able to reach otherwise.”
“Good, then let’s get out of here and get us some lunch.”
Alex agreed, offering Cate his arm and escorting her out. If
she had a new insight that would help solve this problem, he was all for it.
The automatic boosting was important enough to risk exposing himself for. He
was actually looking forward to meeting a couple of new followers now. He was
looking forward to exploring Oklahoma City.