Quantum Times (28 page)

     “Lastly, none of this is new. Consciousness has been at our service since the first single cell organism began the long evolutionary march to becoming us. What is new today is that in our evolutionary development we are now learning how to utilize the benefits of consciousness so as to build a better future. This is just the next stage of existence for mankind. And it comes at a time when we really need it. I don’t think that is an accident.”

     “Thank you for listening. Please keep me in your prayers. You will be in mine.”

     The audience seemed in a stunned silence. They wanted to react but the decorum of the church silenced them. Then one person somewhere in the middle of the room started to clap. Then another joined in and then more and more. Then voices were raised in shouts of glee and exclamation. And then the shouts turned to a chant and the chant was ‘no accident! No accident! No accident. And there were many ‘Hallelujahs!’ thrown in.”

     Reverend Teddy came up to Planck and put him in a bear hug. “Thank you Planck! That is what they needed to hear from you! Thank you!”

     As Planck exited the church through a side door he looked for Reverend Teddy who had promised him he would arrange for someone to drive him to the airport. As he looked around he saw a young woman who could have been a Miss Texas in a beauty pageant come toward him. She was a brunette with ‘big hair’ Texas style and big blue eyes that were trained on him. She smiled and he smiled back. “I hear you need a ride to the airport. Reverend Teddy asked me to take you.”

     “I like Reverend Teddy’s taste in drivers,” Planck responded.

     She smiled again, “I’m Megan Baxter.” She held out her hand and they shook hands. Planck noticed it was a firm business like grip but she held on just a fraction of a moment longer than necessary, “I’m supposed to do more than just drive you. He wants us to talk about social media on the way.”

     “Really? Why?”

     “Reverend Teddy has millions of followers. He’s very active on Facebook and Twitter. And now, after what you just did in the service, there will be millions more.”

     “Really?” Planck repeated, feeling sort of stupid in front of this beautiful young woman. “What did I do? Was it something dumb that will be on YouTube?”

     Megan realized Planck didn’t understand the effect he had just had on the crowd – and would have on all the Cable TV viewers. “You will be accessed on YouTube, but people won’t be laughing. If I’m right, and I’ve been in the social media business for ten years now and I’m pretty good at this… you’re about to become huge.”

     All Planck could say was “Really?” again.

     She nodded, “Of course, Reverend Teddy wants me to help make that happen.”

     “Reverend Teddy does?”

     “Reverend Teddy prays to God for help. But he doesn’t wait for it.  Reverend Teddy has his own plans. And he is usually a step or two ahead of everyone else.”

     Planck was beginning to see. “So it’s not an accident that he asked you to drive me to the airport.”

     Megan grinned, “Reverend Teddy can see around corners.”

     Just then a man and a woman holding the hands of a small girl came up to them. The couple looked at Planck with hopeful smiles and the man asked if Planck had a moment. The little girl looked about five years old. She had blond hair in two pigtails tied with red ribbons and she wore a blue and white striped dress. She was pale and thin. Planck stopped and said “Sure.”

     The man appeared about thirty years old and was tall and lean with the look of someone who worked outside all day. He also looked shy about saying anything. His pretty wife spoke up. “Mr. Planck we loved what you just said. It’s hard to believe but well…we need to believe. Our daughter here… Heather, say Hi to Mr. Planck.”

     The little girl tugged away from her Mom’s hand and looked away and then back at Planck and mumbled hello.

     The young woman then said, “Well Heather is sick. She has a bad heart. But the Doctors say she isn’t a good candidate for a heart transplant. They are wonderful doctors but they say there isn’t much they can do. We were wondering if you…if you could do something?”

     Planck looked back at the little girl and her parents. He didn’t know how to answer. He was most comfortable in an impersonal, theoretical world. Megan Baxter came to his rescue – sort of. “How is it you think Dr. Planck can help?”

     The young father spoke then, “We hoped he would pray for Heather. Help make her well. Help her get a healthy heart.”

     Planck realized he had to try. It was time for him to leave his island. “I will pray for Heather. But Heather needs your help more than mine. I’m sure you pray for her already, but I’d like you to try a different approach. Gather your friends and family all together. Have as many people there as possible. Have them sit and be still. Then ask each of them simultaneously to have but a single thought in their head. Have them all see in their minds a healthy heart beating in Heather’s chest. Just that thought, nothing else. Have them hold that thought in their minds for at least fifteen minutes. All together…all with that same thought. A healthy heart beating in Heather’s chest. Do you understand? Can you do that?”

     The young couple looked back at Planck with hope and gratitude and fear shining in their faces. They nodded their heads as they looked at their little girl and said they would do that. Then Megan Baxter took out a paper and pen from her purse and wrote down their names and phone number then gave them her business card and asked them to stay in touch with her and to tell her if they needed help from the church.

     When the couple and their child had walked away, Megan turned back to Planck. “Do you think she’ll get better?”

     “I don’t know.”

     “I think they’ll do what you told them. And I think that little child will get better. And then I am going to post that in the social media channels and I can’t even imagine what will happen after that!”

     Megan gave him a smile that weakened his knees as she took his hand. “Come on, my car’s over here….By the way, I noticed you’re not on LinkedIn or Twitter – not even Facebook.”

     Planck just shook his head, “Until all this started I was hiding out on a remote island – pretty much off the grid as people say now.”

     “Yea, I get that – well that is all going to change.”

    
David glanced out the window of his flat in New York City with a thousand yard stare. The sentence he wanted to write wouldn’t quite formulate itself into the paragraph he was writing. The article was to be about how Plato’s sessions with the influence leaders in the country was taking root in the current presidential election cycle. The political debates seemed more substantive and less gladiatorial. The candidates were pushed by their peers and by the media to address the serious issues of the world with clarity and understanding. And the public was paying attention. The blogging universe seemed to be making sure of that. Already a formerly front-running candidate from each of the Republicans and the Democrats had washed out in the polls because their total lack of intellectual depth was exposed to all.

     In the two months since the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, David had been busier than he had ever been in his life – and happier too. During the two months he had written countless articles on how new technological advances shared by the crew of the Bucephalus plus the benefits of Participatory Physics could help raise the standard of living for everyone on Earth. The potential was so extraordinary that people found it hard to believe. But they wanted to believe and of course they were impatient to have it immediately. That was David’s biggest problem as a writer. How does one make what is coming in the future make a difference in the present?

     And Plato kept warning them that the current peacefulness was not to last; though using the word ’peacefulness’ was somewhat a misnomer. There were still bombs going off every day in Baghdad and Cairo and Beirut. Civil war was still killing effortlessly in Syria. Iran was fomenting violence everywhere. Still that passed for quiet and peaceful.

     Every day that could be used to bring the future benefits closer to fruition was valuable. David already missed the early days on Pirates Cay when he and Gabriela and Dr. Wheeling were talking physics with Planck and Ozawa and then he and Gabriela would go walking down the beach hand in hand, and sometimes spotting Plato and Catherine Ozawa walking together as well.

     Now he rarely saw Dr. Wheeling or even Gabriela. Both were consumed by their work in showing how Plato’s tech advances and Participatory Physics could be put to work. Dr. Wheeling had been enormously effective already in focusing the physics community on finding solutions. His talks had taken him to the major universities of the world where his lectures had packed the auditoriums.

      Plank’s island had become the locus point for discussions about Participatory Physics. Also all meetings with Plato were held there. The Bahamian government had been very helpful in isolating Pirate’s Cay from unwanted visitors – which meant almost everyone except the invited few. The US Coast Guard and Air Force were also policing the area with the permission of the Bahamian Government.

     In Washington D.C. Hank Scarpetti and General Greene were leading a different type of team. They were preparing for a more active terrorist environment. The Embassy explosion had both horrified and excited the Potomac community. It wasn’t as big an event as 9/11 but it was big. And the film coverage was exhaustive. The accumulation of body bags and ambulances held the media’s attention for hours. Construction and demolition experts gave clinical dissections of how the missile had caused the building to implode.

     The intelligence community was exhorted to greater effort and determination. Homeland Security raised the Alert status at government facilities and airports. The country’s political leaders were in constant sessions talking about what needed to be done and more importantly, who was to blame and to show it wasn’t their fault. As General Greene said to Scarpetti disgustedly, they were practicing on their fiddles while waiting for Rome to start burning.

     David thought about these things and stared at the blank Word Document he had opened on his laptop. He had started with the idea of writing an optimistic piece about how the new technology could work to the benefit of everyone. Yet he really wasn’t feeling very optimistic just then. Rather the opposite. He thought events were going to get worse before they could possibly get better.

When is Progress not Progress

By David Randall

     I’ve always had an optimistic view of the future. Looking back over the last 12,000 years of “civilized” mankind it seemed to me that things kept getting better and better. We stopped our ceaseless wanderings and settled down and created villages.We learned how to grow more food, build stronger shelters, live longer lives and understand more about how things worked. Life seemed to get better. The trend lines for those 12,000 years all pointed toward better living conditions and better lives. The future is a wonderful place to get to.

     When we look back at those years – that great expanse of time – we sacrifice the details in order to see the overarching direction. What blurs is the very uneven and circuitous path the real storyline of those 12,000 years took to get us to where we are. Depending on where you were, in Europe, in Asia, in the Americas, or in Africa, your actual experience of all those “future” years would have varied greatly. What would come in the future would be better in the long term, but sometimes it would be worse for a while. Sometimes much worse.

     There were decades and even centuries when living conditions for the average person did not change at all – or life even worsened. The future is not by its nature benevolent; rather it is amoral. It gives you what you earn. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

     I think we should keep that in mind.

    The week that forever after would be called “Hell Week” began on a busy Tuesday morning at Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport just as the transatlantic flights were landing with their load of tourists and business travelers. Four men wearing full body armor and armed with machineguns and hand grenades jumped out of a car that pulled up near the waiting taxi line outside of the arrivals area and ran into the baggage claim area through its unguarded exit. There were over a thousand people crowded around the huge room waiting for their bags to be unloaded and placed on the conveyer belts. Shouting unintelligibly about Allah the four men started firing randomly at the travelers all bunched together and threw their hand grenades.

     In seconds the baggage claim area was total bedlam. Running and screaming people trampled over each other in a dash for safety that did not exist in the confines of the area. Bodies accumulated in heaps on a floor slippery with blood. The weapons fire was continuous and mind-numbing.