by Brandt Legg
A mountain lion crossed about sixty feet in front of us. “Whoa!” I said, holding out my arm to stop Kyle who was right behind me.
“I saw it, too,” he said.
“What was it? I just caught a blur of something.” Linh asked.
“A mountain lion,” Kyle whispered.
“Should we turn back?” she whispered. Just then the sun broke though in shafts of white light fully illuminating parts of the forest that had been hidden.
“Let’s just start being a little noisier from now on,” I said. “I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who saw it this time. You guys would have thought it was just another shapeshifter.”
“Maybe it was. I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Kyle replied.
Around the next switchback, a stream joined the trail and we crossed crude log platforms. The sound of waves filled the quiet forest, glorious. A few minutes later, we emerged from the trees and walked along an edgy cliff, the path, no more than a foot wide, but thick foliage acted as a railing. The trees retreated as the ocean came into view, a breathtaking sight. We sipped water. Below was a spectacular cove, with huge black monoliths rising from the surf like guardians of the coast. Their exotic shapes, the cliffs framing the beach, and the tropical-like forest felt like a coastal jungle of Mexico. Photos didn’t capture the scene, and I was too nervous anyway to get anything good.
There on the sand, a solitary person sat on a large black boulder surrounded by driftwood. He was staring out to sea so intently that I expected to see whales or a ship. Nothing but waves danced in the early sun. He didn’t move until we were right in front of him, blocking his view.
I guessed he was probably in his late forties. His shaggy gray hair blew in the ocean breeze, eyes a remarkable pale turquoise, light blue pants rolled up mid-calf and a faded green, long-sleeve shirt, gave the impression he’d been walking the beach for hours. Inexplicably, the sight of him relaxed me.
“Nate, thanks for coming.” He spoke immediately in a deep soft tone, which reminded me of my dad. “I know you have many questions. I’ll try to clear up as much confusion as I can.”
“Maybe you could start by telling me who you are.”
“Of course, forgive me. My name is Copeland. Spencer Copeland.”
Linh, Kyle, and I exchanged glances. He was one of the names on my dad’s list.
“Nate, I feel I’ve known you all your life, so I’m delighted we can finally speak face to face.” He turned to my friends. “Kyle and Linh, you’re somewhat newer to me, but I’m most pleased to see you, too.”
“Okay, Mr. Copeland,” I began.
“Please, you must call me Cope.”
“Cope? That’s my middle name,” I said.
“Yes, it is.”
“So you’re the old friend my dad named me after.”
“Yes.”
“How come we’ve never met?”
“We did a few times when you were younger, but life took me in a different direction.”
“How about I just call you Spencer?”
“As you wish.”
“Why did you ask us here today and to such an out-of-the-way spot?” I looked around still a little nervous.
“Perhaps that is as good a place as any to begin.” He smiled. “Let’s walk.” He rose and we followed. “The people who are looking for you cannot easily hear us at this location. The high cliffs and narrow beach afford almost no area for their electronic surveillance to pick us up. Likewise, the water adds great difficulty to their remote viewers.”
“Who’s looking for me?”
“Let me go a bit further back to answer you. I first met your father and Lee twenty-two years ago. We were at a retreat in northern California. Synchronistic events brought us together; we were grappling with our gifts.”
“So, you see things and hear things, too?”
“Yes,” he said, staring out at the ocean. “I have the same burden you do.”
“And my father did, too.”
“Oh, yes, but he turned away from it. He wanted to be normal. I think he did a pretty good job at that, too. Actually, anyone can see and hear what you do. Kyle and Linh will begin soon, now that they are open to it.”
“You mean it’s contagious?” Linh asked.
He laughed. “Yes, thankfully, in a way it is. Everyone possesses these extraordinary senses. But as you can see just by watching what Nate has gone through, it is a challenge to deal with, and society discourages it, so virtually all simply close off to the glimpses and glimmers. But let me go on—we only have so long before the tide comes in. The three of us became instant friends, brothers, really. After the retreat, we stayed in touch and got together at least once a month, helping each other develop our abilities and dealing with the many things we saw and heard. At some point your father met your mother and decided that he didn’t want to try incorporating other dimensions and a thousand lifetimes into his world with her.”
“So, she broke up the gang?”
“No, no. Your father and I haven’t missed a week without some sort of contact. It was Lee who really broke up the gang, to use your words.” Something in his tone conveyed his great sadness. It was as if he had to watch friends get killed while he was chained to a wall or something. And that feeling of frustration seemed to pass right from him to me.
“Lee was recruited into Stargate,” he said.
“The TV show?”
“I wish it had been as simple. Stargate was the codename for a highly classified program between the CIA, DIA, and FBI. It started in the late sixties during the Cold War, when the U.S. was afraid the Soviets were gaining the upper hand on psychic research, specifically, remote viewing.”
“What’s that?” Kyle asked.
“The short answer is ESP, extrasensory perception. The government initially used it to find out if the viewer could give impressions about distant or unseen targets, sensing with the mind to see in places where satellites couldn’t. At least that’s what they told the Senate Select Committees responsible for their funding. But there was quite a bit more to it.”
“And they used your friend, Lee Duncan?” I asked.
“They used Lee, yes, that’s a good way to put it. There were many others, too. And they had a lot of success. You’ll never read about it in the history books, but it was key to ending the Cold War and bringing the Soviets down, and it still affords this country a variety of foreign policy victories today.” We walked along the sheltered beach littered only with driftwood and a light scattering of shells and river rocks. Linh found a sand dollar. “Then back in 1995, word of the program leaked, and people thought this was a complete waste of taxpayers’ money on what most saw as a silly fortune teller program. So an independent evaluation was ordered. Days before the review was to begin, the CIA opted to simply close down the Stargate project—but not really, that’s just what they told Congress and the press. They actually kept it alive in a Langley basement until just after the 9/11 attacks when it was secretly folded into the Department of Homeland Security, expanded and renamed Lightyear.”
“So that’s what Lightyear is?” Kyle said.
“Yes. But it becomes more.”
“What happened to Lee?” I looked up at a small waterfall emerging from the trees, pouring over the cliff ahead of us.
“The administration took hold of Lightyear and got more aggressive with it. That was an awful time. When the new president came into office, there was some hope, but that quickly faded. By then, it had matured into a powerful tool. They put a new director in charge of the program who was well-connected, and he decided to use it for other means, such as the accumulation of wealth and power for himself and a few of his cronies. But they’re so well hidden within the CIA that they’re able to do things no one knows about. We’re talking immense corruption.”
“And Lee was going to blow the whistle?”
“Yes, he was.”
“So they killed him?”
“Yes.”
“And
my dad? Lightyear killed him, too, didn’t they?”
“Yes.” He stopped and turned to me, the turquoise eyes full of memories I’ll never know. “I’m more sorry about your dad than you can understand. Lee at least wandered knowingly into the cobra’s nest, but your dad was just trying to live a normal life. He wasn’t bothering anyone.”
“Who killed my dad? I pleaded.
“I don’t know his name.”
“You don’t know who’s running Lightyear?”
“It’s ultra classified, buried so deep inside the CIA that it might as well not exist.”
“Can’t you find out? You knew Kyle and Linh’s names. Can’t you use some of your magic to find this bastard?”
“I’m sorry, Nate, it doesn’t work like that.”
“How does it work then? I can see into lifetimes from hundreds of years ago like it’s happening now. I hear voices from other dimensions. People see military bases and terrorists plotting on the other side of the planet in their minds, but you can’t figure out a way to see who killed your two best friends?”
“I’m not saying it’s impossible; it’s just not that simple.”
“Then why did you ask us here?” I shook my head, disgusted.
“You’re in danger, Nate.”
“The guys from Lightyear? What are they going to do, kill a sixteen-year-old kid?”
“At the very least. Yes, they will kill you.”
“Why?”
“Several reasons. As soon as you did an online search with Lee Duncan and Lightyear in the same query, that was reason enough.”
“How do they know I did that? Is some psychic honed in on me?”
“There’s a government agency called the NSA that monitors all Internet and phone traffic. Someone from Lightyear had them looking for that phrase along with Lee’s name. The NSA doesn’t even have to know why. They just send the data to the CIA, and it filters back to Lightyear.”
“So my own government wants to kill me? It’s too unbelievable to believe.”
“Nate, haven’t you learned in the past few months that the most unbelievable things are often the things that are actually the most real?”
“No.”
“I find that unbelievable.”
“I don’t care what you think,” I said.
“Spencer, you said, ‘at the very least they would kill him’ what did you mean by that?” Kyle asked calmly. “What else would they do?”
“Kyle, I’m sorry to say that you’re all in danger, not just because you’re Nate’s friends but because you searched for information on Montgomery Ryder on your personal computers. That’s reason number two for taking Nate out, but it definitely puts you in some jeopardy. The only reason Nate is still alive is that it took a while to get the report to Lightyear. The government’s big and routine information moves slowly, but now it’s a priority.”
“Are you going to help us?” Linh asked.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to help you,” Spencer promised. “But perhaps their most important case for killing you, Nate, is a reason they don’t even know yet.”
“Great. What is it?”
“Your abilities to tap the powers of the universe may be the only thing that can bring them down.”
“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic here?”
Spencer grabbed me. “Listen to me, Nate. You have no idea what you’re up against! Lightyear is run by the nastiest people you can imagine. They’re using remote viewing to manipulate events and advance an agenda of cruel greed. They won’t just kill you; they will kill your friends and family. Haven’t they already proved that? They’ll kill a whole school of children if they need to. Melodramatic? I haven’t even begun to tell you what’s going on at Lightyear. These people are vicious. This is nothing less than an epic battle of good versus evil.” He let me go.
“I’m sixteen,” I screamed, running toward the ocean. Kyle and Linh ran after me. Spencer sat down in the sand. “This is too much,” I yelled above the surf. “What does he want from me? What does the universe want me to do? What can I do?”
“Nate, you need to chill out,” Kyle said. “Get hold of yourself. We need to know what Spencer is telling us.”
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
“Yeah, do you?” Kyle answered.
“Every word.”
“So, why are you giving him such a hard time?”
“Because I don’t want to hear what he’s saying. I want to go to sleep and dream of cars and football games. I don’t want voices whispering in my brain. My dad didn’t either. He turned away from this stuff, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“I think it’s too late for that, and it didn’t work for your dad; they murdered him anyway. Didn’t you hear Spencer? You may be able to stop us all from getting killed.”
It was then that I noticed the tears streaming down Linh’s face. “Linh, are you okay?”
“Everyone’s talking about us being killed like it’s no big deal,” she was shrieking, “like if we do this we could get killed or these people might just kill us or our families! Our families, Nate!”
“Linh, we’ll be all right. Somehow we’ll all get through this,” I managed to say.
“How do you know that? He said these people don’t care about blowing up a school. He said they’re vicious!”
“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” I said.
“Yes you do, Nate. It’s all right here.” Kyle was so calm. Linh and I both waited for his next words. “We need to go back and listen to Spencer. He will help us.” Kyle pointed at Spencer, sitting, once again, concentrating on the ocean. “He didn’t bring us here just to scare us. He must have some plan on how we can survive this. And Nate, you need to stay calm from now on, and you have to keep meditating. It will help you.”
“I feel like my head is going to explode.”
“I know,” he said, “but it won’t.”
We headed back to Spencer. He stood as we approached. “I’m sorry, Spencer, I’m pretty freaked out by all this.”
“Perfectly understandable, Nate. I came on a little strong.”
“So, I’m supposed to save the world?” I asked.
“That would be helpful, but my first goal is to just keep you alive,” he said.
“That would be really helpful,” I forced a laugh. “Kyle thinks you have a plan. Is he right?”
“Thank you, Kyle, for your vote of confidence. I do have some ideas about a plan, but it isn’t my plan per se. It’s your plan.”
“That kind of worries me,” I said.
“It shouldn’t. Let me explain. You’re all familiar with destiny and its meaning?” We nodded. “Now, imagine that the major events of your life are set up before you are born. You have free will in between, but the big stuff is preordained for your life’s plan.” More nods. “Now, the fun part: Try to comprehend tens of thousands of these life plans for each person overlaid on top of each other and all intersecting at various points.”
“You’re losing me,” I said.
“Yes, this is incredibly complex. No one gets it, but try to have a sense of the setup. What it means is there was a plan for the exact situation you find yourself in right now, but it all changes with each decision you make or anyone else in your world makes or anyone in theirs and so on.”
“That clears it up,” I said sarcastically.
“What I’m doing such a bad job explaining is dynamic destiny, meaning, there is a plan. We just have to find it.”
“Who sets up the plans?” Linh asked.
“We each set up our own plans. This is simple stuff for our souls. Trying to get our human personalities to understand it is basically impossible.”
“How do we find the plan?” Kyle asked.
“I’m going to help Nate remember some tricks so he can connect with his power.”
“Like magic?” Linh asked.
“Oh Linh, this is so much more powerful than magic. The long-forgot
ten powers of the soul are the inspiration for all the magic that has ever been.”
“I don’t think we have that kind of time,” I said.
“First lesson: everything can change in an instant. Truly, it is possible to learn everything that has ever been known in just an instant.”
“That’s a trick I would like to learn,” Kyle said.
“Me, too,” added Linh.
“Something tells me it isn’t going to be quite that easy,” I said.
“Probably not,” Spencer said. “But you have to know that if you can get yourself to a certain point, it could be. We’ll settle for some fraction of that, for now anyway.”
“You’re asking an awful lot from me.”
“I’m not asking anything. I’m only here to help. Look, Nate, I know you’re only sixteen, and an avalanche has come down and you don’t know how to handle it. Don’t even think you can handle everything that’s needed from you. But you can. Believe me, you have it within you.”
“I appreciate the pep talk, Spencer, but I’m not convinced.”
“Think of it this way then. You have no choice. There is no alternative. If you do not rise to the occasion and remember who you are, then you will be killed. And have no doubt, Nate, you won’t be alone.”
“Stop putting all this pressure on him,” Linh said.
“Linh, I would much prefer to spend years and years teaching him and showing him what he is capable of, but as Nate said, ‘we don’t have that kind of time.’ This is not a game, and there is no guarantee the good guys will win. But I wouldn’t be here if I thought this was hopeless. And Linh, I am willing to die in this effort. This is more important than you can know.” The sound of the crashing waves took over for several minutes. I knew he was right about one thing. I didn’t have a choice. If the people who killed my dad and Lee were really after me, then it would take more than magic to save me, to save us all.
Spencer explained that Lightyear’s director was using the vast powers at his disposal to do everything from manipulating food prices to starting small wars. “They are monitoring or have people in all major law enforcement agencies and governments worldwide. Scores have been assassinated at his direction. The stakes are enormous. It’s hard to know their true size or how far they will go. But ironically, Lightyear is probably the biggest force preventing a real awakening. The church isn’t helping either, but that’s another topic.”