Outview (14 page)

There on the sand, a solitary person sat on
a large black boulder surrounded by driftwood. He was staring out to sea so
intently that I expected to see whales or a ship. Nothing but waves danced in
the early sun. He didn’t move until we were right in front of him, blocking his
view.

I guessed he was probably in his late
forties. His shaggy gray hair blew in the ocean breeze, eyes a remarkable pale
turquoise, light blue pants rolled up mid-calf and a faded green, long-sleeve
shirt, gave the impression he’d been walking the beach for hours. Inexplicably,
the sight of him relaxed me.

“Nate, thanks for coming.” He spoke
immediately in a deep soft tone, which reminded me of my dad. “I know you have
many questions. I’ll try to clear up as much confusion as I can.”

“Maybe you could start by telling me who
you are.”

“Of course, forgive me. My name is
Copeland. Spencer Copeland.”

Linh, Kyle, and I exchanged glances. He was
one of the names on my dad’s list.

“Nate, I feel I’ve known you all your life,
so I’m delighted we can finally speak face to face.” He turned to my friends. “Kyle
and Linh, you’re somewhat newer to me, but I’m most pleased to see you, too.”

“Okay, Mr. Copeland,” I began.

“Please, you must call me Cope.”

“Cope? That’s my middle name,” I said.

“Yes, it is.”

“So you’re the old friend my dad named me
after.”

“Yes.”

“How come we’ve never met?”

“We did a few times when you were younger,
but life took me in a different direction.”

“How about I just call you Spencer?”

“As you wish.”

“Why did you ask us here today and to such
an out-of-the-way spot?” I looked around still a little nervous.

“Perhaps that is as good a place as any to
begin.” He smiled. “Let’s walk.” He rose and we followed. “The people who are
looking for you cannot easily hear us at this location. The high cliffs and
narrow beach afford almost no area for their electronic surveillance to pick us
up. Likewise, the water adds great difficulty to their remote viewers.”

“Who’s looking for me?”

“Let me go a bit further back to answer you.
I first met your father and Lee twenty-two years ago. We were at a retreat in
northern California. Synchronistic events brought us together; we were
grappling with our gifts.”

“So, you see things and hear things, too?”

“Yes,” he said, staring out at the ocean.
“I have the same burden you do.”

“And my father did, too.”

“Oh, yes, but he turned away from it. He
wanted to be normal. I think he did a pretty good job at that, too. Actually, anyone
can see and hear what you do. Kyle and Linh will begin soon, now that they are
open to it.”

“You mean it’s contagious?” Linh asked.

He laughed. “Yes, thankfully, in a way it
is. Everyone possesses these extraordinary senses. But as you can see just by
watching what Nate has gone through, it is a challenge to deal with, and society
discourages it, so virtually all simply close off to the glimpses and
glimmers.  But let me go on--we only have so long before the tide comes in. The
three of us became instant friends, brothers, really. After the retreat, we
stayed in touch and got together at least once a month, helping each other
develop our abilities and dealing with the many things we saw and heard. At
some point your father met your mother and decided that he didn’t want to try
incorporating other dimensions and a thousand lifetimes into his world with
her.”

“So, she broke up the gang?”

“No, no. Your father and I haven’t missed a
week without some sort of contact. It was Lee who really broke up the gang, to
use your words.” Something in his tone conveyed his great sadness. It was as if
he had to watch friends get killed while he was chained to a wall or something.
And that feeling of frustration seemed to pass right from him to me.

“Lee was recruited into Stargate,” he said.

“The TV show?”

“I wish it had been as simple. Stargate was
the codename for a highly classified program between the CIA, DIA, and FBI. It
started in the late sixties during the Cold War, when the U.S. was afraid the
Soviets were gaining the upper hand on psychic research, specifically, remote
viewing.”

“What’s that?” Kyle asked.

“The short answer is ESP, extrasensory
perception. The government initially used it to find out if the viewer could
give impressions about distant or unseen targets, sensing with the mind to see
in places where satellites couldn’t. At least that’s what they told the Senate
Select Committees responsible for their funding. But there was quite a bit more
to it.”

“And they used your friend, Lee Duncan?” I
asked.

“They used Lee, yes, that’s a good way to
put it. There were many others, too. And they had a lot of success. You’ll
never read about it in the history books, but it was key to ending the Cold War
and bringing the Soviets down, and it still affords this country a variety of
foreign policy victories today.” We walked along the sheltered beach littered
only with driftwood and a light scattering of shells and river rocks. Linh
found a sand dollar. “Then back in 1995, word of the program leaked, and people
thought this was a complete waste of taxpayers’ money on what most saw as a
silly fortune teller program. So an independent evaluation was ordered. Days
before the review was to begin, the CIA opted to simply close down the Stargate
project--but not really, that’s just what they told Congress and the press.
They actually kept it alive in a Langley basement until just after the 9/11
attacks when it was secretly folded into the Department of Homeland Security,
expanded and renamed Lightyear.”

“So that’s what Lightyear is?” Kyle said.

“Yes. But it becomes more.”

“What happened to Lee?” I looked up at a
small waterfall emerging from the trees, pouring over the cliff ahead of us.

“The administration took hold of Lightyear
and got more aggressive with it. That was an awful time. When the new president
came into office, there was some hope, but that quickly faded. By then, it had
matured into a powerful tool. They put a new director in charge of the program who
was well-connected, and he decided to use it for other means, such as the
accumulation of wealth and power for himself and a few of his cronies. But
they’re so well hidden within the CIA that they’re able to do things no one
knows about. We’re talking immense corruption.”

“And Lee was going to blow the whistle?”

“Yes, he was.”

“So they killed him?”

“Yes.”

“And my dad? Lightyear killed him, too,
didn’t they?”

“Yes.” He stopped and turned to me, the
turquoise eyes full of memories I’ll never know. “I’m more sorry about your dad
than you can understand. Lee at least wandered knowingly into the cobra’s nest,
but your dad was just trying to live a normal life. He wasn’t bothering
anyone.”

“Who killed my dad? I pleaded.

“I don’t know his name.”

“You don’t know who’s running Lightyear?”

“It’s ultra classified, buried so deep
inside the CIA that it might as well not exist.”

“Can’t you find out? You knew Kyle and
Linh’s names. Can’t you use some of your magic to find this bastard?”

“I’m sorry, Nate, it doesn’t work like
that.”

“How does it work then? I can see into
lifetimes from hundreds of years ago like it’s happening now. I hear voices
from other dimensions. People see military bases and terrorists plotting on the
other side of the planet in their minds, but you can’t figure out a way to see
who killed your two best friends?”

“I’m not saying it’s impossible; it’s just
not that simple.”

“Then why did you ask us here?” I shook my
head, disgusted.

“You’re in danger, Nate.”

“The guys from Lightyear? What are they
going to do, kill a sixteen-year-old kid?”

“At the very least. Yes, they will kill
you.”

“Why?”

“Several reasons. As soon as you did an
online search with Lee Duncan and Lightyear in the same query, that was reason
enough.”

“How do they know I did that? Is some
psychic honed in on me?”

“There’s a little-known government agency
called the NSA that monitors all Internet and phone traffic. Someone from
Lightyear had them looking for that phrase along with Lee’s name. The NSA
doesn’t even have to know why. They just send the data to the CIA, and it
filters back to Lightyear.”

“So my own government wants to kill me?
It’s too unbelievable to believe.”

“Nate, haven’t you learned in the past few
months that the most unbelievable things are often the things that are actually
the most real?”

“No.”

“I find
that
unbelievable.”

“I don’t care what you think,” I said.

“Spencer, you said, ‘at the very least they
would kill him’ what did you mean by that?” Kyle asked calmly. “What else would
they do?”

“Kyle, I’m sorry to say that you’re all in
danger, not just because you’re Nate’s friends but because you searched for
information on Montgomery Ryder on your personal computers. That’s reason
number two for taking Nate out, but it definitely puts you in some jeopardy.
The only reason Nate is still alive is that it took a while to get the report
to Lightyear. The government’s big and routine information moves slowly, but
now it’s a priority.”

“Are you going to help us?” Linh asked.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to
help you,” Spencer promised. “But perhaps their most important case for killing
you, Nate, is a reason they don’t even know yet.”

“Great. What is it?”

“Your abilities to tap the powers of the
universe may be the only thing that can bring them down.”

“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic
here?”

Spencer grabbed me. “Listen to me, Nate.
You have
no
idea what you’re up against! Lightyear is run by the
nastiest people you can imagine. They’re using remote viewing to manipulate
events and advance an agenda of cruel greed. They won’t just kill you; they
will kill your friends and family. Haven’t they already proved that? They’ll
kill a whole school of children if they need to. Melodramatic? I haven’t even
begun to tell you what’s going on at Lightyear. These people are vicious. This
is nothing less than an epic battle of good versus evil.” He let me go.

“I’m sixteen,” I screamed, running toward
the ocean. Kyle and Linh ran after me. Spencer sat down in the sand. “This is
too much,” I yelled above the surf. “What does he want from me? What does the
universe want me to do? What can I do?”

“Nate, you need to chill out,” Kyle said. “Get
hold of yourself. We need to know what Spencer is telling us.”

“Do you believe him?” I asked.

“Yeah, do you?” Kyle answered.

“Every word.”

“So, why are you giving him such a hard
time?”

“Because I don’t want to hear what he’s
saying. I want to go to sleep and dream of cars and football games. I don’t
want voices whispering in my brain. My dad didn’t either. He turned away from
this stuff, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“I think it’s too late for that, and it
didn’t work for your dad; they murdered him anyway. Didn’t you hear Spencer?
You
may be able to stop us
all
from getting killed.”

It was then that I noticed the tears
streaming down Linh’s face. “Linh, are you okay?”

“Everyone’s talking about us being killed
like it’s no big deal,” she was shrieking, “like if we do this we could get
killed or these people might just kill us or our families!
Our families,
Nate!”

“Linh, we’ll be all right. Somehow we’ll
all get through this,” I managed to say.

“How do you know that? He said these people
don’t care about blowing up a school. He said they’re vicious!”

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” I
said.

“Yes you do, Nate. It’s all right here.” Kyle
was so calm. Linh and I both waited for his next words. “We need to go back and
listen to Spencer. He will help us.” Kyle pointed at Spencer, sitting, once
again, concentrating on the ocean. “He didn’t bring us here just to scare us.
He must have some plan on how we can survive this. And Nate, you need to stay
calm from now on, and you have to keep meditating. It
will
help you.”

“I feel like my head is going to explode.”

“I know,” he said, “but it won’t.”

We headed back to Spencer. He stood as we
approached. “I’m sorry, Spencer, I’m pretty freaked out by all this.”

“Perfectly understandable, Nate. I came on
a little strong.”

“So, I’m supposed to save the world?” I
asked.

“That would be helpful, but my first goal
is to just keep you alive,” he said.