Awake the Future

by Steven Lalevich

  “Sure,” I said and walked out to the kitchen table with her, where she poured us each a cup.

  After just sitting there drinking coffee for a few minutes, the assassin broke the silence by saying, “I had the most bizarre dream last night.”

  I looked up at her with attention. “So did I,” I said.

  She then grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and told me to write down my dream while she did the same. We wrote in silence and then traded our written accounts with each other and read them quietly to ourselves.

  Neither of us looked at each other nor spoke until we finished reading the other’s account of the dream. As you probably would guess at this point, she had the same dream as me, but from Katherine’s perspective.

  We sat for a moment in stunned silence over our half-empty cups of coffee, not really knowing what to make of the situation. I no longer had any doubts about who this woman was, and who I was. My assassin and I are the reincarnated souls of Katherine and David—soulmates reunited again in another lifetime.

  Even so, it still wasn’t clear to me whether or not the assassin felt it necessary to follow through with her mission. Finally, she broke the silence. “I’m Adrienne,” she said.

  I then reached across the table and gently held her hand. “Adrienne,” I said, looking deeply into her eyes, “you can trust me. We’re in this together now.”

  She squeezed my hand and said, “It’s not safe here. We need to go.”

  We left the apartment, got in the SUV, and this time I rode in the front passenger seat with my hands and eyes free. As we drove off, Adrienne said I needed to follow my initial instincts and get off the grid. Just because she didn’t kill me wouldn’t stop them from sending someone else to do the job. She said she would get me a new identity and passport and send me to a safe house in another country, where I would stay until I heard from her.

  In the meantime, she would proceed as if she had actually killed me and tell her superiors as much. She knew I needed to continue to release the podcast, so this cover would only hold until I released the next episode, this episode. But in the time she had, she planned to infiltrate the organization she worked for and figure out exactly why they wanted me gone.

  The implications of that decision were not lost on me. Not only would they send someone else to kill me; they would also target her after they found out what she had done. She too would have to disappear and take on another identity. I thanked her and made it clear I understood the sacrifice she was making.

  During the long drive, she told me about how she ended up in her line of work. She said she joined the CIA after college and worked in the field as an operations officer for about five years. Then one day, she had a meeting with her boss and another man. They told her she had been selected to join a new unit that had been created to protect the country from what they called “unique terrorist threats.”

  Before officially joining this unit, she had to undergo an additional year of rigorous training, which she said was more challenging than anything she had ever done in her life. Throughout that year, she operated under the assumption that the unit she was joining was still part of the CIA. However, once she was on board, she found out that the unit had only loose connections to the U.S. government and was more of a private, international conglomerate. Many of her colleagues were foreign nationals, and it wasn’t easy for her to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Because this organization, which she called “The Corporation,” had no ties to any state, it was free to act in any way necessary to complete its missions.

  And the missions, she said, were unusual. She was assigned to assassinate individuals who had supposedly obtained top secret military technologies that threatened the world. Many of her targets were individuals who had developed paranormal technologies for manipulating time, energy fields, and consciousness. She told me about one guy who supposedly created a way to slow down the flow of time and a woman who developed a method for reading the mind of another person located anywhere in the world. As bizarre as some of these things sounded, the evidence suggested that they were real. She knew these technologies had powerful applications, but the individuals she was assigned to take out were usually acting independently from any organization or government, and most of them didn’t seem to have any malicious intent. She began to question the degree to which these people were a threat.

  She said she carried with her a great deal of guilt about completing these missions, but it was her duty to protect her country, and while she tried to convince herself she was doing that, her gut feeling told her something wasn’t right. She also knew it would be difficult to leave her job. How could she resign, considering the amount she knew? Stepping away would mean risking her life. Although she was confident in her ability to disappear, she felt compelled to stay in the position a while longer. She kept telling herself she would leave when the time was right, but that time never came. She had been in the job for two years before being assigned to kill me.

  During those two years, she told me she had a recurring dream. She said it started the night after completing her first mission for the Corporation. She struggled to sleep that night as she couldn’t help but think that the person she had just killed hadn’t deserved to die. When she finally fell asleep, she had a dream she said was unlike any dream she ever had before. It was far more vivid and felt just like waking life. The only difference was that, in the dream, she was someone else. It was the only time she had ever had a dream from another person’s point of view.

  The dream, though odd, became a common recurrence over the next two years, until it came into real focus when she listened to my podcast as part of her preparation for her mission to kill me. When she heard me tell about my dream in the hospital, she was taken aback as I described exactly the events in her dream, only from David’s perspective instead of Katherine’s. She felt like suddenly all the pieces in her life had fallen into place. She realized that the path she was on was meant to lead her to me, and that it was the right path despite everything she had done along the way.

  After she heard me talk about our shared dream in the last episode, Adrienne began to take the message I was sharing more seriously. She told me she started practicing the fire and water rituals herself. I told her she might be the person who Edgar said I would meet and help with the rituals. Adrienne said that whether or not that’s the case, she would still like me to help her practice them.

  We also spent some time on our drive talking about our past lives. Adrienne’s current life seems to be following a similar trajectory as Katherine’s. In both lives, she thought she was working for the good guys, only to find out she was working for the other side.

  “I could relate so much to what I felt as Katherine in the dream,” she said. “It was so real to me. I feel the same way about what I have done, and I have to do something about it.”

  “I want to help you in any way I can,” I said, “like David did for Katherine. I just hope our story has a happier ending.”

  After the long drive, we met someone who took my photo and made me a new driver’s license and passport. Adrienne gave me a bag she had packed for me, along with an airline ticket and an address on a slip of paper. She told me to walk a couple miles into the city, and then take a taxi to the airport. Once I arrived at my destination, I was to take another taxi to the middle of the city and then walk a few miles away to the address on the paper. There, I would meet a contact of Adrienne’s who would take me to the safe house. Adrienne said she would join me within a few days.

  Before we parted ways, I sat with Adrienne in the SUV for a few minutes. I knew the risk she was taking in infiltrating her organization and I had to say something. “Thank you for everything you’re doing,” I said, “but I’m worried. I don’t want this to end up like what happened with David and Katherine.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I know how to handle myself. She then leaned across the seat and kissed me. “See
you soon,” she said.

  I followed her instructions and arrived the next morning at the address on the slip of paper. It wasn’t in the best part of the city and the building looked abandoned from the outside. I knocked on the door, and a guy who looked like G.I. Joe opened it.

  “Who are you?” he asked sternly.

  “I’m Adam. Adrienne sent me,” I said, feeling intimidated.

  Then his face lit up with a smile, and he said, “Oh, right! Come on in!”

  He introduced himself as Peter, and despite his gruff appearance, he was a really nice guy. The inside of the building looked a lot better than the outside, as Peter had carved out a small, but comfortable apartment for himself. He offered me some of the eggs he had made for breakfast, and we talked a little bit over our meal.

  “Adrienne told me something about you both having the same dreams,” he said.

  “Yeah, it’s hard to believe, I know. There’s a lot happening right now that is hard to believe,” I said.

  “Believable or not,” he responded, “if Adrienne needs something, I’m happy to help.”

  Peter said he worked for a government agency in his home country that frequently collaborated with U.S. intelligence. He said he had worked with Adrienne on multiple missions when she was with the CIA.

  “Adrienne’s great,” he said, “but she has her own way of doing things. I guess you could say she’s kind of a lone wolf.” He described some of the times they had worked together. He said it was frustrating when she broke mission protocol, and maybe even more frustrating that nine times out of ten, she was right to have done it that way. Unfortunately, her superiors didn’t find it so amusing and reassigned her to work deep cover operations. Peter told me he lost contact with her after that.

  “When she called yesterday,” he said, “I was thrilled to hear from her. It’s been a few years.”

  After breakfast, Peter drove me to the safe house and gave me the keys. I thanked him for his help before going inside and settling in. For obvious reasons, I am not disclosing to you any details about where this safe house is located, but the place is pretty nice and when I arrived, it was already stocked with food and other supplies. Other than that, it felt empty. Just two days prior I was going on a relaxing trail run at home, and now I was holed up alone in a safe house in a foreign country. Adrienne couldn’t get there soon enough. The house had no computer or internet access. I was only connected to the rest of the world through cable TV. Every day I hoped would be the day Adrienne would walk through the door.

  It was five days later when Adrienne arrived. She tossed a two-inch thick manila folder on the coffee table and sat on the couch. “We’ve got a lot to talk about,” she said.

  She found out that while the Corporation is not affiliated with any government, it frequently directs many of the world’s governments to carry out its orders. It seems that the Corporation is at the top of the hierarchy of world powers, and the board that runs the organization is comprised of some of the wealthiest people in the world. The ultimate goal, it seems, is to continue to build their wealth and power by manipulating world governments to fulfill their wishes. Adrienne found documents that show bank transfers of billions of dollars, payments to government entities for fulfilling the organization’s bidding.

  The branch that Adrienne worked for was set up to prevent anyone from using advanced technologies to disrupt the power structure. Any paranormal threats identified by her unit had to be taken out. They saw the same threat in my podcast as my messages and communications with Edgar undermine some of the programs the Corporation had designed to strengthen their power over the world’s population.

  Adrienne found top secret files that describe the Corporation’s methods for exerting their control. These include things like water fluoridation and sunlight propaganda, the same issues I have already discussed on this podcast. One report states explicitly that water fluoridation has been selectively implemented in certain parts of the world to prevent societies, and I quote, “from gaining too much freedom and independence.” The Corporation seems to be well versed on the most effective methods for creating a population of blind followers.

  Adrienne also found documentation of instances where the Corporation influenced the outcome of world events in order to create war and unrest around the world. These documents outlined various tactics, including providing funding and weapons to organizations and countries throughout the world, leaking secret government or military intel, and strong-arming various media outlets to sway public opinion.

  The briefings of these missions refer to a 100-point scale the Corporation uses to measure the stability of any given population. The closer the number is to 100, the more stable the country or region, while a number closer to zero indicates instability. The documents show that they intentionally try to keep this number around 50 as a means of facilitating control over the population. Either too much stability or too much unrest are both factors that may cause a population to be less passive and less willing to do what they are told. There were some instances where they did something good for humanity to bring a number below 50 back up, but the vast majority of their missions have been to destabilize the world and get the number down. This suggests that humanity’s natural trajectory has been toward improvement, but the Corporation has been doing everything in their power to prevent that from happening.

  Adrienne was unable to find anything that directly mentioned destroying human consciousness, however. It appears that the intention of these programs is simply to keep the population under the Corporation’s control. They seem to be ignorant of the true effects of their actions and only have a surface-level perspective, concerned with nothing but gaining more wealth and power.

  The files perfectly outline the Corporation’s strategies and tactics for manipulating the world to their advantage. However, we don’t have any documentation that mentions specific individuals by name, either within the Corporation or outside collaborators. Every member of the board of directors is listed as anonymous. While we have documentation of payment transfers, none of these include any names or account numbers. It’s clear that the Corporation went out of their way to make it difficult to tie any individuals to their actions. Without names, it will be challenging to prove anything. Adrienne said we needed to get the names if we were going to be able to take the Corporation down.

  Adrienne also unpacked a laptop and microphone and told me I need to keep releasing the podcast. “This information needs to be shared with the world,” she said.

  Adrienne is here with me now. I am blowing her cover as I release this, but ultimately, we hope that this blows the cover off the Corporation.

  Obviously things have changed in how this podcast will unfold moving forward. Adrienne and I will remain at the safe house until the remainder of the rituals are released. We also now have a new mission to do what we can to expose and bring down the Corporation. That won’t be an easy task, but we can all do our part, through practicing the rituals, to take back some of the power they have stolen from us. By practicing the rituals, we will be strengthening our own consciousness and restoring the power within ourselves.

  That’s all for now. I’ll be back when Edgar writes another letter. Talk to you soon.

  EPISODE 5:

  THE AIR RITUAL

  October 9, 2018

  The night she arrived at the safe house, Adrienne and I finally had some real time to ourselves. As we got to know each other that night, we both expressed feeling a strange connection between us. It felt like we had known each other for years, even though we had barely just met. I suppose it makes sense to feel this way about someone you have known across multiple lifetimes.

  Adrienne told me about her childhood. She was an only child, raised by her father after her mom died when she was just seven years old. There was a year between when her mother was diagnosed with cancer and when she passed away. Adrienne said she remembers that year vividly, watching her mother pro
gressively weaken and decline. She says it was during that year that she became all too familiar with death. Since then, she’s always felt like death is something she carries with her every day. It may be why she is more or less comfortable being an assassin.

  Adrienne said she didn’t have a lot of friends growing up and preferred to spend time with her dad. He was a police officer, and Adrienne was really close with him. He shaped her life in a way that made her want to either join the military or go into law enforcement. He encouraged her to go to college first, where she studied criminal justice and international relations.

  During the summer before her senior year of college, tragedy struck Adrienne’s family again, when her father was killed in the line of duty. Adrienne said she lost both her father and her best friend when he died. She didn’t know if she’d be able to finish college but persevered, knowing that it was what her father wanted for her. A few months before she graduated, she received a recruitment letter from the CIA, and she joined without hesitation.

  Adrienne said that major life decisions like joining the CIA presented themselves as obvious choices for her—the path was clear in her mind and in her heart. I had a similar feeling about how my life unfolded. Things like deciding where to go to college and what career to choose presented themselves as if they were the one and only clear choice. When either of us encountered a fork in the road of life, we both knew which route to choose. It was as though we were on a fixed path that went in only one direction.

  I struggle with this concept, not knowing how much free will I have, feeling that sometimes my decisions don’t matter because my life has already been mapped out. At the same time, I realize that the outcome isn’t predetermined, so while the board may have been set a certain way, it’s still up to me, and Adrienne, to make sure we follow through with the right moves to bring about the best outcome.

  Adrienne asked me how I felt about her being an assassin. “Does it make you feel uncomfortable?” she asked.