2150 AD

by Thea Alexander

  This sounded like a fine idea except that I had never played tennis with children before and was a little afraid that my style might be too rough for them. Ac­cepting the responsibility of big brotherhood, I said that sounded delightful, and we all headed for the nearest vacant court to select rackets from the rack nearby.

  As we began playing I avoided using my power shots, but .after the first five minutes of some of the hardest and best‑played tennis that I had ever experienced, I was convinced that Carol and the children were far better than I was at this game.

  Then I realized that the children were using PK, which was why they seldom missed a shot. If I was going to be any help to Jean as a tennis partner I was going to have to get. to work with my PK, too. Thirty minutes later I was convinced that the children’s PK was far better than mine. They still seemed as fresh as when the game began.

  I decided to ask for a rest, and as we sat in the shade of a nearby oak tree I invited the children to play tennis with me again soon, since it looked like I needed lots of practice. They both agreed.

  Neal gave me a happy grin and said, “We’ve found tennis develops our desire to practice our Macro powers especially PK.”

  “We were afraid at first that you had not yet developed your PK ability and that we weren’t being fair with you,” Jean added. “We don’t use PK when we play tennis with anyone who hasn’t developed it yet.”

  I laughed as I replied, “I was afraid I’d be too good for you, but by using your PK you made it the most challenging game of my life. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to practice not only my tennis but also my PK.”

  Carol hopped up and said, “I’m going to take a swim, Jon, but why don’t you stay here and rest so you’ll feel up to running back to our Alpha in time for the Macro dance.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll need the rest. That dance is as tiring as playing PK tennis!”

  By the time Carol and the children reached the nearest pool my eyes were closed

  CHAPTER 9: Proof of the Pudding

  I woke up refreshed and discovered that I had slept for almost ten hours. There was a note from Karl saying that he wouldn’t be home for lunch, but would be back earlier than usual that afternoon. I decided to get to my journal‑writing as soon as possible.

  By four that afternoon Karl returned and the first thing he did was ask about my latest dream. I told him he could read it in the journal because I was going out for some fresh air after being inside all day. He agreed that this sounded like a healthy idea and sat down with my journal while I put on my coat, boots, muffler, and fur hat in preparation for my walk in the blustery snow.

  As I trudged through eight inches of newly fallen snow and shivered in the near zero temperature, which was intensified by thirty‑mile‑an‑hour winds blowing about me, I realized that no one in 2150 could possibly appreciate their climate control as much as I did. I thought of all the ages that man had struggled against the elements of nature in order to find food, shelter, and security from attack by animals‑or his fellow man. I thought how much longer it was going to take before man would learn to cooperate enough to eliminate even this problem. Co­operation had always been the solution, the answer. But it takes the long view‑the Macro view‑to see the bene­fits of cooperation. From the short‑term view‑the micro view‑man can only get the things he wants by competing for them and coming out the winner, while his fellow man comes out the loser. This conflict, this competition, this lack of cooperation always results, both individually and internationally, in division into two groups‑the “haves” and the “have nots.”

  Looking up I realized that I had walked further than I intended for the student union and coffee shop was less than a block away. I crossed the street and entered the student union where I warmed myself as I considered the plight of the hundred and some other students gathered there.

  While most of them were between the ages of 18 and 22, there were also several about my own age or older. I couldn’t help but think how different these students were from those of 2150. The physical differences of sheer size and appearance were the most obvious, but it was the psychological differences that really hit me.

  These students of 1976 reflected the fear, suspicion, anxiety, belligerence, prejudice, alienation, and general unawareness of the culture they were raised in. Yet they had almost all evolved to a level where they were a lot more friendly and open than their parents, and their auras were a lot brighter and less muddied, too. “Hey! I’m seeing auras!” I thought triumphantly.

  I was almost instantly humbled by the sudden realization that this is about how my aura looked to the people of 2150 with my 20th‑century biases and anxieties.

  With this thought in mind I grinned and, leaving the warmth of the building, headed for home. I stopped at a supermarket to replenish our supply of bacon and eggs.

  In spite of the snowstorm the store was filled with middle‑aged women and a few elderly men. The vitality and enthusiasm of the students were absent here. These people had all the fears and uncertainties of the students but none of their compensating joy and friendliness. They seemed to be colorless, worn‑out automatons who had found a dull little rut into which they sank a little deeper with each passing year until it became their grave.

  The narrow, rigid life patterns of micro man were designed by him to avoid failure. In the long run, though, they merely served to convince him of his inadequacy to deal with the world outside of his little self‑constructed prison.

  As I walked down between the aisles of groceries thinking these thoughts, a small child of 4 or 5 came running around a corner, tripped, and fell sprawling at my feet.

  Without thinking, I automatically picked up the now sobbing child and held her in my arms to comfort her. The cries vanished immediately and I realized that I was holding a heavily booted and snow suited little girl. She had just begun to return my big smile with a shy one of her own when she was rudely jerked out of my arms by an anxious, thin‑lipped woman whose eyes were narrowed with anger.

  “How dare you put your dirty hands on my little girl!” she screeched. “You nasty beast!”

  “But, Madam . . .” I began, “I was just . . .”

  “I know what you were ‘just’ doing,” she accused loudly, clutching the child to her. “You were attempting to molest my daughter. I saw you, and I want you to know there are laws to take care of people like you!”

  By this time her caterwauling had attracted a sizable number of other shoppers who stared suspiciously at me.

  The little girl’s mother continued to shriek imprecations and threats at me till I felt it was impossible to say anything believable in my own defense. It was impossible for me to do anything except stare at her, transfixed by the ghastly aura surrounding her. It was like an ugly, spitting red fire blotched with sickly yellow‑greens.

  At that moment the store‑manager appeared and, sensing the possibility of violence, grabbed my arm and began pulling me toward the back of the building explaining to the shoppers that he would take care of me and see that I was turned over to the proper authorities.

  Back in his office, as I showed him my student identification card and explained for the third time that I was just comforting the child, he was still looking rather uncertainly at me. Finally, obviously deciding that he didn’t want the inconvenience of dealing with the police, he let me go out the back of his store with the warning that he never wanted to see me in his store again.

  If I had needed an incident to dramatically reveal the differences between 1976 and 2150 I had certainly gotten it. In the micro world of 1976 every stranger was a potential threat of theft, rape, murder, or some other catastrophe. Since micro man was blindly unaware of most of his own motivations, he was also blind to those of others. If only they could have seen my aura or read my mind, I thought it would have been impossible for them to misunderstand my intentions or fear me. But, lacking this greater awareness, they must judge others by surface appearanc
e and through the fog of their own fears, anxieties, and guilts.

  What would have happened to me, I wondered, if I had been wearing the long hair, beard, and battered looking garments so popular with some of my fellow students. I’d probably be sitting in jail by now with little hope of convincing a middle‑aged judge or jury that I wasn’t a sex fiend and either an anarchist or communist to boot.

  I walked back toward our apartment as quickly as my artificial leg would carry me, having had enough of micro man and his supermarkets for one day. I preferred the cold bitterness of the elements to the savage paranoia of micro man.

  Back at the apartment I found myself closing and auto­matically locking our door behind me. Oh, lord, I thought, I’m a great one to condemn micro man for being paranoid.

  It was true. I didn’t feel safe here in 1976, and I desperately missed the clean, lovely countryside and the happy serenity and loving kindness of Delta 927, only 174 years in the future.

  As I sat down in my hard‑backed chair Karl put down my journal and asked what was wrong. When I told him of my experiences at the student union and at the supermarket, he smiled grimly and said, “Your new Macro powers don’t seem to help you back here in 1976 the way they do in your 2150. Or maybe,” he paused, and eyed me speculatively, “they don’t even work in 1976.”

  That was our agreed‑upon test of 2150’s reality. Could I demonstrate Macro powers which I had learned in my dream world of the future while I was awake in 1976.

  I had seen auras, but somehow I had forgotten‑or avoided‑trying telepathy with anyone.

  Now I looked at my journal lying on the table beside Karl. Could I teleport it through the air over to me by using my newly developed PK? Maybe, I thought, I should try some smaller object. No, I refused to make the test easy‑even if all I could do was push the journal off the table onto the floor, it would prove my PK.

  I reached out with imaginary hands to lift the journal ‑nothing happened.

  What’s wrong? Had I just imagined seeing auras at the student union and the supermarket? Could it be that I would be unable to demonstrate PK, the one Macro power that could be seen by others?

  I frantically reached out with my mind and redoubled my efforts to pull, push, or shove my journal off the table, but, to my growing alarm, there was no movement whatsoever.

  “Take it easy,” Karl said. “I can see by the look on your face that you aren’t able to use your 2150 powers back here in the cold, hard reality of 1976.”

  “But I can see auras,” I pleaded. “I can even see yours!”

  “Come off it, Jon, you know I can’t see auras and neither can you or anyone else we know, so offering your hallucinations is hardly going to be acceptable as proof.”

  “But, Karl,” I protested, “this isn’t a fair test‑maybe I need more time. I mean I’ve only just begun using three out of the seven Macro powers. Maybe I’ll have to prac­tice and develop them all before I can demonstrate them successfully to you.”

  “There are only two,” Karl replied, “which I would accept as being verifiable. That would be precognition and PK, with the latter being the quickest and best proof. It was you, Jon, who suggested the test of demonstrating them in 1976. Now you seem reluctant to accept your own test of reality.”

  “But I know I have the power! I used it time and again! You should have seen that tennis game, Karl.”

  “I know, I know,” Karl replied. “It’s all right there in your journal. The point is, that’s in your dream world . . . not here in the reality where I live.”

  “I need more time, Karl,” I repeated.

  “Fine,” Karl agreed. “I don’t want to be unreasonable, but it’s your test as much as mine. You set up the rules. I’m just the judge. If you want more time, take it.”

  Karl felt my disappointment and discouragement, and he realized that I was sincerely puzzled by my failure to move ‑the journal. In his attempt to help he asked me if I was doing something wrong; if I was, perhaps, leav­ing out some vital step in the process.

  “No, no, no,” I answered. “Damn it, Karl, I’m doing everything just like I did before. It’s just not working!”

  Karl laughed. “Look at me, you nut! I’m almost as wrapped up in this as you are!” He paced across the room with his chin in his hand then, turning and pointing his index finger at me, he said, “By George, I’ve got it! Let’s recreate the ‘scene of the crime’ and see if we can ferret out your mistake. Now let’s see, the first time you demonstrated PK was on that pebble when you and Carol took turns making it bounce along in front of you and . . .” Karl interrupted himself and plopped on his bed, weak with laughter. “I sure do feel stupid, Jon! I’m sure as hell glad one of our professors isn’t here watching this production!”

  At this prospect, we both broke up.

  After a good laugh I said, “Come on now. Back to business. You had a good idea there. Let’s get back to the first time I used PK.”

  “Well, as I was saying, you and Carol were taking turns bouncing‑“

  I interrupted. “No, Karl. That wasn’t the first time I tried it. That was after I had learned the trick. The first time was when I tried to lift the pebble up from the ground in front of us. I couldn’t do it. Carol told me to try to recall my last Macro contact experience. I did, and next time I tried, it worked.”

  Karl immediately asked, “That Macro contact stuff - do you think maybe that’s it? Would that work here? And what is it?”

  “What is it?” I tried to think of a way to describe it to Karl. “Well, the closest I can come to describing it would be if you paused for a moment and imagined yourself totally, and perfectly, molecularly, one with the air around you and with everything else. Just feel the air between the atoms that make up your body and know that all is perfect and all is one. I realize that’s not too great a description, but it’s the best I can do.”

  “I suppose we could call it getting into the Macro mood. One more 2150 expression can only enrich our lives!” Karl joked as he waved a finger in the air and “jived” around the room.

  This business of combining the parts of two different worlds was more than I wanted to try to reason out, so I decided instead to act on it. “I don’t know, Karl. Let me take the next few minutes to try it. You keep your eye on my journal because if this works, I’m going to teleport it from your table over to my chair.”

  Karl smiled and said, “If that’s precognition you’re going to have to also demonstrate PK in order to prove it.

  His last words came to me faintly as my mind brought back vividly the memory of my last Macro contact, filling me with quiet, peaceful serenity. The fear and anxiety generated by my experience at the market and my failure to successfully demonstrate Macro powers for Karl began to be washed away by‑an ocean‑the wisdom of oneness‑which dissolved them completely, filling me once again with joyous hope and loving acceptance.

  I reached out with my mind’s imaginary hands and gently lifted my journal a couple of inches straight up above the table.

  “Son of a bitch!” Karl exclaimed. “You’re doing it, Jon! By God, you’re doing it!”

  I lifted it a full two feet above the table and began to pull it toward me. A few seconds later, its journey from the table beside Karl over to my chair completed, it had traveled about nine feet and was now lying in my lap.

  Karl exploded to his feet. Fighting back tears of joy and amazement, he grabbed my shoulders and shouted, “You did it, Jon! By God, you did it! Honest, Jon, ‑ I thought you were losing your marbles‑going out of your mind or something, believing those crazy dreams. But you sure did do it!”

  “Are you finally convinced, Karl?” I asked grinning broadly.

  Karl returned my grin and released my shoulders. As he stood up, though, the grin faded. “Wait a minute,” he said, as he rubbed his chin in thought. “Maybe I’m seeing things, too, just because I want so badly to see them. I mean, maybe I want so strongly for you not to be losing your mind that I’ll go to a
ny extreme to prove you aren’t. Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe that journal got over to you by some perfectly normal means that I, somehow, blocked out. Or maybe you hypnotized me‑or maybe I hypnotized myself, Jon.”

  “Now it’s your turn to have doubts about our test,” I teased. “Maybe that bit about one of our professors seeing all this wasn’t a bad idea. Do you want to invite some friends in for a little demonstration?”

  “No, not really,” Karl said, shaking his head. “If you failed, then everyone would know you’re nuts and, being your brother, I’d be judged guilty by association. On the other hand, if you succeeded, you’d be as notorious as if you had suddenly grown two heads. Besides, you might still be accused of hypnotism. No, that’s not the answer.”

  “Well, then, what do you suggest?” I asked. “I’ve kept my part of the bargain. I’ve demonstrated PK and even offered to do it again in front of witnesses. What more can I do?”