The Alien Manifesto

  * * *

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Third Eye Coffee House, shook my head to clear away the multitude of thoughts fighting for attention, and tried to focus on the present moment. I couldn’t shake off the creepy feeling that something was very wrong—not only in Sedona, but wrong with the planet as well. It felt like the horizon was slightly off-kilter, that the long-predicted planetary shift had finally happened; that our whole civilization somehow had become unhinged.

  I walked through the door of the Third Eye and was immediately swept up in the vibe of the place, which was frantic and fearful. The new, huge TV dominating one wall of the place was fairly throbbing with Breaking News, and the forty or so pairs of eyes in the coffee house were glued to the TV. “…millions of refugees on the move from one end of Africa to the other,” intoned a solemn announcer voice. I watched transfixed as a montage of human misery played across the giant screen in HD.

  Benny Bravo came rushing up to me, breathless. “Marty, Marty!” he said, grabbing my shoulders. “It’s happened! It’s finally happened, vato!”

  “Get a grip, homeboy. What’s happened?” As I pried his fingers off my torso, a shudder of icy dread crept up my spine. I had an idea what he was going to say.

  “The tipping point, Marty. The freakin’ tipping point. All hell is breaking loose like all over the planet. One disaster after the other. Just like they been predicting. Check it out, brother!”

  The TV was tuned to CNN, and the assault on the senses was relentless. It looked like doomsday, with vid clips of fires, explosions, floods, oil spills, refugees, from all over the planet. Most of Southern California was on fire; millions had been evacuated. Half of Australia was on fire.

  And equally scary, CNN showed a montage of banks around the U.S. closed and locked with thousands of account holders screaming outside for their money. Some computer hackers had messed with the banks’ core networks, freezing accounts and even transferring large sums to secret Swiss accounts, so no public transactions were possible. Pharmacy computer networks had been hijacked, so nobody could get their prescriptions. Or food, because the big computers had been put out of commission and supermarkets couldn’t function. Looters had taken over the business of food distribution.

  I turned away and took Benny Bravo by the arm. “Benny, mi hombre, this ain’t no tipping point. The tipping point means that us humans have fucked with the environment for too long and Mother Earth is tired of it and starts fucking us back. No, this is somethin’ else. Yo, homey, let us go outside and discuss this,” I said, aware that our communal table might still be bugged.

  “Wait,” he said. “I know about that shit. We talk outside. First, go in the bathroom. Wash your hands,” he said, with a strange, twisted smile on his Sephardic-Mestizo face.

  “Why? Are they dirty?” I looked down at my hands. They looked normal. “I haven’t done number one or number two for awhile. Why should I wash my hands?” I asked, that same feeling of dread surrounding me like foul cigarette smoke.

  “Just go,” said Benny. “Turn on the faucet. Then I’ll meet you outside.”

  I went to the rest room behind the coffee bar, looked in the mirror, noted that my eyes were wild, and turned on the faucet. In an instant my worst fears were realized. What oozed from the faucet was an ugly, lumpy brown substance; it looked like a cross between liquefied dogshit and raw sewage. The water, the water! I muttered to myself.

  I started to bolt from the restroom, but my iPhone was vibrating crazily in my right pants pocket. I flipped open the cover. It was an urgent text message from Jill. “ND C U NOW. SO AAK. MP OK. A99. LOL. J.” This meant, in text talk code: “I need to see you now. Significant other is alive and kicking. My place is okay. Security high. Lots of love. Jill.”

  WTF—texting code for “what the fuck,” but I mumbled it out loud. Must be about Leela. Where is she in all this chaos? I dashed outside and hustled Benny to a quiet spot on the wooden deck of the Third Eye.

  “Benny, I just got an urgent message from a very close friend. I gotta go, and soon. Give me a quick rundown of what’s really going on.”

  “Okay, jefe, listen up. The word on the street, and the word from los blowhards on CNN, the freakin’ experts, you know, they say that all this environment collapse is some sort of conspiracy. All these disasters happening at the same time, no? They saying that some big group behind it. The prez, she declared a national emergency. That means National Guard troops are fuggin’ on the way, man! And the mayor of Sedona, he say why not have martial law here! City council bigwigs say yo, why not! It’s gettin’ hairy, Marty. Hairy and scary.”

  “Jesus freaking Christ,” I said, feeling a shakiness in my legs, a burning in my gut. “And the water?” I asked, perhaps inappropriately, “What’s with the goddamn water?”

  “You remember that grande subdivision near Prescott everybody against?” asked Benny. “Ten thousand casitas, golf courses, shopping malls, the whole freakin’ thing, got approved by the county last year? All them warnings about a shortage of water, and the fools didn’t listen?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said impatiently, looking at my watch. “What about it?”

  “So a lot of that stuff been built and now wells been dryin’ up all over the place. The Verde River dried up last summer, you know. Poof! Our aquifer been hijacked. All them gloom and doom predictions? All come true. We’re out of water, vato. Better get used to that brown sticky shit coming outta yo’ faucet.”

  I clapped Benny on the shoulder, gave him a big hug, and looked into his deep, dark, troubled eyes. “Hang in there, Benny. I’m on the case. I gotta meet someone who can help us. Keep your cell phone close, and I’ll meet with you later. Maybe for dinner.”

  I turned on my heel to leave, but Benny stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet, Marty,” he said. “It’s Kali. Out at her Tantra Temple. Some really weird mierda going down there right now. Lots and lots of people hangin’ out there. Thousands of people. Don’t get it, Marty.”

  I had a sudden inspiration. “You’ll get it, Benny,” I said slowly. “Because you’re going out there. Undercover. You’re still on my payroll. You’ll be my man at Kali’s temple.”

  His eyes brightened. I remembered that he still had my company’s credit card. “Go,” I said. “Enjoy. Keep me posted. Text me. Go right now, if you can.”

  Benny gave me a big, big hug and a huge grin. I watched him walk away, back toward the Third Eye. He would get “it,” that was for sure.

  9 Beyond Clairvoyance, Beyond Empathy

  Jill had bought herself a beautiful little house on nearly an acre of land in West Sedona, with stunning red rock views, a rock and cactus garden for a front yard, the property dotted with stately juniper and cottonwood trees, all surrounded by a high security fence. There were security cameras all around the fence. Jill wasn’t taking any chances.

  She greeted me with a warm hug as she ushered me into her cozy living room, a wood fire blazing away in the fireplace. Jill wore a loose-fitting, well-worn red cardigan sweater and a pair of old cotton sweatpants that nevertheless accented that wonderful ass. Jill rarely wore makeup; she was one of those rare women who are more beautiful without cosmetic enhancement.

  Jill’s is a shoes-off house. She is a spiritual lady. Clumsily I pulled off the high-top hiking boots I often wear in the Sedona winter. Jill’s feet, Hacker’s obsession, were sheathed in a pair of brown wool socks, which probably helped her to negotiate the cold wood floors of her house. She sat me on her big old comfortable couch while she unwound herself into an upholstered rocking chair. I noted, to myself, that she had gradually been putting on weight the past few months. She was nearing voluptuous stature now. Or at least statuesque.

  “It’s true, Marty,” she said softly, an admission that she had just read my most private thoughts. “I have put o
n a few pounds. For one thing, I’ve been pumping some iron. Also, I eat more when I’m nervous.”

  “Damn it, Jill, can’t a man have any privacy anymore? Are my thoughts just open to public scrutiny?” I acted serious, but I wasn’t, really; Jill probably knew that too.

  “I’m sorry, Marty, just force of habit, I guess.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. I was definitely nervous. Jill had summoned me with an urgent text message.

  “Jill, please tell me what’s going on. You said my SO, my Significant Other, was alive and kicking, but what else is going on? And by the way, I thought your house was bugged.”

  “It was bugged, Marty, but it’s been debugged by a friend. Not Hacker, a new friend. I’ll tell you more about him later.”

  My eyebrows must have lifted about a foot when she said “a new friend.” I felt immediately jealous of whoever this guy was, but I shouldn’t have. I’m a married man, I said to my inner horndog.

  “Listen carefully, Marty, because I have much info to share with you. You’re just gonna have to breathe through some of this. Leela is okay. Sort of. Some weird stuff happened, but she’s okay. She was in Paris with her Israeli lesbian arms dealer—”

  “What?” I said, in a state of shock. “Her lesbian arms dealer? I think you left out some details in your latest update on my wife’s career path!”

  I was sure Jill had looked into my mind and seen the fantasy images of a wild, naked, girl-on-girl orgy with Leela right in the middle of it.

  “Oh…sorry, Marty, but I wasn’t sure you were ready for that little tidbit. I guess you weren’t.” Jill chuckled briefly, then got very serious. “No, Leela has not become a lesbian,” she hastened to add. “She was on duty, gathering intelligence, trying not to look sexy.”

  “Jill, could you start from the top? I seem to be missing some of the details of this sordid tale.”

  “You’re right, Marty.” Jill sighed. “Here goes. Leela was playing personal trainer, you recall, to one Rani Rifkin, a butch lesbian for real, and a real arms dealer who the State Department hired to make the rounds with Leela so she, your wife, could scan some minds and do her job. So they’re in Paris at a gay bar on the Left Bank called Le Sexytime, guys and gals, a rough crowd, where a lot of dirty business was conducted.”

  “Incroyable,” I said in a crude French accent.

  “So some of the ladies were hitting on Leela. Rani, who is more than a little drunk, wanders off to hang out with some of her buddies and leaves Leela alone at the bar. So now Leela, who is nursing a beer, is having a great time chatting with two French hotties who Leela knows are involved with Black Swan. By scanning their minds. She does speak a fair amount of French, you know.”

  Jill paused, closed her eyes, and took several deep breaths.

  “And?” I said, leaning forward until I was about to fall on my face. “And? And? C’mon, Jill, don’t play games with me,” I demanded with growing impatience.

  “And now Leela is in the hands of the Black Swan organization.”

  “Whaaaaaaatttttt?” I cried, incredulous. My heart started beating so hard and fast that it threatened to leap from my chest.

  “I knew you’d say that,” said Jill, almost smugly, sitting back in her rocking chair. “I left out a few parts of the story,” she said apologetically. “Marty, this is hard on me too. Your wife and I are very, very close.”

  “Out with it, Jill. How did she get from the gay bar into the clutches of the Black Swan people?”

  “Leela was so busy chatting with the two Frenchies that she didn’t sense the energy field of a young woman who had slipped onto the barstool next to hers. It was Tanya, the American double agent who was working for Black Swan. Remember, Tanya is also psi. She apparently set up a psychic barrier so that Leela couldn’t tune in to her. Leela has done the same thing to Tanya, but this time that little bitch turned the tables. She also dropped a tablet of some powerful drug into Leela’s beer, so the next sip she took, well, Leela just passed out at the bar.”

  “Wait, I thought this Tanya bitch was supposed to be in Africa, South Africa, and safely out of Leela’s hair. What happened?”

  “Dunno, Marty. She must have gotten a tip from a European connection that Leela was in Paris. And then slipped away from her State Department post in South Africa without being noticed. Tanya is very powerful, you know, and supposedly can plant thoughts and ideas in people’s heads.”

  “Damn. Please, Jill, continue with this horror movie.”

  “Okay, hang on tight. Apparently Tanya and a friend helped Leela from the bar while Rani was, uh, occupied in one of the private rooms, and took her off to a Black Swan hideout. That’s the late-breaking news about Leela. The last I heard from your wife she is okay, she is in a holding cell somewhere in Switzerland, she is being fed and waiting to be taken to a surgical suite where they plan to implant a tiny computer chip deep in her cerebral cortex.”

  All I could do was laugh. I laughed until tears streamed down my cheeks. Then I laughed some more, until I cried. I sobbed, unashamedly, unable to stop. Finally:

  “You’re playing with me, right, Jill?” I said through tears. “This is a test to see how I’ll react to really weird information. This is for your psychic study group or something, right?”

  “Marty, it’s all true.” Jill handed me a box of tissues. “And you’re wondering how I know all this, down to the tiniest detail, right? Almost as though I was there. Am I right?”

  “Yes, of course you’re right Jill. You know you’re right. But please explain it to some poor slob who hasn’t been to psychic school. Explain how you know the tiniest details of this disaster.”

  “A few months ago, Marty, you asked me the same thing, how I know what Leela is doing and where she is doing it. I told you at the time that it was remote viewing. That was the short, easy answer. It’s actually more complex than that.”

  “I’m ready, Jillo, my mind is open and ready for anything. As you well know, since you can see right into the damned thing. Enlighten me, sweetheart!”

  “Your wife and I are now transmitting not just thoughts and messages to each other, but Leela can now transmit pictures, almost like a hologram. Or better yet, like a movie. And in real time. I have learned to tune in to the higher cognitive centers of her brain so that I can experience exactly what she is experiencing.”

  “Clairvoyance.”

  “Beyond clairvoyance. That’s just your basic ESP. What Leela and I are doing is more like clairsentience. Which means you can directly experience the thoughts or feelings of another person.”

  “You mean empathy?”

  “This is way beyond empathy. Deepak Chopra described it as ‘morphic resonance fields’ that connect all living organisms. Even the Buddhists say advanced meditators are able to practice clairsentience.”

  “Spare me the lecture, Jill,” I said impatiently. “In layman’s terms, just what exactly is it that you and my wife are doing?”

  “Basically, Marty, when the connection is open, whatever she is experiencing or thinking or feeling, I am too. It’s like I am there. She is talking to someone, I am there. Being touched by someone, I am there. Passing out from the drug, I am there.”

  I just stared at Jill, but my mind was in overdrive. Then I remembered her telepathic abilities, and quickly cut off the thought process. Too late.

  “To answer your question, Marty, it does work both ways. When Leela is tuned in to me, she experiences what I am experiencing.”

  “Then…” I ventured.

  “What you’re thinking is correct. It’s true. But it can’t happen now. Between you and me, that is. Not yet. Leela is locked up in a cell in Switzerland. They have put some kind of a force field around her cell. Communication between us is impossible. For now. So we have to wait until Leela gives the word. She has already told me she wants it to happen. Us—you and me, yes. But not yet. We have to wait.”


  She paused, looked down, studied her slender fingers. With what sounded like a tinge of regret, she said softly, “Waiting is delicious, Marty.”

  I was sweating profusely under my sweater, ready to implode. This woman was indeed my aphrodisiac. I started writhing, unable to sit still. My mind could barely contain the thought: Jill and me in a hot sex romp, with Leela experiencing it all as if she were there!

  “Jill, I—”

  She looked at me with an intensity, a longing, that I had never seen in her eyes before. “Marty, I want you so much. I always have. There, I said it. But Leela and I have a code—well, it’s a code between women, something that men could never understand. It’s a code of honor. Guys and gals are just built different. Leela and I are playing with such powerful forces, it’s as if we have to really honor the gifts we’ve been given. Understand, you sweet man?”

  She stood up and touched my forehead with a cool hand, then covered my third eye with two delicate fingers. Immediately I relaxed and felt as if I was floating upward, then gradually sinking into a soft, soft cushion of air.

  Jill walked into her kitchen, leaving me in a state of bliss. “I’m going to put on a pot of tea,” she said. “Then we’ll wrap ourselves up in blankets and go outside and drink our tea and talk some more.

  “I need to tell you about my new friend,” said Jill over her shoulder from the kitchen. “Once you meet him, your life will never be the same,” she said provocatively.

  Life changes had been coming at me so fast lately that I felt swept up in a whirlwind. Outside of Jill’s little compound, the planet itself was changing. “Life is change; how it differs from the rocks.” I remembered the line from a Jefferson Airplane song, circa 1968. The red rocks…?

  10 Eye of the Hurricane

  I was wondering, to myself, just how serious the situation really was, as Jill and I sipped our tea from big warm mugs, sitting across from each other at a wooden table near the edge of her Zen garden. The water in the little ponds had frozen over, and icicles hung from the miniature wooden bridges. Off in the distance was an awesome backdrop: the panorama of red rocks etched in amazing shapes by Mother Nature across many eons: chimneys, coffee pots, lizard heads, ship’s sails, penises, animals, comic strip characters. Mother Nature seemed fine, immutable; still, I wondered to myself if the world situation had gotten worse with Leela out of the picture.

  “It couldn’t get much worse,” said Jill, following up on my thought forms conversationally. This was becoming the new paradigm of our communication.

  “It was out of control before Leela got snatched. Now the Black Swan people are getting even more aggressive. They just issued a demand this morning to all the wealthy governments of the Western world: the U.S., Canada, France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and so on, plus China, of course, and India. They are demanding trillions of euros and dollars in blackmail money. The State Department sent me the message this morning. I’ll make you a hard copy if you’ll keep it to yourself.”

  “Why? Why keep it to myself? The whole world should know about this! Why isn’t the media all over the story?”

  “For a very simple reason. Secrecy. Only the top honchos of the governments know about Black Swan. They have decided to keep a lid on the story. For now. So the masses don’t panic in the streets, mainly. The only reason I’m on the government’s secure e-mail list is because of Leela. Your wife, dear friend, is a key player in the strategic operation to take down Black Swan and maybe even save the planet.”

  “A cover-up,” I said. “It’s a freakin’ government cover-up. The public should know about this. And a whole regiment of special ops goons should be sent in to rescue Leela. Right now, without any more diddling around!” I said, nearly losing it, my voice rising steadily.

  “No, Marty,” said Jill calmly, “this is when sensible people don’t panic and rational people take action. The situation is very delicate, extremely sensitive. The Black Swan agents say they’ve got everything in place to trigger massive disasters unless their demands are met. Mini-nuclear weapons ready to be deployed. Bombs wired to chemical plants. We know their threats are real because of Leela’s work.”

  Jill took a deep breath and continued: “Little brushfire wars have already broken out all over the place between tribes and between countries and between religious groups over food and water. Black Swan has influenced and inflamed these situations and made them worse. They have managed to destabilize several shaky governments with bribes and political sabotage.

  “Now, North Korea is ready to fire missiles into South Korea. Pakistan and India have got their fingers on their nuclear triggers. Israel and Iran have got their nukes pointed at each other, ready to fire at the slightest provocation. All Black Swan has to do is anonymously drop a little nuke into somebody’s turf to ignite a nuclear holocaust. And on, and on, and on.” She paused and looked deeply into me. “How do I know all this? Remember, I also work for the State Department. They keep me updated on all this stuff.”

  I felt exasperated. “Jill, honey, the whole world is about to blow up, my wife and your best friend is about to have her brains defiled by madmen, and our little red rock town is about to have martial law. And you sit there calmly sipping tea!”

  “Marty, look at me as the eye of the hurricane, the quiet place in the center of the storm. Why? Because I know things. Leela, you know, she has great powers now. Greater than you can imagine. She is also a precog. She can see into the future. She can see all the possibilities.

  “That’s why Leela is so valuable to Black Swan. Plus they know she has been sabotaging some of their stunts and that she has sent a lot of their people to jail. They want her working for them, spreading disinformation. They think if they implant a chip in the cognitive centers of Leela’s brain, they can control her behavior and turn her into a double agent.”

  I let out a low whistle. “Whew. This is almost too much for me, Jill. Isn’t it possible for you to communicate with Leela now, to send her some support or maybe work out some kind of a plan?”

  “No, Marty. I wish I could. Leela’s psychic senses are blocked right now. I told you that they’ve created some kind of force field, an energy field, around her cell. So we can’t communicate in any way.”

  I wasn’t giving up. “Then why doesn’t she just teleport the hell out of there? We know she can teleport, ’cuz she did that big jump from Mount Kailash in Tibet to India, right?”

  “Because, Marty,” Jill said patiently, “Leela was hooked into some serious vortex energy for that jump, remember? A lot of wattage, plus all the processing power from the hack on Google’s server farm. Now all she has is her own resources, which are awesome, but she needs our help.”

  “Our help?” I said incredulously. “How can we help her? We probably can’t even get a plane out of here, or Phoenix, or anywhere!”

  “Relax, Marty. I’ve got a plan. You will be happy to learn that you are part of that plan. Plus the State Department is real eager to get Leela back; she is a very important ‘asset’ for them. So have a little trust in ol’ Jill, okay?”

  “Okay, Jill, but…” My state of bliss from the golden moments with Jill was fading fast. Anxiety started to gnaw at the edges of my consciousness.

  “Hey, Marty, I want you to meet someone. Remember that new friend I told you about? Here he comes now.”

  I looked up. A small, slightly bent figure, wearing a shabby coat and a black wool cap pulled over his ears, came through the back gate. He shuffled over to our table and sat himself down in a straight-back wooden chair. His eyes jumped out at me; they were coal-black and shiny, with a tiny golden glow in the center.

  “Marty, this is Harry. Harry the handyman. He is also a gardener. He’s been working around my property for the past three months.”

  I shook his hand. “Glad to meet you, Harry,” I lied. His hand was cold and vaguely damp, h
is handshake limp and tentative. Dude gave me the creeps, instantly. He had a nose too big for the face, huge jug ears, a very long neck, and a chin that protruded out a little too far. It looked like a face that had been hastily thrown together.

  “Looks like he’s been doing a fine job here,” I said to Jill, sarcastically. “I love your Zen garden, too. So…How did you find him? An ad in the paper? A referral? Where did he come from, anyway?”

  Jill laughed nervously. “Marty, I hope you are ready for this. He came from the orbs.”

  The freakin’ orbs. Just the spoken word triggered all kinds of crazy memories and unwelcome cross-references in my fevered mind. “Right, Jill. I suppose he squeezed himself into one of those orbs and was cruising Bell Rock during a thunderstorm. Next you’re gonna tell me he entered Aura through her head, did his dirty business, and exited through one of her, uh, lower orifices. Right?”

  “Marty, I realize you are the only eyewitness to the incident on Bell Rock. You saw lightning strike Aura, followed by an orb disappearing into her body. I know that’s true; I saw the police report.”

  “Right. So? How does this dumpy dude fit into the picture?”

  “Listen carefully, Marty. Harry is from some faraway star system; maybe a quantum dimension—a long, long way from Earth. He is a shapeshifter. And yes, you could call him an extraterrestrial, an ET. He has come to the Earth on a very important mission.”

  “An ET, eh? Where’s the mothership?” I scoffed.

  “Harry, please explain to my friend why you are here and how you got here. My friend is a bit of a skeptic.”

  Harry the Handyman—unusual name for an ET—looked me straight in the eye. His voice was gravelly and forced, right on the edge of computer-generated.

  “Mr. Powers, sir. I came to Sedona with a partner via inter-dimensional travel, using the orbs as vehicles. Our assignment was to save you Earthlings from committing global suicide.”

  “A worthy objective, sir,” I sneered, “but what does that have to do with lightning striking some bimbo in the noggin followed by an orb worming its way into—”

  “Please, Mr. Powers, let me finish,” said the Handyman, his voice whiny and irritating. “My partner was in a hurry and arrived here out of phase. That is, out of sync with me and our waveform frequency. He got here first, a few milliseconds before I arrived, and merged with your Aura Adelstein. That was a serious mistake. I arrived too late to intervene. Now we are seeing the consequences of his error. That is all I can tell you right now.”

  I turned to Jill. “This is such a mountain of bullshit, sweetheart. Who is this joker and what does he want from us? How does he know so much about the Bell Rock thing? Please look into this dude’s skull and tell me what’s going on.”

  “Marty, I tried to scan Harry’s mind when he first arrived, but there was nothing there—emptiness. Leela had told me before she left for Europe that I would meet such a person as Harry and that he would play a very important role in our future. She has a strong ESP sense, you know—I told you that your wife is a precog. Sometimes she can see what will happen in the future.”

  “So what about the now?” I protested. “Why is Mr. Handyman hanging out here and what does he intend to do…to save us all from global suicide? And why does he look like he lives in a cardboard box?”

  “Uh…” said Jill.

  “And I’ve got more questions,” I railed. “Maybe your Harry has got some answers. What caused that kinda monsoon rainstorm in April, three months early? Thunder and lightning and…”

  “Oh, poor Marty,” said Jill, mocking me. “Questions and more questions. Well, Harry looks like he does because he visited Uptown Sedona after the Bell Rock thing, looking for a body template. What you see is a composite of several tourists.”

  “Oh. Tourists. That figures. Look, Jill, I still can’t get my head around the idea that this guy is an ET with some kind of super powers, or that he came from another dimension. Got any real proof of this dude’s alien street cred?”

  “Take my word for it, Marty, Harry is a real alien. And he’s here on some very important business.”

  “He looks like a real alien, all right—an illegal alien. He better be careful walking around. He could be asked for his papers and wind up in the pokey. You should tell him he’s in Arizona, not on Mars.”

  Harry stepped forward and took my hands in his. I tried to get away, but his steel grip held me tight. His eyes were filled with stars. I felt suddenly relaxed. My mind drifted into space, beyond the Earth, out through the planets, gliding freely and laughing at gravity; floating among the moons of Saturn, wandering boldly into the Uranus energy field, past the cold, dead rock fields of Pluto, and—whoosh!—out of the gravitational pull of our solar system.

  How tempting to linger forever in the cosmic free-fall, to let go and just go with the flow….Into the clouds of Magellan, into the dark matter of space, hurtling toward the black hole at the center of the Milky Way….

  And then I freaked. My old mind kicked in; fear had me by the throat.

  I shook my head violently and returned instantly to Earth. To Sedona. To Jill’s Zen garden.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I sputtered, pulling my hands away. “Jill, who is this dude? What’s he doing to me?”

  “Marty, darling, this ‘dude’ is for real. He is here to help us. Please believe me. Now, pull yourself together. Time is short. We’ve got a job to do—a really, really important job.”

  “I don’t know, Jill, I…” I was waffling, out of fear, I suppose, and confusion, and lack of control over the situation. An alien had just taken me on a trip beyond the stars. I really didn’t know what the—

  “I know you’re confused, Marty, and you’re not sure what is going on,” said the lovely Jill, reading me accurately, as usual. Her energy was strong, no-nonsense.

  “Go home and pack a suitcase. You and I have got a reservation on a military jet leaving Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix in two days, less than forty-eight hours from now. We’ll take a chopper from the Sedona airport to Luke around noon. Bring your passport and some warm clothes. It’s cold in Europe right now. And please bring that black leather jacket that Leela likes so much.”

  “W-w-w-wh—” I sputtered. “L-l-l-Leela?”

  “You and I have a date with Leela, somewhere in Switzerland. First we make a short stop in Cyprus for a briefing at our embassy in Nicosia. We also gotta get you a Top Secret security clearance there. Then we head to somewhere in Switzerland, which will be our base of operations, then we find Leela. She’s wearing a GPS device.”

  “She’s wearing a GPS device?” I said. “Won’t those Black Swan creeps find it and destroy it or something?”

  “Nobody will ever find it. Hopefully. It was implanted under her skin by State Department people in Europe a few months ago. Just below her tailbone at the base of the spine. Even to an X-ray or MRI it will show up as tissue. Leela’s GPS emits a strong signal that can be tracked from many miles away. Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

  “And when we find her—”

  “Just relax into the situation, Marty,” said Jill reassuringly. “It will all work out. Trust me. I can see the future, too. Sort of. Just keep breathing. And start packing.”

  I closed my eyes, took several very deep breaths, then opened my eyes. We were still in Jill’s Zen garden. Jill was there, as was Harry, the ET. I wasn’t dreaming.

  11 Into the Lion’s Mouth

  Time was truly short. Before I left for Europe, I wanted to meet with Hacker and get us both caught up on all the gossip and news of the day. Hacker could be trusted with any information, any deep sharing of feelings, any crazy wild dangerous thought forms lurking about one’s left brain, any confession of any deed or scheme done or undone.

  With one exception: The Black Swan business. I was sworn to secrecy. Maybe he knew about it already. Hacker had many
sources of insider info.

  We met for dinner at Sushi Town. It was too cold to sit on the outside patio, so we slammed into a big roomy booth inside. The place was empty except for us, plus one bored waitress of unknown ethnic descent, probably from Taiwan or Singapore; and one cook dancing in his open kitchen with headphones on.

  Hacker did a quick scan of the booth and the whole place with his Microsoft Bug Cleaner. The place was clean, so we could talk openly. I noted that the economic crisis, combined with the disasters happening planet-wide, had created a climate of fear and anxiety in our little town. Bad for business, I said. We were lucky this place was still open, I said.

  “Plus don’t forget martial law,” added Hacker. “The city council is meeting in emergency session tomorrow to decide if they’re going to impose it or not. If they do, it means police checkpoints, curfews, a lot more paranoia, and more restrictions on our freedom.”

  I leaned in close to Hacker. “Okay, dude, you are in touch with the happenings, you know what’s going on. Time to share with your old friend Marty Powers.”

  Hacker sat up straight and squared his broad shoulders. “I will do that, good buddy, I will tell you what I know. But I also expect you to share what you know. For example, I know you were up at Jill’s house today. I know about the trip to Europe. I know about the weird little fellow up there who is from somewhere west of the dark side of the moon.”

  Oh-oh. “How the hell do you know all that?” I asked, nearly falling out of the booth. “Are you psychic too? Jesus Christ. I must be the only one who—”

  “Don’t forget who you are dealing with, my man. Remember that annoying moth that was flying around Jill’s living room when you first got there? My latest creation. Audio plus video. Great picture, perfect sound. No psychic could pick that up.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered.

  “Outside,” said Hacker matter-of-factly. “Remember the squawking little red bird up in the tall pine tree? An Arizona cardinal? My masterpiece, so far. A living creature, equipped with a wire, sending a signal up to fifty miles. Again, perfect audio and video. Remotely controlled by me.”

  “Shhhheeeeeessshhhh,” I exhaled. I shuddered inside. Nothing was private anymore. Privacy once was sacred; now the very concept was old school, outdated, ancient history.

  “These are strange times, my friend,” Hacker said, in a voice deeper than usual. “Things have changed. None of the old rules apply anymore.”

  I went silent, staring at the wall, embarrassed, wondering if my lust for Hacker’s ex-lover showed up on his surveillance recordings. Wondering if my body language, my eyes, my attention to her, were a dead giveaway. Did I say anything suggestive? Wait a minute! Didn’t Jill say she’d always wanted me? Weren’t our tongues basically hanging out with unrequited lust for each other? Didn’t Hacker know—

  “Wake up, Marty, here comes the waitress. Do you know what you want to eat?”

  I sighed, hoping my thought forms weren’t showing. So much for openness. I managed to order my favorite meal at Sushi Town, pad thai with tofu. Extra peanut sauce. Easy on the chilies.

  “You folks got good water?” I asked the waitress, who was actually quite attractive, young, Asian, short skirt above knees, probably had her own stories to tell. Why had she come to Sedona? What were her plans for the future? What future?

  “Bottled water in storage,” she answered with twinkling eyes. “Not much left. Cost three dollars glass. You want? Oak Creek beer only two dollar.”

  Hacker ordered chicken teriyaki and we both ordered a glass of local Oak Creek beer. I breathed deeply a few times to clear my head and wipe away any emotional flotsam. My friend gazed at me, knowingly.

  “As you say, Hacker, these are strange times. All bets are off. Now, what’s the big story? Late-breaking news, dude. Give it to me. I know you’re tuned in. Know you got your sources. I’ve been out of the news loop lately.”

  “Okay, Marty, here are the headlines. Our environmental crisis was coming to a head of its own accord, the droughts, the warming, the glaciers melting, the sea levels rising, the fires, the whole shot. Volcanoes erupting. Earthquakes. Running out of water. You know. Then a few months ago some new people suddenly made the scene—Black Swan Galactic. They decided to exploit the situation and make it even worse. They blackmailed governments for huge amounts of money so they could do their thing, which is this cockamamie scheme to launch a satellite and live forever, or explore the solar system, or something.”

  “Uh, Hacker, my man, you must know from your intrusion, uh, your surveillance of my meeting with Jill that we discussed the Black Swan business. So tell me something I don’t know about these creeps.”

  Hacker exhaled long and deeply, took a short time-out to munch on his dinner. “Okay, Marty, you asked for it. This is what I found out on HNN, the Hacker News Network. Black Swan Galactic Limited is registered and incorporated in Geneva. They have offices all over the place: in Moscow, in London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, New York, Mexico City, you name it. They started out a few years ago as a group of wealthy investors who made a lot of money in the international markets and especially in currency trading, and gave huge donations to environmental causes. But that was just a front.”

  “A front for what?”

  “For their real business, which is to fuck up the planet, scare the bejeezus out of the politicians, blackmail their ass, take the money and run. To outer space. They got some crazy space travel agenda. Marty, do you know what ‘Black Swan’ means?”

  “No, not really,” I said. I remembered that Jill had some intel on the Black Swan thing, but she was vague on it. “Is there such a thing as a black swan?” I asked my friend. “I thought all swans were white.”

  “That’s just the point. Black swan is all about the unpredictable. The unexpected. You can assume that all swans are white, but if you just see one black swan, it disproves the whole friggin’ thing.”

  I shook my head. “What the fuck are you talking about, Hacker? What do swans have to do with an environmental crisis?”

  “Okay, my man, here’s the intel I got from my hacker network. A few years ago a former Wall Street hotshot named Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote a book called The Black Swan. According to this book, life is totally unpredictable. Just about anything really significant that happens—historically, personally, whatever—is a black swan event. Something really game-changing. Usually catastrophes. Nine Eleven, for example. The atom bomb we dropped on Hiroshima. The stock market crash of 1929. Political assassinations in the Sixties.

  “In short, a black swan event is an unexpected event that has a major impact on the world. In other words, shit happens. Life can never be the same again.”

  Hacker stopped and took several deep breaths. “So this book is their bible. These freakin’ billionaires and power-mad bigshots who think they can do whatever they want and fuck the rest of the world. They think they can create black swan events, and, by the way, live forever. They’re all taking some weird drug called EMC-2. They think it jacks up their cells and gives them eternal life. This stuff has weird and unpredictable side effects, like boosting testosterone levels. You know what that means: unchecked male aggression. One of the core problems on this planet for thousands of years.

  “So. Black Swan Galactic Limited. That’s who they are. They are very interested in your psychically gifted wife. And they have got her pretty ass under lock and key right now, according to my surveillance data. So if you, my friend, and my ex-girlfriend, Jill, are headed for Europe to try to find Leela, you are headed right into the lion’s mouth.”

  “Lion, schmion,” I sneered. “It’s something we’ve got to do. And there are also rumblings about the Internet being fucked up. Any connection with Black Swan? Know anything about it?”

  Hacker paused for a beat or two, looked around, and whispered conspiratorially, “This is strictly on the
Q.T., Marty, okay? It’s a very delicate situation. Just about all business, public and private, is run on the Internet today: power grids, dams, banking, communications, stock markets, airport traffic control, you name it. And the Internet is definitely fucked up. Somebody, or a group of somebodies, is doing a major hack on the Web. A bunch of malicious attacks that have already created chaos all over the world, okay? Try to go to your favorite websites and you’ll end up somewhere you didn’t intend to go. I tried to bring up my bank’s website the other day and wound up at a porno site.

  “So, my hacker buddies and me are trying to track down the source of this big-time sabotage. We suspect Black Swan Beta, the company’s software branch located somewhere in Switzerland. We can’t prove it. They are very clever, my friend. We want to keep it very quiet so we can slip in and launch a counterattack. It may take a week or two. But in the meantime, power grids all over Europe have been shut down. Airports are closed. Traffic lights don’t work. It is a very, very ugly situation.”

  “This is real spooky stuff, dude, real spooky,” I said. “Armageddon time. Pretty soon there’ll be mobs rioting in the streets. Born-agains will be running around screaming for the Rapture. Hope your guys can move on this soon, Hacker.”

  “You know, Marty, these Black Swan people may seem like crackpots, but they are damned serious. They’ve got money, influence, weapons, connections in high places, high-tech and computer savvy. And with all the other enviro disasters going on in the world, they’ve kinda got us all cornered like trapped rats. Unless the politicians come up with some big dough. I don’t know if there’s enough money in the world to pay off these assholes.”

  I shoveled a huge portion of pad thai noodles into my mouth with expert chopstick moves, then nodded to Hacker to continue. He cleared his throat, looked skyward.

  “Black Swan wants the dough to build rockets to take them to Mars or some virgin planet so they can start a human colony and explore the stars. I hear rumblings that they are secretly building a space station as a starting point.

  “Plus there is some connection to a fundamentalist religion. I hear they have started their own religion based on eternal life.”

  Hacker paused, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “These people are vicious killers, man. Already tens of thousands of people have died because of their shenanigans. Millions of refugees are wandering around the planet without food or water or a place to sleep thanks to Black Swan’s war on humanity. And they’re just getting started.”

  “So how much money do they need, for chrissake?”

  “Lots. They have laid out exactly how much money they want from each country. For the rich countries, it’s trillions. Even poor countries in Africa have to cough up money or oil or some other resource. It’s global blackmail, Marty. Nothing like this has ever happened in human history. We could all be headed for the trash heap unless something happens to turn this around.”

  “Hacker, dear friend, for some strange reason I feel almost optimistic. In a few hours I’ll be flying to Europe with Jill to find Leela and get closer to the Black Swan organization. I have a strong feeling that these two ladies are the key to our survival. And this strange dude Harry the Handyman, whatever his story is. And our old friend Kali, who fits into the big picture somehow. I’ve got a meeting with Benny Bravo tomorrow to find out what’s going on out at the Tantra Temple.”

  “Marty, I wish you luck. More than luck. Good karma. And may the angels protect you, and surround you with love. May the deities protect you. May the—”

  We both cracked up. At least we still knew how to laugh, even in the face of…what, a series of staged black swan events? Unexpected, unpleasant surprises that would change the course of human history?

  “I’ll get the check, Hacker,” I said, chortling and signaling to our waitress. “The angels can wait. I’ve got white swans on my side: two beautiful psychic ladies.”

  I stood up and gave my dear friend a big hug, holding my cheek against his. He is a big man, possessed of powerful energy. I felt as if he was transmitting his energy to me. I hoped we would both live to see each other again. As he said earlier, things have changed.

  Indeed.

  12 Wired

  Benny Bravo was fairly quivering with excitement when I sat down with him the next morning in his trim little West Sedona house. For a guy who never married and lived alone, his home was neat and tidy, decorated in used Ikea, funky but functional, wood floors plus expensive Persian rugs, framed posters of dead rock stars. His views out of huge picture windows encompassed the entire Thunder Mountain range.

  “Yo, jefe,” he began, as soon as I had flopped down on his well-worn tan couch. “How about a cuppa java? Maybe some hot tea or good water? Or how about a couple tokes of the new ganja just arrived in town?”

  I said no to all of the above, but did silently note the faint aroma of marijuana smoke that seemed to linger in every corner of his abode.

  “Marty, you’re not gonna believe this. I’m in love. I am really in love this time.”

  “One day at the Tantra Temple and you’re already in love? That Goddess Kali sure works fast. Who is it, one of her Dakinis?”

  Benny proceeded to tell me in wild, amped-up prose about his day at the Temple. For starters, he was taken in hand by the Dakini named Satori, who had made some moves on him months ago at the Third Eye. Satori was both his guide and his consort. She gave him the tour, showed him all the various rooms in the main temple building, signed him up for several programs—charged on my credit card—and introduced him to Kali.

  “You wouldn’t believe what she looks like now, boss. A real gordita.” He giggled. Benny was one of the few humans who knew about my trysts with Kali before she was a goddess.

  “She must weigh about two-twenty. She looks kinda like the Buddha, heh heh. So Satori takes me into this room, like a chamber, you know? With golden curtains and soft light, everything kinda glowing, a really delicious smell in the room, like vanilla crossed with musk. And there’s Kali herself, sitting on this golden throne, wearing a golden robe. And I swear there was this aura around her, a white and golden aura. Now you know, boss, I don’t believe in that New Age ca-ca—”

  “But an aura is an aura, bro,” I reassured him. “If you experienced an aura, that is what was there, for you. Go on, Benny.”

  “So Kali just looks me in the eyes for a long time, like she knew me really really well, then she sat back and said to Satori, just two words.” Benny closed his eyes and fell silent.

  “Well, what were the words? C’mon, homey, don’t mess with my mind!” I said impatiently.

  He sighed, and smiled, as if cherishing a memory. “Transport him. That’s it, boss. Kali said ‘transport him’ and the next thing I remember is Satori shoving me into this big room where about thirty people were floating in the freakin’ air. The place smelled like oxygen or something. Satori said this was the Levitation Chamber, and all I had to do was run a few steps and jump and I could levitate too. So I did it. Sheeeeeeit!”

  My rational mind wanted to poke holes in his story, tell him he was hypnotized or dreaming. But something in me believed everything he was telling me. Obviously, Kali had attained incredible power.

  “Go on, Benny,” I urged. “Tell me more.”

  “Okay, vato. So I floated around in this room with all these other people, and it was a real blast. Everybody is giggling and laughing and we’re bumping into each other and some people are hugging and one couple was dry humping while floating around! It was like there was no gravity. It was amazing.”

  “And then….”

  “Then after about half an hour Satori came in and waved for me to come down. So I just floated right down to the floor, like it was a natural thing, you know? She showed me around some of the other rooms, the session rooms. She took me around the campus. It was amazing. About a thousand people live there. They h
ave dorms, they have big kitchens, they have their own food, their own farms, jefe, they have their own water supply from Oak Creek, they have—”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “A thousand people live there?”

  “I told ya, Marty, it was amazing. The parking lots were full. You had to take like a shuttle to get from the parking lot to the main temple. Satori told me there were about three thousand people out there at any given time, which includes two thou visitors, doing all the stuff they offer. Or just visiting, checking it out. A lot of these people were there to get healed. You know, healed? Like Jesus did? Sick people, cripples, cancer, AIDS, bad hearts, the whole shot. And Kali does these healings.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I simply sighed.

  “And they freakin’ get healed!” Benny said. “That’s what Satori told me. She let me look into a big room where Kali was, about two hundred people sitting in folding chairs, some of them in wheelchairs, and Kali waving her hand over the people and speaking in tongues or some weird language.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I muttered.

  Benny looked at me funny. “No, like Jesus Christ. Healing the sick. Satori told me that Kali could even raise the dead. If she wanted to. But that it would mess with the cosmic slipstream, or something like that.”

  “Go on, Benny,” I said, feeling kind of sick in my stomach. I knew there was something really wrong, something dangerous and threatening about all of this.

  “So we had a great time, Satori and me, swimming together in the big outdoor pool, everybody naked, and what a bod on this chick, hey? She’s about eighteen or nineteen and sweet as halavah. She showed me how Kali could be in more than one place at the same time.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, be in one place, doing her thing, and being in another place at the same time, doing her thing.”

  “Holograms?”

  “Nope. The real deal. Blew me away. Satori showed me. Kali was in the healing room, and she was also in a Tantra session. And she was also in the big channeling room across the hall, about fifty or so people in there, and she was channeling some old dude, talking in this weird voice, like a ghost.”

  “Go on, Benny.”

  “Well…okay, so after lunch Satori took me to one of the private rooms, and—”

  “And….”

  “And she gave me one hell of a great massage, man, then took off her clothes, lit some candles, some incense, turned down the lights, and showed me some, uh, ah, some tricks. I mean, she did some shit with mi huevos…”

  Benny’s voice trailed off and he turned his head away. “You mean, she turned you on to Tantra,” I said. “She showed you the Tantric sex ritual.”

  “Tantra, schmantra, Marty! This chica schtupped the shit outta me, homey! I have been with a lot of women in my time, you know that, but this was from outer space! I almost didn’t come back! I don’t know where the hell I went, but it was righteous out there, it was—”

  “I got it, Benny, I got it. Been there, done that.”

  Benny went on to describe more of his experiences at Kali’s Tantric Temple, and after awhile I started to feel a weird kind of overload. Most of what he told me defied logic and the laws of physics. “Are you sure that wasn’t some sort of illusion, Benny?” I asked at one point. “Mass hypnosis, or maybe a series of holos?”

  “No, Marty, there was no tricks. Yo, Satori gave me a video clip of some of the stuff I did and saw out there. It’s all here on this little memory chip. Wanna see it?”

  “Homey, I can’t take much more, tell ya the truth. Plus I gotta get on a plane in a few hours and try to find my wife. Make a copy of that chip and I’ll watch it later, okay?”

  “Done, boss.” He dropped the chip in a tiny copying device, and a duplicate popped out seconds later.

  “Tell me something, Benny.” I leaned in closer to him. “You know, there’s a lotta stuff going on out there in the world, like the whole place is falling apart. All kinds of disasters, everywhere. You know that, Benny, you told me about some of the shit goin’ down. People are freakin’ out all over the planet, homey. Don’t these people out at the Tantric Temple know about all this? And aren’t they kinda, you know, concerned?”

  Benny stood up suddenly. “Marty, I saved the best for last, okay? Satori told me if I got home and there was anything yo no comprende, or any question I couldn’t answer, to do a little thingy and Kali herself would show up to help me out. So I think we need Goddess Kali here, you know, to answer your question.”

  “Whaaaaat?” I said, my jaw dropping about a foot, ready to believe just about anything.

  “She said to stand up tall and put both hands on my crown chakra—you know, the top of my cabeza—and face toward the southwest. Think positive thoughts. And Kali would come to me.” Benny proceeded to do just that, putting both hands on his crown chakra.

  What happened next was almost too much. Goddess Kali materialized. Right in Benny Bravo’s living room. Looking just as he had described: Overweight, Buddha-like, swathed in golden robes and bathed in a golden light. She seemed very real. She stood there and looked right at me.

  “Marty,” she said, in an ethereal voice. “Marty, don’t worry about the world. Kali will take care of everything. Kali has the power now. Kali protects you. Come to Kali now.” Kali, or whatever passed itself off as Kali, held out its arms to me.

  I couldn’t help myself. As if in a trance, I stood up and moved toward the image, arms outstretched, ready to embrace my former lover. I passed right through Kali’s image and out the other side. I turned around and the image had disappeared.

  “A hologram, Benny! A fucking hologram! They must have planted a wire on you, homey, and transmitted the holo when you gave the signal from your cabeza. Friggin’ hell! Probably our whole conversation was monitored and recorded. Benny, you are a walking wiretap!”

  I gave Benny a big hug and whispered in his ear, “Meet with Hacker muy pronto. Tell him what happened. All of it. Show him the vid clip from the temple. But first let him debug you. Got it? When you’re clean, let’s keep in touch via v-mail. Send me streaming vid, if possible. Use the encryption code. You okay, homey?”

  I held Benny Bravo by the shoulders at arm’s length. Tears were running down his cheeks. He looked like a wounded child.

  “I— I thought I was in love, Marty. It really felt like love. It still does, kinda, but, but, but—”

  I put a finger up to my lips to silence him. “Love, lust, they all seem like the same thing sometimes,” I said philosophically, pulling on my winter coat. “Gotta go, brother. See ya around. Take care.”

  I was out the door and in my car in thirty seconds. I was in a big hurry: I didn’t want any more data about me or my plans to get transmitted back to Kali. I looked back and saw Benny at his door, waving at me. I waved back and took off down the road, fast. Benny was hot, he was wired. Everything seemed bugged; the whole world suddenly felt unsafe. Adding to the creepiness was that holographic image of Kali, which refused to leave my mind.

  As I headed up Oak Creek Canyon toward Hacker’s cabin, I thought about Leela, held prisoner, somewhere. My guts churned. And I ached for Jill. Tomorrow we would be together on a military transport plane headed for Europe. Into the unknown.

  A flock of fantasy black swans flew across the screen of my imagination. I blinked my eyes to drive them away as I powered my Honda Lightning into the wild curves of Oak Creek Canyon.

  PART II

  Dateline: Planet Earth

  In Search of Leela