He made his way to the extreme northwest and found his way across the waters to foreign lands. At first there were people there as well. But soon, just like the others, they all died. He journeyed for ten years before returning home. The world was dead.
He could have stayed where he was but something was calling him back to his homeland. Finally, he made his way back and was content to live out his days in silence.
One day, as he was walking among the Barren Lands, he discovered something. It contrasted immediately against the barren landscape that had been unchanged for centuries. At first, what he saw did not register. It was too alien from everything else in his desolate world. Then, from deep in his memories, what he was seeing was recalled and connected with him.
He looked up to the sky and thanked his Creator.
He was terrified as he knew what he sighted would mean. But at the same time, joy consumed him. “This will change everything.”
CHAPTER FIVE
There was a place in Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans – a top secret facility in full awareness of the government (the same facility that was used to test the effects of Agent Orange on military criminals during the Vietnam War). At this facility, they had drawn together some of the most influential and respected minds in the controversial field of Parapsychology.
Among the collected talent of world experts was Dr. Julius Babel, an expert on pyrokinetics. As a young man, he became interested in the subject when he discovered a journal from his great-great grandfather. His grandfather, who was given the unusual nickname of Intensity, lived for many years among the Taos Pueblo around the time of the Civil War. Intensity described how human healing among those people was attained through a connection to nature and animals. It was not noticed until many years later that many of these occurrences of healing and other abilities of those people might be psychic.
In the journal, Intensity described a Taos Pueblo named Jose who would waive his hands over dry stacked wood and that wood would combust without flame, thus creating the campfire for the evening. At first, Julius didn’t believe it. Then, he started to look more into the Taos Pueblos. And then to other groups of people who had similar experiences, especially Buddhists.
Julius became fascinated through discussions with Buddhists who sought enlightenment and their mention of iddhi, or physic powers. Through proper meditation, they believed that iddhi-powers could be achieved such as invisibility, flying, preservation of youth, passing through solid objects, and walking on water. Julius didn’t quite understand all of this as his world was rooted in science. But he did know that the human mind was mostly untapped and very powerful. If abilities were produced by the mind through unleashing specific parts of the brain that were generally unused, he knew that it was theoretically possible.
Further discussions and research led him to begin conducting experiments. These experiments involved some Buddhist techniques to release the mind and the results were astounding. He learned that the human mind contained specific chemicals that were released upon experiencing a psychic phenomenon. He was able harvest these chemicals.
Through the study of people who could start fires with their mind, he was able to extract the chemical in the brain excreted while demonstrating this skill. He dubbed the pyrokinetic chemical in the brain pyrokite and published an article on the subject.
That was when he was first contacted by the government.
With sudden unlimited funds, he was able to take the research to higher levels. He knew deep down that the government was not interested in the benefits to humanity with this type of research; they were only interested in using the research to the advantage of the military. In the end, he had to make a decision. He could use the funding and unlimited resources of the government (he was not sure that the United States was acting alone on this) to maximize his research, using the research to better humanity afterwards on his own, or he could go back to a world where he was limited in what he would be able to achieve. He chose the government.
Part of the trade off in working for the government was controversial human experimentation. Some the experiments went against everything he believed in but he justified them by reminding himself that it was for the benefit of the entire world once he completed his research.
He became the leading authority on pyrokinetics and his research took him further than he ever could have imagined. Using the pyrokinetic chemical pyrokite as well as the other collected chemicals, he was able to develop a device that would track other humans that possessed the ability.
It was this device that also led to the discovery of the portals.
Unknown during that time was that the portals were already there. The scientists simply had to discover them and then later learn to control their power.
The portals were developed by scientists and financed by governments as a way to move their military across continents to engage more efficient wars. What these scientists didn’t realize at first was that these portals were more than just a way to move from place to place, they were actually a way to move from time to time. They also learned quickly that only certain types of brainwaves would open and sustain the portals – and not everyone possessed those specific brain waves.
The portals all seemed to revolve around water. To the scientists surprise (and only known to a very select few in the government), some of these portals had silent guardians. One of the portals was a children’s fountain guarded by a great stone lion.
The portals at the Taj
