Free Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow by Lee Baldwin Page B

The Key of Solomon . A copy has finally arrived. During her time in the shop, she fills several bags.
    Listening to French lessons on her CD, Tharcia drives quickly up the hill. She needs to build a temple.

Hallucination or Technology
    General Solberg is at that moment debriefing Dr. Friedman in his temporary swing space office. Friedman has interim findings from the Fish Jump meeting interviews.
    “We confiscated all water bottles and have analyzed all fluids. No hallucinogens or other psychoactive substances were present. Our initial assessment and triage of the attendees points to a shared experience, something observed in the room. General, this was no hallucination, no psychogenic fugue, it was something closer to telekinesis or remote viewing. Perhaps events at a distance were observed as taking place in the room, on top of the conference table.”
    “How about Shackleford’s thesis, the high frequency gravitational thought waves? Did you test that model?”
    Friedman groans inwardly. He hasn’t allowed Dr. Shackleford anywhere near his subjects or the data. Yet. “ Folie à deux is French for ‘a madness shared by two’ or shared psychosis. A psychiatric syndrome in which a delusional belief is transmitted between individuals. Some call it shared psychotic disorder although I feel the term misleading. There are documented cases of people suffering from psychosis, either independently or imposed by a thought leader. Psychosis from electromagnetic fields or water-borne substances. Specters, UFOs, antiphotons, ghostly presence, all that sort.”
    “And?”
    “Eighty-seven percent of the subjects reported no unusual sensations after the event seemed to be over.”
    “Shock and surprise?”
    “What I mean by that General, is no dizziness or fainting spells, no sense of deja-vu , no sense of forgetfulness or not knowing what day or time it was. All subjects took it as an actual event with no boundary shock or discontinuity.”
    Solberg shakes his head. “What I’m getting, Arnie, a highly extreme event actually happened.”
    “Sir, that is a valid conclusion. Reality is being messed with, not people’s heads. What’s more, the floor near the table is wet, it squished when we walked on it.”
    “Tangible illusion.”
    “Just so. We tested the oxygen concentration of the air, inspected the HVAC ducts right back to fresh inflow air. We ruled out anoxia, which can cause sensory distortion and hallucinations.”
    “Arnie, could this be related to the Pentagon visitor? A force field? A portal allowing access to another place, another dimension?”
    “Well, for what it’s worth it fits our graph of anomalous events. But those questions are out of my area. I am investigating it as a collective paranormal experience. Other strange events are accelerating by the hour.”
    “ So bottom line, you are saying…”
    “The Fish Jump happened, Ralph. For those few seconds, it was entirely real.”

Silent Journey
    Clay enjoys a peaceful day among tall redwoods, if you call riding a bicycle wildly down twisty dirt trails littered with rocks and washouts a peaceful activity. When his wheat-straw hair flies in dusty breeze and everything’s a blur it’s normal life for him and a way to clear his mind of things, such as the unpleasant arrival of an old nemesis claiming to be Tharcia’s father. Her harsh indifference, their puzzling estrangement. The tough-guy homicide cop tracking a random lead. Leaving white rage behind in the autumn air on his KHS Tucson twenty-niner, he has a couple of hours to shake things off, sweat and feel normal.
    Cicero Clay was born in Manhattan Beach California 39 years ago to a couple who deeply loved one another and already had a boy aged four. Both parents now dead, his dad in a highway crash while Clay was in high school and the mom five years after, of inoperable cancer. The name Cicero was his dad’s fancy idea. An avid reader, a history buff, the elder Clay decided his second son