Soulwaves : A Future History Part #1

Take a deep dive into a possible future for our planet, for humanity, and all life as we know it. Soulwaves is a channeled fictional exploration of how we got here and where we might be going. I will be serializing 10 parts of 10 chapters at a time over this year.

It starts in Beijing in the middle of this century and ends up on the other side of our galaxy. In between times lies a lesson that we should evolve into becoming planetary guardians as opposed to being planetary abusers. You will also about how there may be higher intelligence, who hang out in The Void, who pull strings in The Density.

Transcript

Soul waves.

A poem on entanglement.

Souls touch.

Souls move.

Souls love.

Touching souls.

Waves roll.

Waves break.

Waves swell.

Rolling waves.

From a single point.

Beginning and ending.

Massless,

Chargeless.

Gravity unbending.

Across countless eons,

Full of insight.

Travelling the field,

Faster than light.

Karmically formed.

Purpose unspoken.

Once attached,

Cannot be broken.

Across infinite voids,

Connecting heart to heart.

Once they join,

Will never part.

Universal glue and waves of love.

What lies below,

Tied to above.

Outside space.

Inside time.

Entangled for reasons.

Balanced in rhyme.

Chapter One.

Epochs.

It's time,

Said Councillor Seven.

Not that she had a mouth,

Or the other councillors had ears.

Are you sure they are awake enough?

Asked Councillor Ten.

Not individually,

But collectively they are,

Insisted Councillor Seven.

Councillor Six,

Who had been managing the water consciousness,

Confirmed.

They are travelling freely now.

No disambiguations in any teleports for fifty years.

And the humans have shifted rapidly from being planetary abusers to planetary caretakers,

Said Councillor Four,

The overseer of the air consciousness.

I agree,

Said Councillor Seven.

Just two to three more generations and they will have reversed their planetary decimation.

So can we put it to the vote,

Asked Councillor Six.

The Council of the Light came to unanimous agreement.

It was time to end Epoch Five and move to the Unitary Consciousness.

So it's agreed,

Confirmed Councillor Seven.

This is the first galaxy where we can commence with Epoch Six.

Chapter Two.

Pas de Deux.

150 years left.

It was 1959,

When one of the mothers of all soul waves was released.

On Earth,

Humans were just taking their first tentative steps off planet.

In May that year,

Two monkeys,

Miss Abel and Miss Baker,

Were launched into space along with living microorganisms and plant seeds.

Their successful recovery made them the first living beings to return safely to Earth.

In the same year,

The Russian Luna 2 became the first man-made object to crash on the Moon.

Back on Earth,

The Chinese were in the middle of a great leap forward,

Transforming the country from an agricultural economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialisation.

From time to time,

The Councillors had to take great leaps forward too.

They did this by creating high-magnitude soul waves through the death of stars.

At about 150 light years from Earth,

A strange dance had been playing out.

It was like one of those end-of-the-evening type dances,

Where things were about to get quite intimate and very,

Very close.

This particular dance was being played out between two stars,

Known as a binary system.

The lead in the dance was taken by a white dwarf star.

The lead's partner was much smaller and about the size of the Earth,

Yet massively dense.

The smaller star's light was so dim that its presence was only detectable from Earth by the wobble it induced in the primary,

As well as slight dimming when it passed in front of it.

This cosy pas de deux had been going on for about 3.

5 billion years.

Way back then,

The lead dancer was about four times the mass of the Sun.

It ran out of fuel rapidly and expanded to become a red giant,

Fully enveloping its companion star as it did so.

So the smaller star lived fully inside the larger for quite some time and started to grow by taking stellar material from the lead.

Eventually,

The lead star outer layer blew away and it shrunk down again in size.

They then kept themselves to themselves,

Largely ignoring each other and minding their own business for millennia.

Their stable dance was interrupted,

Though,

About half a billion years ago by an interloper.

It was a red dwarf,

An innocent interstellar wanderer.

So-called space was littered with them.

This one was steered their way by the counsellors.

To a close onlooker,

Who had the time and long enough lifespan to watch,

The dance morphed into a pretty erratic affair.

The interloping star looked drunk,

Doing a crazy figure of eight around the other two.

Occasionally,

It made an extra circuit or three around the lead dancer.

It was in one of these encounters,

At its closest ever approach,

Its perihelion,

That it was tugged by the primary white dwarf ever so slightly into a new trajectory.

On the next figure of eight,

It would be sent off further out into space than it ever had been before.

Perhaps it felt rejected or lonely and wanted revenge.

When it eventually got pulled back from its apohelion,

Its furthest reach,

Back out into the cosmos,

It was heading straight for the centre of the companion secondary.

This had not happened before.

The impact initially tore both bodies apart.

As they were essentially made of the same stuff,

They did eventually coalesce,

After a turbulent salsa all of their own.

It was the primary star's turn to be jealous,

And it gave the new pairing the tiniest of extra gravitational tugs.

With their new combined mass and increased angular velocity,

This led to the new bastard star's orbit becoming elliptical and unstable.

It was on a path to finally bond with its mate after billions of years of flotation.

The collapse of the star system was so rapid,

And the spin so great,

That there was nothing to prevent the binary from collapsing into a black hole.

This was not a mere supernova.

It was a hypernova.

The resulting soul wave radiated out,

Spewing energy at the speed of light,

With heavier elements following at sub-light speeds.

Some stars and planets would be spared completely,

As this soul wave was not spherical,

But directed.

Some,

Within as much as a 300 light-year radius,

Were in for a tumultuous upheaval.

Chapter 3.

Waving Souls Even though the counsellors were all powerful and pervasive,

They could not influence matter or events in the density directly.

After all,

They were overseeing a universe where free will was part of the experiment.

They could,

Of course,

Perform all sorts of seemingly miraculous interventions.

They did this by way of controlling the timing and paths of soul waves.

Even by the 21st century,

Soul waves had not been conjectured,

And therefore not detected,

By humans.

Yet they felt their influence daily.

Only the Wu knew of their existence,

If not their actual source.

Soul waves were the attractive force that glued matter to matter.

At close range,

Atoms were forged into molecules by soul waves.

They provided the mechanism whereby soul mates bonded and unbonded.

Soul waves also bonded moons to planets,

Planets to stars,

And stars to stars,

To form clusters and whole galaxies.

Soul waves are strong in people who bump into other people they like and love all the time.

Those brought together by soul waves could never quite remember where,

When or why they met.

The counsellors saw to that.

While they could not influence a person,

A planet or a star directly,

They could control the timing of when people,

Planets and stars collided with each other.

When the counsellors wanted to exert the maximum amount of influence,

They operated at a stellar level.

When it was necessary to accelerate or halt or reverse the progress of evolution,

Stars would be required to die.

This was of course the mechanism whereby heavier elements were formed,

Which became the seeds for the formation of all life and the planets that it hung out on.

When the counsellors wanted to make direct interventions in the density,

An insertion was called for.

This allowed for much more direct upheaval,

And was a relatively simple and more controllable affair,

Compared to getting a star to explode.

Chapter 4.

Insertion The void and the density are essentially different,

Yet they are both part of the same one.

The void is not a place that used to exist from which the density was formed.

It is both integral and crucial for the density to exist and to keep on existing.

Before the density was formed,

There was no void.

There was just a seed notion.

Some of those stuck in the void longed for the adventure open to those in the density.

People who were bored with the density,

Or found it too hard going,

Longed to be absorbed back into the void.

The void is kind of purply blue,

With a lovely ambient temperature,

Not too hot and not too cold.

The void is the space between space,

And sits in a time between nanoseconds.

When you go back to it,

You feel warm,

Enveloped and safe.

You feel like you've gone back home,

And as if someone has wrapped you up snugly in cotton wool.

By way of contrast,

When you move around in the density,

The background temperature is a few degrees above absolute zero,

And you are forever being pulled by one gravitational force or the other.

Sometimes it's like wading through treacle.

When the density was created,

Along with all life and latterly incarnate sentience,

The Council of the Light came to be.

Each of the twelve councillors was selected for their particular experience in manipulating events in the density,

From their time in previous universes.

Their main purpose was to watch,

Supervise and learn,

But very occasionally they had to intervene directly.

It's about time,

Said Councillor Wong.

Making any statement about time was somewhat academic for the councillors.

For starters,

They could not even remember the sequence of events that brought them all together.

They just were.

This was not because they had bad memory,

But because when you sit anywhere and anywhere,

And everywhere and everywhere,

There is no concept of the past actually to remember.

Neither is there a future to plan or to wonder or worry about.

Everything just is.

All is whole and cyclical.

I knew it would be my turn,

Said Councillor Fore,

With a remembered sense of trepidation and excitement.

The councillors knew that living in the density involved pain and fear.

They also knew that in the density,

The ability to experience love balanced it all out.

You will be back in no time at all,

Chimed all the other eleven councillors in twinkly unison.

Each councillor appeared like a single point of light,

A pinprick,

Much like a bioluminescent phytoplankton that sparkled when speaking or thinking took place.

While infinitely small in size,

They were all each infinitely wise.

They had been in existence longer than time.

Insertions in the density are relatively rare but necessary,

Especially when a planet is going through a time of transition.

Most of the time,

Affairs in the density can be remotely managed through channels.

When a councillor descends,

The devil is in the detail and occurs when the minutiae of events in the density requires managing with some finesse.

When actual insertion is called for,

Entering the density is relatively easy Extraction is much more complicated and can be somewhat protracted.

Councillor 4 could not express his anger and disquiet at having to go back again.

Emotions were alien to a councillor in the void.

He had eidetic recall of all the events,

But could only remember,

Not emphasise with,

The actual emotions he had felt last time.

During his last insertion,

He remembered that he had been a child oracle and recalled the detail of the secrets he had passed on to the elders.

In their arrogance,

They intended to use this information for their own betterment.

This was unacceptable.

The remaining councillors had no option but to terminate Epoch 3.

Councillor 4 remembered experiencing the flow of time and the notion of how it appears to come to an end for humans when they die.

His last extraction was particularly messy as he had not quite ascended fully when the planet was obliterated.

At least the pain was fleeting and over in less than a heartbeat.

So,

Just as before,

Councillor 4 was inserted at the point of highest density closest to where the next incarnation was to play out.

Councillor 4 was inserted into a black hole at the centre of a star once again.

It took over 100,

000 sun orbits for the target planet,

The Earth,

In order for him to reach the star's surface.

This is,

Of course,

No time at all when you sit beyond time.

As Councillor 4 finally emerged on the sun's photosphere,

His high energy flared up in a few places to help the councillors locate the target planet.

These points of emergence looked like sunspots to anyone who was paying attention.

After a sun rotation or so,

Councillor 4's crackled energies fused together and could no longer be held even by the sun's immense gravity and his essence was sent earthbound in a coronal mass ejection.

This was one of the most special forms for a soul wave to ever manifest in the density.

During the transition,

Councillor 4 sat half in the void and half in the density.

The transit time to Earth on board the coronal mass ejection was around two Earth days.

As the blue-green disk became discernible from the background carpet of stars,

The memories of mortal fears came to meet him.

For starters,

Crossing interplanetary space was lonely.

There was no direct contact with the other councillors,

Other than a vague memory of the warmth of the void.

For most of the trip,

The Earth was just a blue-green dot and there was a sense of having been cast off alone into the blackness of space.

As the blue-green dot became a sphere,

The travelling soul essence felt comforted that his path was indeed going to intersect with the Earth's orbit.

He entered the Earth's noosphere,

Or what Earthlings call their North Pole.

On the night of arrival,

The northern lights were spectacular.

They could be seen as far south as New York,

Madrid and Beijing.

His arrival even tripped the electrical grid in Canada.

As the energy from the CME was absorbed and integrated with the Earth's magnetic field,

It was at this point in the insertion that Councillor Thor's pre-programming took full effect.

He forgot everything about where he came from and why he was sent.

For the councillors remaining behind,

The gap between Councillor Thor's insertion and extraction would take no time at all.

Before insertion,

Councillor Thor knew all aspects of his mission in detail.

He also knew that once incarnate,

He would carry the burden of an overwhelming sense of being abandoned.

Only when extraction was complete would this burden lift.

The essence of Councillor Thor was transferred to the head of the best of Huey's spermatozoa just before it fused with Gia's egg in a flash of light.

The remaining councillors breathed a sigh of relief.

Not that they could actually breathe.

The timings had been exquisite.

I'm pregnant,

Declared Gia,

Just as Huey withdrew from her.

He knew not to question a woo.

After 11 years of marriage and many failed attempts,

Even he had a sense something was different that night.

The appearance of the Aurora Borealis that far south,

Even viewable on the evening of a bright supermoon,

Seemed to be the trigger for Gia.

Their small house in Fragrant Hills Park could not have had a better view of that evening's cosmic weirdness.

Their first floor bedroom had two windows.

Before Gia dragged Huey to their conjugal bed,

He had been looking through the east-facing window at the sprawling metropolis of Beijing.

Bathed in the ethereal non-light of the moon.

At the same time,

Gia had been transfixed by the Aurora,

Clearly visible through the smaller north-facing and non-opening window.

She was mesmerised by the swaying of the green and red dancing hues of light.

While Huey fell into a deep post-coital slumber,

Gia began an inner dialogue and initiation with the newly arrived soul.

Welcome,

Little one,

She whispered under her breath.

We will look after you.

You are safe.

The newly arrived soul knew nothing of this,

But nonetheless was relieved to be somewhere warm and relatively safe.

As the egg started to divide and the notichord formed,

The soul attachment got stronger and stronger until the point of birth.

Full entry into the density was successfully achieved exactly nine moon orbits later.

It was on the 8th April 2058 when Gia gave birth to her baby boy in a birthing pool in their bedroom,

Appropriately bathed in the non-light of another full moon.

She was ably assisted by Akiko,

A doula who hailed from Japan.

Gia had met Akiko at university in Kyoto and they had become great friends ever since.

Gia and Akiko had been in trance for eight hours preceding the birth,

And Gia knew of the pain but didn't acknowledge it.

After the cord was cut,

Akiko handed her the baby.

Gia stared into a boy's one green eye and one blue eye as Huey entered the room.

He had heard the screams,

So knew their baby had arrived.

Gia sensed deep wisdom coming back from those eyes as Huey entered,

And she declared,

We will call him Shen.

Look,

Huey,

Even now he is deep in thought.

Huey knew not to argue and was actually quite relieved he had nothing to do with the naming.

Like Gia,

He was in rapture that they at last had a baby,

And he was looking forward to showing their boy the secrets of the cosmos.

For the last nine months,

Gia had been hatching other plans for him.

Akiko had finished cleaning up and tactically withdrew,

Saying she'd be back in the morning.

Gia,

Huey and Shen spent their first night together.

Shen slept peacefully and quietly,

So Gia and Huey did too.

Like most parents,

Gia and Huey had no idea of their baby's true origin,

And,

As for all such insertions,

Shen was programmed to forget too.

As Shen gained more awareness of his surroundings,

Gia did start to suspect he was something special though,

A natural-born Wu perhaps,

Although this was rare for a male.

The first tell-tale signs were silent,

And Gia alone felt them.

Gia would receive a visual thought-form of the hole of her own nipple being suckled by his mouth.

The standard auto-drip came shortly after.

Shen developed at a pace that heightened parental bragging rights.

He was crawling at just four months and quickly got on his feet in his seventh month.

He'd progressed from spluttering mama and dada to actually saying Gia and Huey well before his first birthday.

He was putting short sentences together before he was two.

He was a happy baby,

With a smile as eye-catching as his thick shock of dark hair.

He hardly ever cried,

Apart from when his teeth appeared.

He'd given Gia and Huey a new sense of purpose,

And brought them together at a time when their paths were starting to diverge.

Ning Xiangbo was only sleeping sporadically,

As her research time on Dongting Lake was fast running out.

She'd been awake since 2am,

And already knew it was going to be another of those days when the mist never lifted.

Midday would only be marginally brighter than dawn and dusk.

She had not seen a glimpse of the aurora that the vast majority of humanity was enjoying.

The gloom didn't bother Ning,

As all her attention was focused on what was going on beneath the surface of the lake.

Her eyes were fixed on the sonar screen,

And her ears tuned to the ultrasonics coming from the underwater microphones.

Ning was on the cusp of fame and glory.

Her PhD thesis would make her name worldwide.

She was engaging in conversation with dolphins.

Just prior to her return visit to the lake,

She'd worked out how to trick the dolphins into thinking they were talking to another pod.

As far as she knew,

The pod of three she'd been tracking for four summers now were the last remaining bargy.

They were thought to have gone extinct by the start of the century,

But she had discovered this pod by accident five years ago while on a walking holiday around the lake.

The pod seemed healthy enough,

And she was hoping that each summer,

When she returned,

That they would have bred.

The male and female just had one pup,

A male.

She had hours and hours of recordings,

And in the intervening years since her first visit,

She had been able to extract their signatures into three separate voices.

By playing a single voice back,

With a little frequency and phase shifting,

It seemed to elicit a response from the pod,

Mainly from the lead male.

She seemed to be able to talk to them alright,

But had no idea yet what they,

Or what she,

Were saying.

When Patter,

The male,

Had first heard the distinctive voices of his wife and child,

He thought he was going mad.

They were clearly next to him,

But he could tell their voices were coming from a distance.

It was Tamu,

His life partner,

Who sussed out where they were coming from.

It will be from that kind human on the boat,

She clicked.

Dolphins not only had an innate ability to sense if other species were friend or foe,

But also knew their intent.

Well,

If she wants to talk,

We should reply,

Announced Patter.

He'd been spending the days joyfully teaching the human the full range of the dolphin language,

By telling her the full history of the Baji.

This went back millions of years,

Well before Epoch 5 started.

He even let slip where they went when the humans thought they'd gone extinct,

Knowing their secret was safe.

Tamu thought his behaviour was a little childish,

But as there wasn't long left,

Let him get on with it.

Their son Baku was confused at where all the voices were coming from,

And just snuggled up to his mother.

It was coming towards dusk,

On that day when Patter had told the whole history of their species,

Up to the present day.

He finished by saying,

We've really got to go now,

But we loved talking to you.

Ning had no idea of the richness of her treasure trove of recordings.

She was just pleased that they were talking.

She had another month on the lake before she had to navigate down the Yangtze to Wuhan,

And was sure she would be able to deconstruct the basis of single words at the very least.

The pod stopped responding to her transmissions,

So she prepared herself a late lunch,

Around what was supper time.

She had been so absorbed that she'd forgotten she was hungry.

She ate noodles made less bland with the addition of some grenadier anchovies she'd caught the day before.

This genus was one that she'd introduced to the lake some years ago,

As part of another research project.

She was literally benefiting from the fruits of her own research.

She was up on deck,

Having moved her boat nearer to where she thought the pod would be,

Hoping for another sighting.

In the gloom,

She could see some disturbance on the surface.

At first it was just some bubbles that seemed to be luminescent blue.

Then the surface became really agitated,

And she dropped her bowl of food when the sonar alarmed.

She skipped down the four steps into her lab area,

And headed over to the sonar screen.

The three blobs she'd been tracking were gone.

She did a quick calculation.

They could only travel 20 kilometres an hour at maximum speed,

And it was 30 minutes since she'd last seen them.

She widened the scan out a kilometre at a time,

To 10 kilometres.

Nothing.

Where have you gone?

She screamed to an empty lake.

Chapter 7.

Epoch Ends At the same time the surface of the lake was bubbling,

The council chamber was awash with twinkling lights.

Probabilities and potentialities were bouncing around between the 11 remaining councillors,

As they were tapping into all possible futures for the forthcoming Epoch 6.

The councillors had made use of the dolphins' ability to teleport many times in the past.

It was how they had transferred sentience to planet Earth,

With the seeds for the Epoch 5 civilisation coming from the remnants of Epoch 4 on Mars.

The land-based sentiences that had caused all the trouble had been terminated.

It was yet another experiment that didn't go quite as planned.

After the dolphins ported from Mars to the Earth's oceans,

They helped confer their self-awareness to the noosphere around the Earth.

A million or so years later they crawled out of the ocean to sow the seeds for humankind.

Initial matings with proto-humanoids were somewhat messy,

But necessary.

It was somewhat ironic that some 2 million years later,

Ning could not communicate with the sentiences from which she came.

This was,

Of course,

Because she was tuned into completely the wrong channel.

The councillors knew how they would use teleportation again,

Within just a few Earth centuries,

To begin the process of re-synthesis.

This time they would be more innovative and subtle.

The coming together would be more joyful and natural.

When Pata,

Tamu and Baku had safely densified back on Aqua 9,

Councillor 1 pronounced,

The seeds for Epoch 6 are sown.

Extra care was needed at Epoch ends,

As this was the only time that two sentient planets in the one galaxy are allowed during the period of the transition.

It was vital that their inhabitants never met unless closely monitored by the councillors.

Chapter 8.

Two Places.

2060.

49 years left.

Huey wasn't sure if he was more annoyed at Shen for doing it,

Or at Jia for not telling him.

Just think how this will accelerate his learning,

Jia said,

To mollify him.

She was not aware that the councillors liked to use this mechanism for accelerating advancement in the density.

That morning,

Huey was letting Shen design his first orrery.

He was so proud of how his three-year-old son was open to learning about subjects he'd not even known about until he was a teenager.

Jia had noticed how homeschooling of Shen was giving Huey a new lease of life.

That morning,

Though,

Things were not going smoothly,

And Shen was having a rare tantrum.

He was insisting that there should be a planet between Mars and Jupiter,

And got really upset that Huey wouldn't let him put it in the model.

Mum,

Tell him please,

Shen wailed.

But Mummy isn't here,

Huey explained.

She is,

I'm holding her hand,

Shin insisted.

When Jia got home,

And after supper,

When Shen was tucked up in bed,

Huey told Jia about his puzzling behaviour.

Jia thought it best to spill the beans,

As she had known about it for some months now.

So he gets to spend time with both of us at the same time,

Said Huey.

And you're positive by the time he goes to school it will stop?

Well it did for me,

She said.

Jia knew Shen's natural tendency to bilocate would pass.

Huey was at least grateful that Jia had shared one of the innate rules for bilocation with Shen.

Thankfully Shen was able not to be seen by the same person,

At the same time,

In two places.

So you can still do this then,

Huey asked,

As Jia was collecting the dishes.

She clanked the cutlery,

Pretended she didn't hear,

And quickly changed the subject.

Yu Yan wants me to teach her how to heal,

And is talking about opening a school up here in the gardens,

Replied Jia.

I knew it.

This is why we moved here,

He said.

It's about time your talents were recognised.

Huey knew he'd have to revisit the bilocation conversation,

And they chatted about this possible new opportunity until it was time for bed.

Chapter 9.

Orreries.

2060.

49 years left.

Shen had chosen well.

Shen's father,

Huey,

Was a Three Deer.

His mother,

Jia,

Came from a long line of Wu.

Like many from the secret elite class,

They lived on the outskirts of Fragrant Hills Park,

About 30km northwest of Beijing.

Their parents had moved there in the 20s,

To get to the fresh air above the smog of the city sprawl.

When Shen was born in 2058,

Humanity had mostly seen sense,

And the use of hydrocarbons had all but been phased out.

All cars were now electric.

Nobody really owned one outright,

And they were widely shared between neighbours and fellow workers.

Electricity was 95% generated from solar,

Wind or tides,

With the rest coming from nuclear sources that were planned to be phased out by the end of the 70s.

Roof tiles,

Car roofs,

Bonnets and boots,

And many roads all generated electricity these days.

Planes had all but stopped flying,

And virtually all long-distance travel on land was via maglev.

Across seas and oceans,

People travelled by tubeways.

The atmosphere had been restored to pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

They could now see Beijing clearly once again.

This was an amazing achievement for humanity,

Made largely possible by the passing of the old guard from the fear-driven 20th century.

The new breed of politicians were much more driven by the prospect of making the world a better place than petty divisions of opinion.

All in all,

Humanity was getting itself sorted,

And settling in wisely and gently to a newly found role of planetary stewardship.

Shen had landed on his feet at the right place and at the right time.

Jia was held in high regard by those in high places.

There weren't many dis-eases she couldn't alleviate.

She was blessed with the touch.

She had shot to prominence in her late 20s,

When she saved the life of President Miang's wife,

Niu Yan,

Who was suffering from a brain tumour at the top of her spinal column.

It was thought to be inoperable.

Like many Wu,

Jia was able to see through space and time.

Like shamans from all the world's metaphysical traditions,

She was able to peer through the veil of the 4% material world and to perceive and to manipulate the missing 96%.

She was able to see Niu Yan's lower brain stem before the tumour started to grow,

As well as after it was cured.

It looked like a black fog to her,

Which was sucking the life energy from Niu Yan's surrounding brain tissue,

Almost like a black hole of a tumour.

After just three sessions,

Jia had vaporised the tumour by replacing it with healthy neurons and tissue from Niu Yan's past and future brain.

This was just one of the skills of a shamanka,

And Jia's particular speciality.

Weather manipulation was also something she'd been taught by her grandmother.

The result of this intervention meant that the Wu would now be able to operate more openly,

As they got the backing from on high.

This gave Jia the admiration of her peers,

As they had been working in secret for hundreds of years.

They were less pleased that she would now be teaching non-Wu surgeons the secrets of how to perceive and manipulate the morphogenic field.

The resulting merging of allopathic medicine with the healing arts had the potential to increase average life expectancy by the end of the century to well over 120 years.

In time,

Use of the scalpel would become less and less necessary.

Jia really wanted to teach Shen the art of the Wu as soon as he was able,

But from the age of three,

His attention was drawn to his father's world.

She knew not to worry,

As he was clearly gifted,

And often the gift skipped a generation.

Yui's work also made a huge contribution to increasing both human and animal longevity.

He was one of China's leading authorities on 3D printing,

And had coined the term 3Dir,

And opened the 3Dir Academy based at Beijing University.

His speciality was in printing soft,

Bendable and porous body parts.

In the early 20th century,

3D printing of long-lasting bones became viable.

Yui started first with heart valves,

But had progressed to creating complete working ears for the profoundly deaf.

At the time Shen was born,

He was busy perfecting an artificial retina and lens combination.

His idea was not only to let the blind see,

But also to enable them to zoom in.

He had no idea that those who could see perfectly well would start requesting his lens implants before the century was out.

Yui only had to take the cable car to university to teach two days a week,

Which gave him time to share with Shen his real passion,

Which was creating 3D orreries.

Shen learned that the term was the tip of the hat to the fourth Earl of Orrery who lived in the 18th century.

The Irish Earl had a clockmaker create for him a mechanical model of the solar system,

Which to this day remained on display in England's Museum of the History of Science.

Of course,

Yui's 3D orreries took everything up several notches.

Not only did they help astronomers envisage the local solar system,

But also those of far-off worlds.

The rendering of detail on the central stars and planets was done using holographic projectors.

This meant that the local planets could be rendered in real time,

Using data from orbiting satellites and probes.

Sunspots and flares graced the sun's surface.

He could also display what was happening in the non-visible parts of the spectra.

The solar system took on a whole new light when seen in infrared and ultraviolet.

What really intrigued and captured the attention of Shen,

From the age he could walk,

Was when Yui changed the holographic display to show the magnetic field lines of the solar system.

Shen loved seeing how the solar wind distorted the magnetospheres of Venus,

Mars and the Earth into teardrops.

Yui had even rendered the magnetic mixing points from each planet back onto the sun's surface.

Shen watched these dances for hours.

He could also see how the outer gaseous planets radiated back in towards the inner rocky planets and the sun.

What Yui had been able to display meant astrologers had been onto something all along,

But had merely failed to interpret the data.

Weather patterns on Earth and tectonic movements were affected by what was going on in the heavens.

Had Yui looked down at his own orrery just over three years ago,

He might even have seen Shen coming.

Yui's 3D orreries were in high demand worldwide and meant he really didn't have to work these days.

People paid him good money to download his templates so they could build their own orreries locally.

Real-time holographic mapping data was only provided at low resolution though,

With detail reserved for academia and research.

His templates were not limited to the solar system.

He had made thousands of planetary systems available from right across the galaxy.

The virtually unlimited discovery of more and more solar systems kept Yui busy and in daily wonderment at the combinations and permutations for a viable solar system.

Despite the incredible resolution of the Chinese telescopes in orbit and the detection and mapping of hundreds of thousands of solar systems,

Not one inner rocky planet had been yet observed with a viable Earth-like atmosphere.

Yui's real dream was that his models would lead to the discovery of life elsewhere in the cosmos.

He knew he was close.

Chapter 10.

Big Data Yui and Jie were well aware that Shen was different from when he was a toddler.

The biolocations had indeed abated when he started preschool and mixing with others of his same age.

Shen was blissfully unaware he'd ever been in two places at the same time.

Yui did allow him to insert the missing planet in his orrery and this seemed to paper over the incidents when Shen got so upset.

Shen was also unaware and wouldn't remember that many times when watching Yui's orreries they started up automatically even though they weren't actually powered up.

It unsettled Yui at first until Jie told him that she found she could control her father's iPad with her mind when she was a toddler too.

The Wu took this kind of thing for granted.

It was only manipulation of the soul waves in the quantum gaps after all.

From the age of four,

Shen began attending the new Fragrant Hills Academy along with the son of President Miang and Yu Yang.

So he was in good and elevated company right from the start.

He was given a tutor,

Madame Bian,

Who would act as his scholastic guide until he left the academy for Beijing University.

Madame Bian was strict but had a fabulous sense of humour and an insight for the optimal direction in which to point Shen.

She seemed to be able to open doors for him and pull strings with ease.

When Jie and Yui realised this they stopped interfering though naturally they were quite sad to only see Shen on weekends as the academy,

Despite being only a few kilometres away on the other side of the park,

Had a strict weekday boarding policy.

It became obvious that mathematics was Shen's forte from the get-go.

Madame Bian had to draft in tutors from the university when Shen was nine as he surpassed the expertise of the academy's top teachers.

His grasp of mathematics gave him a head start when it came to the sciences too.

Madame Bian also ensured he gained a fluency in the English language and an appreciation of the arts and natural science.

She knew that when an extra bright student appeared the constancy of a guide was essential so they wouldn't get too full of themselves.

Despite his obvious genius,

Shen kept his humility and never let it go to his head.

He was popular with the other children,

Not least as he helped many of them with their homework,

Especially the boys who might otherwise bully him.

Jia and Huey were quite diminutive in stature,

Both an identical 165 centimetres high.

By the time Shen was 11,

He'd outgrown them both in size and in needing their support and input.

Like his father,

He'd even started an online business selling 3D designs around the world.

His 3D fractals had a beauty that was remarkable for someone of his tender years.

The algorithm he designed seeded each pattern so that every single one turned out to be unique.

This is why they were so thought after.

His bank account grew each month as he had nothing to pay for at school.

So he took it upon himself to start paying rent to his parents for letting him stay at their house.

They were proud and thankful,

Knowing their only child was making his own way in the world.

By the time he was 12,

Jia had mentally cut the ethereal cord that still tied them.

As Shen began to make his mark in the density,

She knew he'd already lost him to his studies.

At just 15,

Shen started his maths degree.

With the same kind of sadness Jia had when Madame Bien took over Shen's academic reins,

Madame Bien shed a tear when Shen left for the university to fall under the tutelage of Professor Cheng.

Analysis of big data was Professor Cheng's thing.

What shot Cheng to prominence was his postgraduate thesis,

Which predicted that the conversion to devolved energy production could repay its capital investment globally within 20 years.

His research compared the cost of maintaining traditional localised power generation and distribution and took no account of additional spin-off benefits from the environment.

Wind farms and massive solar arrays would become redundant as every building and every vehicle became its own power source.

Energy generation would become embedded in the fabric of every human-made object,

Including their clothes,

Hats and shoes.

Cheng had become the youngest ever professor of the maths department at the age of 28.

He loved a gnarly problem and also tested the limits and skills of his protégés by giving them seemingly impossible tests.

He had a long list of challenges that were eclectic and seemingly pointless.

He was driven by the intuition that answers were hidden in the questions nobody had ever thought to ask.

Cheng was dating,

On and off,

The professor of oceanography,

Lian Huang.

They met as undergraduates and saw each other when their schedules allowed,

Which tended to be in between semesters on the rare times that Lian was on dry land.

The last time they met,

Overlooking the ocean in Shanghai,

Lian had mentioned something that piqued Cheng's interest.

There are far fewer whales and dolphins than we would expect these days.

The number of cetaceans had been decimated through hunting and the practice of drift netting in the 20th century.

Since both practices had been banned in the 40s,

With even the Japanese and Norwegians seeing sense at last,

The numbers had been on the rise.

This is what concerned Lian.

Lian observed,

The reef reduction rates are well known,

But there are not only less pups than we'd expect,

But many less adults too.

We've got no idea where they're hiding.

Cheng sat on big data problems that didn't interest him personally and that he suspected were unfathomable.

So when Cheng arrived,

Cheng lost no time in passing along this conundrum to him.

Cheng,

In turn,

Lost no time getting stuck in.

His formal lessons gave him the techniques he needed.

His personal fortune meant he could fund his own travel during out-of-town time.

As soon as the first summer recessed hit,

He hopped on a maglev to Shanghai to meet with Professor Huang.

From there,

He left China's shores for the first time.

Tubeways criss-crossed the oceans,

Carrying electromagnetically-pulled pods that could get you from one side of the Pacific to the other in half the time a plane could ever have flown across.

The only planes flying these days were electrically-powered and used to access remote areas,

Either by the military or the emergency services.

There were many unmanned drones,

Too,

Used for scientific monitoring purposes.

The biggest downside to tubeways was the utter lack of a view.

The pods had no windows,

As the tubeway was anchored several metres below the surface with its superconducting propulsion system ingeniously powered by ocean currents.

So Cheng's crossing to the Monterey Institute of Oceanography was uneventful.

What he discovered on the other side was not so,

Not least as he ended up losing his virginity to an intriguing researcher named Monique Armstrong,

Who was 12 years his elder.

Apart from her carnal enthusiasm for visiting students,

Monique was also passionate about studying whales.

For the last 12 years,

She'd personally supervised the counting of the number of migrating greys going south past Monterey in late autumn and back up north to Alaska in spring.

She gave Cheng full access to her data,

And it took Cheng no time at all to ask why the numbers didn't always add up.

Their shop talk was often interrupted,

Considering that Monique also gave Cheng full access to her body.

She was as generous as he was eager to learn.

Over breakfast,

After a long night of lovemaking,

Cheng bravely asked Monique,

So if you knew the counts had errors,

Why have you never flagged it?

Well,

We wouldn't like to lose our funding if anyone thought we couldn't even count,

She answered.

Some of our tracking devices seemed to fail too and go completely off-grid.

We didn't report this either in case the funding to design and maintain them got cut.

There seems to be a particularly big discrepancy in 2069,

Said Cheng.

Monique answered,

Yes,

That year I was under the weather for most of spring and left my assistant in charge of the counting team.

Although only at the end of the first year of his course,

Cheng's intuition flagged that this needed looking into some more.

He had taken heed to Cheng's warnings from early lectures that incisive big data analysis is only as good as the accuracy of small data entry.

What about the counts before you took over,

He said.

Probably best if I give you access to the archives,

She said,

Knowing he wasn't planning to publish the data per se or carry out any exposé.

Cheng downloaded the data he needed and some that he didn't,

Just in case,

All for later reference.

He didn't want to waste a minute in Monterey on analysis.

He was more interested in experimentation,

Knowing that his time under Monique would soon be over.

Cheng had no way of knowing it yet,

But his innate skills as a Wu extended to sex.

While others would fumble with fingers and limbs,

Cheng had a way of breathing into Monique's body that would make her skin alive.

It didn't take long for Cheng to grasp that she was a power source and he was literally connecting into it.

A couple of days later,

With a mix of longing and goodwill,

Monique and Cheng slowly kissed each other goodbye at the Tubeway terminal.

They both knew it was the end of a glorious summer and they might not see each other again.

Monique remembered how there was something different about Cheng from the start.

He seemed much older than his 10 to 16 years and she didn't have any pangs of guilt.

When on board the Tubeway,

Cheng sharpened his focus and plunged into analysis mode.

He had data that showed reduced counts of whales returning back up north to Alaska after breeding and giving birth in the warmer waters off the coast of Mexico.

He felt sure the discrepancies were larger than the data showed and it wasn't just Monique that had fudged the data.

By the time he got off the Tubeway in Shanghai,

He'd correlated the data sets and seen that the biggest anomalies occurred every 10 to 12 years.

A quick search gave the probable factor of causation.

By the time he got off the maglev in Beijing,

He was keyed up to meet with Professor Cheng.

There were no hellos,

No how was your trip or how did it go.

As soon as Cheng walked into Cheng's office and before he sat down,

He blurted out,

It's something to do with the sun.

At this point in time,

Neither Cheng or Cheng knew humanity had 35 years left.

Reviews

Great story exclamation point hope to hear the rest of it soon

This has totally expanded my mind! I think I’m going to have interesting dreams tonight. 🙏✨🪐🌎

Great to hear the audio and be reminded of this great book. Looking forward to meeting you too Tom! ✨✨

Intriguing, mesmerizing and
wonder-ful! The ambient music is the perfect backdrop to this amazing story. I've been wondering about the origin of the counselors and what they're up to☺️ I'm looking forward to listening to the next installment. Thank you Tom!