Chapter 1

It was going to be another nice day in paradise or it should be once the fog lifted thought Kevin Falco as he sipped on his second cup of coffee. Looking out the kitchen window the fog seemed to be a little thicker than usual but he knew that in two hours it would be gone. Once it was gone Kevin knew it would be safe to drive as he needed to purchase some food items.

Kevin was fifty five years of age and had recently taken an early retirement buyout package his School District was offering its teachers. The beefed up pension along with what turned out to be some very profitable real estate investments Kevin had made twenty two years ago would let him and his wife Gena do the travelling they had often talked about doing. There now however was a road block in them doing this travelling since his wife was presently in Green Garden, Arizona taking care of her parents who had some medical problems. Her father was in the hospital and her mother was recovering from hip surgery. This resulted in Kevin being a bachelor for what was an unspecified amount of time.

Looking at his to-do list Kevin finished his coffee and after washing the cup went outside to water and check on his garden.

While the fog had looked thick, now outside he could confirm that it really was thicker than usual. He was walking through the fog to his garden located at the end of his lot when all of a sudden the fog ended and he found himself in an endless space that was entirely white. There was no end of his lot, no garden, no scenery, no sky, just whiteness was all he could see as he looked around.

He noticed two men dressed in white suits that were standing there just looking at him.

Kevin said, “Just what in the hell is going on? What is this?”

Neither of two men he could see verbally said anything but in his mind he could hear, “There is no reason for you to be concerned. We are here because you have been selected.”

“That isn’t telling me anything, as I said before what the hell is going on and who are you two?”

Again he heard in his mind one of these men say, “I am Alpha” and pointing to the other man said, “This is Echo. We are here because you have been selected.”

“Listen guys I don’t know how you are talking to me since I don’t see your lips moving and I don’t give two cents about my being selected for whatever, but you better tell me quickly what is going on or I am going to call the cops.”

“I can understand your reaction but there is no reason for you to be concerned. I will tell you the whole story to appease your fears but you should know out front that you will probably not easily accept what I am going to say.”

Continuing he said, “We are from a galaxy many light years away from this planet you call earth. Our civilization was involved in a large conflagration caused by our scientist experimenting in an area you wouldn’t understand. The end result of them doing that resulted in a large segment of our population being eliminated and our planet now is dying. We are looking for new locale we can come to in order to continue our existence. That is why we are here to see if this is where we should go.”

Kevin didn’t believe what he was hearing since he didn’t buy this alien story they were telling him. To him aliens exist only in science fiction. He thought he would go along with them for a while just to see what they had to say for themselves and said, “Sorry to hear that but do you have a choice of other locales where your civilization can go?”

“Oh yes, this is just one of six places we are looking at.”

“Wait a minute, are you saying there are six planets like earth that exist in the universe?”

“There are actually eleven that we know of but only six of them are inhabited. The other five still have some time to go in their evolution.”

This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute thought Kevin but he continued, “Let’s say I believe you. What is going to be the criteria for whomever you are selecting and for what I still don’t know?”

“It is going to be how the inhabitants there adjust to us.”

“Just what is involved in humans making this adjustment to you?”

“Let me explain it a little more to see if you can understand. You have probably heard that a human being uses only ten percent of his brain.”

“I have heard that said.”

“Well the actuality is that the human being only uses four point five percent of its brain. You humans are still evolving in developing the use of your brain and it will take many more centuries in your evolution before you can match us in brain usage to where we are now. We presently estimate that we are using eighty three percent of our brain and being able to communicate with you non-verbally is just one example of our superior brain power. There are other what you would call features of this brain development.”

“We can through the use of our brain communicate with a human being’s brain and increase if we want that four point five percent to fifty five percent but we don’t know if that will be a sufficient amount for humans to be compatible with us. That is the reason why we are here on your earth. We are using what you humans would call an algorithm which selected you to see what your reaction would be to this increase in brain power. We would like for you to do this on a voluntary basis but please understand that once you accept our offer and we do this brain usage increase it is non-revocable. There is no going back to what it was.”

“Am I the only one you are offering this brain power increase?”

“No there are a number of others as we need to see reactions from a good size sample in order to make a fair assessment and a reliable decision.”

“You say that communication is one of the features of this increase in brain power, what are some of the other features.”

“Your brain will be able to implant ideas in other humans who have the present low brain power. One of our other human male volunteers asked if he could implant the idea of a human female wanting to have sex with him in her brain and the answer without commenting on the appropriateness of his question is yes. Some may consider that to be an abuse of this increased brain power but we have not formed an opinion that. You will see if we do come here and all human brains are increased in power the ability to do that type of an implantation will be eliminated.”

“Out of curiosity what is the so-called range of this mind reading ability?”

“About what you humans would call normal voice range audibility.”

“Any other features with this increase?”

“That same volunteer I mentioned asked about time travel going back in time. You should know that what was was, what is is and what will be will be. There is no such thing as time travel either going back or going forward in time. That being said there is what you would call a feature with this brain power increase that lets your mind go back to a certain time where things were at that time and you can imagine implanting ideas or urges in other people. This would give you all the sensations as if you were actually there and everything that was actually happening. Much like dreams you humans presently have but one that you can control and tell it when to end. There are some other features, increased intellect being the obvious one but those that I mentioned are the main ones you will get with an increase to fifty five percent brain power”

“Can I have some time to think about your offer?”

“No you must decide now on what you will do. We could have implanted in you your decision to accept our offer but that would be influencing our study so we didn’t do that. We do need to know now what you decide.”

Kevin was quiet for a while lost in thoughts weighting what he should do but then he said. “Okay I am game for this. How do we do this?”