Paul felt subdued.
“So much for wanting to push the boundaries,” he said, quietly.
Hopefully, this wasn’t an omen for Project OOBE.
The next morning, the six residents of The Institute stepped into the machine with Tahra, who appeared tense as she’d never towed the consciousnesses of more than two people at a time. They reached out and interlinked hands, George, Oscar, Sakie, Beth, Peter, and Emilie, gazing over at the six empty chairs that would soon be filled.
Emilie looked particularly nervous, since her last journey in the machine had been a difficult one, but Tahra gave her a supportive smile. After a brief silence, they heard the needle touch the record, followed by the opening bars of ‘Good Vibrations’.
“I’m starting to tire of this song,” she commented. “He plays it repeatedly around the house too.”
The occupants of the machine felt the customary buzzing and tingling coursing through their nervous systems, the paralysis of their physical bodies, and the separation of their consciousnesses.
“Here we go,” Tahra heard someone say.
The resonance of the electromagnetic field threw them headlong into the void. Tahra clearly saw six points of light, and she visualised a net in which to scoop them up. Focusing hard, she imagined herself keeping a tight grip, as if her friends were fish caught in that net.
What new world would they discover?
She felt apprehensive, due to her encounters with the machine elves and the world of torture. However, this time, she had a support team. Whatever they needed to confront, they’d join forces.
Within moments, they emerged in a grey and featureless world. If anything, it looked like a blank canvas, albeit one charged with cerebral energy.
“Don’t forget,” Tahra reminded, “create a likeness of yourself so we can see each other.”
One at a time, the recognisable figures of Oscar, Beth, Emilie, George, Peter, and Sakie popped into existence, like magic. They looked at each other in confusion when they realised where they stood.
“Are we between worlds?” George asked. “This place is like limbo.”
Tahra shrugged.
“Maybe we’re meant to paint our own picture in this world,” she guessed.
That turned out to be a remarkably astute observation.
In the distance, or perhaps just the furthest point of their vision as no one could gauge perspective, they saw a dot, reminiscent of the first impression made by an etch-a-sketch. It began to move towards them, leaving a grey trail behind it. The point began to increase in size, becoming a fuzzy blur as it got closer.
“Do you all see that?” Peter queried.
They nodded and watched as it drew nearer, taking a more definite form the more they focused on it.
“It’s…a samurai warrior,” Sakie said, in disbelief.
A Japanese figure with ethnically correct features and a thin moustache typical of a samurai warrior advanced towards her. Clad in armour, complete with helmet and wielding a sword, he raised it above his head. Looking into his eyes, she noticed the irises of his eyes were ebony black, as if filled with inky liquid and Sakie took a step back, unsure of his intentions.
“It looks like a crawling baby,” Beth disagreed.
Looking deep into the advancing dot, she clearly witnessed a baby, swathed in a nappy, ambling towards her on all fours. As it crawled closer, she gazed at its face although discovered no picture of innocence, as it appeared distinctly alien with grey skin and huge black, almond eyes. Rather than turn away, she found herself magnetically drawn to it, however repulsive it actually looked.
“Strange, it looks more like…a sexy Jamaican lady in a bikini,” Oscar said, incredulously.
A beautiful girl with full sensuous lips and black eyes walked with a languorous gait. Oscar became entranced even though she didn’t look completely human.
“No,” Emilie interjected, “it’s a whole crowd of people.”
She watched the fuzzy haze separate into a crowd of amorphous people, clone-like with identical features. They had grey skin and black eyes, walking around in some kind of daze, as if they were asleep. Each person had a little cloud attached to their head via a string, which displayed their thoughts, their internal conversations, and their hopes and fears.
“I beg to differ again,” George countered, “they’re a platoon of soldiers.”
He saw a multitude of people like Emilie did, but they were soldiers, complete with uniform, helmets, and bayonets as if they were ready to leave the trenches for an assault over the top. Like the other images, the soldiers had ebony black eyes, giving them an unearthly appearance.
“I see my dead mother,” Peter added sadly.
A once sturdy woman appeared to Peter at the age of her death, in her mid-fifties, her grey hair swept up into a chignon. She walked with the aid of a stick and looking into her eyes, Peter saw those same black irises.
Tahra peered into the fuzzy dot and found a recognisable figure. One she knew all too well.
“What do you see?” Peter asked her.
An angry male figure strode towards her, waving a copy of the Qur’an. Maybe this reflected the repressed guilt of placing the holy book into a drawer, out of sight and out of mind.
“I see my father,” she replied, wanting to turn away but like the others, she felt strangely compelled to look into his black eyes.
“We see what we want to see in this world,” Peter concluded.
“No,” Tahra disagreed, “not what we want to see, what our subconscious is trying to tell us.”
Sakie’s samurai warrior stopped in front of her, sword poised, as if ready to strike. Beth’s infant crawled up to her feet and raised a hand, willing her to pick it up while Oscar’s femme fatale stood in front of him, untying her bikini. Emilie’s thought bubble people began to amble towards her, George’s soldiers formed a firing squad, and Peter’s dead mother held out a piece of paper. Tahra tried not to look as her father thrust a copy of the Qur’an into her face.
What the hell did this mean?
At that point, the field powered down and the interior of the machine came into view, the messages from their subconscious minds interrupted abruptly.
Paul opened the hatch with an excited and expectant expression on his face.
“Well?” he asked.
Tahra nodded, hiding the residual guilty feelings from the encounter with her father.
“I can tow six consciousnesses,” she declared, drawing on her successes, not her shortcomings.
Everyone in the machine looked at each other with a beleaguered expression on their faces. They moved over to the cine camera, where Paul gave an introduction.
“The first major expedition of the OOBE project just took one step closer to reality,” he declared.
***
Between this trip and the subsequent journey involving the six non-psychic recruits, Paul gathered his team and reviewed their progress. Recalling his out of body experience in the shop and Tahra’s chair episode in the kitchen recently, he enquired if anybody had encountered any unusual occurrences since using the machine.
Angelina and Tyrone shrugged their shoulders, finding it odd he should ask that question.
“No,” Tyrone responded, “if anything, everyday life is dull in comparison.”
Nicholas considered the question carefully.
“I just feel honoured to be a part of this.”
Curtis also reported a null effect.
“Nope, nothing outside of what I experience in the machine.”
Sonya offered a different perspective, however.
“Musically I feel more inspired,” she declared.
“I feel stronger as a person,” Dominique offered.
Oscar responded, “Well, I must admit, I think my remote viewing skills have sharpened. The visuals are clearer during tests at The Institute.”
Paul nodded, perhaps the field enhanced their existing skills.
George reported a similar effect.
“You know, now you’re asking, my remote viewing tests are more lucid,” he told Paul.
Sakie seemed uncertain, and simply said, “Maybe.”
Emilie added her experience.
“People’s thoughts are louder,” she answered.
Beth and Peter, however, hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.
“Seems like business as usual to me,” she said.
“Nothing to report,” Peter told him.
Once Paul and Tahra found themselves alone, he raised the issue with her, as she pored over a text book, aware of her need to maintain good study habits.
“Despite the strange after-affects we’ve experienced recently, no one has confirmed anything unusual occurring in their everyday life. Some of The Institute’s residents have reported a sharpening of their abilities, although nothing to compare with the shop or chair incident.”
“I guess we’re just unlucky,” Tahra commented, bookmarking her page.
“Or lucky, depends how you see it. However, we’ve used the machine more frequently than the others, so perhaps prolonged exposure to the field is a factor.”
“If so, we can expect to hear reports from the others soon.”
Paul contemplated what she’d said, and returned to scribbling in the OOBE journal. What they’d experienced were simply aberrations, neither of them had anything to worry about.
***
The night preceding the next journey in the machine, the OOBE team relaxed in the sitting room, chatting with the television broadcasting in the background. A piece of news regarding the space race grabbed the headlines, so Paul reached over and turned up the volume.
“Three NASA astronauts died today in a fire that swept through the Command and Service Module of Apollo 1. Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee boarded the capsule for a routine test, including a full launch rehearsal at 13:00 hours yesterday, but a series of problems with the oxygen supply and communications halted the countdown throughout the day. At 18:31 hours, a call warned of a fire in the cockpit, but despite attempts to escape the capsule and efforts by the ground crew to open the hatch, the astronauts perished in the fire.”
Paul watched as the news report concluded with a quote by Gus Grissom, interviewed three weeks previously.
“If we die, do not mourn for us. This is a risky business we’re in and we accept those risks. The space programme is too valuable to this country to be halted for too long if a disaster should ever happen.”
Everyone held a two minute silence as a mark of respect, not only for the dead but in recognition of the common mission they all shared: to break boundaries and explore the cosmos. Paul only hoped it wasn’t another omen for the OOBE project. Soon, the penultimate mission would involve Tahra leading an exploration into unchartered realms, guiding the six non-psychic recruits. It brought Paul one step closer to realising his ultimate vision, the maiden voyage of the whole crew.
***
On a chilly day at the end of January 1967, Sonya, Dominique, Nicholas, Curtis, Angelina, and Tyrone sat in the machine with me. I felt confident, having already towed six consciousnesses although I confess, I my nerves still jangled due to stepping into the unknown. Holding hands, we all gave each other a palm squeeze for good luck. We heard the opening bars of ‘Good Vibrations’, and I decided there and it would assault our eardrums for the last time today.