The Secret of the Ancient Alchemist (8 page)

“
Wait,
Josh.”

Marin turned
around. “Yeah?”

“
Olsen’ll
do it. I know he will.” Hart’s anguish had lessened when he added,
“ Don’t dismiss it all as nonsense.”

“
I… I…
don’t know, I just don’t know, Tom.”

Marin dropped
his weight in a chair gazing around. For a man who seemed
irrational, Hart’s living space was exquisitely Decor, designed to
create an elegant ambiance. His eyes didn’t miss the Windsor chairs
and the lighted cabinets that housed DaVinci reprints.

Chapter 19

He shifted his
focus to Hart. “You know what, Tom?”

“
What?”

“
Your
nature’s way too intense and perhaps, a change of scenery will
help. Why don’t you go out and meet some new people, socialize a
bit?”

“
You mean
date women, don’t you? Have them look in my eyes with hope of a
future I can’t give. I don’t know my own future. I only know what I
have to do, and, that is to find a direct connection to our realm.
The world is suffering, Josh. Look at all the lost people. They
don’t know they’re so powerful and glorious that the dictionary
hasn’t a word to describe it. We must have a better world, one of
change, self-realisation and love. Nobody pays
attention.”

“
To
what?”

“
A
complete understanding of who we are and how we’re connected to the
beyond. People should read Rumi.”

“
The
Persian poet?”

“
When I
die, I will fly with angels and when I die to the angels, what I
will become no one can ever imagine. That’s the truth and he knew
it centuries ago. He also said that the physical person was not the
real person.”

“
I guess
you want to prove that?”

“
And, I
will.”

“
Don’t
you feel lonely?”

“
No.”

It was a
decisive no, an acid tone that bit the air. Marin decided it was
better not to pursue the matter.

“
I’ll
wait for Olsen’s revelation, Josh, before I make any personal
decisions about my life.”

Marin doubted
it. He had tried talking to Hart before. Hart seemed destined to be
a loner. He got up glancing at his watch again.

“
It’s
late and I really better be on my way. I’ll call you
soon.”

As Marin headed
to the front door, Hart grabbed the phone and dialled Julius
Olsen’s number.

“
Hey,
Tom?” Olsen answered.

“
I’ll be
around in the morning. I have some deductions that I want you to
look at.”

“
Sure,
Tom. What time will you be here?”

“
About
ten.”

“
I’ll be
here.”

Hart had a
sense that someone was in his house when he placed the phone
down.

“
Josh?”
he called.

There was no
answer. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 8.19PM. It
wasn’t long before he caught the scent of perfume. It was Jude’s.
He turned round to see her staring at him with a gun in her
hand.

“
What the
hell are you doing?” he shouted at her.

“
I’m not
good enough for you, am I, Tom?” Jude’s face was ugly, contorted by
rejection.

Anger arose in
him but he knew it would get him nowhere. Jude’s finger was on the
trigger and she would pull it. They were eight feet apart, he
calculated, with nothing but a sofa between them.

“
Give me
the gun, Jude,” he said.

“
I like
seeing you scared, Tom. I really do. I want you to bend down on
your knees and beg.”

He wanted to
tell her she was schizoid and that she probably smashed her pet’s
head in for fun. He wanted to tell her to go and get help.

“
We can
work this out,” he strategized instead, inching his way forward. It
wasn’t working. Her eyes showed little else than mania. “Give me
the damn gun, Jude,” he shouted now with his hand
outstretched.

“
Stop!”
she screamed.

A bullet
smashed his lighted cabinet to pieces. A figure appeared behind
her. In the melee, Hart barely recognized Marin’s frame, as another
bullet whizzed past him.

“
Grab the
gun, Tom,” Marin shouted as he pinned Jude to the ground. “Grab the
gun.”

Hart did and he
pointed it to her face as she got up. The woman’s mouth was a
cauldron of profanity when he shoved her onto the sofa.

“
You’re
going to sit there till the police arrive. What the hell’s wrong
with you?” he said, his body trembling from shock and
dismay.

“
She ran
past me like a wild cat as I was making my way out, Tom. I decided
to track back.”

“
You
saved my life, Josh.”

Chapter 20

“
You’re
certainly not very easy to decipher, are you?” Olsen muttered.
“But, I must find the date for the new age, the date the
god,
Inti
, gave his
people. I know it’s sometime after the last solar
eclipse.”

The rains that
fell all morning in California stopped. Sunlight broke through the
clouds and made its way to a window where he sat peering at a
sketch of an Inca Quipu. Olsen was confident of what he had in his
hand. The archaeologist he worked with, Arthur Bentley, had assured
him that the Quipu from which his sketches were taken was the one
used to record ages.

He placed the
sketch aside and looked out the window. Olsen wasn’t daunted at all
by his challenge to find a new age. His gusto was sturdy, sturdy as
his large frame.

Five years ago,
he had come to the US. Without full-time employment, he kept
himself busy deciphering his data and doing analyses for agencies
such as Marin’s Earthquake Surveillance Unit. It was through Marin
he’d met Hart and their friendship had grown quickly. They were
really two peas in a pod, both intensely determined to achieve
their end.

The
astrophysicist had survived an emotional drain caused by a bust up
he’d had with his colleagues back home in Copenhagen. His problem
began when he had suggested prophecy as a solution to the global
crisis at the Summit of the Environment. From there it was downhill
for him. He had taken enough heckling about a crystal ball and had
left. Still, his calculating mind churned with the same
belief:
the
Inca prophecy was about to unfold
. His certainty welled when he glanced at the
actual Quipu perched on his wall. It held more power than
Dionysus’s Oracle, he thought. It was testimony of an age of
enlightenment, a time when man became god.

The sun in Lake
Forest was high when he opened his front door to put garbage out.
He closed it, shutting out the noise from the dumpsters and a party
next door. Olsen was reclusive. He had never met his neighbours and
didn’t quite know what they looked like. Hopeful movie types were
as much as he’d gathered. Continuing his Saturday routine, he
picked up the mails scattered all over the floor and, with a cup of
coffee in hand, dropped his weight on his leather sofa.

“
Rubbish,
rubbish,” he mumbled going through the pile.

He flung
the ads for loans and car sales into the bin but stopped short when
he came to one that said,
Travel to the Caribbean for less than five
hundred
.’ The offer was
a deal, he thought, ignoring the bright pages of beaches and hotels
that came with it. He dialled a phone number marked in red. Ten
seconds later, a voice answered and it wasn’t one ordering him to
press one or any number for that matter.

“
Hah,” he
relished. The day looked good.

“
Sunway
Travel, how can I help you?”

In less than
five minutes, he was booked on flight VA 209 bound for La Joya
Island. He felt great, more so than he did the past few days. His
task of deciphering the Quipu was nearly over. His decoding system
worked beyond his expectation. He just needed to speak to the
archaeologist, Arthur Bentley, and then, head to Colombia to return
the Quipu. He was moving to the shower when his doorbell rang.
Opening the door, he found Hart.

“
Hey,
come in. A pleasure to see you,” he said with a grin. Hart reminded
him of the past. With his long hair and attire, he really seemed
like a medieval official.

“
Same
here,” Hart replied. “You look a lot better than the last time I
saw you. Mission accomplished I take it.”

“
Deciphering Incan data is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Believe me when I say the Inca had time on their hands to construct
such intricate numerology.”

“
Have you
found the date for the new age, Olsen?”

“
Just
about.”

The words sent
a thrill through Hart. “I hope we don’t have to wait long.”

“
No.
Let’s talk about your work.” Olsen led Hart to his living room. “We
haven’t spoken that much since that time in New York, have
we?”

“
I recall
you being very sceptical about my work.”

“
Still
am. I’m sure you still haven’t found the Universal Mind. Have you
found the realm, at least?”

“
I have
theoretically, and, I’m sure messages can come from it.”

“
Can you
prove it?”

“
I think
I can.”

Placing cups of
coffee down, Olsen looked up as Hart opened his briefcase and
pulled a document out. He placed it on the table and put his palm
on it.

“
We need
to start from the beginning, Olsen.”

“
Sure,
Tom.”

“
We’re
not separate from creation but a part of it. For long, we have
deemed ourselves superior and apart because we have minds. However,
it’s my fervent belief that humans were meant to co-evolve with
creation.”

Excitement
welled in the Dane as he took a seat facing Hart. “I leave it up to
you, my friend, to tell us who we really are.”

“
I’ve
been saying a long time that there are aspects of our being that’s
supernatural.”

“
I
know.”

“
We need
to understand how it operates. A debate regarding a relationship
between the material world and the immaterial mind has been going
on for centuries. It’s not new. The fact that humans feel a whole
lot better in a natural environment as compared to seeing four
walls is testimony to a connection, but that’s merely superficial.
I assure you, the relationship goes deeper.”

“
Are you
sure we can receive cosmic messages?” Olsen needed to be certain
about that.

“
The
question is how?”

“
Well, of
course.”

“
I’m
suggesting there’s a grand design.”

“
Let’s
have a look, then, Tom.”

Hart opened the
document. “We know that matter can be converted to pure light. From
recent studies, we also know that light can be converted back to
matter.”

“
It would
be logical to assume a realm exists.”

“
And, we
need to examine aspects of it.”

“
Certainly.”

“
Let’s
examine one very important one.”

Olsen reclined
to listen further.

“
Particles in the realm vibrate at high frequencies but
there’s a quality that sets them apart, a quality which gives us a
whole new perspective. It would mean that the things we thought
were absurd weren’t. Prophetic messages can be sent. Apparitions
can appear. There’s a different world out there.”

“
What
sets them apart?”

“
Particles in the realm travel faster than the speed of
light.”

“
You’re
sure?” Possibilities ran through Olsen’s mind. If Hart was right
about particles in the realm moving faster than light speed, then,
cosmic messages were possible. “Are you sure about this?” he
repeated.

“
I
am.”

“
So how
do we actually capture messages?”

“
Waves
from the realm enter the human brain. When these waves vibrate,
they emit radiation and flash a message as a thought. Thoughts are
triggered by signals and in this case, they aren’t external signals
but internal ones.”

“
Information can be uploaded. If you find proof it’s in us,
it would give your notion credibility, assuming of course, some
supernatural force exists in it that can send the
waves.”

Hart thought of
the ancient text but said nothing of it.

“
Have you
ever wondered about the speed of thought, Olsen?”

“
It’s
much faster than the speed of light. There’s isn’t any comparison
to it. Thought speed can’t be measured.”

“
That’s
why I believe a force triggers thoughts but I still can’t account
for it, at least not scientifically.”

Hart stopped at
the sound of a buzz in his ear.

“
Tom
,” the time
traveller called.

“
Yes?”
Hart replied in his mind.

“
Gosh, you still seem so bewildered. You shouldn’t be, you
know. The ancient text will address all your concerns, such as how
humans connect to their realm and the presence of the universal
mind. Don’t worry so much
.”