“As in extra sensory perception?” Nadia scoffed. Gone was the vulnerable woman he had laid in bed with only hours ago. She was a scientist again, as hard, cold and full of conviction as ever.
“Like Ben said, it would explain the legends about the Moon Mask,” Sid suggested. “Perhaps also explain why all the people who could see the future through it were men, if they have this ‘broader’ perspective of spatial awareness.”
“See the future?” Heinrich repeated with a startled frown. While being given access to information on the tachyon radiation he didn’t have the full story.
“It would also explain the indications of tumours in the remains you found,” Raine suggested. “The same area of Kha’um and Pryce’s brains were stimulated by the tachyons, making it hypersensitive and over time the tumours formed.”
“And there are also a hundred and one other explanations for all those assumptions. Much more plausible explanations as well, I might add,” Nadia snapped, fed up with having to repeat her argument. “ESP is a myth, created by fortune tellers and New Age cults. Whether the Parietal Lobe is hypersensitive or not, it is simply not possible for the human brain to receive sensory input beyond the five senses, and certainly not from the future.”
“Nadia,” Raine argued. “I’m no New Age hippy, clairvoyant or guru who believes in fortune telling, crystal balls and tarot cards, but I have seen extra sensory perception with my own eyes, a sixth sense which has saved others’ lives and my life. I’ve seen soldiers jump out of the path of a hidden sniper’s bullet without any warning. I’ve seen soldiers halt their foot an inch above a perfectly concealed, invisible landmine that they couldn’t have known was there.”
“All of which can be explained through a combination of intense training and primal instinct.”
“Scientists conducted experiments of gamblers a few years back and proved that they were able to predict what cards were going to be shown three seconds before they were turned over. That’s a fact, Nadia. In 2011, a well-known and highly respected scientist published his findings in an equally well respected journal. His conclusions were similar to the gambler test, only this time using volunteers from the public. He measured their responses to a number of cards, some with pleasant images, and some with shockingly violent images. Again, all his subjects seemed to know when a violent image was going to be revealed and braced themselves for it.”
“How do you know all this?” Gibbs asked, shocked at the former soldier’s sudden scientific knowledge.
He grinned enigmatically. “I’m not just a pretty face you know.”
“I have read those studies,” Heinrich added. “Their findings have been disputed.”
“But not proven to be wrong,” Raine argued. “In fact, the only firm arguments I could find on the internet were pretty lame assertions that ‘ESP is not possible’ without putting forward any compelling counter-evidence.” He spoke over Nadia who tried to raise an objection. “If you look back through the historical record, just about every culture in the world has shared a belief in fortune telling — yogis in India, shamans, witch doctors, Native Americans, Romany Gypsies, Maori, Australian Aborigines. The strongest, largest faiths in the world today, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, are all based on the prophetic teachings of what, at the core of it, are fortune tellers.
“In the Asian Tsunami in 2004, did you know only a handful of animals were killed? The rest, everything from the hundreds of stray cats and dogs, to domestic pets, to horses and even elephants giving tourists rides on the beaches, went berserk and ran inland hours before the wave hit, hours before humans with all of there sophisticated technology knew anything about the danger that claimed thousands of lives. Tell me that’s not extra sensory perception.”
“Animals are more primal than humans,” Nadia countered. “More in-tune with their surroundings—”
“Precisely!” Raine cut her off triumphantly. “More primal! More in-tune with their surroundings! More sensitive?” He didn’t allow her to answer his question. “I would say that to know that a giant wave was hurtling towards them, hundreds of miles beyond the limits of their vision, their hearing or any of their other senses, they’d have to be hyper-sensitive to their surroundings. To see the danger before it even exists. Hypersensitive! Just like Ben is now. Just like Kha’um and Pryce must have been after the tachyons had excited the synapses in their brains.
“Even the American and Russian governments became so paranoid about the national security threat posed by people with ESP that they commissioned departments to combat and exploit psychic warfare, just as I’m sure the Chinese and the British and all the other major powers have done. In the seventies, the CIA commissioned Project Stargate in response to the Soviets’ own psychic warfare division.”
“Raine,” Gibbs cautioned.
“Relax, it was made public knowledge a few years back,” he said. In truth, it was from his own, far more recent dealings with Project Stargate, shortly before he went on the run, from which his knowledge of ESP originated. But that was a story for another day.
“Project Stargate,” Heinrich said, “was developed to exploit Remote Viewing; the ability of ‘psychics’ to spy on locations in the heart of Moscow from the comfort of a lab in the centre of Washington.”
“That’s right.”
“But it was disbanded in the nineties and the findings made public.”
“That’s bull shit.” His unexpected vulgarity caught everyone by surprise. “Like all the great secrets of nations, they make public only what they want to make public, they throw a bone to the conspiracy theorists out there and say ‘yes, you were right, we were experimenting with psychic warfare, but no, you’re wrong, we weren’t successful. Look at Roswell, look at JFK, Project Rainbow, 9/11…” he glanced at King and added with a smile, “look at Elvis. The more they reveal the truth, the more they’re concealing the lie.”
“Raine,” Gibbs growled.
“I’m not saying anything that can’t be found on the internet, Gibbs,” he snapped back. “My point is, there is evidence that Stargate has continued to this day. There are reports that CIA operatives even learned to kill a sheep just with the power of their mind.”
Nadia burst out laughing. “Nate, this is going too far.”
“I’m not saying I believe everything I’ve read,” he defended himself, unable to shake the image of CIA Director Jason Briggs out of his head. The rumour in the CIA was that he could kill you with a stare, obviously stemming from his stormy temper and ability to end careers, or even lives, with a nod of his head. He should know, after all. He had killed enough people under the Director’s un-spoken orders.
“I’m just saying that maybe you scientists,” he concluded, “the ones that can reveal so much about the world, should keep an open mind! Psychics have been used by police forces around the world in missing person cases. They’ve been employed by private detectives, by military forces, by professional gamblers and Wall Street Stock Brokers—”