Chapter 1

EARTH, CIRCA 2035

Sade sat entranced. She was about to embark on a perilous journey with her cheeky, younger sister, and adventurous cousins that would change their lives forever. She had been haunted since childhood by inexplicable psychic events and ageless questions:

Where did we come from?

Who are we?

Why are we here?

Questions that confounded her young mind until her obsessive thoughts took on a life of their own, as a mystifying premonition emerged into her awareness. Sade’s eyes glazed over. She felt spacey; her body tingled as an intoxicating smell overpowered her—the heady and sweet odor of static electricity. It felt like déjà vu. She tried to speak, but muttered only gibberish. She saw astonishing lights and then a vortex. She felt powerless to resist what called her as a shadowy force swept her away.

*****

The Stargirls exploded out of LAX, Gate-5 like some comic book heroes, Sade crossed the plane’s entryway last, lost in foreboding thoughts, and tripped headlong into the others. Her crash scattered them like dominoes. Unscathed, they chuckled at her faux pas as the flight door hissed shut. BX-1 nicknamed the “Bat Express” for its titanic bat-wing airframe and incredible Mach 3 speed was a redeye flight to Washington Dulles International Airport.

Sade heard the whine of engines as they catapulted off the runway, and oxygen-hydrogen liquid fuel engines blasted them into a vertical climb that pinned them to their seats, feeling twice as heavy as normal. Sudden air turbulence startled Sade. Her tanned, pixyish face blanched to a ghastly pallor.

She tugged at a lock of hair that had escaped her Neptune Trident barrette while her golden brown bangs concealed the paralyzing fear that darkened her eyes and forced her lips to quake. She gazed out her passenger window for some sign of hope but only saw tumultuous, dark skies. Then something peculiar on the angular wing—a red strobe light that seemed to comfort her. Be not afraid.

Bewildered, she rubbed her sea-blue eyes and realized the message was a projection from her subconscious. They were all psychic, but Sade’s abilities were astonishing. She knew her sixth sense told her to relax, while her conscious mind stubbornly refused.

Her psychic abilities could open portals to alternate realities, like wormholes opened gateways to the universe, but tonight fear blocked her second sight—her connection between the realms of Nature and Spirit had been broken.

The intercom crackled with static. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We are experiencing rough air turbulence. Please keep your seat belts secure and enjoy your flight.” Sade feared the raging tempest, but the captain’s monotone voice terrified her more. She feared wind shear like a giant hand would smash them into the ground.

Disturbing thumps and bumps of hydraulics echoed in her ears like ghostly groans. She stuck her fingers in her ears, trying to banish the haunting metallic noises and bat engine screams. Spooks in the night, she thought, burying her face in moist hands, trying to force the reality of the Wright brothers’ damned invention of flight from her mind. Her efforts were futile, as the horrific image of the Bat liner exploding in a ball of flame consumed her.

Ghosts go away, go away.

She noticed her sister next to her, who played with a Holographic Universe Cube while listening to throbbing music. Mad is different, she thought. Mad felt the Bat liner’s air-battle, too, but felt exhilarated by its frightening ascent. After all, adrenaline-pumping skydiving as a human rocket across indigo skies was her ecstasy. Had she been a bird in a past lifetime? She wondered. She fancied a prairie falcon, falcon mexicanus, with a powerful death dive and a shrill proud cry—kik-kik-kik-kik-kik. She laughed at the outrageous thought that she wired for bird behavior, inheriting DNA from some Jurassic archetype. This quirky idea pleased her.

It reminded her of her space jumps at 130,000 feet, at the razor edge of space, where she body surfed supersonic shock waves at astounding speeds, and trail-blazed the sport of “Celestial Skydiving.”

Known in Xtreme sports as “Sky Dancer,” only her gleaming gold pressure suit and guts stood between her and blood-boiling death. In the twilight sky, her glittering aerodynamic suit made her appear as a shooting star.

Despite her death-defying exploits, she felt the prairie falcon fit her to a T, an excitable bird that harried larger eagles and slower hawks whenever they messed with its nest. She knew the falcon was a fast bird at high altitudes, and a formidable hunter at 300 feet. Birds of a feather, this notion tickled her.

Sade’s eyes had frozen shut; she imagined breathing in calmness with each breath, while exhaling fear. Her white knuckles gripped the arms of the seat, while she struggled to think of anything but flying.

Mad noticed her death-grip. “Sade, are you all right?”

Sade roused from her free fall trance and said, “Do pigs fly? Have you seen pigs orbiting Mars lately?”

Mad tittered at her outlandish come back. “Forget flying; we’re on a historic mission.”

“Yes, but my stomach in my throat makes it hard to appreciate.”

Mad squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, big Sis, the Bat’s doing its thing.”

Sade thought about Mad’s unwavering faith in machines while clutching a talisman dangling from her neck, a small o-mamon that contained the teachings of Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. She focused on Bodhi Buddha’s awakening, trying to purge the terror of flying from her mind.

“Sade, when you think about it, life’s funny. You have a doctorate in Biological Oceanography from FSU and explore undersea worlds that would petrify most adrenaline junkies. Yet being airborne gives you the willies. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

Sade rolled her eyes. “Maybe, if I was a cuckoo bird in a former lifetime, and not the killer whale that frequents my dreams, I might feel right at home—but if I were a bird, it would be that daft dodo bird that couldn’t fly to save its neck.”

Mad choked, spitting out her bottled water. “You’re hilarious, despite your fear of flying.”

“Thanks for the complement, I think. Hey, what time do we arrive in Dulles?”

“Don’t know, but I know who does.” Mad reached over the seat and knocked twice on her older cousin’s head.

Jill made a sour face, and said, “Who’s there?”

“Mad.”

“Mad who?”

“Mad about you.”

Jill sighed. “Okay, what do you want?”

“What time do we hit the tarmac in Dulles?”

“Mad! If you had a brain . . . oh, never mind, two-fifty a.m. You, my little whirlwind, need to get a brain.”

Mad scoffed, and made a laughable pirate face with one eye closed. “Ahoy, me hearties, scarecrow and me search for a brain. We merrily skip down a yellow brick road to Doctor Frankenstein’s hangout. I knock hard with a brass-ring knocker on a giant door. The heavy blows send head-splitting echoes into the castle. The door swings open with a loud grating sound. A mad scientist with bloodshot eyes and a wild hairdo lurches outside and I say, ‘ARGH Dr. Frankenstein, I presume. Would you have any spare brains for the needy?”’

Jill snorted, shaking her head. Mad the clown.

Mad, pleased with her preposterous performance, sat down. “We arrive—“

Sade interrupted. “Yes, brainless, I have ears, too, but not as big as yours.”

Mad grabbed her ears. “We’ll see who has the biggest ears. You’ll wish you were that wooden-headed Pinocchio rather than a long-eared mule after I get done with you.”

Sade chuckled at her horseplay. “Lights out, little sister, I’m off to dreamland.”

“Good night, Shorts my lovable pixie. Thanks for being a good sport.”

Sade yawned. “Watch out, Amazon woman, dynamite comes in small packages. That reminds me—do you remember how you towered over your first grade class like a fairy-tale giant?”

“Yeah, those were the good old days.”

“Mad, you’re impossible.”

The Bat liner hurtled through the stratosphere, and disappeared in the ethers of Sade’s slumbering consciousness, while her cousins chattered like overexcited children about their hasty departure.

“Max’s call took me by surprise,” Jill protested.

Ali said, “Caught me off guard, too.”

Lyn cackled and said, “What else, mysterious Max.”

Jill noticed Ali’s reflection in the passenger window and said, “Ali I’ve been meaning to ask. What’s up with the medicine bag you keep fussing with?”

Ali cradled a small pouch in her arms, as if it was her first-born child, and said, “Our totem spirits that will watch over us on our journey in Ethiopia and drive evil spirits away.”

Lyn thought she heard evil spirits. “What did you say?”

“I wanted to bring something special on our expedition to protect us. I asked Sade, and she said ‘pick something that represents our inner power.’ I chose these blood dragon seeds.”

Jill blurted out, “Blood dragon seeds?”

“Yes—to be exact, Dracaena draco, the Dragon Tree, harvested for its supernatural powers. I brought five germinating seeds wrapped in moist peat moss.” She paused, staring at the seeds, and said, “Understand the blood dragon symbolizes our spirits. Seeds of our spiritual blood we will plant in our power spots in the Afar Triangle. Our way of giving Earth Mother an offering that will live beyond us—our spiritual markers to inspire others to walk gently on her.”

Jill said, “Ali, you are a true Earth Woman.”

Ali gazed into the pregnant bag and said, “We love you, so grow big and strong little ones.” Jill and Lyn felt awed by her outlook and choice of good luck charms. Ali continued, “Gee, they smiled at me. They really smiled at me, big happy dragon smiles.”

Jill thought, only a psychiatrist or mystic could understand Ali’s love for dragon seeds. She then tapped Lyn’s hand, “Any word from Max?”

“Funny you asked. Just before takeoff, I got a message from Aqua Man.”

“Great, open it.”

Lyn unfolded a paper-thin microcomputer, from her shirt pocket, that expanded into a pliable touch screen. They stared at the computer screen, wondering about their field dig site. Max’s communications were always encrypted; he used the alias Aqua Man. Max had cautioned from the beginning about the necessity of secrecy, regarding their field digs. His words ran through Lyn’s mind as his e-mail appeared on the screen, accompanied by a soft, compelling audio alert. “Ari, let’s swim together in paradise and share forbidden fruit.” A red apple bobbed on the screen, as the alert repeated until she opened it and saw attachments written in complex mathematical algorithms.

She chortled and said, “Max has the mind of a romantic spy. I think he missed his calling.”

Jill said, “Romantic spy or not, Max is a famous paleoanthropologist, and our gracious sponsor.”

Ali interrupted, “Yes, yes, but what does it say?”

Mad, oblivious to their conversation, listened to the comedy channel, while Sade slipped into REM sleep. Her breathing became rapid, irregular, and shallow. Her eyes jerked in different directions as her heart rate and blood pressure rose. Her limbs paralyzed as a tunnel of light transformed her sleep into a mythical time machine that whisked her away, to a land that existed millions of years ago near Hadar, Ethiopia.

She unknowingly peered into where we came from—yet could only see half the truth of how humans came to walk upon the Earth.