Wooden Ships (4 page)

“Tonight Jen will be implanted,” E-1 thought.

“She will make a good subject,” E-2 thought.

The Orbotic probe instantly appeared and hovered at the foot of their bed. It slowly maneuvered next to Jen’s head and quickly administered a green flash temporarily paralyzing her and Adam. The Entities did not want either of them to wake up before the procedure of implanting the microscopic crystal into Jen’s brain was completed. As the orb silently floated, a thin silvery light beam, that looked like a thin glass rod slowly extended from its energy shell until it made contact with Jen’s temple area. With incredible precision of a high tech surgical tool, the light beam penetrated her head slipping through the empty space between the atoms of her brain tissue, stopping at the inter portion of her temporal lobe where it deposited a microscopic crystal seed. It immediately began to grow tiny roots that attached to the correct portions of her brain. After the orb completed the procedure, it immediately flew through the window and disappeared.

Now the Entities would be able to monitor both of them.

Satisfied that Jen’s brain implant was completed, E-2 thought, “Shall we start the dream sequence procedure to condition Adam’s brain?”

“Yes, Adam is ready for dream sequencing,” thought E-1.

This was the first step in conditioning Adam’s brain and testing the crystal brain implant. E-1 extended a thin lankly arm in the direction of Adam and extended his finger, a faint blue beam of light appeared at the tip and began to extend, slowly growing in length until it reached Adam’s head. As soon as the beam of light touched his forehead there was a very faint flash and then the light disappeared, this act began the sequencing process.

Chapter – Four

A
dam started to shift from side to side and his eyes darted back and forth under his eyelids, he rolled over on his back and began to dream. ...

He emerged from a thick white cloud and walked into a dimly lit hallway. He stopped, not sure how he got there. He continued to walk through the hallway and as he did, he heard each of his footsteps echoing. Thinking someone could be behind him he stopped and turned around to look, but no one was there. When Adam looked forward again, he realized that he had reached the end of this hallway and was now standing in a doorway of a larger room. There was no way to tell how big this room really was because there were no discernible corners, walls, ceiling or floor in this place; it was just a white void.

Adam was initially afraid but the sensation quickly changed and he felt brave. He decided to return to the hallway but when he turned to go back, the hallway was gone, stranding him in this white void. This odd place greatly confused him; Adam actually said aloud, “Where am I? Is there anybody here?” At least he thought he did. None of this made any sense to him at all. The strangest thing was that he felt as if he were floating, or maybe even free falling in this white void.

Now his bravery was gone and panic shot through him like electricity. His heart begun beating faster and his breathing became more rapid. He felt perspiration dripping from his face and as he looked down, he saw the droplets of sweat land in small puddles between both his bare feet.

Like rain drops landing on a pond the ripples raced out from the center, and as the ripples continued to spread out a sidewalk appeared, then streets and buildings appeared and all this materialized out in all directions. Adam watched in amazement and to his surprise, these ripples transformed into a city. The Sun was shining in a beautiful blue sky and it appeared to be early afternoon. As he gazed around he noticed that the whole city seemed deserted, like a ghost town, but unlike a ghost town that is run down this city looked brand new with futuristic buildings and skyscrapers; there just wasn’t a person or car in sight.

Adam was in awe as he glimpsed the beautiful city that stood before him and as he looked around, he noticed he was standing in front of a small sports bar. Drawn to it for some unknown reason, he walked up, slowly opened the door and entered. The establishment was small and narrow, everything was either grey or black; there wasn’t any color that could be seen. At one end of the bar, there was a big window with black curtains pulled closed, and a hint of sunlight coming around the edges giving enough ambient light to see that the place looked hazy, as if someone had been smoking cigarettes. Adam found the place empty.

In the corner was a jukebox. He walked up to it and started searching for his favorite song, and as he was looking at song titles, he sensed someone was standing next to him. When he turned to look, he was shocked to see his friend Scott standing next to him dressed in a dark grey suit, white shirt and tie. Adam started to chuckle because Scott never dressed up, then it dawned on him...

“Hey wait a minute, you’re dead! You died several years ago!” Scott just smiled at Adam, who had so many questions he wanted to ask him. Then, he started to write something on a piece of paper while Adam just stood there, puzzled, watching him. After Scott finished writing the note, he handed Adam the paper. Adam reached for it and looked to see what Scott wrote. ...

Suddenly Scott, the bar and the beautiful city Adam was in, disappeared before his eyes and he was in total darkness. In the distance, he heard a loud annoying rapid – “Beep--beep--beep—beep.”

Adam quickly opened his eyes and realized he had been dreaming and that annoying sound was his alarm clock. He reached over and turned it off, as he lay in bed thinking about his dream. He wondered if he would have stayed asleep just a minute longer he would have seen what Scott wrote. For Adam, it was definitely a strange dream. Not wanting to be late for work, he quickly got up.

In the corner of Adam’s bedroom hidden in their invisible bubble the Entities conferred with each other; “One more dream sequence and Adam will be ready.” Slowly the faint shimmer faded away as the Entities traveled on.

Chapter – Five

T
he day started just like any other workday. Adam took his shower and shaved, and then he looked in his closet for something to wear. Today he selected a nice pair of tan casual pants and blue shirt; he then slipped on some comfortable shoes. The days of wearing a coat and tie were over. Everyone now wore business casual to work. Even though her day started a little later, Jen would get up too and she would make breakfast for him – scrambled eggs, sausage and coffee.

Finished dressing, Adam sat down for breakfast.

“Hey Jen, I had the craziest dream last night!”

Jen had her back to Adam and was pouring herself a cup of coffee as she turned and sat down she said, “Really, what about?” “Well, most of it didn’t make any sense – do any dreams make sense? Anyway, my good friend Scott was in it. I looked at him and I said, you’re dead how could you be here?”

“That’s really interesting,” said Jen.

“I know, but the strangest thing is what he did.” After swallowing her coffee she asked,

“What did he do?”

“He wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. I was all excited thinking there was some important message he wanted me to know, but as I started to read it, I abruptly woke-up to the alarm clock.”

“Wow, that was weird!” said Jen, “So you didn’t see what he wrote?”

“No, but I seem to sense there were numbers or a date, or maybe words. I woke up so fast, I didn’t get to see anything – maybe he was trying to give me the lottery numbers?” Adam started grinning.

Jen laughed aloud, “That would have been great, would solve all of our money problems.”

Adam snickered as he quickly finished his breakfast. Gave Jen a kiss and got up to go to work.

During their morning ritual, the television was always on broadcasting one of the local news stations. Short periods between getting ready for work and eating breakfast, Adam would try to listen to the news just to catch up on weather and any traffic issues. This particular morning while Adam was walking out the door he heard something that grabbed his attention. He heard scientists believed the Sun’s unusual activity was the cause of bizarre weather patterns that were occurring around the world. Adam stopped to hear the details and as he stood there listening, an indescribable feeling ran through him, the feeling that he had heard this information before. Your typical “Déjà-vu,” but there was no way he could have known anything about this – or was there?

Jen looked around and saw that Adam had stopped in his tracks and had a puzzled look on his face. “Adam! Are you okay? You looked as if you have just seen a ghost!”

Adam turned to look at Jen and saw she had a perplexed look on her face. “Yeah, I’m fine; the news about the weather is interesting.” Adam gave Jen another reassuring kiss and then walked out the door.

As he drove to work, he kept thinking about what he heard on the news, regarding the bizarre weather patterns. Stopped at a traffic light, Adam began to stare at the red light waiting for it to turn green, his thoughts wandered again, he had a very strong feeling he knew something about the strange weather, but what?

B-E-E-P!

Adam suddenly snapped out of his trance. Looking in his rear view mirror he noticed an angry motorist honking his car horn, he didn’t notice the traffic light had turned green; he stepped on the gas and quickly sped away.

During his lunch break, he decided to eat at his desk and spend some time researching information about the weather. Using Google, Adam typed in some key words: “Weather-patterns caused by Sun effects” within seconds, he got over two million hits on the subject - everything from solar-max to solar-minimum to sunspots.

Adam read that solar maximum is the period of greatest solar activity in the 11-year solar cycle of the Sun. During solar maximum, large numbers of sunspots appear and the sun’s energy output grows. The increased energy output of solar maxima can influence Earth’s global climate, and recent studies had shown some link with regional weather patterns.

At solar maximum, the Sun’s magnetic field lines are the most distorted due to the magnetic field on the solar equator rotating at a slightly faster pace than at the solar poles.

Solar minimum is the period of least solar activity in the eleven-year
solar cycle
of the
sun
. During this cycle,
sunspots
and
solar flare
activity diminishes significantly, and often does not occur for days at a time. Again, studies had shown a correlation with weather patterns.

Next, he read about sunspots, the areas on the surface of the Sun that look darker than the surrounding areas, caused by intense magnetic fields. Although the temperatures between the Sun’s surface and the area within the Sunspot are slight, the difference is enough to make sunspots look darker. Sunspots cause secondary phenomena known as solar flares or coronal mass ejections. Coronal mass ejections hurl billions of tons of the Sun’s magnetized plasma through space like a shock wave, and sometimes aimed toward Earth. It’s these coronal mass ejections that were causing the weather changes on Earth, and it seems the Sun’s activity was a bit out of the ordinary as scientists have started to discover. “I hope this is just a passing event,” thought Adam, “The earth’s weather is in a very delicate balance, seems it wouldn’t take much to tip it out of balance.”

It’s hard to believe Earth is over 4-billion years old and humans have only been around for the last 500,000 years, he thought – a split second in earth time and scientists have only been tracking and monitoring weather patterns on Earth for the past 100 years. There are probably weather patterns that humans haven’t even experienced yet.

Adam thought there might have been other civilizations before humans, maybe even advanced civilizations that unfortunately do not exist anymore. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of any, but perhaps due to seismic activity or meteorite crashes, the earth has covered-up any evidence.

By the time Adam left for home, he had put the whole issue of the weather out of his mind; after all, he had work to deal with.

Arriving home that day he was anxious to talk with Jen about his feelings and what he read. He especially wanted to discuss what he had learned about the unusual weather phenomenon.

Adam found Jen in the kitchen preparing dinner. She was a good cook and Adam always enjoyed what she prepared, but Jen preferred to eat out. She announced that dinner was ready; Adam came into the dining room and settled down in his chair. “How was your day,” asked Jen. “Busy as usual.” Adam wanted to talk about the Sun’s weather patterns without making it sound too strange. “Did you hear the news this morning about the Sun’s unusual activity and how scientists believe it has something to do with the strange weather?” Maybe she didn’t want to get into a conversation about a topic she knew nothing about, or maybe she wanted to swallow her bite of food, either way she didn’t respond. She finally looked up at him with a curious expression and said; “Yes I did! What about it?”

“I had the strangest feeling I know something about it. As if I had prior knowledge,” he said.

Jen could tell that Adam was struggling with this, so at first she just listened, letting Adam get it off his chest. Then she tried to help Adam make sense of it; “Maybe you did hear about it, but don’t remember where or when? That sometimes happens to me. Besides, you always hear talk about the Sun and the weather.” Adam was not ready to let it go that easy, his feelings were too strong, and his intuition about this was all too real.

The conversation stopped; Adam and Jen looked at each other for a moment, he then decided to drop the subject and went back to eating his dinner. There was an awkward silence and Jen kept wondering if she should tell Adam that she had heard him taking in his sleep about the Sun, but just thought it was nonsense. At first, she thought he was having weird dreams, but after the news report about the Sun, she wasn’t so sure.

At bedtime, Adam and Jen cuddled for a time to un-wind and relax. After awhile Adam leaned over and gave Jen a kiss goodnight, then he rolled over and closed his eyes.

Jen laid there for a while and wondered what Adam’s dreams were all about; maybe he was having some sort of premonition-type dreams? She heard Adam breathing deeply and realized he had fallen asleep.

With enough ambient light in the room to see, Jen stared at the ceiling, and then she looked around the room and stared toward the closet doors. For a moment, she sensed something hiding in the shadows, but she shook off the feeling and finally closed her eyes and fell asleep too.