The Secret of the Ancient Alchemist (5 page)

“
Yes.
There’s a realm is us that generates thoughts and ideas. It can
take us beyond our shabby existence.”

“
To
where, Dr. Hart?”

“
Happiness! We do need to understand the process. It’s not a
simple. Our minds are supposed to be like little gods.”

“
I have
my doubts, Dr. Hart, and I wish I could be of more assistance but,
clearly, this is out of my depth.”

“
Would
you happen to know anything about a light seen in
meditation?”

Lander leaned
back. He tapped his fingers thinking.

“
Meditation is a complex process that involves bio-chemical
as well as physical changes in the body. I’m well aware of the
light seen in meditation. My opinion is that it comes from the
automatic firing of rods and cones in the retina of the
eye.”

“
Are you
certain of this? Meditation quiets the noise and allows one to
perceive events one would not normally perceive.”

“
No one
can be absolutely certain of anything related to meditation at this
stage, Dr. Hart.”

“
Well,
thank you, Professor. Thanks for taking time to talk to
me.”

Lander was
staring at him when he started towards the door. He paid no mind to
doubts people cast his way. He had grown accustomed to it all.
American born and a British educated scholar, he had enough
voracity to prove himself. The mistruths of life gnawed him. Humans
were living a lie, believing in fantasy.

Chapter 11

Hart headed to
Washington Road again, walking at a pace. While he had much on his
mind, he wanted to set a matter straight. Hart didn’t want to be
bothered by anything than his own mission. Jude was calling him and
texting him too much ever since they had gone to the cinema, which
was her idea anyway, just like the lunch date he would have soon.
He had a disquieting sense of her, a morbid feeling of
mistrust.

He dialled her
number.

“
Tom?”
she answered.

“
Look,
Jude, I’m kind of worried about what you said, you know…eh,
well.”

“
About me
being in love with you?”

“
Yeah. I…
I…”

“
It’s how
I feel.”

“
I don’t
feel the same way, Jude, and I thought I should let you know.”
There was a moment of silence on the line before he spoke again.
“But, you’re a nice person and, it’s just me. I’m not ready for a
relationship right now. I…I’ve too much on my mind to be honest.
I’m not good for you, Jude.”

“
It’s
okay. I understand, Tom. Thanks for telling me. We’re still on for
lunch?”

“
Eh…Yeah,
we’re on.”

He hopped the
university’s transit system to the main exit. From there, he took a
bus to New York City. Choosing a seat at the back, he pulled the
blinds and sat, feeling the cool air from the overhead vents.

In the
semi-darkness, he felt exhilarated as he began to realize the
possibility of finding proof of the realm was real but he wished he
had all of his time.

Hart worked for
the National Science Advisory in New York and his job involved
overseeing abatement procedures for disasters. It wasn’t a job he
particularly liked but it paid bills, not that he had many. He
didn’t drive a car nor did he socialize much. His expenses lay in
clothes and a mortgage for his New Jersey home.

His thoughts
ran to the state of the earth remembering the meeting he scheduled
with a seismologist, Josh Marin. Tremors were spreading. It was
evident in Marin’s data for the Mid-Atlantic, California, and the
Pacific regions. Planet Earth was sliding into turmoil. Hart’s
fast-paced mind told him that sticking to old methods of reducing
global heat wouldn’t change anything. If glaciers could stop
melting so much the situation might improve due to a lessening
impact on seas but a credible solution was needed and fast. The one
option left was Olsen’s search for a new age in Inca artefacts. It
was the dawn of the Age of Aquarius, something he felt strongly
about and was awaiting the date.

He
recalled the last time he met Olsen in California. Olsen had shown
him a sketch of a
Quipu
and had
said the Inca wove secrets using knots and threads. A great year
would come. It was the Earth’s new dawn and Atahualpa had commanded
them to record it.

Hart had looked
at the artefact’s weave. The Quipu threads had many knots of
different sizes and colours. He had marvelled at the intricacy and
the pains taken to record the data but it was the Inca’s celestial
connections that captivated him most. Life existed in a realm that
was beyond space and time. He believed that, through it, the Inca
were able to associate with other worlds.

As he settled
for his ride to New York City, his phone beeped. It was Ron Riley,
a UN climate specialist he was doing work for.

“
Tom?”
Riley’s Lou Rawls tone called out.

“
Ron,
what’s up?”

“
Are you
attending the
State of the Earth Conference
in Paris?”

“
No, I
don’t like conferences.”

Riley knew
that. People had often complained of Hart’s brashness.

“
This
one’s very important. Delegates from all over the world are gonna
be there, Tom.”

“
That’s
the problem, too many people. Why don’t you go?”

“
Frustration came from Riley. “You haven’t given me your
report on global weather patterns. I’m still waiting on it, so,
what do you want me to present?”

Hart wasn’t
bothered. The renowned archaeologist, Dr. Arthur Bentley, was going
to the Paris meeting to present his and Olsen’s work on the Inca
prophecy. The world would know there was hope and that mattered
more. Feeling a bit guilty, he said, “There’s another meeting
coming up in New York. I’ll be ready with the reports but, given
the upsurge in seismic disturbances worldwide, we should consider
other options, Ron.”

“
There
aren’t others, Hart.”

“
There
are. We’re spending a lot of money to examine ocean currents not to
mention a barrage of experimentation.”

“
What’s
your point?”

“
Knowledge is fine but it won’t solve our
problems.”

“
What
will?”

“
Time. We
must search for answers in the cosmos. In the ancient Inca Quipus.
Bye, Ron.”

Chapter 12

Jude Cavelle
waved to him in the distance. Walking through a line of customers
and hurrying waiters, Hart reached the end of the room and took the
chair she kept for him.

“
Hi,” he
said.

Her eyes didn’t
connect to his. She was sipping a coke with a straw in her mouth.
Finishing the drink, she placed the glass aside and looked at
him.

“
I feel
like I’m pushing you into a relationship that you don’t want,
Tom.”

“
I can’t
worry about relationships right now, Jude.” Hart stared at her
brown hair and stylish earrings that hung low on her ears. Her blue
silk blouse matched her linen slacks. She was still tanned from her
Bermuda holiday. At twenty-eight, he knew she was beginning to feel
left out and alone. Jude needed someone.

“
You want
to get married, that’s the problem. I know you do.”

“
So,
what? You’re not even giving our relationship a fair chance, are
you?”

“
Let’s
order. What d’you want to eat?”

“
I don’t
want anything!”

“
Don’t be
this way. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“
Friends?
Is that it?”

“
What’s
wrong with being friends?”

Jude stood up
and grabbed her handbag. “You’re right. This isn’t going to work
out. Not ever. Bye, Tom.”

“
Listen a
bit, will you?”

“
I’m not
what you want and I’ve enough friends, thank you.” Jude walked
out.

Ignoring the
drama, he ordered a hamburger. Half an hour later, he headed to his
office at the National Science Advisory.

The NSA wasn’t
a fancy place, a tall edifice with plain windows. On the second
floor, the secretary of the Research Department, Ann Raben, greeted
him.

“
Hello,
Dr. Hart.”

“
You’ve
known me long, Ann, call me Tom for God’s sake.”

Ann smiled. She
liked Hart even with his odd nature. She guessed he just had a lot
on his mind all the time.

“
Ok, Tom.
Riley called for you again and Dr. Marin says he’ll see you at your
home later today.”

“
Thanks,
Ann.”

In his office,
he grabbed a file from his briefcase and placed it on his desk. He
stared at his calculations for a dimension of matter. Finding the
realm was important to him but he would not rest until he proved
humans could connect to it. His calculations heightened his fervour
for the ancient text. He would find proof of a supernatural mind
bound to matter. It excited him as nothing else could. He would
move mountains to find that text.

Suddenly, Hart
wondered about his time-travelling companion. He knew nothing of
him and hadn’t heard from him. Still, nothing outweighed his desire
to fathom life. He recognized that it was complex, so complex that
Science couldn’t explain it all. Someone came on earth and did.

He turned all
his attention to his calculations. Hart, of course, had been
working on them a long time. Gravity, the force that held matter
together, was a big challenge in finding the realm. The realm
couldn’t be subjected to gravity and neither was it far away.

Gravity was
first introduced by Isaac Newton and further researched by Albert
Einstein. Einstein’s explanation, didn’t account for all the
happenings in the universe. While gravity gave weight to objects
and kept them together, there were objects that escaped its effect.
Since then, there had been attempts to reconcile the force but with
little avail. As a result, ninety percent of the universe remained
a mystery.

Grabbing his
pen, Hart began his task of solving the issue. He had to derive a
correct estimate for the force, to show it was not a fixed force of
nature.

“
I’m
almost there,” he said, jutting more equations down. “Gravity isn’t
a mystery. I can unleash its nature. I can show dimensions exist in
our lives.” He stared in the air as he reasoned. “Matter can exist
as particles or waves of electromagnetic energy. I must account for
it. The problem isn’t what gravity does but how it
operates.”

He turned to
his data feeling a sense of his pending achievement. Hart spoke
often to himself and people had gotten used to it. Ann Raben
thought nothing of his desk thumping either as she passed his
room.

“
I know
I’m right! Gravity shifts. It’s not fixed.”

With the
careful strokes of his pen, he wrote a final deduction, improving
Einstein’s equations by adapting a new constant or a mathematical
base for his Calculus. It showed gravitational fields in the
universe could vary. In front of him stood the new model for the
force and he revelled in it. He got up, throwing his notes in the
air.

“
Everything we see exists in a realm of light,” he said.
“Three-dimensional objects become two-dimensional images in the
absence of gravity.”

Hart paced his
office sure that life didn’t end in dust. There was design to
creation. He was about to pick up his notes from the floor when his
ear buzzed.

“
Hey, Tom
,” he
heard.

“
You’re
back.”

“
You’re very excited
.”

“
I am.
Don’t you see why? Don’t you see? Think of yourself in a
photograph, or, a mirror. Nature does the same, but in nature, the
image is alive. Scientists have long known that it’s possible but
the problem has always been gravity. Information about us is packed
into a realm of quantum light where gravity does not
exist.”

“
You can see a reflection of the light. Aristotle told you
that, didn’t he?
”

“
He
did.”

“
Your equations are fascinating, Tom, but not sufficient to
make big claims
.”

Hart sighed. It
was a quick reminder that his work was theoretical. He still had no
clue if the realm of light existed in humans or that messages came
from it.

“
I know
that,” he replied, thinking of the long road ahead.

“
There’s an ancient text that describes it in detail.
Aristotle told you this too. I came by to remind you of it. You
must find it. You haven’t started looking as yet
.”

“
To be
honest, I don’t how to.”

“
It’s a challenge, isn’t it? But, there are many libraries
that carry ancient texts. You can search them
.”

“
There’re
hundreds of them. I don’t have a clue of what I’m looking for. I
don’t even have a reference point with which to begin.”

“
Don’t look so frazzled. People must know the truth. No one
knows anything of their inner realm. I don’t get
this
.”

“
We’re
trying to. We’re trying to.”