Designed with a Destiny (19 page)

“Were you close with your father?” he
probes.

“No, not really.” She shakes her head sadly.
“I was nothing more to him than a Barbie doll advertisement for his
Designer Baby business. She hesitates before continuing. “I’m
really sorry to hear about your dad, but I’m guessing you weren’t
close with him either since you’re here with us?”

There’s a look of deep regret in his eyes, a
pain that seems unexpected considering his past contributions to
the suffering of others. “He didn’t deserve to die in that manner,”
he says in a low voice, not quietly enough to go undetected by
those sitting around him.

“My parents and sister didn’t deserve to be
cheated out of their freedom. The people in North Dakota didn’t
deserve to lose their lives in an earthquake. Innocent people don’t
deserve to suffer Zane—but he got exactly what he had coming to
him,” Alisha says heartlessly, and abruptly gets up from the table,
tossing her napkin on her plate. Jason excuses himself and
immediately follows, and there’s a moment of silence as the rest of
the Designers adjust to offset and balance the connection we have
to her strong emotional reaction.

“Ahem,” Zane clears his throat, glancing
around the table warily. “I know that I’ve given everyone here, not
just Alisha a reason to despise me,” he says swallowing hard, his
British accent sounding unusually thick. “If I could go back in
time and make different choices, I never would allow myself to be
seduced by power and money again. I was young and naïve, and
brought up by a father who believed that physical force was the key
to obedience. Violence has been a part of my life ever since I can
remember.” He pauses and swallows hard, looking down at his hands.
A look of pain on his face replaces the normal smirk and he
struggles to continue. “Everything that’s been done to you or any
of yours has been done to me and my mother with greater vehemence.
Still—I feel like I owe much to the man who took my mother and me
in at a time when a woman in her circumstances could have been
forced into much worse. He kept us off the street, adopted me as
his son and provided us with the best of everything money could
buy. Unfortunately, after she died I became just like him, adopting
not only his lifestyle but his mindset as well. I can’t tell you
how sorry I am.” His apology is sincere enough to draw sympathy
from Liz and she puts a comforting hand on his arm. He looks down
at her as if he’s about to disclose his little secret, but to my
relief is interrupted by Dr. Williams.

“Who’s all up for a tour of the lab?” he
asks enthusiastically creating a nice transition from gloomy
confessions to something more enticing to look forward to. He gets
up carrying his plate to the kitchen, and I’m the first to follow,
eager to pull out of the conversation that has me feeling strangely
sorry for the Brit in spite of everything he’s done.

“No, no—I’ve got it. I’ll clean up while you
guys indulge the old man by letting him take you on a tour. Heaven
knows I’ve already seen what goes on down there, more times than I
care to count,” Lena says, waving us out of the kitchen.

***

Lena Williams wasn’t exaggerating when she
complained about the entire basement being converted into an
elaborate research lab. The large underground room is divided in
half by a row of pedestal base cabinets with a stainless steel top
on which two large, high-powered microscopes, one at each end, sit
with open shelving units three feet high in the center. Each shelf
is filled with gemstones of various sizes, all neatly labeled with
the name and the megahertz frequency. A large white board hangs on
the east facing wall, and it’s filled in with mathematical
equations that even I with a genius level IQ, can’t decipher the
end product of. A modular bench beneath it has bins of everything
from canned foods, to dried herbs, vials of essential oils, and
even live frogs.

“Remember this?” Kenneth asks Lawrence,
pointing to a wall mounted machine that takes up half of the west
wall, and which is connected to what looks like an old fashioned
telephone booth, made of all glass, sitting in the corner of the
room. “It’s a Frequency Monitoring Device and it’s come a long way
since the first design built by Lawrence here—although it still has
your basic mechanics?” he says, squeezing Lawrence’s shoulder.
Lawrence leans down and slowly examines each component like a
professor grading a science project, following each wire to where
it connects to the booth. When he stands up, it’s clear by the look
on his face that he’s impressed with the upgrades. “You did well
Ken—how about we give these kids a demonstration?” The two smile
knowingly, and Kenneth grabs the closest person to him which
happens to be Bernie. “Ms. Stoddard, all you have to do is step
right in my time capsule,” he says, nudging her towards the
booth.

“Wait—I want to see what she is first,” I
blurt out. Kenneth looks first at me, then Lawrence with
surprise.

“They can detect frequency radiation?”

“Yes—but Ronan is the most sensitive. Go
ahead and show him,” Lawrence says. I wave my hand over Bernie’s
arm for several seconds and once I confirm I have the reading, she
steps in the glass booth and shuts the door.

“I get sixty-eight,” I announce softly,
watching as he starts the machine up and adjusts various dials.

“A Hertzian wave is generated from built in
sensors and as it passes through her, the sensors on the other side
measures the voltage of the wave against the frequency of her
vibratory emissions,” he explains. Thirty seconds later, a digital
reading flashes sixty-eight on a computerized screen, and Kenneth
smiles broadly, commenting on the accuracy of the machine. Bernie
is allowed out and shrugs her shoulders when she sees the
reading.

“Alright Bernie—let’s try one more
reading—after…” Cat steps forward grabbing me by the hand, and
holding her other one out to Bernie, challenging her to accept the
experiment that will likely change her current belief system.
Claire eagerly tags on, and signals for Elizabeth and the others to
do the same. We’re a human chain of energy waves all linked
together, ready to contribute to Cat’s transmission of energy, and
Bernie actually looks scared. Jason and Alisha show up just in time
to witness the event.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Cat says laughing at her
reluctance to take her outstretched hand. Bernie glances at
Lawrence and he nods his head reassuringly than she slowly reaches
out and grasps Cat’s fingers. The effect is profound and
immediate—her color screening changes from a medium yellow to an
almost white, and her body stiffens as her eyes roll back in her
head. Bernie collapse on the floor and they automatically assume
the worst pushing us out of the way to get to her.

“Bernie—are you okay?” Alisha asks, gently
shaking her shoulders. It takes a minute for Bernie to regain
consciousness. Opening her eyes she blinks several times as she
silently studies Alisha’s face, a look of confusion giving way to
realization.

“Just lay still for a few minutes,” Jason
softly orders as he checks the pulse in her wrist.

“Maybe there were just too many of us,” Cat
admits, looking at Lawrence with a worried expression. Bernie dabs
a tear from the corner of her eye with the yellow silk scarf around
her neck, amplifying the level of concern of those around her
except Lawrence who chuckles. Kneeling down beside her, he takes
her hands in his, waving Alisha and Jason out of the way.

“Cracking the casing that surrounds the
pineal gland is a little like a chick hatching out of a shell and
seeing the surrounding outside world for the first time. It can
have an overwhelming effect on people—it’s nothing to worry about,”
he says, helping Bernie to sit up. “Bernice—tell me what you see
and feel.” Slowly, her eyes move around the room, examining each
person with her new perspective.

“I feel a sense of warmth and peace that
I’ve never felt before, and I see…energy,” she simply says, wiping
away a rogue tear with the back of her hand.

“Would you care to see what your reading is
now?” he asks. She doesn’t say yes, but doesn’t resist either when
he guides her back into the glass booth. It’s clear by the look on
his face, that not even he expects the reading to jump from
sixty-eight to one hundred fifty six. He lets out a low whistle and
turns to Kenneth, the only one mimicking his level of
astonishment.

“Lawrence, that’s incredible and all with a
touch of the hand. I’ve followed a rigid meditation regime for
twenty years and still haven’t been able to fully unlock that
gland. May I?” he says breathlessly, holding his hand out to Cat.
Lawrence appears a little wary but his hesitation doesn’t stop Ken
from grasping her hand in his. “Alright, now you two…” he signals
for the two of us to hold hands, then points a finger at Claire,
and motions for her to come over and join us. “Maybe just Claire
and Ronan,” he says, making a point of stopping Natalie and Austin
from joining the human chain. Just like with Bernie his color
screening brightens on contact but the final effect on him is much
less dramatic. With eyes closed, he smiles peacefully, and when he
opens them, he simply nods his head as he gets his first glimpse of
the people around him with his new caliber of awareness. He calls
for his wife, and both Lena and Jason undergo the same procedure
with consistent results.

“The implications of reaching the masses
could change the course of humanity,” Kenneth says excitedly,
sounding just like Lawrence. He quickly ushers us in to the next
room, assuring us along the way that by the time he finishes
showing us his own research, there will be no doubts.

“Two years ago, I took my portable Frequency
Monitoring Device and accompanied a group of peace-creating experts
to three of the most violent areas in the world—Sudan, Nigeria, and
Iraq. What you’re about to see is the actual footage of the
frequency readings we took on arrival, then at various intervals
during our stay. The group of two hundred men and women that were
with me did nothing but practice meditation or prayer; whichever
you prefer to call it, concentrating only on the idea of radiating,
love, peace and harmony to the city.” He turns on the flat screen
TV in the small room that he’s managed to cram us all into, and his
live documentary of the events begin with their arrival in a
Nigerian city. In the multiple cities of all three countries that
were tested, the readings generated by the Frequency Monitoring
Device, or FMD as he refers to the machine in the video, gradually
increased by fifty to seventy percent over the span of just a few
days. And while the FMD readings went up—the violence went down.
Ninety minutes later he shuts the TV off, and quietly says, “We
were just a group of people with no special skills other than a
strong belief in the power of our thoughts to influence change, and
you saw what happened. Designers have a connection to the source
that gives the energy in your thoughts and emotions a hundred times
more power.”

“What do you mean by a connection to the
source?” Austin asks, looking around the room with a puzzled
expression. His wiry copper hair looks like it hasn’t been washed
or combed in days and now sticks straight up giving him a manic
sort of appearance.

“You’ve heard of E=MC2—energy equals
everything right?” Kenneth asks.

“Of course, Albert Einstein,” Alisha answers
for Austin and he scowls at her for stealing his answer.

“That’s right—Einstein’s discovery proved
that atoms can be broken down into subatomic particles which at
their very core are nothing but pure energy. Everything in
existence can be traced back to a single vibrating mass of pure
energy—that includes you, me, the chair, the plant and even our
thoughts. If we all come from this same vibrating mass of energy,
then we have to be interconnected,” Kenneth explains. “I call this
single mass of pure energy our source, however some people in this
room may refer to it as God, Universal Mind, or Creator.” I look at
Cat and smile.

“
Bet you didn’t know you had a direct
line to the Creator—you must be right up there with the Jesus or
something,”
I tease, and she raises her eyes in shock.

“
Careful Callahan—that borders on
blasphemy,”
she says in an unexpected serious tone, reminding
me of her somewhat religious upbringing. I shrug it off, not
necessarily in agreement or disagreement, just indifferent to the
suggestion. “Dr. Williams—where does the energy go when we die?”
she suddenly blurts out. He smiles and nods. “That’s a good
ques…”

“To heaven or hell,” Bernie interrupts,
speaking for the first time since her emotional conversion. She
stands and folds her arms across her chest, ready to take on a
debate with anyone daring enough to challenge her, and for the
first time since hearing about her former plans to join the
convent, I can actually picture her as some sort of nun.

“Actually the reason I ask is because the
other day when we found Mr. Harrington,” Cat pauses and looks
apologetically at Zane for bringing it up. “Um, even though he was
clearly deceased, there was still energy in the room—he still had a
color screening of gray—surrounding his body just like when he was
alive.” Natalie cocks her head to one side and shakes her head
confirming she didn’t see it either.

“Are you sure Cataryn?” Lawrence asks, with
just a hint of excitement in his voice.

“I’m positive—why?”

“Well although we know that energy can’t be
destroyed based on the principles of physics, it’s been hard to
prove that the energy of the human soul exists beyond death. You’re
the first person I know that has been able to see this energy field
after the physical body has died. Even our frequency monitoring
devices fail to pick up readings on the deceased. Your ability will
offer scientists a way to explore life after death—that’s all,” he
says excitedly. He pauses and stares off in the distance as if
trying to imagine it.