Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (83 page)

“It’s funny how SPECTRA sounds so much like those evil criminal masterminds in SPECTRE, from the James Bond movies,” Gordon observes, remembering when he watched those movies with his dad.

“Special Executors for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion,” Lloyd says, decoding the acronym. “Yes, I’ve often thought of that myself. Just substitute
Assassinations
for
Extortion
and there you have it. But SPECTRA also happens to be the plural form of the word
spectrum
, as in a range of wavelengths or frequencies–such as infrared to ultraviolet in the electromagnetic spectrum. It’s a synonym for
The Light
, in other words.”

“Meaning you think The Nine is basically good?” Skip asks.

“Meaning I think they could go either way,” says Lloyd. “What I
really
think is that Puharich might have invented the whole thing as a sort of CIA experiment in mass mind-conditioning that’s now run amok.”

A ball of grief swells in Gordon’s throat. He feels like crying, but he tries to hide it so no one will notice.
My 007-loving dad,
he thinks.
Killed in a plane crash while he thought I was still mad at him.

“Doctor Vinod could have been an actor–an intelligence asset–and after that it was Puharich who kept the ball rolling,” Lloyd explains, but Gordon barely hears him. He’s still dwelling on his dad:

He never got to lead an army of scuba divers in an underwater spear-gun battle. Never had a chance to use the ejector seat on a tricked-out Aston-Martin. Never shot off a suave orgasm between the tits of a hot Bond chick like Ursula Andress–just my mom…. Damn!

Lloyd drones on: “Now mediums everywhere are convincing themselves that they’re channeling The Nine–all of them seeded by Puharich. There’s the hubristic Doctor James Hurtak, who’s written a book guided by The Nine’s channeled insights.
The Keys of Enoch,
he calls it, insinuating that he’s able to translate the language of angels. Then there’s Phyllis Schlemmer, the founder of a Psychic Center in flaky Florida, who’s surrounded herself with celebrities and multi-millionaires, such as members of the Bronfman liquor family, Gene Roddenberry, and the do-gooder country singer, John Denver.”

“Rocky Mountain high…”
Jimmy sings.

The last time Gordon heard Jimmy sing that, they were both shortly puking like dogs over the back of a pick-up tailgate on their way to Dinkey Creek.

“And then there’s Jenny O’Connor, who channels The Nine for seminars at the Esalen Institute,” Lloyd continues. “
That’s
how they’ve come to be listed as members of Esalen’s staff. The Nine now hold such sway there that they recently sacked the Institute’s chief financial officer, inciting the deed with one of their channeled communiqués.”

“That’s just whacked,” D.H. declares. “And when you said Gene Roddenberry, did you mean the guy who created
Star Trek?”

“I did indeed,” Lloyd says as the Bentley is buffeted by a strong breeze. “In fact, it was Gene Roddenberry who uncovered the true identity of The Nine. At a channeling session with Phyllis Schlemmer in 1974, he asked The Nine directly: ‘To whom am I speaking? Do you have a name?’ The Nine eventually admitted they were the gods of old regarded as ‘Nine That Are One’ by the ancient Egyptians, otherwise known as the Great Ennead. Their individual names were: Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nepthys.”

“Which would make them close cousins of those Sumerian gods–
the Anunnaki
,” Gordon intuits.

“The Anu-
what?”
D.H. asks from the breezy backseat.

“I really wish you hadn’t said that,” Lloyd grimaces. “Whenever they hear their name, they tend to remote-view where it came from.”

“Oh, give me a break…” Gordon says. “You’re so full of shit sometimes.”

“Let’s just hope nothing happens.” Lloyd leans forward to peer through the windshield, paying extra attention to the road. Almost to himself, he says: “The Nine also claimed to be the Elohim of the Old Testament and the Aeons of Gnostisicm–but they could just as well be Archons, if you ask me. And I believe it was Jenny O’Connor who mentioned that they were from the Dog Star, Sirius.”

“This is all tied in with that guy who channeled Rahotep, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” Lloyd answers Gordon. “The historical Rahotep was the high priest of Heliopolis, the ‘chief spokesman’ for the Great Ennead. Puharich no doubt knew that, but why he chose to keep the identity of The Nine to himself for all those years is a mystery.”

“Maybe The Nine was a lie that he thought would come true if enough people believed in it and started finding out stuff on their own,” says Gordon, recalling Lloyd’s little lecture on conspiracies of false consciousness. Then he wonders:
Can you also lie about a good thing in the hope that it will become real?

“It’s possible,” Lloyd says with a nod of his chin. “I just can’t figure out what his game is, but there’s something about it that disturbs me. I suppose it’s time I told you the rest of the story, about Puharich’s Star Kids program, since I’m certain now that you and Jimmy would have qualified for it.”

“Star Kids?” D.H. asks from the backseat. “What’s that, like a talent show?”

“Just listen…” says Jimmy. “Lloyd told me about it right after I tried to shoot that dumbass hypnotist.”

“Puharich had some property up in Ossining, New York that he called the Turkey Farm,” says Lloyd, raising his voice so that everyone can hear. “In the mid-seventies, he started gathering children there–twenty of them, in all–ranging in age from the late-teens to as young as nine. They came from all over the world, from seven different countries. Not all of them arrived with their parents’ legal consent (Puharich claimed that six of them had appeared at the ranch via teleportation). His plan was to train the children to become remote viewers. They practiced on targets of military and intelligence interest, like the Kremlin and the Pentagon. Each of them had been selected because, like Uri Geller, they possessed very high IQs, they exhibited extraordinary psychic abilities, and they’d had early encounters with aliens–
or at least that’s what Puharich wanted them to believe
.”

“
Star Kids
–because their powers came from the stars.
Now
I get it,” D.H. says.

Gordon gets it, too. In fact, he gets it on such a deep level that he’s having an almost out-of-the-body experience. He remembers walking into his back yard on the pre-dawn morning when the Easter Bunny beat the crap out of him. Only he wasn’t beaten up yet. And there wasn’t any Easter Bunny. But there
was
a light–an eerie green, laser-like light coming straight down out of the sky in a wide beam that illuminated the center of the patio. It was like something emitted from a B-movie flying saucer. Gordon walked toward the light, as if in a dream, drawn to it like a zombie boy in his fuzzy blue pajama suit. He was scared, but couldn’t stop himself. When he stepped into the light, he was jerked right off his feet. In one swift tilt, he found himself floating horizontally in mid-air. Looking skyward, he saw a black hole dilating in the clouds above him like a camera aperture. He felt helpless, terrified. And then the black hole sucked him up.

“This was all taking place at the same time that the adults were learning about remote viewing over at the Stanford Research Institute,” Lloyd continues. “Did the CIA have a hand in Puharich’s program, too? It’s almost a sure bet… but by having the program take place within the confines of Puharich’s civilian ‘Turkey Farm’ the agency created plausible deniability–which they needed. Because if the fine, upstanding citizens of our great but compromised country had found out what was going on there, they almost certainly would have gotten into an uproar. Puharich was experimenting on those children in ways that were appalling and unethical, if not outright criminal.”

The next thing Gordon knew, he was strapped to a rolling gurney passing under overhead lamps on adjustable arms–the type usually found in hospital operating rooms. He felt like he was just waking up from anesthesia. Someone roughly grabbed his shoulders and pushed the gurney back with a jolt in the opposite direction from which it had come. Gordon lifted his head and saw a doctor standing at the foot of the gurney.

“He was hypnotizing them, then giving them powerful post-hypnotic commands suggesting that their psychic abilities had an extraterrestrial origin. As a result, during hypnotic regression therapy in later sessions, the Star Kids described alien cities and otherworldly vistas in distant galaxies. They believed they’d been sent from those far-flung civilizations as extraterrestrial ambassadors of good will, presently disguised in pimply-faced human bodies. Their mission was to rise to positions of prominence and spread throughout the governments of the world, so they could steer human progress and protect the planet from behind the scenes. Now the question is: was Puharich’s intent to help the Star Kids retrieve repressed memories and past-life experiences–or was he implanting them with false screen memories and an insidious form of mind control programming?”

The doctor wasn’t an alien, as Gordon had expected. Even before he’d walked into the eerie green light, he’d known it had all the markings of an alien abduction. Watching late-night sci-fi movies on Channel 26 had already prepared him for that much, at least. The doctor was Doctor Smiley–although Gordon didn’t know him as Doctor Smiley at the time. His regular doctor was still Doctor Brockett. Doctor Smiley told him to go back to sleep.

“The Star Kids program lasted until August of 1978, when Puharich’s Turkey Farm burned to the ground. The cause was arson. I’ve heard two theories about who set the blaze. One suspect was a traumatized Space Kid who told authorities that the aliens had been harassing him.”

“We should use that as an excuse at school next week instead of saying the dog ate our homework,” D.H. suggests.

Lloyd talks right over him: “Puharich, on the other hand, blamed the CIA. He fled to Mexico after telling friends that he suspected a rogue faction within the agency wanted to quash his research into alternative energy sources. He claimed he’d invented a device for splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen–or
Brown’s gas
.”

“I’ve got your Brown’s gas right here, buddy,” Jimmy says ominously.

Lloyd ignores him as well. “When the Brown’s gas was burned in an internal combustion engine–with steam as its only by-product–the energy produced was far greater than the energy expended to split the water molecules in the first place. It was free energy, in other words. Imagine the implications of such a device. It could solve all the world’s energy issues. No more burning fossil fuels, no more pollution.”

“No more Mexicans riding bicycles!” Jimmy shouts, getting into the spirit of Lloyd’s discourse, if not its logic. “They’d all have low-riders powered by water from the mighty
Rio Grande!”

“You may laugh, but I’ve been hearing rumors that Puharich recently filed for a patent on the whole set-up and now his vehicle of choice for tooling around Mexico is a customized Winnebago fueled by water from a common garden hose–or in more remote locations, by rain and melted snow.”

“They’ve got snow in Mexico?” Skip asks, baffled. “I’ve never met a beaner who could ski.”

“So why isn’t this Puharich
pendejo
a billionaire by now?” Twinker asks while simultaneously jabbing her elbow into Skip’s brawny chest.

“The short and relatively insincere answer is that the oil industry has some very powerful lobbyists,” Lloyd says. “A more thoughtful answer is that it would mean saying good-bye to our current geo-political order. Third World countries would be on more of an equal footing with First World countries. A source of low-cost, pollution-free energy would transform every aspect of life on this planet for the better: manufacturing, housing, transportation, the ability to grow food and desalinate water–you name it. The artificial poverty and scarcity being created by the withholding of such technologies would be eliminated. Unfortunately, there are some very rich and powerful people in the world who don’t want to see that happen.”

Gordon feels like he’s just coming out of a light trance. He asks, “Are there really people so selfish that they’d screw-over almost everyone else on the whole planet, just so they can keep making the big bucks? I mean, aren’t they already rich enough?”

“The kind of people I’m talking about would jeopardize the welfare of their own children if it meant pulling ahead in some small way. And they’re not all Boston Brahmin spooks or international financiers, either. They’re policeman, doctors, lawyers, and civil engineers…. There are more of them than you’d ever imagine. You can find them almost anywhere. Even in Kingsburg.”

“I kind of knew that already,” Gordon says, feeling weary. “I guess I just wanted to hear it from you. Whatever happened to those poor Star Kids, anyway?”

“Most of them are no doubt still involved in black budget operations of one kind or another, whether they’re aware of that fact, or not. Judging by what I’ve seen lately, Puharich’s shadowy overseers were quite impressed with his results. They’ve rolled out an aggressive new program, nationwide, to create more Star Kids–and they’re not just teaching them remote viewing anymore.”

“This is where you come in, Gordon,” Jimmy says. “You’ve been really,
really
bad.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who tried to assassinate a hypnotist today in front of about five hundred people.”

“No, but you’ve done worse.”

If a rotting sea monster had just tickled Gordon’s armpits with its decomposing, skeletal fins, he wouldn’t be any less freaked out. “What’s he talking about, Lloyd?” he asks.

“We’ll get to that. Jimmy–
no more
,” Lloyd says sternly. “Not another word.”

“I’m sure it couldn’t’ve been
that
bad, Crash,” Skip says. “I mean, you’re kind of a wimp, after all.”

“A wimp with super-psychic-killer powers,” D.H. reminds Skip.

“He could probably waste
your
ass while he was just scratching his balls,” Jimmy says, taking the side of his oldest friend.