beforehand and, while he, at first, was opposed to introducing her so quickly to the strange concepts presented here, he finally agreed to it on the basis that we didn't want to be over-protective. Our decision was vindicated by the enthusiastic reception Neda gave to the concept of the Macro society and by her acceptance of my desire to leave the world of 1976 and become a life-long member of the Macro society of the future.
While the Macro philosophy and P.E. tutoring helped Neda, the severance of our unhealthy dependency relationship would have taken much longer to complete if Karl had not fallen so completely in love with her. He devoted almost every waking moment that he wasn't teaching to being with her. It was he who got her out of the apartment and introduced her to the world of dating. However, he wasn't successful in getting her to return to her classes for the very good reason that the girl who was a university junior and had enrolled in courses under the name of Neda Cricksley no longer existed.
It was at this time that Karl came into our room one evening after a date with Neda and told me that he didn't know what to do about the legal problem of Neda's identity.
'What are you talking about?' I asked.
'Well,' Karl answered, 'we couldn't get her back into her old classes because her professors and classmates would never recognize her or accept her as Neda Cricksley. We thought of enrolling her under a fictitious name for the next semester, but we finally realized that they won't accept her without past school records, and we haven't been able to figure out how we can come up with acceptable fake records for her.'
'Well,' I said, 'I am sure you can figure out something. It doesn't sound too difficult.'
'Yeah,' Karl said, giving me his crooked grin, 'I haven't told you all of it yet. Seems Neda's mother called the university and found out that Neda stopped attending her classes and that the psychology department has no record of her doing any typing work for any of their research.'
'How did you find that out?' I asked.
'There was a notice on our department bulletin board,' Karl explained, 'listing her as a missing person and requesting that anyone who knows anything about her whereabouts get in touch with the campus police.'
'Hmm,' I said, 'maybe I'd better call her mother and get it all straightened out.'
Karl shook his head. 'I wouldn't advise it,' he said. 'I talked it over with Neda and she thinks her mother is looking for her to get money from her now that she has a job. She'll want to see her, and we can't produce the body of Neda Cricksley, that's for sure!'
'In other words,' I said, 'you think the mother will charge me with kidnapping-possibly murder.'
'Exactly,' Karl nodded, 'and neither she, the policemen, nor the jury that convicts you is going to believe your story, although it may help you cop a plea of insanity.'
For the next couple of hours we argued about the necessity of talking with Mrs. Cricksley. Karl was strongly opposed to this and kept trying to sell me on the idea of finding a new identity for Neda and just letting her become one more unsolved missing person case. I pointed out that she had her name on her apartment mail box in the lobby and her telephone was in her name, which would certainly make it fairly easy for the police to find her when they really started looking.
With Karl still protesting, I insisted that I would see Mrs. Cricksley in the morning and try to convince her that her daughter was safe even if she couldn't see her. I went to sleep that night wondering how I was going to convince her.
Back in 2150 I had my first precognitive experience while talking with Rana. I had been practicing review of past lives when suddenly the vision of being interrogated by two policemen imposed itself on my consciousness. I had a strong feeling that this was coming in the very near future. When Rana agreed with me, I told her about my 1976 problem with Neda's identity and we discussed ways of handling it along with their probable consequences. A wise Personal Evolution tutor never tells people what to do, but rather, helps them see their problems from a more Macro perspective, then explore alternative solutions and their probable results. So I received no simple solution. However, I did decide on a course of action which seemed to provide the best long-term results for Karl and Neda. I immediately went to sleep in the tutoring room with the strong desire of waking up early in my 1976 morning.
I awakened at 5 a.m. and telephoned Neda with the request that she get dressed and come up to our room as soon as possible. Then I woke up Karl with the announcement that the police would soon be at our apartment and at Neda's. He didn't ask me how I knew this, be just wanted to know how much time we had before our visitors would arrive. I told him that I thought it would be in a little over two hours and that Neda would soon be joining us for breakfast.
By the time Neda arrived, Karl and I had dressed and shaved. As we ate a hurried breakfast I outlined my plan of action. First we would move all of Neda's belongings into Karl's station wagon. Fortunately, she still had not acquired more belongings than the wagon could easily accommodate. Then, I suggested that Karl pack a suitcase for himself and leave with Neda for the adjoining state where they could get married and begin a little honeymoon trip.
Karl grinned and said, 'Now, that's the best plan I've heard yet, Jon. I hope Neda thinks so, too,' he added, taking her hand in his.
Neda gave Karl and me a lovely shy smile and admitted that she too was delighted with my plan.
With their agreement to the first part of my plan I began supplying the next steps. First I would teach Karl's classes and give out the story that he had eloped with his beautiful new girlfriend. She would get married under the false name of Neda Dailey and be Neda Johnson for the rest of her life.
At first Karl was worried about the legality of their marriage if Neda used a false name, but Neda said that she didn't mind as long as Karl loved her. Then she added that if 2150 could get along without any marriages at all, they should be able to survive a slightly illegal one.
After breakfast I helped Neda carry her belongings to the car while Karl packed his suitcase with enough clothes to last a couple of weeks. We had agreed that Karl would call me at the end of the week and if he couldn't reach me he would contact Snuffy for information from me. At a little before 7 a.m. Karl and Neda waved goodbye and drove off in the dim early morning light.
At 7:15 a.m. two policemen knocked at our apartment door. They showed me a university picture of me which they said Mrs. Cricksley had identified as the person who had abducted her daughter. I explained that while I had hired Neda Cricksley as a typist and rented her an apartment she had not liked the work and had quit both her job and her new apartment just a couple of days ago. I then invited the officers to examine the apartment she had so recently vacated.
They not only searched Neda's apartment but also mine. I was extremely grateful that police of 1976 did not have the highly developed clairvoyance of some of my 2150 friends, for if they had, they would have seen the electron heat tracings of Neda's body which would still have been present on her bed!
When I explained that my roommate had left the day before to go on a honeymoon with his new bride they, at first, exhibited considerable interest in getting in touch with Karl. However, I showed them a picture I had recently taken of Karl and Neda and they could see that his new bride bore not even the faintest resemblance to the missing girl.
I concentrated with all my Macro power on convincing the two officers that they need not arrest me because I would be glad to visit their police station that afternoon and submit myself to a lie detector test of everything I had said and for any further, questions they might wish to ask me. I succeeded so well that they even agreed to drive me to the university so I wouldn't be late for Karl's first class.
That afternoon, after teaching all three of Karl's classes and joking with the students about his elopement, I went to the police station. There I found that the two officers had had real trouble explaining to their chief why they had let me go that morning. I was just in time to prevent their being sent off to bring me in.
Once again I repeated the story I had given that morning concerning Neda, but this time I was hooked up to a lie detector and was questioned by the police chief and two hard-faced detectives. My ability to control my mind and, thus, my body, naturally made the lie detector support my story. Then tremendous Macro persuasiveness got me released in spite of a rather unpleasant confrontation with Mrs. Cricksley in which I strongly planted the suggestion in the minds of the police that if any harm had come to Neda, Mrs. Cricksley was probably a partner to it. When I left, she was taking her turn with the lie detector.
During the following week the local newspaper featured the disappearance of the missing college student with a picture of Neda. Two other coeds had disappeared recently. Their bodies, raped, murdered, and buried in a woods near campus, had been recovered only two weeks ago, so the first thought was that Neda, too, had become the victim of their murderer. One look at the old picture of Neda, however, made it difficult to entertain the
