“There’s some mail for you,” her roomie smiled and handed Zoya a large brown-paper envelope.
“Oh, thanks,” she replied, collecting the missive from her outstretched hand.
“I am off to have coffee with the guy I met at the playoffs last week. See you at dinner!” Nancy said with a wink as she dropped her backpack on her bed and rushed out of the room again.
Zoya sat down at the desk in their room and proceeded to open the letter she had received. It was from Dr. Faraday, the head of their department.
Dear Ms. Carter
Your presence is requested at my office next Tuesday, October 3rd, at 10 AM sharp to discuss a very important matter. Please ensure that you are not accompanied by anyone else during this meeting. I trust you to treat the contents of this letter with utmost confidentiality.
Sincerely,
Dr. W.J. Faraday
Zoya started to panic. Why did the Department Chair want to see her? It sounded extremely serious. Was she going to ask her about the terrorist attack or her trauma? She didn’t really want to talk to a stranger about any of that. Maybe it was because she had applied to the exchange program in UK, although the flyer clearly said she wasn’t allowed to. Was she going to be reprimanded? What if it was neither and she was in more serious trouble? She started sweating profusely.
I wish Mom were here, she thought. She always has a way to calm me down. Maybe I should call her. The phone rang, and she jumped. She took a quick look at the screen and exhaled.
“Mom! How come you called in the morning? You know I have classes.”
“Oh honey, I know it’s a Thursday and you don’t have any classes ‘til after lunch. You think your mamma’s gonna forget that?” said Celina Carter, affectionately.
“Haha.” Zoya felt better already!
It was true, her mom never forgot a thing about her. Half an hour on the phone with her mother made her feel cheerful and a lot more confident. Although she wasn’t allowed to tell her about the meeting with Dr. Faraday, it felt like on some level she knew, and somehow there was a tacit agreement between mother and daughter that they would not discuss this issue with anyone else.
* * *
On the day of the meeting, Zoya dressed herself neatly in a pantsuit, tied her unruly hair in a sophisticated bun and walked over to Dr. Faraday’s office by nine forty-five.
“I am here to see Dr. Faraday, I have an appointment,” she informed the secretary with trepidation.
“No problem. Have a seat,” said the smiling lady as she left the room and walked into Dr. Faraday’s office leaving Zoya to wait alone in a medium-sized reception area that housed the secretary’s desk and a couple of visitor couches.
The lady returned a few minutes later.
“Right this way, if you would please,” she said to Zoya and ushered her in the direction of the closed office door.
“I also need you to deposit any phones or electronic devices before you head in,” she added.
“Oh, yeah… um… I have a phone…” Zoya replied while rummaging through her purse.
This is weird, she thought. Why do I have to leave my phone?
“Ah! Here you go,” she finally said, handing the phone over to the secretary with a frown.
“Thank you. Dr. Faraday doesn’t allow any electronic devices in her office. Sorry about that,” replied the lady, as if understanding Zoya’s hesitation.
“No worries. Rules are rules.” Zoya smiled.
“Well then, in you go. Good luck!” The secretary held the door open showing her the way.
Luck, yes, she needed that, Zoya thought. Lots of it.
She walked cautiously into the rather large office, and with apprehension in her heart, closed the door behind her but hesitated to move forward.
“Come on in.” Dr. Faraday beckoned, looking up from her desk. The wrinkled skin on her brows furrowed over her large green eyes which despite her age, projected an aura of confidence that radiated around the room. Her hair had gone completely grey and it was trimmed very short, in a near pixie-cut. She wore heavy rimmed glasses that she pulled down to perch lightly on her nose as she looked piercingly at Zoya from over them.
Zoya walked over to the large wooden desk at the centre of the room, pulled up a chair across from her stern-looking professor and took a seat.
“I hope I am not in trouble?” she then asked in a small voice.
“Well, that depends on what you consider ‘trouble’ young lady.”
This was exactly what Zoya had been so worried about. She was too scared to speak, so Dr. Faraday continued while looking intently into her eyes.
“I hear that you were in the airport attack at Los Angeles on your way here.”
“Yes, ma’am. It was rather terrifying,” said Zoya hoping this conversation would end here.
“So, I hear.”
There were a few seconds of silence and then Wanda Faraday smiled, leaned forward, and continued.
“What you heard that day, the…message... the warning?” She paused. “It was real.”
“Excuse me?” Zoya had never been more confused.
“I would like to explain…”
Yes, please! thought Zoya.
“…but this is not the place.” Wanda continued. “You have the next week off, study break for your mid-terms, yes?”
“Yes ma’am.” Zoya confirmed.
“I know you are up to date on your assignments. Impressive.”
Now it was Zoya’s turn to smile.
“Why don’t you pop by my place on Sunday afternoon, say at around four? We can have tea and I will tell you everything you need to know. How does that sound?”
“Alright ma’am, and—”
Zoya winced, closing her eyes for just a moment. There was a flash of… were they numbers? A name? She shook her head and looked back at her professor, who was now wearing a smile slightly more mischievous than before.
“Sorry, your… your address. What’s your address?”
“I think you already know.” Wanda said with a wink.
The numbers. The name. Zoya shook her head again, the pieces coming together. An address. A house number and a street name. That’s what it was. She blinked and felt her heart beat madly in her chest.
“How did you—” Zoya started.
“There is nothing to be scared of. It isn’t magic, just science. I will explain on Sunday. Now run along, you have classes,” Wanda explained, as if reading her mind yet again.
Zoya got up and was about to leave, but then she realized that she had forgotten to ask her an important question on her mind. She quickly turned around and asked playfully:
“Does that mean I am not expelled?”
“No, of course not! Why on earth would you think that?” Wanda responded bursting with laughter.
“Well, I applied for an exchange student program in Europe although I wasn’t allowed to. I did it because I really wanted to go, but I didn’t know if that would get me in trouble.”
“No, it won’t,” Wanda assured.
“So, do you think I would be allowed to go if chosen?” said Zoya, her voice suddenly upbeat.
“Yes, you can go. No, my apologies. You MUST go. Not ‘can’ but ‘must’.”
“Really? But I wasn’t even chosen—”
“You will be,” Wanda interrupted. “Now off you go. I will see you on Sunday at four, yes?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Zoya left that conversation more worried and confused than she had been going in. Although now she knew that she was not in serious trouble or on the way to be expelled, but it was hardly a consolation that her Departmental Chair, who appeared to be a witch of some sort, had taken a special interest in her of all people. Is that what she had meant when she said, ‘depends on what you consider trouble, young lady’?
CHAPTER three
That week, the weekend arrived a little too soon for Zoya’s comfort. By Sunday morning, her heart was beating a lot faster than usual. S
he’d thought about asking Nancy to tag along, but quickly remembered the whole deal about the extreme confidentiality of the matter.
“She is a professor of science at a reputed University,” Zoya reasoned with herself. “She wouldn’t be into any weird hokey pokey stuff, would she?”
Before she knew it, it was three-thirty and she had to head out. On the way to the bus stop she passed by a convenience store. After fingering the bottle of pepper spray a few times, taking it out of the shelf and then putting it back and then picking it up yet again, she sighed deeply. She was being paranoid. She is just a professor, maybe a little weird, but definitely not a wild animal. She wasn’t going to buy the pepper spray. In any case, she was a black belt in karate and Professor Faraday was a tiny shrivelled old lady. She would be no match.
It was five minutes to four when Zoya rang the doorbell at the Faradays’. Dr. Faraday let her in, a smile on her face. They walked into a living room decorated with strange and eclectic objects.
“Have a seat, my dear.” Wanda motioned to Zoya. “I will go and check on the tea. Do you like chamomile?”
“Yes, chamomile is fine,” Zoya assured.
When Wanda left the room, Zoya finally relaxed into her chair and started taking in her surroundings. There were some ancient collectibles, scattered around the room. A painting of a pyramid with writing on the edges in what seemed like hieroglyphic script, some objects made of stone and carved by hand.
There was also a chart on the wall that looked like a primitive calendar of some sort, a huge circle that was broken up into arcs, each of a different colour and each segment had a name. The top arc was the longest and golden in colour. Inside the golden arc were writings that Zoya could barely read but it looked like it said “Satya Yuga: Golden Age”.
On the wall right across from this calendar, there was a second strange object that looked suspiciously like another ancient calendar. This one was weirder and had a lot more circles. Zoya immediately recognized it from the time she went to Mexico with her parents. It was the Mayan calendar.
Zoya was sitting on a comfy rattan chair with a little wooden, glass-topped coffee table next to her. Right above that table was a beautiful painting of a family with three children. The youngest one, an infant, was cuddled in the mother’s arms. Zoya got up to take a closer look. Below the framed painting there was some writing:
“Wanda. J. Faraday at birth. Family album collection.”
And then, her eyes fell on the date and she froze on the spot. The painting was around two hundred years old. Which was… impossible? The professor couldn’t be two centuries old!
Just as Zoya was trying to process what she saw, Dr. Faraday walked in.
“Ah, yes, there you are. Nice painting, isn’t it? A family heirloom. I got it from my grandmother,” Wanda remarked casually.
“Oh really? Which one is your grandmother?” Zoya asked.
“She isn’t in this picture. The little boy over there was her father-in-law, my great grandfather. I am named after his sister Wanda, the one in the mother’s arms,” Wanda explained, now moving closer and pointing at the people in the painting.
“Oh, I see.” Zoya said, smiling, feeling relieved. “Yes, very nice. You seem to have a lot of antiques in here.”
“Yes, I am an avid collector of historic artefacts,” Wanda said with a chuckle. “Here, your tea is getting cold.”
Zoya took the cup of tea from her hand and seated herself back in the rattan chair. Wanda sat on a similar chair on the other side of the coffee table.
“So, the reason we are here today, let us discuss that,” Wanda said, taking a sip of her tea.
“Yes, I have a lot of questions.”
“I am sure you do… but before you ask, let me tell you what you need to know. What I will tell you may suffice in answering your questions, my child,” Wanda advised and sipped her tea before she began her explanation.
“First, let me ask you this, has it ever happened to you that when you think of something, it occurs, or you suddenly have an intuition and it turns out to be accurate?” Wanda inquired.
“Yes! All the time,” said Zoya, getting excited.
“What if I tell you this is not an accident, it is a gift—a gift you have?”
“Yes, a lot of people have told me that. I believe it. I think I am intuitive.”
“Hmmm. Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know. I guess some people are just born that way.”
“Exactly. That is the manifestation. But what is the cause?”
“Not sure what you mean—”
“You are a student of biology, so it should not surprise you that there is a genetic explanation for a number of varieties of physical manifestations we see around us.”
“Oh, you mean this could be in my genes? Maybe I inherited this ability?”
“In your genes, correct. Inherited, probably not. It is a mutation.”
“What?” Once again this was going into crazy territory, Zoya thought.
“Have you not heard about genetic mutation?”
“Yes, I have, but isn’t that a very slow and extended process over many generations? I mean the X-Men stuff is all fantasy, right?”
Dr. Faraday smiled affectionately.
“Yes, of course it is. However, there is ongoing research into a phenomenon that has been unknown to mankind until very recently. The suggestions are that certain geomagnetic occurrences at the time of a child’s birth have the ability to alter the functioning of a certain section of the brain, the hippocampus. This is achieved through a genetic mutation, a minor mutation, but significant enough to induce the development of highly advanced cognitive faculties. I have countless scientific journals and publications on this subject that you can read if you are interested.”
“Oh, I see. I would love to read them. So, do you think I may have such a mutant gene?”
“No, I do not think you have such a gene. I know that you do.”
“But how do you—” Zoya started.
“Let me explain and then you will understand. About eighty years ago, scientists studying ESP, telepathy and other paranormal brain activities discovered a correlation between heightened telepathic ability and an advanced hippocampal development. It was seen that subjects who reported telepathic skills inevitably had a larger hippocampus with a much higher concentration of neurones and the ability of these neutrons to fire simultaneously. Sometimes it was seen that these subjects could even voluntarily activate their telepathic abilities by initiating hyper-activity in their hippocampus.
“As this research was ongoing, an ancient ruin was discovered in the long-forgotten Egyptian city of Faiyum. Inside these ruins were papyrus scrolls that were thousands of years old and still relatively intact, preserved, or rather mummified, with the help of embalming materials. In these scrolls was a text that described how the earth’s magnetic field is enhanced and diminished at certain geographic locations, and their variations are governed by various cosmic occurrences. For instance, a certain stellar alignment over a particular geomagnetic meridian can amplify the earth’s electromagnetic field at that location at that particular instant of time by several orders of magnitude. The transcript goes on to explain that a child born at one of these instances of time and one of these specific locations will have enhanced telepathic abilities. For example, they will be able to transmit a message to another individual without saying a word. Like a brain-to-brain communication. Alternatively, they can pick up messages from other people’s brains in a similar fashion. This is just a short list. There are many more such abilities.”
“So, do you think, this ancient Egyptian stuff…” Zoya said, baffled. “That it could be true?”
“That is what the scientists have been trying to prove ever since this material was uncovered. It certainly was in keeping with what they had already discovered regarding heightened telepathic activity in certain individuals.”
“So, you’re saying these individuals had e
xposure to the stronger geomagnetic field at the time of their births, which caused a mutation enabling their hippocampi to be superior, correct?”
“You are intelligent. Which goes on to prove my initial point that you are one of these individuals.”
“Only if there was a way to know for sure.” Zoya said, with a laugh.
“Actually, there is. The Egyptian manuscripts also documented exactly when and where these cosmic events would be felt in the next ten thousand years. With the help of the positions of the stars in the sky and applying a correction based on the fact that the position of a star with respect to the earth has changed from what it used to be five thousand years ago, it is possible to look for these cosmic events today and find out exactly who the children are that were born on that day, at that location.”
“Seriously? That’s insane! Then you could easily write an algorithm that track—”
“Hah!” Wanda erupted with laughter. “My child, they did exactly that. Seventy years ago, after these manuscripts were discovered and the information in them was somewhat substantiated by ongoing scientific research, an organization was formed; to locate and track these individuals with heightened sensory abilities. With the advent of computer technology, in recent times an algorithm has been created by this organization that can locate these individuals. It is an approximation of course. So, someone from the organization is assigned to search for the correct individual from a pool of possible children born in the affected geographic location within a certain time range. You were one of those children. We have been tracking you for a long time.”
“An organization.” Zoya said. “To track mutant children?”
“Yes, it’s called Hekameses.”
“Sounds kind of… Egyptian?”
“You can say that it is. Roughly translated it means ‘son on magic’.”
The Coming of Kalki Page 2