2150 A.D. Read online

  There they were, stark naked. Karl was nibbling on her ticklish inner thigh-right there with me in the room.

  "Damn it, Karl!" I cursed angrily. "Don't you have any respect for the act?"

  Karl looked up, as startled as I had been, and, as Cindy gathered the blanket about her, his expression changed from surprise to amusement.

  He grabbed Cindy, blanket and all, and said playfully, "Hell no, Jon! We're ballin', we're not in church!"

  Cindy's apology was drowned by the voice of my own inner conflict. "Karl's right, you know," my evolved self was saying. "There's joy and laughter to be shared making love with someone you care for. It's wholesome. It's healthy. It's good."

  Then my judgmental unevolved self came on with its rebuttal. "There's nothing wholesome about Karl out there naked with someone he's not even thinking of marrying. Or for that matter, her naked in front of him here in his-no, our!-bedroom. What kind of girl is she– anyway?"

  Then the response, "Oh, get with it, Jon. She's a super person, bright, thoughtful, and fun. You know that. There's nothing wrong with them sharing a perfectly natural expression of caring and sharing. If you were as bright as you think you are, you wouldn't judge them. You'd just be happy for them."

  "Happy for them, indeed! I'd never do that sort of thing," the argument continued.

  "Oh, you wouldn't, huh? Maybe you're just a little bit jealous of Karl's lack of inhibition, his freedom of expression."

  And so the contest went till either they got quieter or I fell asleep, or both. Anyway, I– woke up Thursday morning at. my usual time with no memory of even the trace of a dream.

  January is miserably cold in New York, and this month was no exception. It had been eleven, snow and slushfilled days since my strange dream experience, and while I had remembered a few dream fragments, none of them ever approached the level of my 2150 experience.

  Did this fact support Karl's "escapist dream" theory or negate it?

  He was worried at first and spent a little more time at home than usual for the first few days. When my nights failed to turn up any more such bizarre responses, I guess he finally decided it was all just a very therapeutic escape technique.

  I, on the other hand, was having a lot of difficulty getting it off my mind. While I went through my usual daily routine, I was not quite with it. A part of me lingered with my unusual experience and longed to return to it.

  I decided to do a little research on dreams and dreaming. Bundling up against the biting cold, I headed for the bookstore, where I went straight to the dream books.

  Scanning the shelves, my eyes fell on a single word.

  Macro!

  My eyes seemed to jump from my head! There it was. The light brown booklet I had seen before. The word I couldn't remember from its title was Macro! "Incredible!" I thought. "Interpret Your Dreams from a Macro View."

  I promptly bought it and spent the evening hours studying it and applying it to dreams I remembered.

  By ten-thirty I retired convinced that 2150 and Lea were a valid reality-perhaps a parallel reality or something like that which I didn't really understand, but which I, none the less, was now sure existed somewhere in our universe; our macrocosm.

  CHAPTER 3: Carol

  I awakened, to my delight, in my library room back or should I say forward?-in the year 2150. The pleasantly feminine voice of Central Information broke into my awareness and I realized that she was still answering the last question I had asked before falling asleep. While I had spent eleven days back in 1976, I had returned to a moment in 2150 time only a few seconds later than when I had left. Did C.I. know what had happened to me?

  "Excuse me," I interrupted, "can you tell me how long I was asleep and what happened?"

  "You fell asleep," C.I. answered, "three seconds ago approximately ten seconds in 2150 metric time. However, during that three seconds you experienced a time translation of approximately eleven days in 1976 time."

  "How do you know this?" I asked, perplexed and somewhat uneasy.

  "Your chair," C.I. responded, "monitors all your major physiological changes. Also, Lea, 7-927, and others use this computer to make your time translation computations."

  "What's the 7-927 for?" I asked.

  "When Lea was born she was the seventh child to be given the name Lea in Delta 927.

  My curiosity being fully aroused, I asked the next logical question, "How do you assign names?"

  "The Macro society has thirty thousand names which fit the major soul patterns, or vibrations. When a soul incarnates into the Macro society, its vibration pattern is calibrated and the name most closely fitting this pattern is then assigned."

  I thought about this for a moment, then asked, "Can you tell me how closely the name Jon fits my vibration pattern?"

  "It fits very closely indeed," C.I. responded. "But this is no accident, since your mother had a talent for this type of name selection. She was very highly evolved. What you, in 1976, call psychic."

  Since Mother had died during my early childhood, I really couldn't remember her too well-psychic or otherwise. I was just going to ask C.I. how it (or she) had known about my mother when Lea came bouncing into the room looking even more beautiful than I had remembered. Before she could say anything, I blurted out, "Why couldn't I come back? I've missed you."

  "We tried every time you slept, Jon, but your anger at Karl prevented translation the first night. After that your belief in this reality was not strong enough to make translation possible until tonight."

  "Well, how could I be in 1976 for eleven days and return here only three seconds later than when I left?"

  "You were never really gone from either place, Jon. But I think that the concept of time as simultaneous flexible subjectivity is beyond your current comprehension."

  "Speaking of time, how old are you, Lea?"

  "Hmm," she said, "that's at least one question you forgot to ask Central Information. Before I answer I'm going to ask you how old you think I am."

  "Well," I said, "I'm not sure, but you must be somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five, and I'm hoping over twenty-one."

  "You'll get your wish and then some," she replied. Then with an impish grin she said to the computer, "Please tell us my age."

  C.I. promptly replied, "In 'time' as understood by Jon, Lea 7-927 will have forty years in three weeks and three days."

  "You were born in 21101" I exclaimed incredulously. I couldn't believe that Lea was almost 40 years old. Or to say it in their Macro way-they speak of years of a lifetime as we speak' of years of study-she has had almost forty years.

  "That's right," she replied. "We have learned to arrest the physical aging process. The only elderly-looking people you will see in the Macro society are the very few who were born before the year 2000."

  "Wait a moment," I interrupted. "Do you mean there are people living over a hundred and fifty years?"

  "Yes. Theoretically level tens could have as many years as they want, for greater mental awareness means greater physical control. Unlike micro man, our high Macro beings can move at will between their physical and astral bodies. They only remain in physical bodies as long as there are lessons to learn at the physical level. Our goal is to free ourselves completely from the limited, low vibration, physical existence."

  "But, my physical body is enjoyable. I don't want to give it up as long as it's still young enough to bring me more pleasure than pain," I complained.

  "Naturally. Nobody does," Lea replied. "That's the major reason we inhabit physical bodies; we want to. But, like all children, eventually we grow up and tire of our childish activities and seek new, more satisfying experiences. Thus, all souls evolve inevitably toward greater awareness."

  "But I don't–"

  "I know," Lea interrupted. "You aren't ready for that yet. But you are 'ready to start experiencing one of our students Alphas. Let's go. I'll answer more of your questions on the way to your Gamma building."

  As we walked hand in hand arou
nd the lake I said nothing for a while, and Lea respected my silence. I was contemplating what C.I. had told me about the social structure of the Macro society.

  "It seems to me," I said, "that this is a terribly regimented and over structured society if everybody remains a student for the first thirty years of his life and must live in a student Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. One of the problems of the 1970s is that most young people in the industrial societies are kept much too long as students-'nonproductive' members of society."

  "Yes, that's true. But our students are learning how to live satisfying, productive lives. They're not wasting their time memorizing facts and studying irrelevant materials which they'll soon forget because they don't use them in their daily life. Perfect examples would be memorization of historical or geographical details, or your society's devotion to learning foreign languages, algebra, and geometry, which most people never need to use.

  "In order to survive," Lea continued, "we learned that we had to remove from out lives the nonessentials and the divisive concerns of micro man. These included his micro family, economic class, religion, nationality, language, cultural and racial divisions."

  "That's what I meant by massive regimentation," I said. "There's no freedom left!"

  "You mean," Lea answered, "freedom to feel separate from and better than others. Freedom to be selfish and to put your own welfare above that of others. Freedom to compete, to fight, to destroy others. Freedom to pollute by over consuming and overpopulating and by refusing to cooperate."

  She looked at me searchingly for a few seconds, then continued. "You see, Jon, for man to survive on this planet in these bodies he had to learn to cooperate, which meant giving up his micro freedoms. I know you feel our society is too regimented; but live in it for a while and see if our Macro society doesn't supply freedoms that your micro society could never guarantee. Freedom from fear, disease, hunger, loneliness, crippling frustrations, and self-hate."

  "If it can do all that, I sure want to see-how it works!"

  We were surrounded by the beauty of a day filled with sunshine, a sparkling blue lake, a cool breeze, and the lovely park replete with shade trees.

  "Who does all the work to keep this paradise running?" I asked.

  "Servo-mechanisms," Lea answered. "What you would call robots do all of our repetitious, boring tasks. However, helping things grow is a joy to many people. We do the work that pleases us, so you'll find some of us working in the gardens."

  We approached the first of the large residence buildings, and Lea informed me that this was the student Gamma building in which I would be staying.

  "I'll introduce you to your Alpha mate," Lea said, "then I must leave you to return to my own work. You'll learn about 2150, then you can decide whether or not you want to make the effort to stay here."

  "Wait a minute," I said. "You mean I'm actually going to live in an Alpha and share a bedroom with some other. girl?"

  "Of course, Jon. If you're going to learn how to live in our Macro society you've got to experience it."

  "Yes, but I thought I'd be living with you," I objected.

  "You can't live with me until you've reached at least seventh level and finished your tenth student triad."

  "My God!" I exclaimed. "That'll be years from now, Lea!"

  Lea laughed and said, "Wait until you meet Carol, your Alpha mate, and I'm sure you'll soon be happy at the prospect of sharing a bed with her for the next few years."

  "But... but," I sputtered, "you can't be serious. I love you. I don't want to bed down with some other woman."

  "Love," Lea replied," is determined by the level of one's awareness. With a micro level of awareness love is a neurotic dependency relationship characterized by jealous possessiveness."

  "Oh, great," I growled. "The classic rationalization for free love, otherwise known as promiscuity."

  "Contrary to your micro society," Lea responded, "sex is not a dirty word in 2150. You'll find we share much more than just an orgasm. And we don't use another person as a sex object.

  "But please, Jon, before you condemn us as moral degenerates, get to know us. Treat us just As fairly and without prejudice as you would a research-'hypothesis.

  "Now, are you ready to meet your Alpha mate?"

  I had been so preoccupied with our conversation that I had been only vaguely aware of entering the building, passing several young, children, swiftly ascending to the seventh floor, and walking down a long, glass-enclosed' outer hall. It was lighted both by the outside sunshine and by overhead lighting which seemed to radiate equally from all parts of the ceiling. We had turned down an interior hallway and were now standing before a large blue door. I recalled that all the doorways we passed had been the same electric blue, while the walls were a pleasing shade of green. I remembered that we were on the seventh floor which held the seventh triad student Beta and that green was the seventh level color.

  To postpone answering Lea's question about my readiness to meet my Alpha mate I asked about the blue doors.

  "Blue is the eighth-level color," Lea answered, "and the seventh level is the door to the eighth level, so, doors on the seventh level are blue. Of course, these are student triad levels, which are entirely different from levels of awareness, but they share the same colors."

  "Do the colors themselves have any special meaning?" Lea smiled her tantalizingly mischievous smile and said, "Carol will be glad to explain it to you."

  I was startled when the door in front of us slid silently open. Lea, sensing my surprise, drew my attention to a button beside the door saying, "Most of us use the Macro power of psycho kinesis (PK) to activate electronic circuits. You'll have to push the buttons until you develop PK."

  I wanted to think about Lea's statement but the unusual room before us commanded my attention.

  We entered the huge deeply carpeted Alpha common room, thirty feet by ninety feet long. I was impressed by the three-dimensional murals on the walls depicting outdoor scenes so realistically that I felt I was looking through windows instead of at works of art.

  The absence of furniture contributed to this feeling of oneness with the out-of-doors, for the only furniture in this gigantic room was a circle of ten large sitting devices at one end of the room. They didn't look much like chairs, but their purpose was obvious. The fifteen foot ceiling was lit by some concealed source, creating a luminescence closer to that of sunshine than any I have ever experienced. The fact that there was no one in this room reminded me that we had seen no one since we reached the seventh floor.

  "Where is everyone?" I asked.

  "It's such a lovely day," Lea answered, "almost everyone is outdoors. We don't confine learning to the inside of classrooms as your society does."

  A moment later a door at the end of the room opened, and a young girl came running toward us. It was Carol. She was wearing the universal short tunic and, while Lea and I were wearing our stocking-like boots, her feet were bare.

  She placed her right hand on Lea's face. Lea returned the gesture, and they looked into each other's eyes for what seemed to be a very long time as I grew increasingly self-conscious. Then, without speaking, Carol touched my face and began the same smiling, but silent, encounter. I felt as if I was drowning in her magnificent hazel eyes, set in as pretty a face as I have ever seen. Reluctantly I broke our eye contact to become aware of a beautifully formed body cast from a giant mold. Carol was as tall as I, and I'm six feet three!

  CHAPTER 4: Alpha Mates

  Suddenly Lea was gone and L was alone with Carol. Why did I feel so nervous? I hadn't felt that way with Lea. What was it about Carol that made me feel like a gawky adolescent on his first date?

  I suddenly remembered that, as a telepath, Carol could read my mind. I found myself blushing. In my desperate attempt not to think anything embarrassing, I became inundated with thoughts about Carol's magnificent body which her pink well-fitted tunic did little to hide.

  "You're discovering," said Carol, "that it's impossible not
to think of something by trying not to think of it. In fact, the more you try not to think of my body, the more you think of it."

  My voice seemed to be strangled as I croaked out, "I... uh, I'm sorry."

  "You certainly needn't be. It would be sad, indeed, if you didn't appreciate the beauty of our bodies!" With these words Carol tugged the top of her tunic, which caused it to fall to the floor, leaving her wondrously naked.

  "Carol!" I gasped.

  "Please, Jon, go ahead and look at my body," she said-as if I could have looked at anything else!

  "I know it's difficult and embarrassing for you. Your being a Virgo-the virgin of the Zodiac-only multiplies your 20th-century sex guilts, so we might as well deal with them right now if you're going to live comfortably in a 22nd-century Alpha. Let's see, bathing together should be the perfect beginning for a Virgo."

  "You believe in astrology, then?" I jumped at a safe topic to diminish my self-consciousness.

  "Only as an influence, Jon-not as a determinant. Now, about that bath." She took my hand and we entered the most spacious bedroom I've ever seen.

  The room was thirty feet square. In one corner was a huge nine-foot-square pad about a foot high, while in the opposite corner was a sunken pool ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. A couple of soft oval cushions in the center of the room faced a three-foot-square video screen. Carol led me to the sunken pool and, releasing my hand, made a shallow dive into the water.

  My evolved adventurous self won a quick victory which led me swiftly out of my tunic and into the water after her. I found the water very warm and clear. The floor slanted down until at the far end of the pool, which I went to immediately, it was about eight feet deep. Carol was apparently using her PK power, because a clear plastic partition, slid out of the wall and completely surrounded our pool-bath.

  "There," she said, turning to me. "Now we can splash to our heart's content. Let's wash each other!"

  With these words Carol surprised me with another PK demonstration as the floor beneath us began to slowly rise until we were standing in water that barely covered our knees.