Chapter 106 A departure

Thursday 26th August

The sergeant appeared very worried. ‘The doors are locked from the inside, Sir, so there must be someone in there, but we’ve not been able to communicate with whoever it is. Mr Han isn’t elsewhere on the Camp, so we assume it may be him.’

Major Pierson pushed on the door. ‘Is there any way to get in?’

‘The laboratory’s part of the inner zone of the nuclear bunker, Sir. Internal locking of the doors disables the external keypads. We haven’t got the equipment to cut through the door either, but there may be one way to gain entry.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s not designated as a nuclear bunker anymore, and so some security systems have been disabled for convenience. There are no doors on the airshafts, so it’s easier to service the fans. I’ve got a man trying to get in that way.’

As the sergeant finished speaking, a voice could be heard on his radio: ‘I’m in the duct above the laboratory, Sir. I can see through the air grill. I can see someone sitting at a console with one of those helmets on. He’s facing me and I can see through the visor. It looks like Mr Han. I’ve called out to him, but he hasn’t responded. I’ll remove enough of the grid to let me drop down into the room.’

‘Well done, Corporal.’

Major Pierson and the sergeant stood in silence for several minutes. Finally, the door to the laboratory slid open.

‘How’s Mr Han?’ asked Major Pierson as he walked quickly into the laboratory.

‘Haven’t checked, Sir. I thought I’d let you in asap.’

Pierson walked to where Mike Han was seated. ‘Are you OK, Mr Han?’

Pierson lifted the hand of the motionless figure. ‘He’s cold and there’s no pulse. Call the medics. He’s dead.’

Chapter 107 Looking upon the face of God

Thursday 26th August

Zoe sat pointing a gun at Anna, despite the fact that Anna was tied to a chair. ‘Did you have anything to do with Sam vanishing?’ Zoe demanded.

Mike Han’s awareness noted his thoughts being spoken from the mouth of Anna Lin. ‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ he said with passion. ‘Max and I are both like the sorcerer’s apprentice – we thought we’d understood more than we actually have. In reality, we don’t have a clue what we’re really doing – or the risks we’re taking.

‘I had intelligence from China that you were all here. I was ordered to employ Starchild at Shorncliffe to stop you from using this version of the system for an attack on China. I attempted to effect a hostile transmigration to anyone who was at this facility. By chance, that person turned out to be Anna Lin.’

Anna’s head shook from side to side, indicating “no” – a sign that Mike Han was very unhappy. ‘Before that transmigration, I was thinking of it in the way I might think of using a train to get to London. It was mad. We’re getting too arrogant about manipulating the Universal Consciousness.’

Max did not attempt to dispute that view. ‘What exactly were you planning to do when you got here?’

‘As I said, I’d intended to effect a hostile transmigration into the body of someone here, but to return to my body in Folkestone within the transmigration return window – maybe ten or twenty minutes. That should have given me enough time to carry out my orders to prevent you from undertaking any activity that might negatively impact on China.’

Zoe raised the gun slightly. ‘You mean to kill us.’

‘Not necessarily. That would have been the last resort. I could have easily disabled the equipment – probably without you even realising until I’d gone.’

‘What went wrong?’ asked Max.

‘The transmigration didn’t take me to this facility. Instead, I was alone on some dreamlike, twilit beach. I was then aware of a profound sense of loneliness and isolation. There was a strange sun in the sky which had a ribbon of light connecting it to the sea. As I looked at that sun, I experienced the realisation that I was everything.’ Mike laughed ironically. ‘I thought such an experience was supposed to be a joyous revelation. It wasn’t. I felt terror. I was overwhelmed by the horror of something that I couldn’t quite define. I just knew I didn’t want to be wherever I was. … No, actually, it wasn’t that. It was that I didn’t want to know what I felt I was on the threshold of discovering.

‘The next thing I remember is sitting in the chair over there. It was then I realised the HT had finally taken place. I looked at Anna’s watch, corrected for the time difference and realised the end of the transmigration return window had long since passed. The window is ten or twenty minutes at best. After that, there was no way back to Mike Han’s body in Folkestone.’

‘So you told us who you really were straight away,’ said Zoe.

‘I realised from Anna’s memories the situation we were in and what you were trying to achieve. There seemed no reason for anything but the truth at that point.’

Max looked at Mike. ‘I think you attempted your HT at exactly the same moment as we were using Starchild for another purpose.’

Mike smiled. ‘You mean allowing Sam Martin to transmigrate into the Universal Consciousness. I still have Anna’s memories, remember. I know about everything in which Anna was involved.’

‘OK,’ Max replied. ‘What I’m wondering is whether you were affected by Sam’s transmigration. I wonder if you were somehow drawn along with her – like being picked up by a tornado. You only came here when you felt unable to face whatever it was on that beach.’

‘Maybe Sam was able to deal with it and so moved on,’ Zoe speculated. ‘I wonder what Mike’s sense of overwhelming horror was about.’

‘I can’t be sure,’ Max admitted, ‘but there are accounts in all religious traditions of the experiences of pilgrims who “look upon the face of God”, so to speak. Fear or even terror are not uncommonly reported. Often, the simpler forms of those religious traditions try to conceptualise the horror visually, although it’s quite hard to see how an appearance could be that profoundly shocking. Maybe “looking upon the face of God” is a metaphor for realising what God actually is. We don’t have the concepts to adequately describe it in words, but what Mike said about realising he was everything is also an idea that often appears in scriptures.’

‘Although I’m remembering it now,’ said Mike, ‘I don’t have the visceral sense of it that I had on that beach. Then, it was as if the realisation which was about to dawn would destroy me. There’s something else I felt out there too. I realised that it’s crazy for our body-minds to be fighting other body-minds – individuals against individuals and nations against nations. Our sense of self is an illusion that distracts so many of us from the simple awareness of existence. If more people could only see that, our body-minds would be God’s greatest asset, not God’s greatest enemy.’

‘I’m inclined to believe you’re being sincere with us,’ said Max, kindly. ‘Also, this is the only situation in which you now manifest a physical form, so this is your only reality. What else can you do but team-up with Zoe and me?’ He paused and then smiled. ‘For all we know, the material world could have changed again as a result of whatever happened after Sam vanished – or even as a result of this subreality’s finally decaying. There could be dinosaurs roaming primaeval swamps out there.’ He looked at Zoe. ‘You shut down all external communications when you locked down the facility. Can we pick up some news media now to get a handle on the world we’re currently inhabiting?’

Zoe put the gun in her pocket, stood up and began to walk towards the door. ‘OK’.

Mike glanced up at Max. ‘This might be a good moment to untie me.’

Zoe stopped and turned again towards Mike. ‘What about Anna’s soul?’ she said with sadness.

Mike looked up at her. ‘I don’t know, and I’m sorry.’

‘No soul is lost,’ said Max reassuringly. ‘It’s possible that a displaced soul after a hostile transmigration might inhabit some other creature. Failing that, it would return to the Unity to be reborn in its turn. The injustice of the displacement would be reflected in the soul’s karma.’

‘Despite that,’ Mike concluded. ‘I’m sorry Anna’s current life ended in the way it did.’

Chapter 108 A reunion

Beyond dates and times

Sam opened her eyes, reached forward with her open right hand and closed it around the sun. She then stood up and turned around.

It was now a cloudless, sunny day. The air was warm, and a light breeze was blowing. ‘So, this is Max’s meta-subreality,’ she said aloud to herself.

Sam was standing on a high mountain. She could see a winding river in a deep valley, far below. Tall trees stood around her, and one hundred metres in front of her, further up the slope, she could see what she recognized to be the pagoda of Mount Kōy – the Kongōbu-ji Temple. She knew this to be the ecclesiastical headquarters of the Koyasan sect of Shingon Buddhism in Japan.

Sam recognized the structure because Sue Melton had shown her photographs of this temple. Sue had resided here for a period while in Japan. Sam recalled that Sahadeva had also spent time in this place, and it was here that he had met the monk Nyogen. When Sam and Sahadeva had talked about the temple, Sahadeva had cited Nyogen as an example of someone who could locate his soul outside the boundary of his body and thus gain functional invisibility.

As Sam looked around once more, she noted the exceptional clarity and vividness of this new world around her. She had retained clear memories of the material reality that her awareness had recently inhabited, and she realised she was now somewhere very different. Far from being dreamlike, however, this world now seemed more real than the one she had left.

Sam began to walk slowly up a steep, dusty, winding path towards the temple.

There was no one in evidence as she reached an open gateway that led into the temple courtyard. Within the courtyard, Sam noted a rock garden comprising many fragments of stone separated by carefully furrowed, raked gravel. There was no sound other than the breeze and birdsong.

As she proceeded through the courtyard, Sam noted the doors enclosing a long, single-story, wooden building to her left. The translucent material that formed the many square panes in each door allowed light to enter the interior but obscured any view of activity within the space.

As she walked along the length of the building, Sam could see that the final door had been left open.

She stepped onto the covered wooden patio that ran along the front of the building. There was a wooden stool, a bowl of water and a towel placed at several locations along the patio. Sam paused at the last one to sit and to wash and dry her feet. She was wearing no shoes, and her feet had become dusty during the walk up the track.

She replaced the towel and looked out upon the rock garden for many moments before standing up and walking to the open door.

A gong sounded once from somewhere far away.

Sam stepped across the threshold into the room beyond.

Two men sat near the centre of the room in meditation postures and with their eyes closed. They were sitting at an angle to one another – as if occupying two corners of an equilateral triangle. They were facing a golden sphere which was around half a metre in diameter and which was floating just above the floor with no obvious means of support.

Sam immediately recognized one of the men as Sahadeva.

Sahadeva opened his eyes, looked up at Sam and smiled. ‘Please join us,’ he said.

Sam sat down in a meditation posture at the third corner of the triangle.

The second man then also opened his eyes, looked at Sam and smiled. ‘Hello, Ms Martin, my name is Nyogen.’

Sam bowed her head to them both and then focused her attention on the golden sphere. ‘Is there a material reality in which there is no nuclear exchange and the comet does not strike the Earth?’

‘There is,’ replied Nyogen. ‘Look into the sphere.’

For a period that she could not subsequently define, Sam’s concentration focused on the sphere such that she lost herself within it and became part of it. During the experience, she retained no sense of her current circumstances or the material reality from which she had come. She was part of an alternative material reality that was rapidly unfolding as if each day were a second. Finally, Sam regained awareness of the room in the Temple and looked in turn at Nyogen and Sahadeva.

‘There will be temporal-spatial discontinuities,’ said Sahadeva. ‘Some events on the current worldline will be forgotten and some people will fade from that reality. It is, however, the best solution we have, and Starchild at the Tibetan facility can remodel material reality to produce what we have just seen through the eye of the golden sphere.’

‘I understand,’ said Sam, nodding her head. ‘The Universal Consciousness cannot change the current flow of material reality without the help of souls within that material reality, and Max Paterson and his Starchild are to be a key part of what is to come.’

‘That is the mechanism by which the Universal Consciousness evolves the world of Maya,’ concluded Nyogen. ‘It is co-creation.’

Sam experienced a strong intuition. ‘This has happened before, hasn’t it? Temporal-spatial realignments have taken place when the narrative of the material world has been drawing itself to a premature close.’

‘A passage from the Christian Gospel of Matthew comes to mind,’ said Sahadeva. He began to quote:

‘For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.

‘That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

‘Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.’

Nyogen looked at Sahadeva and then at Sam. ‘That is a very clear statement of what happens to the material world at times like the present. Sam’s words described it well when she talked of temporal-spatial realignments taking place when the narrative of the material world has been drawing itself to a premature end. That inevitably happens from time to time due to the unpredictable development of complex systems as described by chaos theory. No one is to blame.’

‘So,’ said Sam, ‘some people and some material objects will, in Matthew’s words, “be taken”. They will fade away with the realignment, and yet few people will realise what has happened.’

‘That’s true,’ agreed Sahadeva, ‘but the transition must be guided in careful stages. If there were too many discontinuities, a new material narrative couldn’t be sustained. If material reality became reconstructed so dramatically that large numbers of people or objects simply ceased to exist, then it couldn’t be ignored. The psychological effects would be greater than unprepared minds could accommodate. Societies would disintegrate.’

‘For most people,’ reassured Nyogen, ‘incompatible memories of an earlier worldline will just fade after material reality has changed. A few people will recognize the Mandela effect and believe their inconsistent recollections to be real memories from a different reality. Most others will consider that view to be deluded.

‘The majority belief will win out because there won’t be an excessive number of temporal-spatial realignments when transitioning to the world we have just witnessed through the eye of the golden sphere. The number of people who will cease to exist will be small. They will largely be individuals who have been closely involved with Starchild because Starchild does not play a part in the new world – once it has helped us to reach that new world.’

Sam, Sahadeva and Nyogen sat in silent contemplation for a period that might have been guessed as an hour. They all nevertheless knew there was no correlation with time as it was perceived within the ongoing material narrative.

Sam reflected that, because of this, there was no pressure. They had all of eternity to plan the transition pathway – to guide the ship to harbour.

Chapter 109 The ghost in the machine

Thursday 26th August

Max, Mike and Zoe spent an hour listening to the world’s news media and also reading the encrypted Chinese military communications that Zoe could access.

‘We’re getting the broad picture from these reports,’ Zoe observed. ‘We don’t know the fine detail of what might have changed, but I think we can conclude that the world seems much the same as when we arrived here. The subreality that got us here hasn’t obviously degraded.’ She looked at Max and smiled. ‘No dinosaurs roaming primaeval swamps. The encrypted military communications show that the Chinese authorities believe this facility has been occupied by me, Anna Lin and two unknown foreign spies. That’s consistent with our subreality. They don’t know how to reach us because this facility was built to be impregnable and totally self-sufficient – including in relation to power and air supplies.’

‘There are also the obvious facts about us,’ added Max. ‘You’re still Zoe – Colonel Li Xiu Ying.’

Zoe nodded.

‘I’m still Max Paterson in the body of Peter Rogers, and Anna’s body hosts the awareness of Mike Han.’

Mike nodded. ‘OK, we’ve got a rough picture of the world outside, but what should we be doing in here? Your objective in coming here was to establish the subreality that brought you here alive and then to work out your next move. Sam then used Starchild to transmigrate into the void, and she’s disappeared. The plan for her to return and report within the transmigration return window hasn’t happened. Do we just wait for her to communicate? And what if she’s not in a position to do so?’

‘Please speak to us, Sam,’ said Zoe, expressing her hope in a form rather like a prayer.

The gentle background hum from the computer racks increased in intensity. Max looked around at the equipment. ‘That’s odd. All the equipment’s in standby mode. It sounds like it’s powering up.’

Max stood up and walked to one of the consuls. He typed on the keyboard. ‘It is powering up.’ He watched the screen in silence for a further minute. ‘It’s configuring for hostile transmigrations.’

Zoe and Mike stood and walked across the laboratory to join Max.

‘What’s causing this?’ asked Zoe.

‘The system can’t act autonomously in this way,’ Max replied, ‘and no one can control it remotely.’

Mike looked around the equipment in the room. ‘Is it possible that we’re seeing Sam’s hand in this?’

Max looked closely at the screen in front of him. ‘Maybe. The system’s set parameters for three hostile transmigrations.’

‘Who’s it planning to transmigrate to who?’ asked Zoe.

‘It’s set a configuration for Zoe to transmigrate to a person called Zhang Wei in Beijing.’ Max looked up at Zoe. ‘Do you know who that is?’

‘Zang Wei was my assistant before I entered our current subreality. He didn’t seem to exist in this subreality at the time I left Beijing two days ago.’

Max looked at another line of text that had appeared on the screen. ‘It’s set a configuration for Mike to transmigrate to Ollie Fenchurch in Folkestone.’ Max thought for a moment. ‘Ollie was an ex-patient at the Bodhiisha Temple Rehabilitation Unit. He was the best channeller we ever found. One of our tests for Starchild involved implanting a sub-ego imperative that induced Ollie to organise a reunion for other ex-patients.’

Max continued to look at the screen as further words appeared. ‘It’s also set a configuration for me to transmigrate to Peter Rogers. That’s interesting. Like Zhang Wei, Peter Rogers doesn’t exist in our current subreality. It was you, Mike, who told me when I spoke to you from the plane that he’d died ten years ago.’

‘So,’ said Mike, ‘this version of Starchild has plans for us all to undertake hostile transmigrations to different individuals in a new material reality.’

‘Is Sam the ghost in the machine, do you think?’ asked Zoe.

‘I don’t think we have any alternative other than to assume she is,’ Max replied.

‘Do we just accept it then?’ said Mike. ‘Do we just put the helmets on, inject some Teterodat and leave it all to the ghost in the machine?’

‘What about the souls of Zhang Wei, Ollie Fenchurch and Peter Rogers in the new reality?’ questioned Zoe.

‘Displacing them is an injustice,’ Max replied, ‘but Sam may have no better solutions. As I said previously, no soul is lost. My intuition is that we should go with this.’

‘OK,’ said Zoe. ‘Frankly, we don’t have an alternative.’

‘Let’s do it,’ Mike concluded.

Chapter 110 Alice in Wonderland

Monday 30th August

Zoe parked in the designated space for Colonel Li Xiu Ying at the rear of the Ministry of Public Security.

Almost immediately, a familiar security guard tapped on the car window. Zoe lowered the glass.

‘Forgive me, Zhang Wei,’ said the security guard, ‘but you cannot park in the space reserved for Colonel Li Xiu Ying. I realise she will not be returning, but we must maintain protocols.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ replied Zhang Wei, pondering on what the security guard had meant when saying that Colonel Li Xiu Ying would not be returning. ‘I’m quite distracted at the moment. I have much work on my mind. I don’t know why I stopped here. I will move to my designated space.’

It was certainly true that Zhang Wei had been distracted. Since Zoe’s awareness had transmigrated to his body, there had been much to think about.

After the transmigration, her surrounding reality appeared to have substantially reverted to the way it had seemed one week previously, prior to her integration into the recent subreality. This reversion had been further confirmed on her drive from Zhang Wei’s apartment this morning. The signboards on several familiar shops and restaurants, which had suddenly displayed unfamiliar styles or business names on the previous Tuesday, were now as she had habitually recalled them.

Zoe’s greatest revelation, however, had been the adjustment to becoming a man. The personal impact of transmigration was not an issue Zoe had discussed with Max or Mike. She was aware that Max Paterson’s consciousness had transmigrated to the body of Peter Rogers, having previously occupied the body of George Mackenzie, and she was aware that Mike Han’s awareness had inhabited the body of Anna Lin. Circumstances at the facility in Tibet had unfortunately not provided an opportunity to discover what those changes had felt like. Zoe had just accepted these metamorphoses as a given – another weird consequence of the surreal, dream-like situation in which she had found herself. Like Alice in Wonderland, she had been carried forward by events, but she had not paused to reflect on the details.

It had not fully dawned upon her until she had woken up in Zhang Wei’s apartment that there might be no return to being Li Xiu Ying. At the same time, it had very suddenly become apparent that a man’s body was very different to the one she had grown used to from girlhood – starting with a technique of how to pee. She thought it fortunate that neither she nor Zhang Wei had a regular partner because this had reduced the immediate complications there might otherwise have been.

As his senior officer, Zoe had known much about Zhang Wei and was pleased to recall that he was in excellent physical health. She knew considerably more about him now, however – indeed, she knew everything. She could not only recall her own life as Li Xiu Ying but also, in the same intimate detail, the life of Zhang Wei.

These recollections in themselves had literally triggered an awakening. The transmigration had not transported what she might have considered as her “self”. Instead, something else had comprised the essence of the transfer – an underlying awareness. She could now fully appreciate from the perspective of viewing two selves that neither self existed. Each was a partially conditioned and partially random collection of thoughts, emotions, sense experiences and memories that formed no coherent whole. Examining the selves of both Zhang Wei and Li Xiu Ying allowed the genderless awareness, which was neither, to realise that any apparent overarching personality or ego was just a construct of the mind – an illusion within the greater illusion that she now also understood to be the reality surrounding her.

It was this appreciation that greatly diminished her grief at the external loss of Li Xiu Ying. Instead, she experienced the joy of an awareness of who she really was – a localised concentration and expression of the eternal Universal Consciousness.

Despite this awakening, however, she experienced sadness when Zhang Wei, now at his desk, read an urgent Ministry report on events at the facility in Tibet. Another secret entrance, of which even Zoe had been unaware, had allowed security forces to enter the facility on Sunday morning. They had found Colonel Li Xiu Ying and Captain Anna Lin to have been dead for around three days. It was recorded that no damage appeared to have been caused to the Starchild hardware. The bodies had been removed, and the facility had been locked down so no one could enter without permission from the Party.

Zhang Wei scanned the report once again to confirm there had been no mention of anyone else found at the facility. The report explicitly recorded that no one else had been identified despite a thorough search. Interestingly, the document also implied no expectation that others might be present. There was no mention of the two foreign agents who had been cited in the intelligence report Zoe had read at the facility. Sam and Max, in the form of Peter Rogers, had apparently never been there.

After reading the report, Zhang Wei had initially reached for the phone on his desk to make further enquiries about how the events Zoe had recently experienced fitted with this current reality. He stopped himself just before picking up the receiver, however, suddenly aware that he did not have the authority to ask such questions. The fact of doing so might even provoke unwelcome enquiries directed towards himself.

As his hand hovered over the phone, it rang.

The call was from a senior Party official. The Party had lost no time in appointing a successor to Colonel Li Xiu Ying.

Zhang Wei was now Chief of Intelligence.

As soon as the call was over, Zhang Wei picked up the receiver once again. As Chief of Intelligence, he could now make the calls to clarify recent events in this reality.

Twenty minutes later, he knew there had been no firefight at Lhasa Gonggar Airport just after midnight on the previous Wednesday morning. He also knew that Colonel Li Xiu Ying and Captain Anna Lin had flown by helicopter to the facility, and had landed there safely.

After checking these facts, Zhang Wei sat back in his chair and tried to fit together the parts of the jigsaw. It would seem that his reality had reverted to much the same form it had taken prior to emergence of the subreality in which Zoe had survived the firefight and the helicopter crash. Zoe was dead in this current reality, however, and her awareness had transmigrated to the body of Zhang Wei. Anna Lin was also dead, and Mike Han’s awareness, which had briefly inhabited Anna’s body, had presumably transmigrated to Ollie Fenchurch in England.

Zhang Wei assumed the awareness of Max Paterson was now being hosted by the body of Peter Rogers. That had, of course, been the case in the subreality at the facility. The new Peter Rogers, however, would have been a part of this current, and different, worldline.

Zhang Wei now had a partial narrative that linked together recollections of his recent past and brought them into his present. He recalled with concern, however, Max’s words during the walk from the helicopter crash site to the facility. Max had explained that elements of former realities which were inconsistent with a current worldline would simply fade away, and related memories would fade with them. He resolved to record immediately everything he could recall about recent events. Before he did that, however, there were two other important tasks to complete.

Truth within the Party, and indeed within most political leaderships, is not an absolute that reflects objective facts. It is rather a narrative that maintains a loose connection to events but with adjustments deemed necessary by the officials who define it. Zhang Wei, as Chief of Intelligence, now had the authority to define what should be accepted as truth in respect of security matters. It was not satisfactory to him that Li Xiu Ying and Anna Lin might be considered as saboteurs. This interpretation of events would bring everlasting shame and disgrace upon their families.

Zhang Wei opened on the screen in front of him the most recent report concerning events at the facility. He began to rewrite the report to demonstrate how Colonel Li Xiu Ying and Captain Anna Lin had died heroically while saving the facility from saboteurs. His own comments upon the circumstances of their deaths would include a recommendation that they be awarded the highest possible medals.

He next accessed the records of Mike Han. Zhang Wei had the strong intuition that the body which Mike Han had left in Folkestone was, like Zoe’s and Anna’s, dead in this current reality. He therefore recorded the heroic death of Mike Han while acting undercover as a foreign agent for the People’s Republic of China. His posthumous medals would be sent to his family.