Seven Point Eight The First Chronicle - By Marie A. Harbon Page 0,10

a tour. Max lit a cigar and offered one to Paul, who accepted.

“Well, it’s not the research facility I envisioned,” Paul said, finally.

Max shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s one of many.”

He blew out cigar smoke with a cool demeanour, psychologically masticating the potential that lay ahead.

“Something tells me you’re going to be the most significant person ever to work at The Establishment.”

Paul began to shrug off his initial reservations. Maybe he’d been trying to find ulterior motives where there were none, no sense in looking a gift horse in the mouth, as the cliché went. He’d handed in his resignation, expressed a desire for more out of life, taken a leap of faith and landed on his feet.

“Here’s to the study of the soul,” Max said, leaning back in his chair.

“When do we start?” Paul said, with a satisfied smile.

***

I had everything in the palm of my hand, yet the world suddenly became more uncertain. Would my findings explode faith in one fell swoop, or vindicate what millions of people around the world believed? Could I prove the existence of the soul? I’d sought a challenge in my life so vociferously and it had found me, changing the entire impetus of my life, so why did I feel so prickly?

I spent the first week ambling, too much time wasted at my desk, pondering the incredible resources I had at the tip of my fingers. Occasionally, I picked up a photograph of Madeleine, wondering if she watched over me from some form of alternative quantum state. I contemplated contacting my family, but what would I say? This wasn’t the type of research you openly discussed with members of the general public.

Between my first arrival and the final presentation of my findings, two and a half years elapsed. My own personal perception of the world remained static in the mean time, while the Korean War played out. As a spark of inspiration ignited me, namely the presence of Max Richardson with a face of expectation, UN forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. As I drafted my proposal, forces captured the capital. By the time truce talks began in the summer of 1951, I’d built and tested the necessary equipment for my research.

Music filtered through. I listened to Maria Callas on the radio, Gene Kelly warbling ‘Singing in the Rain’, and I acquired a taste for Billie Holiday as I began testing the first volunteers. Movie stars flared into recognition, and burned brightly in my absence from the world. I missed a classic piece of early science fiction called ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’, but none of that mattered while I chased and fulfilled my dream to completion.

Because I found taking measurements monotonous, I trained a research assistant to carry out the nitty-gritty, while I reclaimed the tingle of anticipation in scientific discovery. Before long, I found myself typing out an extensive and exhausting report. Now I just had to present it to Max.

***

On the 2nd of April 1953, some six weeks after his 32nd birthday, Paul attended the board meeting for The Establishment’s committee, a conglomerate of funding bodies, directors, and executives with vested interests in the findings. The dining room became a makeshift board room, and Max locked the whole Establishment down to exclude any irrelevant members of staff. Other than Max, ten people comprising nine men and just one woman sat stiffly at the table, shuffling papers. Paul didn’t recognise any of them, and they represented a faceless but powerful behind the scenes body. Everyone wore suits, but nothing to distinguish who they were, or their motives for attending this presentation.

Max chaired the committee, and gestured for Paul to stand at the foot of the table.

“We’d like to thank you for your persistence in this endeavour, your contribution is greatly valued by the committee. I see you have brought along your thesis. Could you enlighten us with an executive summary?”

Paul felt slightly intimidated by the humourless, staring people but proceeded. “We have tested and measured seven hundred people over a period of two years, ordinary people from many walks of life. For each person, I collated measurements of an electromagnetic phenomenon and in all cases, I found the presence of a weak field. The precise readings are contained in this thesis.”

Paul gestured to a thick wad of paper, the contents of which he’d laboriously typed.

“The human electromagnetic field is generally a weak one, extending on average three to four inches from the skin, but in twenty five percent of