The Teleporter E-Book

Jari Enckell

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 277

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Leevi Mielonen, a single middle-aged statistician from Finland, has a soft spot for caramel bear claws and lives a simple life. He is also in possession of an extraordinary ability that he knows nothing about, until he is contacted by the Astral Level Troops, the secret global organization in charge of keeping world peace behind the scenes. Leevi is suddenly drawn into a world that is more vast, dazzling, and cosmically linked than he ever could have believed. The fate of civilization itself relies on teleporters, rare individuals with transcendent and telepathic gifts. Leevi soon realizes that he himself is not only one of them, but unusually gifted in the astral arts. From murderous autocrats and psychic spies to wandering ghosts and Mayan rain-gods, this story is full of wild characters in even wilder situations . The stakes are as high as they can be in this speculative fiction novel. The Teleporter is the debut novel from Finnish plumbing entrepreneur Jari Enckell. It is a quick-paced farce with pressing themes, spectacular plot twists, and dry hilarity — all based on real events and places, and on the psychedelic mysteries of consciousness and the cosmos. The book is translated into English by bilingual author and poet Kasper Salonen.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

CHAPTER 1

A regular summertime work day was underway again. I got up earlier than usual, as I had promised to bring in some bear claws for the office. There was cause for a bit of celebration, since our company had expanded to welcome its fourth ever employee. From now on, the Stat Aces firm would comprise owner-CEO Kalevi Pöntinen, along with three employed statisticians; namely myself, and Esko Huovinen, and our newest addition, Jorma Tiilikainen. It was Jorma’s first day on the job, which called for a collective round of coffees first thing in the morning.

After I’d showered, I took a pot of yoghurt out of the refridgerator in my studio apartment and made myself a sandwich. As I munched my breakfast, I tapped open the Helsingin Sanomat digital newspaper on my smart phone and started scanning the day’s news. Nothing new under the sun, as ever. The US president was spouting nonsense in his tweets and the UK had its hands full with the insanity of Brexit. I couldn’t focus my attention on anything specific, so I turned off my phone. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and went walking along Topeliuksenkatu toward Ruusulankatu, where the ace statisticians had their offices. On the way I picked up some pastries from Cafe Picnic.

The Stat Aces were a statistics service company in Helsinki’s Töölö district, and we routinely took on commissions from all sorts of customers. I believe the biggest fish were TV channel MTV3, national broadcaster Yle, Bauermedia, and Statistics Finland, to name a few. Our company had often been in the running for various competitive European Union-backed statistics deals, with no luck so far. So we had had to make do with smaller domestic business, usually things like opinion polls or traffic analyses. I was to spend the next two weeks staring at traffic figures. The forms were all prepared on my desk, as was the electronic vehicle counter. I had done similar measurements before, so it made sense I should be the one to take on the case.

It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that I’m a fifty-something lifelong bachelor, and my name is Leevi Mielonen. My background is in installation and machining, with a professional title that probably doesn’t even exist anymore. I haven’t done a single day’s work as a machinist. After the polytechnic I marched into the army through conscription, and I ended up spending a few years in the military. When I got out I did this and that, and finally statistics somehow just called to me. It sounds weird, but it’s what happened. First with Statistics Finland for two decades, and then under Kalevi as his first hireling. Kalevi had worked at Statistics Finland as well, but founded a competing company of his own. I’d had this job for about five years, with no complaints to speak of. My rental studio is on Topeliuksenkatu, in central Helsinki. It’s small and cramped, but dear to me regardless. I’ve been living here, mostly alone, for many years.

There have been two female companions in my life, of the long-term sort. Both stuck around for about two years each, before and after I turned 35. For some reason I always go into a panic when my significant other starts talking family and mortgages. I’m not built for that sort of thing. Why, I wonder? Apart from these two women there have been a few casual dalliances, nothing worth mentioning. At my age I’m not really looking for anything spectacular anyway. My own peace and quiet and the chance to do what I please, that’s money in the bank, and something I’m not about to give up. Relationships bring responsibilities along with them, nevermind adding children to the mix.

I arrived at the office just after 8 am, tasty bear claws in hand.

I shook Jorma’s hand and bade him welcome to the team. He seemed to be excited about his new place of employment, and was clearly brimming with energy. He scarfed down his pastry with relish, too. Jorma was a new recruit from a competing company, where he said the atmosphere was downright rotten. Here he would have a fresh start, and a chance to ”express himself ”, as he put it. I thought to myself, exactly which official forms and paperwork did he think would allow him such self-expression, but I said nothing. I was glad he had such drive; he would need it for all the interviews and cut-and-dry stats work that he had in store.

Kalevi called me into his office after we’d finished our coffee and shot the breeze as per custom. He said he was going to China to learn about transparent fish, which would make me acting chief of the Stat Aces in the meanwhile. Japanese researchers had apparently created a species of see-through fishies by cross-breeding pale white goldfish, and these genetic creations were on display in a goldfish emporium in Hong Kong, where they had been shipped from Japan. Their life expectancy was a whopping 20 years, and they could grow to be 25 centimeters in length. Kalevi was an avid goldfish breeder, which also explained the massive aquarium in his corner office, complete with two very well-fed specimens swimming around. They were at least 20 centimeters long, at a glance. The boss was in a flutter about the transparent Japanese individuals, mainly because you could see their internal organs at work without having to cut them open first. This way biology classrooms the world over would no longer need to slaughter the poor creatures to study them, the apples of Kalevi’s eye. While he was gone, my task was to feed his two special pets regularly and keep an eye on their wellbeing. I was given a very specific list of dos and don’ts for this highly trustworthy assignment; in writing, thankfully, because I never would have remembered half of them.

After completing the morning’s formalities I packed my gear and headed off to the intersection at Mannerheimintie 120, to calculate the traffic right around the Tullinpuomi Shell gas station. I attached the counter to the traffic light post and switched on the device. It would diligently count all the passing cars until it was turned off again. I set about my own task, which was to monitor all the drivers who ran red lights or accelerated at yellow ones, and register each one on my form. This was now to be my main purview, every day, between 7 – 9 am and again at 3 – 5 pm. The intervening hours would be spent punching in the data at my office computer, where a program would crunch the numbers and produce statistics on what percentage of motorists were a little gas-happy at the intersection in question. Of course, I’d also make sure to feed Kalevi’s aquatic friends and double-check the temperature of their living conditions. Under no circumstances should the water temperature exceed 22°C.

CHAPTER 2

The first day of my two-week counting labor was soon behind me, just like that, and I headed for home. On the way I stopped at the Mansku K-Market to fill my fridge. It turned out that this was the one bit of shopping that would change my life irreversibly, and I was to be drawn into events whose existence I had never even imagined.

I was in the fruit aisle bagging some oranges, when a clear voice rang out in my head, saying ”Laugh”. I turned around in a circle to see if the voice was coming from somewhere in the shop, but no, everyone was going about their business, oblivious. ”Laugh, laugh” the voice said again, and I was now convinced it was only in my own head that this bizarre command was being issued. When the voice told me a third time, ”Laugh, goddamn you, right now”, I instinctively formed a counter-thought and snapped back ”There’s nothing to laugh about, shut the hell up”. After this the voice left me alone, and there was nothing more to be heard inside my mind. I paid for my groceries and walked home, shaken.

The experience was something of a shock, and after I’d put away my shopping I had to have a lie down. Now then, was I going crazy, or was I crazy already? I googled auditory hallucinations and discovered I was not alone. A Dutch study had found that a whopping 40% of people hear voices in their head at some point in their life. Woah; maybe this isn’t so serious after all, I thought. I ate my evening snack earlier than usual and went off to bed. No eerie voices disturbed my sleep, and I was out like a light until morning.

The next three days at the intersection were all identical. My new daily routines felt familiar and safe. Traffic counting and filing reports. Checking on the goldfish, who were doing fine. These might well be my last counting shifts, I thought, since automated robotic counters were on the way; units were planned for at least Mannerheimintie, Kaisaniemenkatu, and Mäkelänkatu in the near future. So I decided to enjoy the task at hand, and give it my full attention despite the sheer monotony.

The fourth day was no longer the same. During the afternoon rush I clearly felt that someone was staring at me. I couldn’t find the person with my eyes, but someone was definitely looking right at me. The hairs on my right arm stood on end for the whole duration of this spooky feeling. It lasted about five minutes, and then stopped; but soon the same feeling came over me yet again, someone was staring. What the fuck was this?? Did this have something to do with those commands in my head from before? My own reply to this question was interrupted by none other than the voice again, which said: ”We must meet”. I spun around and yelled aloud: ”Who the hell are you!?” and ”Leave me alone!” Passers-by looked at me in shock. One mother drew her child close to her and shot me a fearful look. The voice continued: ”Calm down, and answer me with your thoughts. Everyone’ll think you’ve gone mad otherwise.” Right then I sent out a thought: ”Please get the fuck out of my head already. If you want to talk then do it to my face.” The voice went on: ”I will, but it will take a while. My meat suit isn’t in Finland at the moment. You have an exceptional gift, and I’d like to tell you about it.”

We exchanged thoughts right there at my traffic-counting spot for a few minutes more, and he agreed to meet me in just under a week at the nearby sports hall cafeteria, called Kisahalli. He would appear as a ”regular person” and explain the basics of this ”gift”, he said. It would then be up to me whether I would want to develop this so-called talent, whatever it was, and whether I would join an ultra-secretive enterprise that this skill was perfect for. The voice also promised not to contact me ”headwise” until I knew what exactly was going on. Apparently, though, I was not ill or insane, so the voice told me to relax.

I walked back to the office with my mind buzzing. The afternoon count had gone sideways because of this chatty episode. I decided to work an extra day to avoid any errors. The customer was paying for accuracy, after all. Esko and Jorma were still at their desks and were writing up their interviews from earlier in the day. I sat at my workspace, completely unaware of my surroundings for the moment. My colleagues noticed.

”What’s up?” asked Esko. ”You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Tell me about it, I thought to myself. The voice had strictly forbidden me to talk about this extrasensory method of communication to anyone. In some unaccountable way, I had started to trust this voice. It was really weird, actually. Part of me was also of the opinion that I should be marched straight to the nearest psychiatric institution forthwith. I had, after all, agreed to a meeting with a voice in my head.

Pöntinen had made it to Hong Kong during this strange week I was having. He was in the Ocean Park goldfish house, getting familiar with all manner of exotic aquatic life. The creatures had impressive fins and bulging eyes, and they came in the strangest of shapes. All goldfish, which the Buddhists in Tang Dynasty China were the first to breed, apparently all descended from the silver Prussian carp. The color cells of goldfish formed light-reflecting pigments, and they could even change their coloration according to the spectrum of light they were subject to. The fish got their color from the pigments in their cells, but they were also dependent on light: goldfish who spent their nights in darkness were paler in the morning, and if kept in the dark for longer they would lose their color entirely. But Pöntinen was only interested in the see-through variety on this trip of his; unfortunately, despite his best efforts, they were still nowhere to be seen. He had five days until his return flight, however, so meanwhile he was sure to keep looking harder than ever.

CHAPTER 3

Another week flew by at my traffic counting gig. Just the final touches on the data sheet and off it went into cyberspace; finished. The statistics program demonstrated, rather worryingly, that during peak rush hour 19.6% of drivers ran the red light at the Mannerheimintie intersection, as brash as can be. Of all drivers, 48% ran yellow lights. It was no wonder that traffic cams were being automated, like speed cameras: the fine comes along after the fact, based on the robot photographs. All in all 91,789 vehicles went past the lights on these ten days of my dual shifts. Now it was time for a bear claw and a cup of joe in celebration, and off to the sports center cafeteria for my rendez-vous. Our meeting was at 6 pm. It would soon become clear once and for all whether I was half-crazy, nuts, or just completely off the rails.

The cafe felt packed. I queued myself another coffee from the kiosk window and started to take in my surroundings. I walked a little ways off from the tables, and stood right by the corridor with my cup. The tables along the whole Mannerheimintie side of the establishment were full of cutomers. At the last table a man was sitting alone, with a small dog in his lap. He was dressed in a dark-colored Ulster coat, and on the table in front of him there was a round-domed cranial accessory of some kind, perhaps a bowler hat. I walked over toward him carefully, keeping my distance. I was almost out of my wits with nerves. I hung around farther off, pretending not to exist. I observed him at a glance in my periphery, this slightly mystical person. A phone went off in his pocket. There ensued a shocking eruption of verbal chatter, possibly in an Asian language. I didn’t have a clue what he was saying, but it certainly wasn’t in my native Finnish. I was convinced that our clandestine meet-up was doomed before it had even started when the gentleman started gesticulating to the waiter mid-phonecall, apparently to top up his cappuccino, and failing at this miserably. English was probably also not his strong suit, so I was all but done wasting my time. And yet, the voice in my head had been in plain, fluent Finnish. I made one more inconspicuous lap around the whole cafeteria and took a look at each of the tables in passing. Nothing and no one matched my impression of my telepathic friend.

I set off toward the street door, when a voice spat through my head: ”Where are you going? I’ve been waiting here almost an hour for you, and you’re splitting already!” I spun around and noticed the Asian man staring point blank at me from his table with his downright piercing eyes.

”How the hell do you speak Finnish all of a sudden?” I thought back.

”I don’t,” he replied, ”but come have a seat already; we’ll exchange thoughts.”

I walked over to his table and sat down across from him. I introduced myself and offered him a handshake.

”Leevi Mielonen,” I thought to him.

”Hoang Xuan,” the man replied and gripped my hand briskly. ”And this fellow in my lap is called Thi,” Xuan went on. ”He’s a Papillon spaniel and important to my work. You must already have a lot to chew on, so this evening I’ll try to let you know just the essentials, in a nutshell. If you decide to join us in our enterprise, you will receive your full training and a whole new world will be unveiled to you. In fact, the world as you know it now will change completely. You will soon understand that everything is not as it seems. Not even close. When I’ve spoken, you will be faced with a decision. After you sign an NDA, if you’re willing, your training will immediately begin and it will take months, perhaps years. You will have to disengage from your current job as a statistician and work for us full-time. But now, I suggest we walk around Töölönlahti bay, while I tell you some things about yourself, myself, and the world in general.”

Xuan got up, put on his coat and bowler hat, and showed me toward the Töölönkatu side Kisahalli exit. I rose and started walking in that direction. There we were, two mute chums silently shuffling. It must have looked comical, two men and a spaniel walking along without a word, but my sea of other thoughts quite drowned out any anxiety. Xuan began his own waterfall of thought-transmissions, and I listened to the story unfolding inside my head.

”Let’s start with how all of this is even possible. It is due simply to the fact that you have been a teleporter since birth. It is a gift that only some thousands of people in the world possess. Teleporter talents come in many varieties, so every teleporter is unique in themselves. Each such individual has the same basic capabilities, but also an additional, specific special ability. Yours will be discovered soon enough during training.

”We teleporters have long since joined forces and combined our different knacks for the common good. This way we can monitor the whims of the world more closely. I heard you wondering about how we can understand one another, with no common language between us. It is simple: all telepathic activity works through the human brain in the exact same way. Therefore we can understand each other, even though you speak as much Vietnamese as I do Finnish, namely none. In fact, I never picked up English either, as I became aware of my talent at a young age, as a teenager. I trained, and now I technically run the worldwide teleporter organization. I’ll tell you more about that during training, if you decide to join, that is.

”So then: how do we observe teleporters, and how did I find you? With a teleporter who is oblivious to their abilities, it is usually complete dumb luck. That’s why it’s such a challenge to find new recruits. Like any discipline, we need the younger generation to pick up where we leave off, when we pass into eternity.

”Now, I was out ”porting” – doing astral surveillance, that is – in this area a few weeks ago. I can’t reveal my specific reason for hovering in this part of town, but that’s when I bumped into you by chance at Cafe Picnic. Quite literally, actually, while I was flowing through you at the speed of thought on my way from one place to the next. When I encountered your presence I felt a sort of kinetic tug, which is incredibly unusual when floating through people. You must have been storing some sort of astral momentum. I made a note of you at once, and some days later I returned to you, to make sure. While you were shopping, I tried out a maneuver: I attempted to make you laugh by affecting your mind. Due to the fact that you are, indeed, a teleporter, my infiltration must have felt ridiculous and you easily heard my command, which was intended for your subconscious. The ease with which you responded in thought made me certain that you are very likely an especially gifted teleporter. I decided to contact you and get the chance to talk with you about the future. My physical body, or as we call it my meat suit, was at the time located back at home on an island called Vinh Nguyen in Vietnam, so I had to postpone our tête-à-tête until several days later, so I could have time to find you in person.”

As we strolled several laps around the bay, time passed, and Xuan did most of the thinking. If I did manage to muster some query in between, the reply was usually ”we’ll go into that later” or ”you will be told all about it if you join”. There weren’t exactly any other avenues left to me than to do just that, whatever it was I was joining. I was curious enough about the whole deal and all the things I’d heard and experienced for myself. I was able to piece together that teleporting referred to some sort of astral projection, involving floating outside of one’s physical body. Even long distances were apparently easy to traverse through the sheer power of consciousness. The telepathic connection to other teleporters was likewise achievable across distance, and the mode of linguistic communication is always intelligible, regardless of anyone’s native language. Quite a newsreel of batshit things, to be sure, and information I would make sure to keep to myself. Talking about astral anything in public would more than likely land me in a psychiatric ward, as per my lingering fear.

Xuan was winding down his expositional monologue, and I took a moment to consider my options. There was no time to waste, it turned out, and I would have to make my decision on the spot. In the morning at latest. If I were to decline, neither Xuan nor anyone from the organization would ever bother me again. They would respect my decision, regardless of the teleporter shortage. Our meeting was now adjourned. I bade Xuan the teleporter and Thi the spaniel good night, and started walking home.

Even several blocks later my thoughts would not calm down. I couldn’t get a proper grip on anything I’d just been through or been told. It quickly started to feel like some confused lucid dream. But right at the door to my building there was Xuan’s voice again, saying he would wake me at 7:15 sharp, when I would be obliged to give my answer. So much for the dream theory. Xuan also reminded me to quit my job, which I would have to do right away if I conceded to join the enterprise. I was given a maximum of two days to get my affairs in order at work. My new position would come with a paycheck starting with the training, so I didn’t have to worry about that. Each of the few times I asked after the sum, the answer was the same: ”enough”.

CHAPTER 4

As promised, a bright voice thrummed through my head at 7:15 am sharp: ”Well, what’s it to be? Will you join us?” I had made my decision to enter the organization in the wee hours, so replying was easy. I said I would go into the office on Monday one last time to inform the staff and tie up any work-related loose ends. No new statistics project had yet come around, so I was leaving without hassle.

I sent Pöntinen an SMS as my pre-resignation letter, saying that I would come over the next Monday personally. I apologized for being seretive about my new job, and made sure to mention how happy my time at the Stat Aces had been. Not the most pleasant thing for the boss to return home to after going goldfish-sightseeing, but I had no choice in the matter. That’s how it felt to me, at least.

Over the weekend I would sign an NDA and some sort of contract, and my training would begin at once. Xuan told me to arrive at 2 pm at the Accountor Tower in nearby Espoo. Within this high-rise complex, known as ”Raade’s Tooth” after a bygone energy company manager, the teleporters held their secret headquearters and training center. It felt funny to me that this ultra-secret group had its base in such a public facility. I had imagined some sort of clandestine Batcave-esque hide-out. Then again, the organization didn’t technically exist anyway, so anything worked as a front.

I arrived at the Keilaniemi metro station, and hoofed it over to the tower lobby. This time I was five minutes early. Xuan, along with the loyal Thi in his lap, was waiting by the elevators. I walked over and greeted him. Xuan opened the tele-channel and we were able to thought-discourse once more. His voice began to guide me, asking me to pay close attention to the game plan. I told him in my head that I had encountered elevators before, no worries.

”Not one like this, you haven’t. Now watch closely.” Xuan called the elevator on the left. ”Always choose this out of all the others, the rest don’t matter.” He said I would only ever be allowed to use the elevator on my own, or at most with Xuan himself.

”What you are about to see, you must never speak a word about to any living soul outside the organization. This is top-secret, national security level stuff.”

”I understand,” I thought back calmly.

We arrived at the bottom-most floor with a tiny jolt. Right as the elevator stopped, Xuan pressed the Help/Stop button three times in succession. A quiet beep sounded out and the elevator started moving again ever so slowly. It was rising gradually upwards, until it reached a snail’s pace. Finally it came to a stop again, between storeys 13 and 14. The back wall, which to me had looked nothing like a doorway, sprang wide open. Xuan gestured toward the door, asking me to step out. I did as he asked, and tried to make sense of the cavelike space we had entered. A cold, clammy atmosphere seemed to envelope the dim grotto. Xuan walked ahead and clicked on some lights with familiarity as he went.

”Welcome to nowhere,” he thought to me. ”This place does not officially exist. No one but the original architects in the 1970s ever knew about it; since then, the area has been utterly forgotten. The teleporters back then also did a shallow wipe of the builders’ memories upon completion in 1976, so that even they had zero recollection of the project during their lives. The building contains twenty-one above-ground floors, even though officially it has twenty. This means that we were able to set up the HQ for the northern hemisphere here, in old Raade’s Tooth.”

Xuan and I walked through part of the complex. We followed the corridor that went along the outer wall, which lead on into spaces that seemed like conference rooms. Each room was furnished with interesting-looking leather chairs, and there was a small table in front of the armchairs, which were angled slightly backwards. Small support flaps were attached to both sides of the headrest, and a small, retractable stool was included for the user’s feet. At about hip height there was a strap that resembled an airplane seat belt.

In the center of this secret floor was a hall with a hefty conference table in the middle, at which we seated ourselves. I wondered why there were no other people in this whole office block, just an eery emptiness. Xuan said the reason for the place being deserted was me. I was still a stranger until I signed the ”cosmic agreement”. Then he placed a piece of A4 paper filled with mysterious symbols on the table. I joked in my head, was it time for my written exam? Xuan was not amused. He told me to look closer. I took the piece of paper in my hand and peered at it from every angle by turning it around, but I was none the wiser.

Suddenly the mystical script on the page started to somehow form sounds in my head, and I felt the meanings in the words, as if I had just read it out in plain Finnish with my eyes and understood it. This took me by surprise, and I scrambled to imagine how this was possible; but Xuan reassured me, and told me I had just teleported my first astral text. It was no harder than that.

”If you accept the terms, place your thumbprint anywhere on the paper. That will seal your initiation into our order, and no secrets will be kept from you.”

Within seconds after pressing my thumb onto the sheet of paper the elevator door opened and people started filing into the room. They all seemed to be choosing preassigned work stations, each complete with a computer and an old-fashioned rotary phone. In a strange way I felt I already knew all of these people, and that they had my complete trust.

All the rest of that Saturday and Sunday I sat listening to Xuan’s in-depth lecture on the nature of the world in which I was taking my first steps. All those hours of background left me with a dizzying amount of information to take in. Before my practical training began, I was to learn and remember the basics. It was a non-negotiable prerequisite. Out of nowhere, they asked me how much I knew about the ancient Chinese principles of feng shui. I said not much, except that it was considered unscientific.

”Incorrect,” said a thought that clapped through my head in immediate rebuttal. ”You will learn that everything is made up of the struggle for the balance of opposite forces. There is right, and there is wrong. There is hot, and there is cold, and so on. On the astral plane, which is where we travel when we teleport outside our meat suits, the energy currents of the planet are surging, and also striving for balance with our visible reality. The world is only in harmony if the opposite forces are of equal measure. Then all is at peace, serene; at least in theory. The goal of all teleporters is to maintain a global balance between all conceivable forces. But as I’ve said, we are a small group, numbering just over two thousand members. There are many sleepers or unawakened teleporters at large, probably another couple thousand, but we seldom if ever gain information or manage contact with them. Many a teleporter will live out their whole lives without knowing they carried a great gift.”

I listened to the seminar on feng shui for hours, almost ad nauseam. I couldn’t bring myself to pipe up and ask about my coming training regime, or when we would be getting to the tangible stuff. Suddenly, in the middle of the presentation, a middle-aged woman burst into the room with the air of a flustered secretary. Xuan’s voice in my mind shut off abruptly, meaning he had closed the astral channel. Xuan and the newly arrived woman stared at one another with worried expressions, in rapt mental conversation. After a moment Xuan rushed to one of the armchairs, asked for Thi to be placed in his lap, and strapped himself to the chair. He looked me dead in the eyes, opened the channel and said: ”Right now, think: what could President Trump tweet that was huge but harmless? Something that the energy strands won’t stick to easily. Think fast, I’m all out of ideas!”

I was beyond confused. I thought back, How about if he announced that today is officially Donald Trump Day across the globe. That probably wouldn’t harm anyone, but it would be both grandiose and idiotic, even for him.

”Brilliant!” Xuan replied, and lay back in the chair. A moment later his body went completely limp. I was further worried after I checked his pulse, hardly thirty beats per minute! I got up to go for help, but the ”secretary” from before chimed in; her voice said: ”Don’t worry, he’s gone already. That’s just his meat suit, and it’s fine.”

”Gone where?” I asked back.