by Greg Ripley
“Tesla didn’t realize what was happening, at least not at first. Initially the Elders’ assistance took the form of subtle suggestions here and there, a few leading questions in conversations to steer him towards a certain train of thought—that sort of thing. They knew he was brilliant and might have come to some of these ideas on his own eventually, but with their prompting his progress was greatly accelerated.”
“Didn’t he invent a machine that supposedly heard ghosts?” Rohini asked.
“You mean the Spirit Radio? The Elders didn’t even anticipate that one. He managed to create a device which gave him the ability to hear them directly. A few of the Elders who are most gifted telepathically were able to speak with him through the device,” Jane replied.
“I always thought it was written off as some sort of parlor trick, like the things Victorian hucksters did at séances. I guess the Elders weren’t ready to let themselves be widely known yet,” Rohini said.
“Yes, that’s true. The Elders were still trying to keep a low profile. It also helped that when he initially designed the device, nobody he shared it with understood what they were hearing, so they thought it must just be a fluke. A lot of people found it spooky and didn’t want to get involved. My mentor told me a story about this, actually—I haven’t thought of it in years—but it might have some bearing on what happened today at the memorial.
“After Tesla built the machine, word spread through the grapevine until one night an old Hopi man showed up in Colorado Springs, where Tesla had built a lab the year before in 1899. He’d heard that Tesla could also detect thunder from approaching storms when they were still hundreds of miles away through his device, and so the Hopi man thought maybe it was the Kachinas—the ancestral spirits of the Hopi who maintain balance in the world—who Tesla heard speaking through the Spirit Radio, at least that’s what he told Tesla. After hearing his idea, Tesla let him listen to the radio. As they sat listening, the old man asked Tesla if he could understand what they heard, and he said no. “It is because you don’t know how to listen,” the old man told him. Then he taught Tesla to meditate in a particular way while listening to the radio. “If you learn to empty your heart, and sit and forget everything, you will be able to understand,” the Hopi said. Then, standing and saying his goodbyes, he left as abruptly as he had arrived, disappearing into the night.”
“Wait, an old Hopi man? You don’t think that could have been him today at the memorial?” Rohini said. She sat up straighter at this thought as her emotions took a back seat to her curiosity.
“The same thing occurred to me when I remembered the story about Tesla,” Jane said. “I asked my mentor if that old Hopi was an Elder when he told me the story, but he wouldn’t say. I always assumed he must have been, or at least a human who carried the bloodline. Maybe he has been watching over the Hopi all these years.
“Anyway, Tesla practiced meditating in the way the Old Hopi man had taught him until the voices he heard became clear enough for him to understand, something he never shared with anyone else at the Elders’ request,” Jane said. “The Elders assumed that if they encouraged his exploration of free energy devices, they might discourage the use of fossil fuels which would lead Earth down the path of runaway climate change. What they didn’t anticipate was the level of greed and the lust for power which kept his ideas locked away, out of the hands of the public.”
They were silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. “But what about this mentor of yours, Jane, can’t he help us out of this jam?” Rohini said.
“I wish he could,” Jane said. “I don’t have any way to get in touch with him.”
“How did you contact him before?”
“I didn’t. He always showed up out of the blue. It could be after a few weeks or a few months—I never knew when to expect him next,” Jane replied. “But since he’s been gone so long this time, I’m a little worried he’s gone for good, I’m afraid he’s returned to the One.”
“What does that mean?” Rohini said.
“That is how the Elders refer to dying, they consider it a return to being one with the universe. As I understand it, the Elders who have mastered the ability to travel energetically are basically immortal, unless they die violently, or they choose to die of their own accord.”
“How do you fit into all of this, Guangming?” Rohini asked, turning to face him.
“My relationship with the Elders is quite different than either of yours’,” he responded. “I belong to an ancient secret society from China, what’s commonly known in the West as a Triad.”
“Wait, like the Mafia?” Rohini asked, surprised.
“No, but that is the image we have in the media—that we are like the Sicilian Mafia or the Japanese Yakuza. While some Chinese secret societies have degenerated into little more than criminal gangs in the modern era, many of the ancient ones like ours were established for very different reasons. They were founded along religious lines or for patriotic ideals, intended to help resist foreign invaders or overthrow corrupt regimes.
“Jane mentioned our green eyes as being a sign that we carry the bloodline of the Elders. In our society we have a different explanation for green eyes. We say those with green eyes carry the bloodline of Zhongkui, the demon hunter, one of our patron saints. We call them yin-yang eyes. According to our traditions it is a sign of having greater innate potential for wisdom and psychic abilities.”
“Yin and yang, like the taiji symbol,” Rohini said.
“Yes, just as yin and yang are used to describe the relative relationship between things like light and shadow, male and female, day and night; we use it to describe the ability to sense not only the yang realm of the living—our ordinary everyday perception of the physical world—but also the yin realm of ghosts, spirits, and psychic phenomena.
“Within this spiritual realm we talk of yang spirits or Immortals who have become pure yang, pure energy, and confused spirits who have become pure yin or ghosts. We have traditionally thought of yin ghosts as connected to the earth and yang spirits or Immortals as being connected to higher celestial realms.
Since we now know the Elders have been to Earth many times, our traditions may be related to their visits in the past, our Immortals may actually be the Elders. Our society’s leader, the Guanzi, thinks this might be the case.”
“I’m guessing this leader of yours must have green eyes too, then,” Rohini said.
“Yes, having green eyes is one of the criteria necessary to be considered for the role of Guanzi. They are also the person from each generation whose wisdom and compassion is most universally acknowledged by our society. Their potential is usually recognized from a young age and cultivated by teachers and mentors within the society. When the time comes to appoint a new Guanzi, they are chosen by consensus. The name Guanzi is a title. It means something like “The Seer” or “The Watcher”.
“Traditionally we have always thought our Guanzi had the ability to communicate with the Daoist Immortals. Now that we know about the Elders, we’ll have to reconcile our traditional ways of looking at things with this new knowledge. Jane, did your mentor ever teach you anything that would shed light on this?” Guangming asked.
“From what I understand, in the past when the Elders located one of their bloodline on Earth—he called them Earth Elders—they sometimes sent a mentor like they did with me, someone to train them. They often appeared in the guise of a teacher or a religious figure from whatever culture this Earth Elder grew up in. So, I don’t see why they couldn’t have appeared as a Daoist Immortal. Earth Elders like the three of us are supposed to have greater potential than other humans to gain the powers of the Elders, if given the proper training.”
“That’s why I took you to that cave in Virginia, Rohini. After you told me about the experience you had in the kiva in New Mexico, I thought you might be able to take advantage of the cave to tap into that potent
ial,” Jane said.
“So, you mean the voice I heard, it was the Elders?” Rohini replied, a little taken aback. “Like you were saying Tesla heard the Elders through his radio?”
“I think so, based on what my mentor taught me. It’s one of the signs of progress he told me about. He said that eventually I would hear the voice of the Elders and after that my practice would progress much more swiftly. Tesla didn’t carry the Elders’ bloodline—he was just a genius—but the device he designed must have compensated for the difference, giving him an artificial means to hear it.”
“It sounds similar to what your Guanzi experiences also, Guangming,” Rohini said. “But I’m guessing he doesn’t need a radio.”
“The kiva you mentioned, is this a cave?” Guangming asked.
“It is in a way, like a man-made cave,” Rohini said. “It’s like a pit dwelling dug into the earth. I used to meditate in one which always led to very strange experiences.”
“We have a similar tradition,” Guangming said. “We think that caves can act like a sort of amplifier—or a receiver—like this radio of Tesla’s you mentioned. Anyway, it is thought to enhance one’s ability to resonate with the earth and in turn with the Dao, or the whole cosmos.
“There was a famous Daoist named Hao Datong—he founded the lineage of Mt. Hua in China—following in his teacher’s footsteps, he decided to dig a cave in which to practice his self-cultivation. When he had finished his cave, an old hermit wandered up and said, ‘Oh, what a nice cave you’ve made.’ Hao Datong in his compassion for the old monk offered it to him to use, starting work on a second cave for himself. When this second cave was nearing completion, the same thing happened again—another practitioner came and admired the cave, which Hao Datong once again gave away, beginning yet another cave for himself. This happened again and again until Hao had dug seventy-two caves before eventually becoming an Immortal himself.”
“As fascinating as all of this is, Guangming—I mean that, I’d really love to hear more—how does this all relate to whoever is attacking us?” Rohini asked.
“Since our society’s founding we have fought against injustice and the forces of greed, hatred, and ignorance in our world. Our two main patron saints are Zhongkui, who I mentioned before, and Guanyin. There are many stories of Zhongkui. His name has become synonymous with ‘a person who has the courage to fight against evil or injustice.’ He also embodies wisdom, as he was a great scholar before becoming an Immortal.
“Guanyin is seen as a goddess, a bodhisattva, or an Immortal—she is actually quite popular among both Buddhists and Daoists in China—her full name is Guan Shi Yin, which means ‘one who sees the suffering of the world.’ She is an embodiment of compassion. These two represent the values that our society was founded upon.
“At times our society has been more active in the world, though usually at these times we blended with other groups, in order to keep our true identity and mission secret. Over the years we have aided many of the revolts throughout Chinese history, which overthrew dynasties that had become too riddled with corruption to be allowed to stand. Keeping to the shadows, we have always had an extensive intelligence network. We have eyes and ears throughout the Chinese government as well as in the many Chinese communities overseas,” Guangming said.
The look on Rohini’s face told Guangming she was losing her patience again, so he cut himself short. “Sorry, I so rarely get to talk openly about our society’s history, I tend to get carried away when I do,” he said, grinning sheepishly.
“Anyway,” he continued. “A short time ago we began to hear rumors about a terrorist attack against the West from our sources in the Muslim communities in Xinjiang Province in the far west of China. There was talk about striking at the heart of the West, but we didn’t know where or when, and we didn’t realize there was any connection to the Earth Ambassadors or the American President.”
“I suppose it’s still possible this was simply a convenient event to target the president,” Jane began. “But it seems like the ambassadors were targeted as much as, if not more than, President Johnson.”
“I think you are correct, Jane,” Guangming replied. “Especially after the attempt on Rohini earlier. Unless we find evidence to the contrary, I think we have to operate on the assumption that this was an anti-Elder attack.”
“It sounds like whoever tried to get to me got to Jean-Luc,” Rohini said. “I feel so bad for him, but at the same time, I’m so relieved it wasn’t me.”
“That’s perfectly natural,” Jane said, putting a caring hand on Rohini’s arm. “Don’t feel bad about that. We’re all lucky to be alive after that blast. That has me thinking, though. Jean-Luc was also one of the ambassadors chosen by the Elders, and like us he had green eyes. I wonder if the two of you were targeted because of your connection to the Elders or if it was simply because the remaining ambassadors hadn’t yet been selected?”
“I’m not sure we’ll be able to ascertain that with any degree of certainty until we figure out who our adversaries are,” Guangming interjected. “The intelligence we did receive pointed to a group we thought was no longer active. Do you remember the Soldiers of the Caliphate, Jane?”
“The SOC? Really? I haven’t heard of them in years. I thought they were long gone, but I’m only too familiar with them,” Jane said. “Their leadership ranks were decimated after their failed attempt at setting up a new caliphate, and the mood in the Middle East has been trending more moderate ever since. I thought we were heading for a Reformation in the Islamic world, not a return to the violence of the past. Why would they come out of the woodwork again now, after all these years?”
“That’s what we wondered as well. Our sources thought it was a mistake at first. It could be someone with little or no connection to the original group. Someone may have simply taken up their mantle again, perhaps as a reaction against the momentum of the moderates. Maybe this is the last remnants of fundamentalism lashing out before it takes its final breath,” replied Guangming.
“One can only hope,” Jane said. “I guess we don’t have much to go on there yet. I’ll check with a contact I trust, and see what they’ve come up with. I’m sure Burt will know something soon.”
“You mean the Bandit,” Rohini said, smiling.
“The very one,” Jane said, getting up, before yawning and stretching. “It’s getting late. We should probably get some sleep and see where we stand in the morning.”
“You two take the bedroom,” Guangming said. “I will be fine on the couch.”
“Goodnight.”
22
That night, despite being exhausted, Rohini slept fitfully. She had strange dreams which left her feeling like she’d hardly slept. When she woke the following morning, Rohini found Jane was already awake. Hearing the shower running, she got dressed and wandered into the living room, rubbing her eyes. Guangming was also awake, standing in the kitchen pouring coffee into a chipped ceramic mug. “Want a cup?” he asked.
“Thanks. That would be great,” she replied, sliding a few boxes of fish sauce off the counter, clearing a space before sitting down on one of the old barstools there. Guangming set a steaming cup of coffee on the counter in front of her, which she took in both hands, inhaling the aroma deeply before taking a small sip. “That’s not half bad, considering,” she said. “I was afraid we’d be drinking some of that instant coffee from downstairs.”
“I can’t drink that stuff. I had them bring us some fresh beans from the coffee shop down the street, they roast their own,” Guangming replied. “This is Yemen Moka.”
“I’m just happy it’s not freeze-dried sludge,” Rohini said, smiling.
“Is that coffee I smell?” Jane said, walking into the room a few minutes later.
“Have a seat, I’ll pour you a cup,” Guangming replied.
“Any news yet?” Rohini asked.
“Yes, though I�
��m afraid it’s not good. I talked to Burt. They want us in for questioning—I would’ve expected that—but the overzealous jackass at the FBI who’s been put in charge of the investigation has decided to treat us as suspects.”
“What? Why would they do that?” Rohini asked.
“The group Guangming mentioned last night, the Soldiers of the Caliphate,” Jane began. “The reason I’m familiar with them is that at one time I dealt with them covertly. You may recall they overthrew a dictator before attempting to launch their caliphate. Well, unfortunately, we helped them accomplish that. Our government thought they would be more amenable to our interests after they gained control of the country, but obviously we bet on the wrong horse, as we soon found out. They played us. If it is the SOC that’s behind this, and the FBI find out about my past link to them, it will only reinforce the idea that we’re involved.”
“So, if they found us…” Rohini began, realization dawning on her.
“We’d be treated as terrorists suspected of killing the President of the United States. It would be shoot first and ask questions later. We’d be lucky to be taken in in one piece.” Jane said.
“Can’t Burt tell them what’s going on? He’s got to know we wouldn’t have anything to do with this,” Rohini ventured.
“That would only make things worse, I’m afraid. The agent heading the investigation is a SAC named Edward Rooney. This guy is a real tight-ass and he hates Burt with a passion. You remember I told you Burt was a driving instructor at the academy, right? Well, before the trainees get to try the driving course themselves, they ride along with one of the instructors. Ed Rooney was already rubbing people the wrong way, not only his fellow trainees but the instructors as well. He was talking a lot of crap before the driving course, so when Burt took him on his orientation run, he really pushed it. This guy didn’t know whether to piss himself or throw up when Burt was done with him. He’s held a grudge towards Burt ever since.