Chapter 65: Slowing Time

Cynthia Denison was confused. What had just happened? She had just met this dynamo of a young woman—how old? Denise had told her that she was around eighteen and was scary, both scary smart but also could be completely intimidating at times. When their hands touched, Cindy had felt a spark of something, kind of like the feeling of recognizing someone you knew a long time ago. And something deep inside her made her sense that she indeed did know Tamara, on some deeper level. But Tamara was speaking now.

“Cindy ... It’s great meeting you after hearing about you lots from Denise, but did you feel that sensation of recognition?”

“Ahh, good to meet you too, Tamara; Kevin and Denise told me just how impressive you are ... but you said ‘recognition’? Was that the feeling I got?”

“Oh sure. You probably don’t feel it, but your psyche has the imprint of a spirit being and the impression I got is that it’s very similar to spirits I’ve sensed in someone from Denmark ... Okay, you’ll think this is a weird question, but tell me, do you have any Norse relatives in your ancestry? I’m sensing a warrior presence in you.”

Cindy looked for a chair and sat down.

“Wow. This is heavy. A warrior?” Tamara nodded and told her to go on. “I guess I am; Dad’s a Marine and I’ve always tried to emulate him ... I suppose that’s how I approach life, aggressively. But what do you mean by ‘spirits’?”

Tamara briefly explained about the Vodou lwas and Greta’s own protectors, and how they weren’t really “present” in the sense of a physical presence, but the potentiality of their attributes seemed to be part of her and Greta’s psyche. And in a somewhat weaker sense, those potentialities were present in her mom’s, dad’s, Peter’s, and now in Cindy’s case.

“Our Haitian warrior lwa, Ogorin, has given me some of his attributes and that allowed me to see a corresponding characteristic in you. Do you know if you have Nordic ancestors? Where’s your family from?”

“Huh. Let me think. Dad said that the family emigrated here from Scotland in the eighteenth century and lived in North Carolina at first. He said that there were lots of Scots that went there from the Highlands. They were farmers.”

“Do you know your family history from Scotland? I’m asking ‘cause Peter’s Danish grandmom told me that people who have this ... um ... aura of a ‘presence’ like you do must have had ancestors who were somehow linked to a form of spirituality in some way. Hey, we’ll need to talk about this later. I’ve pulled you away from the others; let’s go see what’s up with them.”

They walked over to the group and found out what was up with them: they were discussing why Tamara had pulled Cindy away so abruptly.

“I found out that Cindy’s a bit like Greta, Peter, and she’s similar to you, as far as the spirit ‘presences’ are concerned,” Tamara told them. “I had already told Denise and Kevin about how that works.”

Denise looked at Tamara and then Cindy. Then she looked at Peter and back to Cindy.

“I do see something in Peter. It’s different somehow than when we first met. More ... focused? Assured? Stronger somehow,” Denise said slowly. “And I do see a really powerful internal strength in Cindy, but I always thought that was her personality...” she went on.

“Oh, but that’s exactly what it is,” Tamara told her. “That’s her psychic response to her association to that spiritual stimulus. It’s like Peter’s but more developed; more integrated into her personality. Peter’s has only recently been formed.”

Peter had been staring intently at Cindy, so she looked at him, asking, “Something wrong?”

“Ah, no, no. You just look so familiar,” Peter said, embarrassed. “Can’t place it. Maybe someone I knew. No big deal.”

“Yeah, that happens to me too. It’s fine,” Cindy assured him.

“So who’s ‘Greta’?” Denise asked.

“My grandmom. On Dad’s side,” Peter responded. “She’s an anthropologist but also a seeress in the ancient Norse religion.”

“I was asking Cindy about her ancestors from before they came to the U.S.,” Tamara explained. “That’s why I grabbed her; I wanted to find out her background. Finding this out is exciting.”

“Say, Cindy, that sounds really interesting,” Tom put in. “I’ll bet you’d like to know too, right?” Cindy nodded. “Got an idea. Could you see if your dad is free now? I think you should call him and see if he knows about his family history.”

Cindy made the call but had to leave a message. The group remained in the lounge, talking about things—one big thing was Tamara’s experience with her attempted blackmail. She gave an edited account, leaving out the NSA’s role and attributing the incident to industrial espionage. Then about noon, they went to lunch.

After lunch, Denise suggested a swim, and Cindy chuckled, “Yeah, damn, okay. Can’t stand the wet suits, but okay.”

“A real convert there, isn’t she?” Tom smirked to a grinning Denise and Kevin, while the others looked puzzled.

Then Barbara exclaimed, “Oh! Wet suits! Don’t tell me—you guys nudists?”

That was a revelation for both sets of friends—having nudism in common. That led to Cindy sharing her own introduction to nudism and how she and Tom got Denise and Kevin involved. And then Tamara and her friends found out that Cindy and Tom sometimes visited Emma’s Maryland nudist resort outside Annapolis. They were in Kevin and Denise’s room, getting ready to change for the pool, when Cindy’s dad returned her phone call. She turned on the speaker.

“Hi, Dad. Something came up about my ancestry. It’s complicated, but it has to do with my aggressive personality trait. A new friend here has some insights and she thinks that it’s genetic and has to do with our family’s ancestors. Let me introduce you to our new friends. Kevin and Denise are here too.”

They both called, “Hello, Stuart!” and he answered their greetings.

Cindy continued, “Our new friends are Tamara Alexandre and her boyfriend Peter Winsberg; also Peter’s sister Barbara and her boyfriend Terence Dryer. They’re students at Johns Hopkins and Barbara’s at Maryland.”

They all said hello.

“Dad, do you know anything of the family before they came over here from Scotland?”

“A fair bit, Cindy. First, did you know that most of the male line of my family were military in some way? You mentioned a genetic link to aggression; well, that’s part of it.”

“Yeah, I do remember that,” she answered.

“So here’s some family background. I actually have a number of really old letters that my grandpa had plus several very old family Bibles that listed births, marriages, and deaths. I recall looking through them when I was a teen and I did a report on my family when I was in high school. So this is what I can remember.

“My family came over in the 1780s, somewhere in that decade, and settled in western North Carolina, near Tennessee. They came from the Scottish Highlands and the family name was Dennison then, with two ‘n’s. But the records Grandpa had go back much earlier, to the 1500s, when the family, or part of it, was actually living in the Orkney Islands. The earliest record that I found was from 1522, a faded letter that was sent to ... ah, Kirkwall, I think the town was, and addressed to an Abigail Dennison there. So I concluded that part of our family originated in the Orkneys of Scotland well before the 1500s and I also found records that showed that the Dennisons, part of them, anyway, were a sept of the MacGregor clan. They’re a Highland clan and that group goes back as far back as the 800s. If you want, go on line and see if you can go back further than the 1500s. We didn’t have those kind of research tools back when I was in school, of course.”

They spoke for a little longer and then disconnected, then they trooped down to the pool. While the group was in the pool, Peter suggested that he could call Greta.

“She’d know better about whether the Norse had anything to do with the Scots way back then. Grams’ family has a detailed oral history,” he told Cindy and she told him to go ahead and do it.

After their pool soak, the group got dressed again and Peter called Greta.

“Hi, Peter; thought you were with your friends today,” she answered.

“I am, Grams, and we’re all here,” he answered, and then, on speaker, introduced the four whom she hadn’t met.

“We called you ‘cause it seems that Tamara’s gone and found a new person who has an attachment to the spirit world, that’s Cindy. Tamara senses a warrior spirit in her and her dad told us that their family history may go back over a thousand years to northern Scotland. So we’re wondering if she could have any genetic link to the Norse people.”

“Sure, there’s plenty of Norse history in Scotland, Peter,” Greta told them. “Vikings and other Norse settlers from Scandinavia, including Denmark, colonized parts of northern Scotland, especially the islands in the far north. And the time frame from the 8^th to the 15^th centuries is known as the ‘Scandinavian Scotland’ period. I’m familiar with reports of Nordic influence in the far north as early as the late 8^th century, when battles between the Scandinavian earls of Orkney and the rulers in the Hebrides were occurring with regularity. Also, there were frequent incursions by the Vikings from Norway and, later, a period of colonization of northern Scotland by the Saxons of Denmark, began.

“So to answer your question, yes, there’s almost a certainty that there is a genetic link between the Norse and the Scots of the north. I assume that you may want to know whether there’s a possibility that ... um, it’s Cindy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That Cindy could have seeresses in her ancestry,” Greta went on. “That’s really a big unknown, since as far as religious practices in Scotland of that period go, that’s much less clear. There’s all kinds of conflicting information, but still, it’s fairly likely that pagan practices existed in early Scandinavian Scotland but those practices ended with the introduction of Christianity, which came to that area earlier than to Scandinavia. Does that explanation help you people?”

“Oh, for sure, Grams,” Peter answered as he saw a lot of heads nodding. “Say hi to Gramps. Thanks and ‘bye.”

Cindy looked over at Tamara. “So what does this ‘spirit’ thing mean for me?” she asked. “Now that I know that I might have it legitimately,” she chuckled.

“Not a whole lot,” Tamara responded. “My dad had his for his whole time in the Marines without knowing about his own spirit connection. He only began learning about it maybe four years ago and that’s when he realized how much that spirit connection did for him.”

“Oh, that’s right, your dad’s a Marine too,” Cindy smiled. “Denise told me he got the Medal of Honor, too.”

“Yep, he did, but they had to rebuild his leg so they retired him. But the president had him reactivated last year and now he’s a kind of ambassador and will be doing special gigs for the State Department.”

“Wow, that’s cool,” Cindy said. “I wonder if he and my dad ever crossed paths. Dad joined the Corps in 2000 and I was born in 2007, so I never lived at his earlier postings, obviously.”

“Well, my dad joined in 2002, I think. He got wounded in 2008. His unit was based in North Carolina.”

“That would be Lejeune,” Cindy told her. “Before I was born, the units Dad was in were based at Pendleton in southern California. Hey, we got way, way off the topic over that spirit thing and then Marine stuff. We were going to talk about the Avery Program.”

Cindy called to Barbara, who was talking to Tom and Peter just then, “Hey, Barbara, Denise told me that you did a research topic on the Avery Program as a senior.”

“That’s right,” Barbara said as she walked over to Cindy. “I started looking at social relationships between students before and after they were in the program.”

They began discussing Barbara’s project and Cindy’s work on its initial design and how so little work was being continued at Avery on continued curriculum development.

“That’s why Denise’s work in the U.K. was so important,” Cindy finished. “That kind of kick-started work on the Avery curriculum again back here. Maybe you should send them a copy of your own work; it sounds like it might be useful.”

“You know that I want to keep working on studying the Avery Program too, right? It won’t be my major emphasis in my dissertation research, but it’ll be a part of it.”

“That’ll be great. Please keep me in the loop too; I’d like to keep up with what you find.”

“Hey Cindy,” Tamara asked at one point, “you’re quite tall and have a real athletic build. By any chance, did you play volleyball in college? I recently started playing, myself.”

“Not v-ball. I was a power forward in college basketball, even though my height was more like a guards’, my aggression and power let me play up front. I was a four-year starter and was named to the AP All-American team as a junior and senior.”

“Woo, that’s cool,” Peter said. “Your team do well?”

“Final four of the NCAA tourney in my junior and senior years, so yeah, we were okay.”

“Cindy doesn’t mention it much,” Tom cut in, “but at seventeen years old, she was on the U.S. Judo Team and competed in the International Judo Federation’s world championship tournament in Tokyo, and she took the gold medal in the women’s lightweight division.”

“Shit! — sorry, everyone,” Peter blurted. “That’s where I know you from, Cindy! Sensei showed us the films from a few selected matches and your gold medal match was one of them. He ran yours several times in slo-mo ‘cause he said your technique was just about perfect. He also said you must have had great conditioning ‘cause in the rematch they had you do to break the tie, you were much stronger and faster than your opponent.”

“Obviously you saw it, Peter—that’s exactly how it went down,” Cindy exclaimed. “So you do judo?”

“Barbara and I’ve been studying it for ... um, seven years, but I’m no way in your class ... world champ ... damn. Why didn’t you stick with it?”

“Many reasons. Number one, I achieved my goal, to reach the art’s highest level. But there’s nowhere higher to go than the top. Sure, I could have kept defending the title, but that’s kinda static—keeping others from reaching their top. Here’s a sort-of similar idea. A mountain climber gets to Everest’s summit. Does he stay there and keep others from reaching it? No he achieved his goal and others who make the attempt can do it too. I proved to myself that I could be the best; that was enough.

“Number two, I was a very strong high school b-ball player—even though I was short. I loved the game; got a full-ride college scholarship out of it. Keeping up the judo and competing in international tourneys wouldn’t allow me to play college ball. And, you know, doing both b-ball and judo is hell on the ol’ joints.”

Everyone laughed.

“Cindy, I saw Peter in action, you know,” Denise commented. “We told you about the Russian thugs who attacked us in England. Well, Peter just about destroyed the one he faced. The prettiest hip throw I’ve ever seen; he made the jerk fly.”

Cindy looked at the others in the group. “That’s cool. Yeah, look at this bunch of us ... all killers, right? Me, judo. Peter and Barbara, judo. Kevin and Denise, taekwondo and Kevin knows karate too. It’s a deadly crew,” she laughed.

Terence chuckled, “Yeah, don’t include me in that. Ah don’t do violent stuff at all; Ah just played football.”

More laughter.

The group spent the rest of the afternoon sharing stories and getting to know each other, although Tamara didn’t bring Cindy into her secrecy circle about her abilities. She’d have to think about that a lot more.

End of December and the New Year

When the holidays came, Tamara spent them with her family, Peter and his family, and Emma and hers, in varying combinations, on different days. Terence was gone for part of the two-week period; he was visiting his family and had three younger siblings whom he greatly missed. After the new year, it was back to work for Tamara.

Emma had arranged a gathering of physicists to visit her lab and the APL, to look at the research that Tamara was involved in, and to review and critique Tamara’s latest theories. No one took issue with her mathematics; the issue was with her interpretation of its real-world meaning. The group outlined a few possible experiments which could be performed to answer some of the questions that her theory raised. As far as the major issue was concerned, which was how to experimentally create a particle having the appropriate mass to produce the effect that Tamara had discovered, one of the physicists, the cosmologist John van der Bellen, had joked that that particular issue could easily be resolved by building a larger collider—larger, that is, than Geneva’s 27-kilometer circumference LHC.

“Actually there’s an experiment we can do if we got the funding to build a larger collider,” he told the group. “I did a quick computation on the size of the device and calculated that the collider ring should be about the circumference of the inner part of the Oort Cloud ring—you know, the collection of asteroids, comets, and planetesimals that surrounds the Solar System way outside Pluto’s orbit. That circumference is roughly 2.1 trillion kilometers.”

Everyone laughed at that suggestion and one of them asked, “How’d you come up with that, John?”

“Basically, Tamara’s calculations suggest we need to reach an average energy of about 10¹² TeV. That ring size would be what’s necessary to achieve sufficient energy to produce particles of that mass.”

Tamara chuckled and commented, “We’d just be repeating an experiment that’s already been done—the Big Bang produced energies at that level, but unfortunately I’m not aware of anyone who might have witnessed it.”

Everyone groaned at her lame humor.

“Tamara, you’re not getting any points for that one,” another physicist laughed. “But you get full marks for these calculations. We just need to figure out what those results imply.”

Although Tamara got no points for her humor, her experimental devices did cause a minor sensation. When the guest physicists visited the APL and were shown the G-coil assembly and its test data, the doubters began to question their doubts. It certainly looked like energy was coming from nowhere; that was completely impossible. Tamara had reminded everyone of Conan Doyle’s quotation that went, “Once you eliminate the impossible...” et cetera.