Chapter 9: Would Energy by Any Other Name...

Alex awoke to the sound of the hotel room door opening. He wasn't quite aware of anything yet, so he simply rolled over and glanced wearily at the door.

"Hey, just came by to bring you something to eat," Cate said by way of a greeting. "I figured that none of you would manage to get moving yet."

"Man, how come my sister never brings me stuff to eat in the morning?" Brittany complained, as she tried to find a sheet to pull over herself.

"Hey, I think angels just have very angelic sisters," Jamie suggested. "She certainly watches out for him."

"So how'd it go last night? Did everyone get boosted?" Cate asked as she tossed Alex a bag full of goodies, just to show she wasn't that interested in her brother. Gail, who'd come in with Cate, was eager to hear the results as well.

"It went wonderfully," Jamie replied cheerfully.

"In case you couldn't tell, she was the control group," Steph explained. "She had her mind officially melted. She passed out for a while."

"I would have worried," Brittany said, "but Alex had just finished with me and I could feel her emotions as she went under. It was the weirdest thing. I could literally feel an inkling of what she was experiencing."

"That was nothing," Steph added. "I had a little orgasm when she did. That got me prepped for my own."

"We meant did you each get boosted, not how it was sleeping with my brother," Cate pointed out, letting the girls think she didn't like hearing about Alex's sex life.

"They each did," Alex explained as he started eating things from the bag that Cate had thrown at him. Jamie tried to sneak some grapes, and he playfully slapped her hand before sticking a couple in her open mouth before continuing. "As Steph explained, Jamie got the full treatment. Steph had the buildup but I skipped the simultaneous orgasm, and poor Brittany drew the short straw. She didn't get the big build up but I tried to give her an orgasm when I did, but I was off by a few minutes."

"So I was right, then?" Gail asked, trying to drive her point home. "You don't really need to work so hard to achieve the same results." Alex agreed with her summation, so she continued. "I think that demonstrates you've been standing in the way of your own abilities. Maybe if you stopped trying to analyze and control everything you might be able to figure out this spontaneous boosting ability."

"I prefer the old way, myself," Jamie replied as she stretched out, not bothering to be as self-conscious as Brittany was. Brittany figured she was fighting a losing battle, so she dropped the sheet she was covering herself with and started picking up the scattered pieces of clothing she found lying around the room.

"So it worked with everyone?" Gail stressed. "Did you try communicating with anyone?" she asked Stephanie.

"Yeah, I said hello to Anh just to see how well my telepathy worked. By the way, Alex, she said she's anxious to speak to you today."

"Yeah, she can wait until we hit the road later. Right now we need to get cleaned up and dressed. I think we're all ready for breakfast." The three girls agreed.

"I think Steph and I should get to share the shower with you this morning, to make up for not getting the full 'mind melting' treatment last night," Brittany teased as she handed out the various pieces of underwear she'd collected. Once Cate was sure they were all moving in the right direction, she returned to the other room to give them a little more privacy. She'd learned what she'd wanted to find out.

"So, what do you think about this 'spontaneous boost' issue?" Alex asked, once they'd escaped the heavy downtown traffic, allowing them focus on Alex's outstanding issues. They'd gotten an early start, since they had no one to meet and were anxious to get out of the city. Gail had informed them she had a late morning public meeting with the mayor where they were going to give her a key to the city for saving people from the attack at the Cotton Bowl Stadium, so Alex and Cate were on their own for the day. She'd try to catch them when they stopped for the night, but she didn't know how soon she could get away, or how long it would take her to catch up with them.

"Well, as usual it's complicated," Cate said diplomatically. She turned to watch him as she got comfortable, preparing to discuss the issues at length. "First of all, I'm not sure 'spontaneous' is the best word to use. I was thinking of 'autonomous', since it occurred independently of your conscious mind, but that doesn't seem to be much better. But aside from that, there are a lot of outstanding issues about it."

Alex was pleased to see Cate getting back into her 'science mode', which is where she felt the most comfortable and enjoyed herself the most. He knew she was uncomfortable constantly watching out for him, and he knew she was much better exercising her mind instead. What's more, Alex had been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to explore the issues that had arisen lately. There were a lot of things they had no explanations for, and they really needed some handle on them to know how best to approach them. He knew Cate was the best person for that role.

"And those issues would be?" he prompted her, even though he already had his own list.

"The whole premise behind your boosting the women during sex was predicated on the extreme mix of hormones in the brain during sex combined with the heavy brain activity occurring during orgasm, and the necessary emotional link you seem to need to make the connection. It just doesn't make sense you can bypass all of that."

"But you heard what happened last night. Apparently all those steps I was taking were unnecessary. I boosted the girls without them."

"But that's just it, just because they don't need a simultaneous orgasm doesn't mean they don't require the hormones, the increased brain activity or the emotional connection. There's clearly more to it than that. There's something else we're missing, although the rest is a part of it as well. If you don't need the other things to achieve the spontaneous boost, then you probably don't need them otherwise. But our focus needs to be on how you achieved it in the first place."

Alex could see that Cate, once again playing the role of scientist, was again calm and detached, evaluating the issues on a logical basis, not on the emotional one he was considering them on.

"So what do you suggest as an alternative?" Alex prompted her again.

"The idea you could do such a thing from a distance, to people you hadn't even gotten to know yet, goes against everything we've assumed about the process up to this point, so clearly those assumptions were incorrect."

"You do remember that incidents of violence have generally—" Alex began.

"Yeah, I know," she said, but then continued as if he hadn't said anything. "Thus we have much of the same ingredients. You have the emotional connection, because you're concerned about the women due to the perceived threat to them, and you have the excitement level which seems to be a major component for you, but what's missing is the women's responses. Apparently they don't need the big build up. Apparently the only requirements are your own. Whatever you manage to do you do on your own, with no requirements on their part."

"You don't think the adrenaline rush they got from being shot at made a difference?" Alex asked.

"I'm not sure, but I don't think it was a major component. Instead I think it was a component for you, and as I said, the worry about one of your followers was threatened would force you to identify with them. I suspect the long process is so you'll trust someone enough to relax, but if forced, you can make the jump that much sooner."

"So you're suggesting the hours long lovemaking is just to make myself feel better about the whole process?"

"I didn't say that, but we may need to examine it as a separate issue. Right now I want to examine what's essential to the process and what's not. I'm thinking this is more about your ability to create and enhance links in their minds. Again, I'm thinking the boosting, at least for the Seers, involves recreating or enhancing the existing links you've already created in their minds."

"And the Watchers?" Alex countered.

"I suspect you're doing something similar, but it doesn't involve anything nearly so complex it would show up on a brain scan. I think you're probably doing something with a quantum-mind, you're essentially sharing a portion of your mind, or possible the Seers' minds, with the Watchers."

"Wait, this is the same quantum mind you think I've somehow accessed in another dimension, and which fosters both the telepathy and gives me my extra energy?"

"Yeah, and we need to come up with another term for the energy," Cate said. "It gets too difficult talking about two different types of energy using the same terms. The energy you give off is clearly different than the biological process of converting fats and food into biochemical energy to propel muscles. It's a whole different beast."

"Well hold off on that thought for now, since I've been debating that myself. I've got an idea, but I want to discuss it with the others first."

"The others?" Cate asked, although she had a good idea what he was saying.

"But if I do it by triggering the link I created in their brain, then wouldn't it mean that all I need to do is tweak that linkage again?" Alex asked, avoiding answering her question immediately. "Couldn't I then boost someone without doing anything specific? Couldn't I just access their minds directly, make a slight adjustment and get out again, without getting anyone worked up?"

"That's something we may never know," Cate advised him. "You have no conscious control over the aspect of your mind which handles these things, so we don't know how to control or even access it. Thus we've got to rely on what we know will work, and try to refine that process. Simply hoping for the impossible won't advance anything."

Alex was still mostly convinced it was a combined process between him and the girls, but he wasn't quite willing to rule anything out at the moment, especially since their best theories had just been knocked for a loop. The idea he may be able to boost people without having to take them to bed was vitally important to Alex. He continued to feel bad about what he was doing, like he was using everyone's perceptions of him being more than the naïve young man he was to take advantage of people he barely even knew. What's more, the conflict over who to boost, and whether they were currently involved or not, was a constant source of worry for him. The incident with Megan and Ryan still bothered him tremendously. He'd made a stupid mistake in ignoring his better instincts and had almost responded by inflicting permanent damages on someone who couldn't handle the situation. Such a scene just illustrated why this whole process was so dangerous. He was playing with people's lives here. And although he had powerful motives for doing it, he couldn't shake the perception he was only doing it to get his own rocks off, effectively making him no better than any of the other high profile people who have a string of sexual dalliances then proclaim shock and dismay when eventually exposed. Alex could only imagine when he was eventually exposed. Man, the number of people who could publish a book about their experiences with him would be almost unlimited.

"The shared quantum-mind would certainly explain a lot. It would explain the tremendous link we share between us. You know I feel as strongly about my Watchers as I do the Seers, despite the direct brain connection I share with the Seers."

"Yeah, while that's one of the more 'far out' conjectures, it also makes the most sense," Cate said, blowing a stray hair out of her face. "Luckily we don't have to account for how it could occur, since we're simply assuming you're utilizing a pre-existing quantum mind which you're using to share your own abilities with the girls. If I had to explain the whole thing in a science paper, it would take another hundred years, at the very least, but if we simply assume it's an already working system, we can skip most of those problems."

Cate was frustrated not by her brother and her inability to answer his questions, but because she was distracted at the moment. The back of the small car was filled with cages of hyperactive mice whose continual chittering kept diverting her attention. Since they'd had to leave town ahead of Patricia and her band, and would probably be separated from them for over a day, they'd decided to bring Cate's lab mice with her so Alex could continue giving them their twice a day exposure to his energy, testing how they responded to it over time so Cate could determine the effects of long term exposure to Alex's energy.

She'd dedicated certain mice to specific tests, namely the 'Alex mice' (who'd get a massive exposure equivalent to what Alex was getting), the 'Seer' mice (who'd get a much smaller dose representative to what they'd get), and the control group, who'd receive none at all. She was currently trying to settle both Anh and Brooke, two mice named after two of his earliest followers. Alex had already spent enough time with them he could actually identify which little furry creature was which. Neither Alex nor Cate felt comfortable riding in a car full of mice, since all it would take would be one simple accident, or his hitting the brakes too hard, and Cate's precious experiment might be seriously compromised. But they couldn't leave them behind, and there was no way to secure the cages like they had in the touring van. Still, they tried to ignore the disruption and continue the conversation.

"So, if we agree there's something in me which can achieve this spontaneous boost without my getting physically involved with the women—excusing any obvious puns, since I can't imagine anything more 'physically involved' than monkeying around with someone's brain—then how do we figure out how it operates, so we can figure out how to access it?" Alex asked, starting to feel frustrated since they weren't coming up with any clear solutions to his central underlying problem.

Cate simply shrugged her shoulders. "You can't. There could be any number of different factors occurring, and we have no way of tracking any of them down since we don't have access to subconscious mind. But we have some decent ideas, so hopefully we're narrowing it down. You just can't get frustrated yet. This is a big step, as you said, so it doesn't make sense to rush it unnecessarily. It's worth taking a structured look at it. If we can crack this particular nut I have a feeling we'll figure a lot more as well. So that makes it even more important than it is at the moment. After all, this one little detail, the unlocking of this mystery, could mean the difference between boosting dozens and thousands of individuals."

"As if I'm not feeling stressed enough about it at the moment," Alex groaned, but he knew she was correct. Just as she usually was. He sat there for a moment considering it.

"I think I may have to take Anh's advice on the topic," Alex suggested.

"Anh's?" Cate asked. "What did she say about it?"

"Just what she's always said, that there's more to what's happening than simple science can account for. She keeps harping on my spirit having crossed over from the spirit realm to guide me in this, just like the other girls keep telling me that I'm being led by God. Maybe that's the simplest explanation. Maybe there's some outside influence pulling strings we simply can't see."

"Alex, while I still believe in God, I don't believe in a paternalistic deity who has the time to sit around listening and responding to individual prayers of each individual animal in his kingdom, nor that he controls each and every physical response in the entire universe in each second of its existence. I believe he set the universe up to operate according to very specific rules, and that those rules are what governs its functioning. Science has answered most of the major questions for the last 2500 years, the same questions religion has failed time and again to answer, so I can't see any point in abandoning a reasoned response now."

"That's not what I'm suggesting," Alex calmly explained to her. "All I'm saying is that, given our inability to come up with a rational explanation, we may have to forego explaining it right now. I'm thinking that maybe someone else is doing the activations instead of me, for their own reasons. So instead of stressing about what's causing it, we need to focus on what we're going to do about it."

"Oh," Cate responded, looking momentarily surprised by that response. She waited a few moments before responding again. "Well, what's the next step? You've been trying to repeat the process without any luck, so it doesn't look like you can force it. You and I need to figure this out. You, because it will solve a major problem, and me because it might provide a clue to how everything works. And, frankly, attributing it to an 'unknown entity' seems like just throwing our hands in the air and giving up."

"Again, that wasn't my attempt in suggesting it. I was simply trying to say that maybe I'm not directly responsible for it. But you're right, it's too soon for us to assume that. Gail seems to think I 'need to get out of my own way' in the matter," Alex reminded her. "That's a familiar refrain, as Anh always said that as well. They may have a point. Maybe if I just stop stressing about it, I'll stumble across how to do it."

"That's hardly a plan of attack," Cate said. "Telling someone to relax is almost guaranteed to make them tense up. Telling you to just ignore it means you won't be able to."

"OK, it looks like we may need the big guns to figure this one out. Why don't you try calling Anh and ask her if she has any ideas? I wanted to speak to her about what happened to them anyway."

So Cate got her phone out and dialed the number, putting it on speakerphone as soon as it started to ring.

"Hello? Cate?" they heard Allison answer.

"What's this? No 'Angel Vision Foundation'? We leave for a couple of weeks and suddenly everyone forgets the proper way to answer the phone?" Cate teased her.

"No, it's just that we've been anxiously waiting for your call. We checked it was you calling before I answered," Allison replied.

"And who is 'we'? We were hoping to ask Anh a few questions," Cate told her.

"I'm here," Anh responded.

"Yeah, Anh, Shani and Liv are all here. We knew you were anxious to discuss what happened, so we took the day off just so we could be here for this call. That's why I was so nervous when I answered," Allison responded.

"Was there something specific you were looking to say?" Alex asked, slightly concerned.

"Not specifically," Shani responded, "but we had some things we wanted to convey which we figured out from our little mishap, but mostly we're just here for you. After all, we hear from you so infrequently, and we're used to you relying on us a lot. Plus, we figure you had a lot to tell us about what you learned in New Orleans."

"Yeah, can't we just be glad to talk with you?" Allison asked.

"OK, sorry for asking then. It's good to speak to you all again, and I'm glad you're all there," Alex said. "So how are you feeling? Have you recovered from the other day?"

"We're fine," Shani assured him. "It's just like you always do, we just needed to eat and we eventually recovered, though we seemed to take a bit longer to recover than you usually do. I'm guessing the energy you have constantly pouring through you makes a pretty big difference."

"What about you, Anh, any after affects with your head injury?"

"No, I'm fine. If there was any injury, they seem to have taken care of it. I had a bit of a headache, but no more than I used to get once a month, so it wasn't anything major," she explained.

"You know, I've been thinking about what to call this energy I'm taking in. Simply calling it 'energy' causes a lot of confusion. By referring to everything as energy we aren't being very precise."

"I agree, we've found ourselves caught in the same word trap," Liv replied. "Do you have any suggestions on what to call it instead?"

"Actually I do," Alex responded. "I definitely don't want it named after me. First of all it would sound boastful, which just isn't like me, but more importantly I don't want anything which refers back to me, since it would make talking about it in public difficult."

"So... ," Shani prompted him, knowing he'd already come up with something.

"I was thinking of making it personal, but still nonspecific enough so no one would be able to figure out what it was. I'm thinking of simply calling it BCM energy, or just BCM for short."

"BCM?" Cate asked, glancing at her brother.

"It stands for 'Becky, Cate and Melissa'," Alex answered. "That way it gives credit for what they are each doing for me, since I know one of the three will likely eventually unlock the secrets to it. I figured I might as well give them credit for it upfront, rather than creating some meaningless abbreviation.

"What's more, it's nonspecific enough no one will know what we're referring to. If anyone manages to overhear one of us referring to it, and asks what we're talking about, we can always claim it stands for 'British Comedy Measure', meaning it refers to how dry or abstract the person's humor and personality are. That way we can make it sound like we're talking about individuals, rather than about a scientific principle, but it would also be so esoteric it would never catch on and anyone hearing it would quickly forget about it."

"You've clearly given this some thought," Shani replied. "And you seem to be the resident expert on esoteric names," she said with a laugh.

"Actually I think he may be onto something," Cate said. "It would be easy enough to drop in conversation, it wouldn't mean anything to anyone listening, and it's got a quick response if anyone does ask about it. Although it hardly slips off the tongue, I think it does everything we'd need a name to do for us. Although I take exception to the idea that Becky may isolate and document it before I do," she added with a little edge to her voice.

"You know, speaking of names, how about we change what we call the Watchers," Shani suggested. "Every time someone says it, I see Natalie wince."

"What's wrong with Watchers?" Alex asked, clearly surprised to hear anyone had an objection to it.

"Well, frankly it's a little demeaning, as if they aren't as committed or as motivated as the Seers are," she replied.

"And it's not just the Watchers who feel that way," Allison told him. "I see the girls from your school who help out around here react whenever the term comes up. They glance at each other, as if asking 'if they say that about them, then what chance do we have?'"

"So what would you suggest we call them?" Alex asked a little irritably.

"Hey, you're the man in charge," Allison told him, "you should be the one to choose. After all, BCM was nicely handled. We're just bringing a problem to your attention."

Alex looked a bit frustrated to be presented with this at the moment, especially since he had no ready response to it.

"Well, I'll take it under advisement. What other topics did we want to discuss?"

"So is Becky there?" Cate asked. "I had something I was going to ask her as well."

"No, she had school today," Allison said. "She was interested in talking about what was happening, too, but she's been busy doing her work trying to sequence your genome. We told her we'd take care of this and let her know what we found out."

"What did you want to ask her?" Shani asked.

"It's not worth getting into just yet," Cate answered. "We've got a lot of things to discuss, and I'd rather get to the more important things first."

"So what's first on the agenda then?" Liv asked.

"I'm very worried about my inability to duplicate the spontaneous boost I achieved yesterday. This is something that's vitally important, since it means the difference between boosting one or two girls at a time and boosting everyone we meet."

"Not to mention it also eases your guilt about having to sleep with everyone," Shani guessed, once again knowing just how Alex's mind worked.

"Guilty as charged," Alex answered. "I'd love it if I didn't have to continue making love every damn night, nor having to worry about crossing some unseen line each time I do. It's stressful enough doing what I have to do, but adding making love to a string of strangers at every stop just makes it uncomfortable for everyone."

"Well, not everyone," Shani answered with a quiet laugh. "We all seemed to appreciate it, and I'm sure each of the girls you spend time with treasures it tremendously. Methinks you focus on the negatives too much. I don't think it's as much of an issue as you're making it into."

"Well, we had an embarrassing scene the other night when I went against my own better judgment and took an established couple to bed, simply because the guy said it was alright. It almost went tragically wrong."

"Wait, you took another guy to bed?" Allison asked, sounding shocked at the very idea.

"Alex wanted to boost a specific person," Cate explained, "and her boyfriend agreed it made sense, but he insisted on being there just to ensure she didn't fall for Alex and out of love for him. Everyone agreed, but the guy turned into a real ass about it when they got down to it. Alex was about to do something very stupid when we jumped in, saving his ass yet again."

"Yeah, I could see where that would be problematic," Shani answered. "But that kind of thing hardly happens very often. I still think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here."

"That may be so, but it's important to me," Alex responded. "It makes it unfair to the women who chose to not make love to me, like Caity or Kelly Ott, plus it makes me feel like I'm taking advantage of everyone. It makes me feel like I consider myself more important than anyone else, and it causes me nightly stress as well."

"Alex, I hate to tell you this, but in regards to this mission of yours, you are more important than anyone else," Liv reminded him. "Only you hold the key to the future of this new race. If you can sire an heir with your genetic ability then it could very well live on and form the basis of a large community. But if you start getting self conscious it could mean the whole thing goes nowhere and we all eventually die out as a simple momentary blip on the evolutionary scale."

"Well, debating the merits of Alex's worry isn't answering the question," Cate pointed out. "Does anyone have any ideas about how we may be able to unlock this new ability of Alex's?"

That got everyone focusing, and they tried various suggestions, although most simply duplicated the things Alex and Cate had already either discussed or tried. No one seemed to be getting anywhere. Finally Alex grew frustrated.

"Anh, you always seem to come up with amazing new insights when everyone else is stymied," Alex said. "What do you have to say? You've been pretty quiet up to now."

She took a moment to respond. "I think yours is an old problem, older than time itself. You have to ask yourself, what does the turtle do when it encounters something it no understand?"

"A turtle?" Alex asked, surprised by the question.

"Yes, a common turtle. What does it do when it runs across something it cannot figure out?"

"Uh, I have no clue," Alex answered, sounding befuddled by the question.

"It simply goes around it," she answered simply. "It no worry about what it cannot understand. If you get more information, then you go back and try again. But if you no understand enough to answer question, then it's simply not worth bothering with."

The simple wisdom of Anh's advice surprised everyone. Alex wasn't happy having his worries effectively shunted aside, but he had to admit that no one seemed to know enough to offer any significant advice, so he figured Anh had a good point. If there's no way to figure something out you simply put it aside, only going back once some new information offers you the chance of unlocking it.

However, Anh's advice effectively shut down the conversation.

"OK, there are other issues," Cate pressed. "What did we figure out from your misadventures the other night?"

"Just a second," Alex said, interrupting her, "what did you figure out about Frank Osmon? The two of you talked the other morning, but you never told me what you figured out about him. Is he like Peter and David in New Orleans, you know, having an extra X-chromosome?"

"Well, he wasn't aware of it if he was," Cate replied, remembering their conversations back in San Antonio, "although it seems many people with that condition never do. It's estimated it occurs anywhere from one out of every 500 to one out of thousand men. They wouldn't show any symptoms as long as the NRY region of the Y-chromosome, the noncombining genes, prevents the expression of the female-specific genes on the X-chromosome. However, if that were the case then I'd expect they wouldn't be able to utilize the gene in question, since we have good reason to think the gene which governs the Watchers and Seers are within the sex specific region of the X-chromosome. A more probable hypothesis is that they're actually chimeras, or someone actually possessing two different chromosome pairs. If parts of their brain had some XX chromosomes while the rest of their body was a normal XY it could account for it, although it would be difficult to test for. Generally, you can only determine it if a specific medical issue points out a specific region of the body to examine for it. Chimerism is generally associated with the body's absorption of a twin's body before it can develop. It's fairly complicated."