“Well I’ll be darned,” said Caroline. “I guess I should have known. All he ever wanted to do was screw!” More giggling. “Tell him that’s alright because that’s the only reason I married him for either. That’s what you did back then. Otherwise I wouldn’t have married so many times. If there was someone I liked in bed I simply married the guy. And it didn’t hurt my bankroll either since almost all my husbands were affluent. I came out pretty well financially. I won’t have to worry about money for whatever years I’ve got left.”
“Edward is laughing,” said Jackson. “He thinks that’s a riot.”
Shauna was tickled to see this side of her aunt’s nature. Hawk gave her a wink. She could feel heat rising to her cheeks.
“Edward says it was all in good fun,” said Jackson. “Now I think we might have a William here.” The room became quiet once more. “Did he call you Carry or Cally?”
“Carry, yes.”
“He says he misses you and still watches you sometimes when you’re brushing your hair in the mornings. He loves watching you comb your hair.”
“Oh yes. It must be my Willy. He used to do it for me when it was very long and I couldn’t reach it very well. He loved my hair down. I would put it up in a bun and he would slowly take all the hairpins out so it would flow down my back. I would get so mad at him sometimes, especially if we were about to go out.”
“He says you used to go down to the docks and watch the sea lions. He loved doing that with you. He says he’s sorry he had to leave you, but it was his time to go and he knows you’ll be together again one day.”
“Aww! He was such a romantic. Tell him I miss him so much and look forward to the day when we’re together again. I just have a few more things to do on this side first before I leave this old beat up body of mine.”
“He says okay. He says he’s sorry about the stripper. Do you remember a stripper Caroline?”
“Hmm. Oh yeah. He went to a bachelor party and told me he was going on a fishing trip with his friends instead. I was so angry when I found out. One of his friends blurted it out at a party when he was drunk. I do remember that Willy.”
“William says he was very sorry about that, but wants you to know he never cheated on you. You were everything he ever wanted in a woman and more.”
Caroline sighed. “William was the only one I truly loved for himself, not for sex or anything else. I’m so glad we got to talk. Thank you Jackson.”
“My pleasure madam.”
Chapter Sixteen
After much hugging and kissing from Aunt Caroline, the group went back to the hotel to set things up for that night. Shauna was very happy having seen her aunt and heard more than she thought she ever would about her love life. Most of all she was glad to see how healthy and happy Caroline had been. Age was creeping up on her, but she seemed to be keeping it at bay. Sometimes Shauna worried about her down in the city by herself, but she felt much better about her now. She was a tough old bat!
Shauna wondered if her life would end up as rich and exciting as her aunt’s. She’d never been married and hadn’t been in too many relationships. She also hadn’t had any children yet. But she was still young enough that she could wait a few more years for that to happen. It was so great that you didn’t have to get married just to sleep with someone anymore, at least in most peoples’ eyes.
“Your aunt is something else,” said Hawk. “She really lights up a room.”
“Yeah, she sure does,” said Shauna.
“She’s had a lot of male friends along the way, hasn’t she?” said Fern. “I’d love to hear more about her life.”
“Maybe we can visit her again on the way back,” said Peter from the back seat.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind a bit,” said Shauna.
Shauna pulled the van into a parking spot next to their rooms and they all got out.
“I’m so stuffed,” said Rob. “I’ve got time to lie down for a bit, don’t I?”
“Sure,” said Shauna. “Why doesn’t everyone take an hour for themselves and we’ll start setting up then?”
“Sounds good,” said Rob. “I need my beauty sleep.”
“Hah!” Barked Hawk. “You are so hilarious.”
“If you got any better looking we’d need bodyguards,” said Noah.
“Thank you all. I must attend to my public now,” said Rob as he sauntered off to his room.
“At least he doesn’t have a big head,” said Peter.
“Have you seen how the young ladies giggle over him?” asked Hawk.
“Well, well,” said Shauna. “Are we jealous?”
“Maybe just a little,” Hawk said smiling. But as she looked at that smile she knew Rob had nothing on him. Hawk was all hers. She and Hawk grabbed their things from the van and locked it up. They took the elevator up to their room. It was on the eighth floor. They would have a nice view of the city by the bay. It was a downtown hotel and, although it was pretty old, it was beautiful. They hadn’t done the unspeakable of painting over the natural would, which had a natural finish on it. Their room was as big as a living room with a giant king size bed and a small table near the sliding glass doors that overlooked the pool downstairs and some of the city. Shauna could see both bridges from there. She knew it would be an even more amazing view after dark when all the lights went on to show a different city. Hopefully, they were going to go visit Fisherman’s Wharf later that night after the readings.
Just then the phone rang. Hawk looked up at Shauna as he lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”
There was only static. Hawk said hello again only louder. A man’s voice came on the line.
“Hello Dr. Hawkins. May I call you Hawk?” said Beckham.
“Sure. No problem. How are you?”
“I’m fine thank you. And how are you and our team doing?”
“Just fine. We had some trouble in Santa Rosa.”
“Yes. I heard about that. I trust you’ve taken precautions against anything like that happening again.”
“Of course, Mr. Beckham. It was very unusual for that to have happened to begin with.”
“I understand that. As long as it doesn’t happen again. Oh, I wanted to ask if I could possibly have copies of the sessions if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah. I guess that would be okay. Just give me an address and I’ll get Peter on it.”
Beckham gave him a P.O. box number in San Francisco. Hawk felt resentment rise in him. He didn’t like having to answer to anyone. Then he figured he was just being stupid. After all, this guy didn’t want much. But there was something about Beckham that made him grate his teeth. Hawk wondered what it was. Shauna went through the motions of unpacking as she listened intently to Hawk’s end of the conversation.
“I'm sending some people over to the get together tonight, just for security purposes. You can’t be too careful you know.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Beckham. We’ll be fine on our own. We don’t expect any trouble.”
“Nevertheless,” said Beckham, “there are those who don’t take a friendly view to your kind of work Hawk. My people will be very discrete I assure you.”
“If that’s how you want it. I suppose it can’t hurt.”
“Much luck to you tonight. That’s all for now Hawk.” Then Hawk heard the dial tone. Beckham had hung up. Hawk looked at the phone and dropped it back in its cradle.
“What did he say?” asked Shauna.
“He’s sending some security guys over for tonight. I don’t know what he’s worried about. Is there any reason we should worry do you think?”
“I don’t think so, but now I’m wondering. I can’t imagine we’d have any problems with the people.”
“Me neither. Interesting. Want a drink? I have some Zinfandel here.”
“Sure, but just one glass. I don’t want to be blotto for tonight and we’ve got to start setting up pretty soon.”
Hawk popped the cork and poured wine into two plastic cups from the bathroom. Th
ey touched their cups together and both said “cheers.”
“Hawk,” said Shauna.
“What?”
“What about the survivors?”
“What do you mean, Shauna? What survivors?”
“I’ve had something nagging at me and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but it’s the survivors, Hawk. The people who go through these catastrophes and live to tell the tale. There are normally more people who survive than don’t, and we haven’t really looked at the implications of that.”
Hawk raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“I thought the point was to just study the ones who passed over though.”
“I know but there’s something we’re missing here. Maybe they have something to add to our research too. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it has to add up and it’s not doing that for me.”
“What do you suggest? We’ve just been trying to figure out if there’s anything us humans can do to change the course of events, especially nasty ones like the decimation of our species.” Hawk took a swallow from his cup. So did Shauna. They looked at one another perplexed.
“I just don’t see us getting anywhere if we don’t look at the picture in its entirety.”
“That makes sense,” said Hawk. “What do you wanna do about it then?”
“Lets put all the data together and interview anyone who’s been involved in any kind of disaster, natural or not, including illnesses, like we talked about before. Let’s just put it all together and see what we come up with. How does that sound?”
“It sounds smart. We can try it. I think we should all stick together as a team this time, though. We can concentrate more fully on a single event. We don’t have a whole lot of time to fool around. Things are heating up more every day. Did you hear about China’s earthquake? Thousands were killed,” said Hawk.
“We can start tonight. We’ll explain to the crowd what we’re doing. I know it’s last minute, but I don’t want to waste any more time. We could also stay here longer instead of leaving Sunday. Maybe we could rent a more permanent place for us and stay for at least a month. Earthquakes are a big deal. We can also see how the flu goes this year. Last year was an epidemic. I guess we could interview last year’s survivors and non-survivors.”
“True. Do you think we should clear this with our friendly neighborhood financial investor?” Hawk laughed.
“I’d say he’ll find out as soon as we change what we’re doing, knowing him.” Shauna took their empty cups and rinsed them in the sink for later. Maybe they could come up here for a little wine before they went to the Wharf.
“We better get downstairs and set up. We can tell the gang our latest twist on things.”
Twist was right. They were probably going to think she was nuts for switching everything around again, but what about the results they were getting? There had to be a wholeness to this research. After all it was the whole world they were dealing with. If anything they should be adding to the research parameters, not shrinking them down. The wider they could throw their metaphysical net the more information they could plug in to their database. They needed as much information as quickly as they could get it, and Shauna figured this was the best way to go about it.
The two of them went down to find the meeting room and make arrangements to keep all their rooms a bit longer until they decided what else to do. Eventually everybody straggled into the giant sized meeting room. A series of dividers were removed to open the space as large as it could get. They expected a large crowd tonight.
Chapter Seventeen
By the time Shauna got to the meeting hall everything was set up and running smooth. There were already half a dozen people who had taken seats in the back. Peter was testing the sound equipment. Hawk was standing in the back to test for sound levels. There was nothing for her to do but wait for the crowd to show up. Hawk pulled her aside and said he’d told Peter about the new plan, but it remained for them to inform the rest of the team. Hawk called everyone over to a corner to the side of the stage. “We need everyone to listen to a proposition Shauna made to me last night,” he said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep that private?” asked Rob with a smile.
“Ha ha,” said Shauna. “Listen up guys. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I believe the best way to go about this is not to limit our information to the ones who have passed over.” There were some objections. “Hear me out, okay? The reason is because there are normally more people who survive these disasters than don’t. We’ll still use you, Noah, but we’re doing ourselves an injustice if we don’t include everyone involved in whatever disaster occurred.”
“But aren’t we just going back to the beginning again on this?” asked Rob.
“Actually, no. We’re not,” said Hawk. “And I’ll tell you why. If we’re going to be scientific about this we need the group that survived and ask them some questions about their mental state at the time of whatever happened. We don’t have to change anything really since the people who lost loved ones were probably survivors themselves. Therefore, starting with today’s paper I put in a new ad saying we want both types of people to come to these events and that we’ll be staying here at least another week. That should give us plenty of time and numbers of people to get some good figures for our project.”
“This is crazy,” said Peter. “We can’t keep shifting back and forth. It’s going to skew the data.”
“Don’t worry Peter,” said Shauna. “We’ll figure out a way to input everything we’ve gotten so far. We already have a lot of good stuff. We just have to be creative and go with the flow. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but we’d be doing the research an injustice if we didn’t include the people who survived. Why did they survive? What were their thoughts during or just before it hit? Did they survive because they created that reality? Or was it simply chance? We need to know those answers just as much as the ones from the deceased. So are you clear on what questions to ask, Noah?”
“I think so. If not then just whisper in my ear when I’m in trance and Jackson will take it from there.”
“This is going to complicate everything we’ve done so far,” said Peter. “I don’t agree with this because we already tried this during the summer and failed.”
“I know,” said Shauna. “But this is a more wholistic way of gathering the data we need. We need input from survivors and non-survivors. I think it will become clear to you that the only way we’re going to find out if humans are creating the upcoming world changes is if we question both sides of it. In my opinion we will find that we do, but only to a certain extent. I don’t expect any clear-cut answers here. Do you Hawk?”
“Absolutely not. Especially with what we’ve learned so far. I agree that it’s probably going to turn out that the future is never cast in stone. We just need to find out if it’s too late or if there’s anything that can be done to change the future possibilities so that we aren’t wiped off the face of the Earth.” Hawk looked at his watch. “Well, it’s show time kiddies. Is everyone ready?”
– – –
The seats were filled by seven forty-five. By eight there were several people standing along the sides and back of the room. It was going to be another big night. Shauna held the microphone that she would hand to the people chosen to speak about their experiences and those of their friends or family who hadn’t made it. She was poised at the side of the stage. Noah was up front going into trance after his introduction telling everyone what he did and what to expect. It was so quiet it was as if everyone in the room were holding their collective breath.
Jackson popped into Noah’s body and introduced himself. His presence, as always, was exciting, even to those who had witnessed this event dozens of times. Peter seemed cautious as he made sure the sound system continued to work and he flipped on the tape. The faces in the audience looked shattered and grievous. Had they all lost people? Probably so. They had the look of those who have turned a corner and were never abl
e to go back to who or where they had been before tragedy struck.
“I am not here to amaze you and defy nature,” said Jackson. “What I do it is possible for anyone to do if trained properly. I am simply able to see into the next world where we all go when we have finished our work here in this plane. I will ask you questions and you may answer them to the best of your ability.
“I’m feeling something from over here on the right side. A William or a Wilma. I can’t quite tell what sex this person is. Does anyone know a William? A Wilma? They are showing me roses at the site of a highway that has collapsed. Someone put fresh roses on the highway there.”
“My mother was named Willa,” a woman with a pretty floral skirt was saying. “I put flowers where she died on the freeway overpass that fell on top of the freeway underneath going in the opposite direction. She was crushed to death.” The young woman held a tissue to her eyes. “I didn’t know exactly where to put them, but there were so many crushed cars with dead people in them I just put them down and ran away.” The woman was obviously very upset.
“Was this during the big earthquake that happened here some years ago? What is your name please?”
“Yes it was. My name’s Beth.”
“Well Beth, your mother is right here and says she misses you, but she is also near you sometimes. You can smell her perfume. True?”
“Yes. She always wore the same perfume and sometimes I feel like I can almost smell it, especially when I’m very sad and thinking of her.”
“I am asking her why she was on that freeway at the time the earthquake hit. She says it was her time to go.”
“No, it couldn’t have been. She had all sorts of plans for her life. She was about to take a cruise to Alaska with her two friends from work. She was also organizing an outreach program for troubled teens. She had lots of life ahead of her. She was only forty nine.” The young woman was adamant that her mother had been taken before her time.
Jackson spoke, “Beth dear, she says that sometimes it looks that way to people in physical bodies, that there is more to do. But the truth is she was ready to go. She knew that you and your brother were taken care of and didn’t need her anymore. She also says that the organization she created reached the stage where others were able to easily take over. She wants you to know that a cruise to Alaska can’t compare to the wonders she has seen on the other side. She has gotten to see Alaska and much, much more.
Quantum Earth Page 12