Chapter 6: Interfaith Community Outreach

Alex felt better about the concert that night. This was his third, well, the third big one, and he felt comfortable that they were getting a better handle on it. It was hard taking the time to get to know each person in the madness of a live rock concert, but they managed to get a bunch of new followers at once, which made it more efficient. Also, the sheer noise and confusion kept things from getting embarrassing. The number of new followers went up with the increase in crowds for a Friday night concert, so there were a lot of them, but they managed to cover any embarrassing scenes fairly well.

Alex was on his way home from the concert with two new girls he was planning to boost. Both were ideal candidates. Not only were they local Seers, but they would make good contacts for the others in the community. One had a small shop in La Villita, a small park made up of local Mexican craft shops and restaurants. Although it mainly catered to tourists, it was a natural place for Alex's Hispanic followers to gather since everyone there spoke Spanish. Alex had only met a couple of Spanish speakers in San Antonio, but he assumed it was because he'd been holed up in the more touristy areas. He figured this woman would be able to reach out to them, and find a good number of the undiscovered Watchers and unactivated Seers in the community for him.

The other one was an older woman who worked in a hotel in the downtown area, thus she could see many people during the day and could get away to the nearby shops to discuss community issues with them privately. What was especially attractive about both which prompted Alex's decision to boost them was that they were very interested in getting pregnant as well. The Mexican-American woman came from a big family and had kids but was divorced, so she had a large supportive family which would help with them and she had a decent job and a good position in the community to watch out for any children. The woman from the hotel put off getting married until she now found herself with no husband as she neared forty, so she was more than ready to take advantage of Alex's offer of children. Not that Alex actually offered, of course. As usual Alex made no mention of the issue. Instead it was Cate who brought it up along with everything else they should know. Both women told Cate they were interested, and Cate told Alex, who had already been eyeing them for a possible boost. So everything seemed to have worked out for once.

But they were in the car riding back to the Menger hotel when Alex's attempt to get to know them better was cut short.

'Alex? This is Shani. I've got something important to tell you and you're not going to like it, so make sure you're ready before I tell you.'

Alex sat up straight, alerting everyone around him that something had happened, so the conversation was curtailed as the girls watched him, hoping to get a clue as to what had happened to distract Alex so suddenly.

'What is it, Shani? I can tell from your response that you're not quite all there. You seem, I don't know, you seem weak, like you're struggling just to communicate with me. Are you OK?'

'I'm OK, ' she assured him. 'You're right, I'm frazzled, but I'm not the only one you should be concerned with. Alex, Anh had an accident and, well, the rest of us kind of screwed up.'

'OK, tell me what happened. Was Anh badly hurt? Is she OK?'

'Well, it's fairly involved, but it started when we were sitting here in the loft having drinks and talking together. Everyone was here so there were a lot of us present, but Anh tripped and fell, hitting her head against the coffee table. Since we've had so much exposure to this type of injury at your old school, we were concerned.'

'That's understandable, ' Alex answered. 'But you're also the best people to handle it as a result. You can see and evaluate just how much damage has been inflicted, so you know when to have it treated. It's probably a good thing she did it there rather than anywhere else.'

'Yeah, but that wasn't the problem. It was what came afterwards. We could see she'd had a significant shock to her brain and she was woozy. We know from experience how little success doctors have in treating this type of injury. Our thinking was it would be better if we could treat it immediately rather than waiting to get to the hospital and have them spend hours doing inconclusive tests, while the damage settled in and became worse, and possibly intractable.'

'OK, so what happened then?' Alex asked, already guessing it was bad from the way she was presenting it. He noticed Shani wasn't even focusing on Anh's injuries, instead she seemed to be preparing him for something even worse.

'Well, although we've been watching these types of injuries, we haven't had much success with treatments. Basically we know when to take people off of the field so they don't compound it, but—'

"Yeah, I get the general idea. What specifically happened, though?"

"I'm trying to get to that, but I need to explain what we were thinking when we did what we did, ' she explained.

Alex held off responding, giving her the latitude to explain the situation in her own terms, although he was growing increasingly anxious about what may have happened. The unknown often is worse than simply knowing what was wrong.

'Anyway, while we were trying to evaluate her, we thought about how you'd likely respond, and we agreed you'd be more successful at it than the hospital would, when Liv got this wild idea. Rebecca Boles had already called for an ambulance, but again, we already knew they couldn't do much for her other than document what we already knew.'

'So what was this wild idea of Liv's?' Alex asked, trying to figure out where this story was going.

'Well, she mentioned that each of the Seers has a small amount of your energy they get from being tied to your brain. More of it than would naturally occur, that is. She suggested that, although it would be difficult, maybe if we worked together we could try to duplicate your own healing process.'

'Oh, that does NOT sound like a good idea, ' Alex told her, already getting images of what likely happened. 'You girls don't have enough energy to accomplish anything like that, and you also don't have any experience—'

'You'd better let me finish, because you'll find out what happened a lot faster than you will by guessing, ' Shani warned him. 'Anyway, we knew we don't have your energy, but we decided the small amount we each had coming into our brains might be enough if we worked together. So we decided to try that approach.'

'Go on. I'm interested in what happened, but I've got a bad feeling about what did, ' Alex told her.

'So we all pointed a finger at the regions of her brain we could see had been impacted by her fall. We meant to give it just enough energy to help it recover and minimize any lasting damage she may have suffered. However when we tried it nothing happened.' Alex started to respond that he knew they wouldn't be able to do anything when Shani continued, cutting him off. 'Then Molly Bishop got the idea that, if all your energy enters our brains through the portal you created, then the energy must be strongest there.'

'Oh, no, ' Alex groaned, imagining what must have happened, so Shani continued to describe what they'd done.

'We each put our heads against Anh's, which as you can imagine was pretty difficult. We were all there, Allison, Brooke, Diana, Molly, Liv and I, so we had a fair number of people to contend with. Since Liv knew more about the brain than we did, she organized everything, standing over us and directing us with telepathic images of what we were trying to do. We didn't have to worry about being able to see what we were doing because of our shared mental images. So we each tried to project our energy into the affected area of Anh's brain. We figured you do the same thing with your finger, that there's nothing magic about your finger, and that you only use it because it's easier to point with. So we simply concentrated and tried to force the energy to flow in the direction of Anh's injury, and it worked. Sort of.

'We tried for a couple of minutes, and figured it must be working because we could feel the energy draining from us. Or rather, we felt our own energy draining from us, much the way you lose energy when you try to heal someone.'

'Slow down, Shani, I can feel the exhaustion in your connection, so I know you still don't have much energy left, ' Alex cautioned her. 'Take your time and make sure you tell me everything I need to know, but don't hurt yourself in a hurry to tell me everything at once.'

Shani took the time to compose herself, working to slow down both her breathing and her heart rate. Allison and Brooke had been doing 'mindful meditation' exercises with them, so they were used to slowing down their bodies' responses. When she was ready she continued, although by that stage Alex was a nervous wreck, as were the girls watching him in his car. Gail kept driving, knowing she'd hear about it when Alex was done, and they'd be better able to deal with whatever it was from a comfortable hotel room than they could sitting by the side of the road.

'Anyway, we were feeling the drain on ourselves, but then Liv excitedly announced we'd done it. That Anh's brain was responding and was steadily looking better. But by then we were exhausted so we simply collapsed on the floor.

'Being excited by what she saw, and not wanting to leave our work unfinished, Liv tried to finish the treatment, trying to do what we'd done by herself. Before you get upset with her, it wasn't an unreasonable thing to try. After all, she wouldn't need to impart as much energy since we'd done most of the work already.

'Anyway, the end result was that, when the EMTs we'd called earlier finally arrived, we were all lying on the floor in utter exhaustion and Natalie and Rebecca were both trying to feed us ice cream and cookies trying to revive our energy. The EMTs panicked when they saw us. Apparently Ryan told them it wouldn't appear severe, but that Anh's injuries were probably hidden so they had to make sure they responded with the utmost urgency. What's more, they knew the entire hospital was anxious about Anh. They initially thought we'd all been exposed to something, then one of them suggested it may be an symptom of our abilities, since many of the people at the hospital know of your getting sick. They ended up calling a bunch of additional ambulances. We tried to object, to tell them we simply needed to eat, but we were too exhausted to say much of anything more than mumbling.

'It took four separate ambulances to carry all of us to the hospital, and the whole emergency room staff was there waiting for us when we arrived. Anh was taken away immediately, while the EMTs were busy checking us and trying to prevent us from eating, telling us it could be dangerous before they knew what we were suffering from. But Rebecca knew what happened and she knew how to respond to it. After she screamed at them they hooked up some IV drips to get some nutrients into us a little faster, but we were responding too slowly and they ended up taking us in anyway.'

'Damn, Shani, you should have known better than to attempt that. You've seen what it does to me, ' Alex argued.

'We knew it drained you, but we figured we weren't trying to do as much as you do, and we also knew you normally don't lose that much strength doing the simpler procedures. We figured since we weren't trying to restart a stopped heart like you did in New Orleans that we'd be OK. And we were successful. If we hadn't tried Anh might have suffered significant mental impairment. As it is, we're all recovering here in the hospital, and we're doing OK now. Ryan had the nursing staff bring everything they could find for us to eat, and they each stood over us feeding us while the IVs dripped in our arms.'

'Yeah, I can picture what a scene that would have been. What, you figured I didn't manage to have enough embarrassing public scenes that you needed to pull one of your own?' Alex asked playfully, trying to lighten the mood, since he knew Shani was embarrassed and ashamed that they'd potentially let him down.

'It was pretty embarrassing. But luckily everyone at the hospital knows enough about us to listen to what we told them and didn't try to force conventional medicine on us. If they had, we might have had a major trauma as our energy levels dropped even lower. Brooke and Ryan were correct, the best thing for us was simply to eat as much and as fast as we could. I guess it was pretty funny watching us gobbling bottled Cokes and ice cream sandwiches from the vending machine while all the expensive hospital equipment sat around unused.'

'You realize you could probably have done the same thing by simply giving her an aspirin, don't you?' Alex teased. 'Although it would have increased any internal bleeding, it would hopefully have prevented the blood from coagulating and causing damage to Anh's brain.' Shani was silent for a moment.

'Don't worry about it, Shani, I wasn't serious. While I worry about all of you trying something like that, I'm really proud of each of you. So how is everyone now? Did Anh make out OK?'

'Yeah, she seems fine. Any damage she'd have had would have taken a while to show anyway, but we can see the damage was lessened. She still has a bad headache, but we think we prevented any serious repercussions. Actually, I think Liv's headache might actually be worse than Anh's at the moment.'

'Well I'm glad you're all OK now. You've got to be careful trying out something like that in an uncontrolled environment, ' Alex cautioned her.

'Believe me, if it's a choice between watching a close and trusted friend suffering possible damage as a result of our inaction, we'd each try it again. But at least we learned something from it, ' Shani responded, sounded decidedly uncontrite.

'Is Anh healthy enough for me to speak to her?' Alex asked.

'Oh, sure. You know you can always pop inside any of our heads and we can reply without using much energy. We managed to do it with you when you were only semi-conscious after your attack. I just wanted to let you know what happened first, so you'd have a complete explanation before you spoke to anyone. But I'm sure Anh will want to speak to you about it, even if only to apologize for getting us involved and thereby threatening our own health.'

'Well, we're just pulling up in front of our hotel so I'll talk to Anh on our way in, then we'll get settled before I check in with everyone. I think we'll save an analysis of events until later when everyone is thinking more clearly. Does everyone else know? My parents, Kitty and Chalise?'

'Yeah, Ryan made sure they were informed. Last we heard they were on their way in, but we recovered pretty quickly once we got some food in us. I still feel weak, but I figured I was strong enough to communicate telepathically with you.'

'Well, you just keep eating. Whenever I go through that I find the more I eat the better I am. You sometimes think you're going to be OK, but then you get hit with another sag in your energy so you've got to keep that in mind. Leave it to Ryan to explain to everyone what happened. I'm sure he'll want to know. If you're too weak to talk we'll call and explain to him what happened.'

'We've been able to speak a little, though we can't talk very loudly yet. It probably wouldn't hurt if you called him and discussed the situation with him, simply because you understand what we went through better than anyone else. I'm sure he'd appreciate getting your feedback on how to handle and when to release us.'

'OK, I'll do that. Now you take it easy and concentrate on your recovery, ' Alex told her before he finally turned to the others in the car and started to explain what had happened back home.

There was a lot to follow up on, after all, there had been a lot of stuff to sort through the previous day. After Alex talked to Anh the previous night, telling her to take it easy and concentrate on her own recovery, he spoke to everyone else, telling them not to stress over what they may or may not have done wrong or what it might mean. There would be plenty of time for that discussion later. They took his advice to heart and Alex could feel them release many of their hidden worries. He'd spoken with Cate about it, but he'd told her the same thing.

"I want us to think about this before we finally start debating what it means. This involves a lot of little things, and we'll have to consider a lot as we try to figure out what direction to take it. I don't think any of us is ready for a post-op at this point, so just let the ideas percolate for a bit before you try to figure anything out concerning it."

She, like everyone else, accepted that simple advice. Receiving such scary news about so many people all at once had unsettled Alex, especially once he managed to reach both his parents and his girlfriends, Kitty and Chalise.

"Hello?" Chalise said over the phone.

"Hey, sweetheart. I'd love to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, but I just wanted to talk to you about the—"

Alex heard the sound of the phone being fumbled then another voice responded.

"Alex? What the hell is going on?" Caroline asked him, sounding clearly upset. "We're just pulling into the parking lot and everyone is beside themselves. How is Anh and what happened to everyone else?"

"Calm down. Everything is fine. Anh fell and hit her head, but she's recovering now. As for the others, they, uh, they got the bright idea to pull one of my tricks and they tried to repair Anh's concussion themselves. They actually managed to do it, but the effort wore them out. When the EMTs got there they were all wiped out, but they're recovering now. By the way, instead of going right in the hospital, make a stop by a grocery store or a fast food restaurant and grab the most calorie rich foods you can find. They need to restore their energy as quickly as they can, and I'm not sure three month old vending machine food is going to be their best option."

"Sure, we can do that. So they really tried—?"

"Caroline, not to be rude, but you yanked the phone away from one of my two favorite girlfriends, and I'm sure she's just as anxious as you are, and would like to hear it from me directly. Could I possibly speak to her please?"

"Oh, sorry," she responded. "I was so upset I guess I overreacted. Those women have been so helpful to us and we owe them so much. When you were injured they—"

"Caroline?" Alex asked, reminding her once again who he'd originally called.

"Sorry again. I'm ... actually I'm so upset that Kitty volunteered to drive me. She was spending the night. So which girlfriend were you hoping to speak to?"

Alex laughed an easy laugh. "Just put me on speaker phone, then you can all hear it at the same time. I've been saying the same thing several times over, it would save a lot of energy if I didn't repeat it another three times."

So he spoke to them about it, then spoke to his parents who were just as upset. He asked if they had checked up on Brooke's kids, but it turned out a neighbor had volunteered to watch the kids when the EMTs came storming in. His parents went to bring them to the hospital so they could see their mother and explain what had happened to everyone as best they could. No one knew quite what happened or what it meant.

However, now that Alex was pulling up in front of the Schertz Unitarian Universalist Community Church, he asked himself again what the hell he was doing. It was a quiet little building in a small community located just a short distance from the Randolph Air Force Base. It actually looked quite peaceful, a wooden building devoid of crosses, painted a pleasant pale gray color with scattered trees around the yard and a big playground behind the church. There were also several cars parked in front, so Linda must have managed to make her last minute arrangements for the impromptu meeting.

"Oh, good, I see you made it," Linda Tamar said, giving him a big hug hello as he entered the building.

"What, you didn't think I'd do what I promised you I would?" Alex asked her, always surprised how people didn't seem to think he'd react like other people would.

"No, no, it's ... heck, I'm not sure what I thought. But I was just sure you'd either get scared off or you'd get called away."

"Called away by whom? God? Remember, I'm the one who doesn't believe in him, so I wouldn't be likely to answer his call," Alex joked. "Well, I'm here, although I don't have anything prepared. I've never actually done this sort of thing before, so you'll have to let me know how it's done. You've got a real nice place here. I can see why you come."

Alex took in the people already there. Despite it's being such a small church, there were somewhere between thirty to fifty people in attendance. Alex wasn't quite sure how many there were since many were crowded around the edges. The coffee pot seemed to be working overtime to keep up. He didn't think Linda could gather this many people from the small church this quickly, so he assumed she'd called the other local UU churches and he was speaking to members of several churches scattered throughout the area. Linda noticed him glancing around.

"I hope you don't mind, but I invited a fair number of guests. Just to assure you, I didn't say anything over the phone to anyone. I just told them we have a very notable figure who represents a new religious viewpoint they'd like to hear. We even got a couple of non-UU people. Each group contacted their own call lists and got the word out." Alex nodded that he understood, so she continued.