The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (24 page)

She pointed to us with a sweeping motion of her finger. “This is the awareness that we’re remembering together, right now—
and it’s the awareness that other groups, just like us, are remembering all over the planet. We all have a piece of the complete
Vision, and when we share what we know, and unify our soul groups, then we’re ready to bring the whole picture into consciousness.”

Suddenly Charlene was interrupted by a slight tremor that ran through the earth under the cave. Specks of dust fell from the
ceiling. Simultaneously we heard the hum again, but this time the dissonance had disappeared; it sounded almost harmonious.

“Oh God,” Curtis said. “They almost have the calibrations right. We have to go back to the bunker.” He made a movement to
get up, as the energy level of the group plummeted.

“Wait,” I said. “What are we going to do there? We agreed that we would wait here until dark; there’s still hours of daylight
out there. I say we stay here. We achieved a high level of energy, but we haven’t moved through the rest of the process yet.
We
seem to have cleared our residual emotions and amplified our energy and shared our Birth Visions, but we haven’t seen the
World Vision yet. I think we can do more if we remain where it’s safe, and try to go further.” Even as I spoke, I saw an image
of all of us back in the valley again, together in the darkness.

“It’s too late for that,” Curtis said. “They’re ready to complete the experiment. If anything can be done, we’ve got to go
there and do it now.”

I looked hard at him. “You said they were probably going to kill Charlene. If we’re caught, they’ll do the same to us.”

Maya held her head in her hands and Curtis looked away, trying to shake off the panic.

“Well, I’m going,” Curtis said.

Charlene leaned forward. “I think we should stay together.”

For an instant I saw her in Native American clothing, again in the virgin woods of the nineteenth century. The image quickly
faded.

Maya stood up. “Charlene is right,” she said. “We have to stay together, and it might help if we can see what they’re doing.”

I looked out through the cave’s entrance, a long, deep-seated reluctance rising in my gut. “What are we going to do with this…
operative… outside?”

“We’ll drag him into the cave and leave him here,” Curtis said. “We’ll send someone for him in the morning, if we can.”

I met eyes with Charlene, then nodded agreement.

W
e knelt at the top of the hill and looked carefully down at the base of a larger ridge. I could see nothing out of the ordinary
in the fading light; no movement, no guards. The hum, which had persisted for most of the forty-minute walk, had now completely
disappeared.

“Are you sure we’re at the right place?” I asked Curtis.

“Yes,” he said. “Do you see the four large boulders about fifty feet up the slope? The doorway is right beneath them, hidden
in the bushes. To the right, you can just make out the top of the projection dish. It looks functional again.”

“I see it,” Maya said.

“Where are the guards?” I asked Curtis. “Maybe they’ve abandoned the site.”

We observed the doorway for almost an hour, waiting for signs of activity, hesitant to move or talk much until darkness had
fallen across the valley. Suddenly we heard movement behind us, Flashlights clicked on, flooding us in light, and four
armed men rushed in, demanding that we raise our hands. After spending ten minutes going through our gear, they searched each
of us, then moved the group down the hill and up to the bunker’s entrance.

The door of the bunker swung open and Feyman charged out, loud and angry. “Are these the ones we’ve been looking for?” he
shouted. “Where did you find them?”

One of the guards explained what had happened as Feyman shook his head and stared at us through the beams of light. He walked
closer and demanded, “What are you doing here?”

“You’ve got to stop what you’re doing!” Curtis retorted.

Feyman was struggling to recognize him. “Who are you?” The guards’ flashlights settled, illuminating Curtis’ face.

“Curtis Webber… I’ll be damned,” Feyman said. “You blew up our dish, didn’t you?”

“Listen to me,” Curtis said. “You know this generator is too dangerous to operate at these levels. You could ruin this entire
valley!”

“You were always an alarmist, Webber. That’s why we let you go at Deltech. I’ve been working on this project for too long
to give up at this point. It’s going to
Work
—exactly as I planned.”

“But why are you taking the chance? Concentrate on the smaller, house-size units. Why are you trying to increase the output
so much?”

“That’s none of your business. You need to keep quiet.”

Curtis edged toward him. “You want to centralize the generating process so you can control it. That’s not right.”

Feyman smiled. “A new energy system has to be phased in. Do you think we can go overnight from energy being a substantial
part of household and business costs to practically nothing? The sudden disposable income throughout the world would
cause hyperinflation and then probably a massive reaction that would cast us into a depression.”

“You know that’s not true,” Curtis replied. “Reduced energy costs would increase the efficiency of production tremendously,
supplying more goods at lower costs. No inflation would occur. You’re doing this for yourself. You want to centralize the
production so you can control its availability and price, despite the dangers.”

He stared angrily at Curtis. “You’re so naive. Do you think the interests that act to control energy prices now would allow
a sudden, massive shift to an inexpensive source? Of course not! It has to be centralized and packaged to work at all. And
I’m going to be known for having done this! It’s what I was born to do!”

“That’s not true!” I blurted. “You were born to do something else, to help us.”

Feyman swung around to face me. “Shut up! Do you hear me? All of you!” His eyes found Charlene. “What happened to the man
I sent with you?”

Charlene looked away without responding.

“I don’t have time for this!” Feyman was shouting again. “I’d suggest you worry about your personal safety right now.” He
paused to look us over, then shook his head and walked to one of the armed men. “Keep them here in a group until this is over.
All we need is another hour. If they try to escape, shoot them.”

The operative spoke briefly to the other three and they formed a perimeter encircling us at a distance of about thirty feet.
“Sit down,” one of them said.

We sat facing each other in the darkness. Our energy was almost totally deflated. There had been no sign of the soul groups
since we left the cave.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked Charlene.

“Nothing’s changed,” she whispered. “We’ve got to build our energy again.”

The darkness was now almost total, broken only by the operatives’ lights sweeping back and forth across the group. I could
barely make out the outlines of the others’ faces, even though we were sitting in a tight circle, eight feet apart.

“We have to try to escape,” Curtis whispered. “I think they will kill us.”

Then I remembered the image I’d seen in Feyman’s Birth Vision. He envisioned being with us in the woods, in the dark. I knew
there was also another landmark in the scene, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

“No,” I said. “I think we need to try again here.”

At that moment the air was filled with a high-pitched sound, a sound similar to the hum but, again, more in harmony, almost
pleasing to the ear. Again a perceptible shimmer swept through the ground under our bodies.

“We have to increase our energy
now!”
Maya whispered.

“I don’t know if I can do it here,” Curtis responded.

“You have to!” I said.

“Focus on each other the way we did before,” Maya added.

I tried to screen out the ominous scene around us and return to an inner state of love. Ignoring the shadows and the flickering
beams of light, I focused on the beauty of the faces in the circle. As I struggled to locate the others’ higher-self expression,
I began to notice a shift in the light pattern around us. Gradually I could see every face and expression very clearly, as
though I was looking through an infrared viewer.

“What do we visualize?” Curtis asked in desperation.

“We have to get back to our Birth Visions,” Maya said. “Remember why we came.”

Suddenly the ground shook violently and the sound from the experiment again took on a dissonant, grating quality.

We moved closer together and our collective thought seemed to project the image of fighting back. We knew that somehow we
could marshal our forces and push back the negative and destructive attempts of the experiment. I even picked up a picture
of Feyman being pushed backward, his equipment blowing up and burning, his men fleeing in terror.

Another surge in the noise disrupted my focus; the experiment was continuing. Fifty feet away, a huge pine tree snapped in
half and thundered to the ground. With a ripping sound and a cloud of dust, a fissure, five feet wide, opened up between us
and the guard on the right. He reeled back in horror, the beam of his flashlight swinging wild in the night.

“This isn’t working!” Maya screamed.

Another tree crashed to the ground on our left as the earth slid four or five feet, knocking us flat.

Maya looked horrified and jumped to her feet. “I’ve got to get away from here!” she yelled, then began to run north into the
darkness. The guard on that side, lying where he had been thrown by the earth’s movement, rolled to his knees and caught her
form in the beam of his flashlight, then raised his gun.

“No! Wait!” I screamed.

As she ran, Maya looked back, spotting the guard who was now aiming directly at her, preparing to fire. The scene seemed to
shift into slow motion, and as the gun discharged, every line in her face revealed an awareness that she was about to die.
But instead of the bullets ripping into her side and back, a wisp of white light darted in front of her and the bullets bore
no effect. She hesitated momentarily, then disappeared into the darkness.

At the same time, sensing the opportunity, Charlene leaped
up from her position to my right and ran to the northeast, into the dust, her movement unnoticed by the guards.

I started to run but the guard who had fired at Maya turned his weapon toward me. Quickly Curtis reached out and grabbed my
legs, dragging me to the ground.

Behind us, the bunker door swung open and Feyman ran to the dish antenna and furiously adjusted the keyboard. Gradually the
noise began to diminish and the earth movements slowed to mere tremors.

“For God sakes!” Curtis yelled toward him. “You’ve got to stop this!”

Feyman’s face was covered with dust. “There’s nothing wrong that we can’t fix,” he said with eerie calm. The guards were on
their feet, dusting themselves off and walking toward us. Feyman noticed that Maya and Charlene were missing, but before he
could say anything, the noise returned with ear-shattering volume and the earth under us seemed to leap upward several feet,
rolling everyone to the ground once more. The splintering limbs from a falling tree sent the guards scurrying toward the bunker.

“Now!” Curtis said. “Let’s go!”

I was frozen. He jerked me to my feet. “We’ve got to move!” he yelled in my ear.

Finally my legs worked and we ran northeast in the same direction that Maya had fled.

Several more tremors reverberated under our feet and then the movements and sounds ceased. After making our way through the
dark woods for several miles, our path lighted only by the rays of the moon filtering through the foliage, we stopped and
huddled in a grove of small pines.

“Do you think they’ll follow us?” I asked Curtis.

“Yes,” he said. “They can’t allow any of us to get back to
town. I would guess that they still have people stationed along the paths back.”

While he was talking, a clear picture of the falls entered my mind. It was still pristine, undisturbed. The falling water,
I realized, was the landmark in Feyman’s vision that I had been trying to remember.

“We have to go northwest to the falls,” I said.

Curtis nodded toward the north, and as silently as possible we headed in that direction, crossing the stream and carefully
making our way toward the canyon. Periodically Curtis would stop and cover our tracks. During a rest, we could hear the low
rumbling of vehicles from the southeast.

After another mile we began to see the moonlit canyon walls rising up into the distance. As we approached the rocky mouth,
Curtis led the way across the creek. Suddenly he jumped backward in fright as someone walked around a tree from the left.
The person screamed and recoiled, almost losing balance, teetering at the edge of the creek bank.

“Maya!” I yelled, realizing who it was.

Curtis recovered and lunged forward and pulled her back as rocks and gravel slid into the water.

She hugged him intensely and then reached out to me. “I don’t know why I ran like that. I just panicked. I could only think
to head toward the falls you told me about. I just prayed that some of you would get away too.”

Leaning back against a larger tree, she took a deep breath, then asked, “What happened when the guard fired back there? How
did those bullets miss me? I saw this strange streak of light.”

Curtis and I looked at each other.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“It seemed to calm me,” Maya continued, “… in a way I’ve never experienced before.”

We looked at each other; no one spoke. Then, in silence, I heard the distinct sound of someone walking up ahead.

“Wait,” I said to the others. “Someone’s up there.” We crouched down and waited. Ten minutes went by. Then, from the trees
ahead, Charlene walked up and dropped to her knees.

“Thank God I found you,” she said. “How did you get away?”

“We were able to run when a tree fell,” I said.