Julian Shaw lived just below the greenhouse Tom had fought the Outsider. The cab took almost no time to there. The shambles of the reconditioning facility could be seen from Julian’s house yard. Tom walked up the stairs and pressed a doorbell. It chimed with a soft whistling tune that was reminiscent to a lullaby, a sentiment from the owner’s childhood perhaps. According to Tom’s data, Julian was an exemplary citizen: a hard worker and initiator of many cultural events.
It took two minutes for Julian to open the door. He stood in the doorway dressed in green pajamas. His looks had no special marks: a lean elderly man of medium height with short black hair, black eyes and a sharp nose. An aura of intelligence surrounded him. He had managed to open only one eye after the unexpected awakening. Tom noticed a slight shock in Julian’s face after he identified the visitor.
“Oh, it’s such an honor to meet you. Please come in.”
The host took Tom to the sitting room. He brought the best chair he had and gave it for Tom to sit on. The shadow of another person passed through the corridor.
“Honey, please, go make some coffee, we have a special visitor.”
The shadow went to the kitchen slowly, without saying a word.
Tom sat down and leaned forward. “I am sorry for coming at such an awkward time, but I needed to talk to you.”
“I truly can’t imagine about what.” The surprise on Julian’s face was still there.
“One of the scientists at the bio labs told me you had a theory on a collective mind and other dimensions.”
“Oh, about that…”
They were interrupted by Julian’s wife. She brought two cups of coffee, put them on the table and disappeared. Landau took a moment to inspect the room - a holographic projector connected to a home entertainment system was standing near a window, a comfortable sofa lay in the opposite corner of the room, the furniture was of the older fashion. A low wooden table stood in the middle of the room between Tom and Julian. Nothing out of order, Tom noted, he was expecting to meet a nut, yet this man seemed as normal as it goes.
“You see, I have a passion for philosophy and science. I was not lucky enough to become a scientist myself, but my current position gives me access to old information about interesting facts, they made me come to strange conclusions. I only want for people at the bio labs to prove or reject my theory. Yet, every time I go there I’m ignored. When you have an idea in your head for so long, it’s hard to calm down.“
“Your current work position is at the library. Is that correct?”
“Yes, my job is not very exciting, but I get to read a lot. My favorite subjects besides those I had already mentioned are religion and mythology. I happened to read some rare and interesting stories about demonic possessions, astral projections, psi-enhancing drugs, split personalities and so on.
“Did you know that there were deep, scientific analyses done on these subjects over the last millennium? Out of all stories, I was mostly amazed by the investigation of suicides executed by members of a sect called ‘Sons of the Beyonder’. They believed that if a person died in extreme pain then they would be able to get free from their body and go to the other side to live forever. They burned themselves to death. The most interesting fact was that families of all the dead members could hear voices of the deceased inside their heads for a long time after the suicide rituals. “
“I see.” Tom listened attentively. “Please, continue.”
“Sir, where do you think your thoughts are now?”
“In my head.”
“Can you take them out and show me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“They are not physical. They are neither stored in our brain nor do they exist in the neural connections.”
“You are correct. I believe that when we think, we do not use our brain, we use our mind and the brain is left as a sort of hard drive, designed to store and process memories of the current life. The mind and its thoughts are not physical, yet they exist. I believe our mind is somewhere else, beyond the borders of the physical world. It has no identity; it defines itself through us. The personalities we have formed from our interactions with this world are slightly different in each life, yet almost never changing in our core. That’s why, in my opinion, there were and there will always be good and evil people, some of them such, for no apparent reason. Even when we physically die, the mind remains. It finds another body, perhaps the one of a newborn child, and forms a new identity.
Our mind leeches information from our brain and gives us conscious thoughts based on our current experience. The problem is that our link to the other side is very weak and the transfer of information to the mind from the brain is accessible only as ‘read-only’. Imagine if we could transfer the data from our brain to our mind. Imagine if we could teach our mind to understand its ability to leech and connect to other creatures, people or even other minds.“
“We would become astral beings and could remember our previous lives.” Tom smiled deep inside, not because the theory was so weird, but because he believed in it. “Sounds like a true science fiction.”
“Science fiction, right? Look where we are living.” Julian gave a small grin.
“What if I said that there exists a creature that can influence and even control people who have had their memories wiped or altered in any way?” Tom asked.
“I would be deeply troubled.”
“So you believe that such a creature could exist?”
“Yes. I read some facts about the investigations into ‘demonic’ possessions. Often the victim was sick, mentally ill or had brain damage. Unidentified beings from the other dimension would take over the weakened minds and project their consciousness into this world, speak in a tongue no one could understand. Deep scans showed that possessed people had incredibly increased brain activity.
“In my opinion, the impulses sent from the alien mind to the body were so great that it could not withstand them. Often patients died in a few days’ due to the failure of internal organs or mental breakdown. Have you heard of the reports on the psi research done back on Earth?”
“Not really.”
“There was a project that focused on creating and controlling out-of-body experiences. They used many different practices but all the fun started when they gave some “psi-enhancing” drugs to their subjects.”
“Did they go out?”
“Yes, they did, but not to some distant physical location. They went to the place of thought, where they could drag any memory at will and remember everything: the smell, the taste, the vision. They could get glimpses of the thoughts of the people surrounding them. They could form mental links to each other and establish a kind of astral communication network. The most troubling fact was that all the subjects said they could feel the intimidating presence of other beings out there.”
“Such people could be put to a great use. Something must have gone wrong, right?”
“Yes, after using the drug for longer periods of time, they started to leave and return without any control on the process. They drifted there and back until they went out and never came back. Information about the incidents went public. All research on the subject was stopped for an indefinite amount of time.”
Tom was deeply impressed by the facts this man had managed to gather to back up his theories. “Tell me, why did you go to the labs? What help do you need to check your theory?”
“At first, I wanted to ask for brainwave scans on different living animal subjects and maps of their neural connections to get better understanding on how data is stored in our head. But later I think I overdid it. I wanted them to take me seriously and start a research project. I have found information on how to synthesize a drug similar to the one used in the psi experiments. With the use of the drug we could help our mind to perceive itself.”
“Julian, I am asking you to leave your work at the library. Starting now, consider yourself a fully-fledged bio-engineer. Make a list of the equipment and a description of personnel you will need to start the research.”
“It will be done by midday.“ Julian looked agitated and excited.
“I will want to put your research into practice as soon as possible. Do you have any idea how to stop someone from the other side? Or even destroy him?”
“I need to think about this. It will take time to wrap my head around the issue.”
“I will not pressure you after I say this. You truly need to hurry. The entity I told you about truly exists and it is threatening the safety of our ship. I will try to hold that creature off until you can find a solution. You can continue with your research in any direction you want but first you need to help me find ways to stop it.”
“Of course I will try to think of something.”
“Great. I will establish your lab at the underground level of the security headquarters. You can’t communicate with any scientific personnel that do not belong to your team. “
“Understood.”
Tom finished drinking his coffee. He said, “I will be going now. Please, always keep you comms device close to you. I will make a secure line between us when I get back to my office. Feel free to contact me at any time. I never sleep.”
“Really?” Julian thought the man was joking.
“Yes.” Landau stood up and walked towards the exit. They shook hands and he left the building. As Tom was going to the cab, he heard the door close.
Perhaps this unlikely new helper was going to improve chances of stopping the devious enemy.