Natalia’s Game

© Craig T. Bouchard, 2023

© “U Nikitskikh Vorot” Publishing House, 2023

Natalia, Chanel, Nora, Cambelle, Nana, and Alina, the destiny of this world and its parallel universes are

in your hands

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

One Night in Bucharest

2014

I don’t like to dress up at this stage of life. Hardly ever do. But tonight, I’ve got on a dark blue pin-stripe suit, a white shirt with a red tie, and a black onyx ring. My destination is the Epoque, a six-story boutique hotel in Bucharest. It’s just a few years old, not rundown like some of the older hotels in town. So whenever I come to Bucharest, I stay here. The entrance to the hotel is a nicely paved circle designed for cars and without a sidewalk for pedestrians. Security is tight, and nobody walks in.

I walk around the circle and into the hotel. The guests tend to be wealthy Romanians or foreign expatriates. It’s fancy, a place to see and be seen. Plenty of beautiful young Romanian women hang out at the bar, hoping to meet their escape to the western world. Social media seems to create high expectations in this part of the world.

I’m staying only one night: no luggage, no briefcase, no gun. My only meeting is tomorrow at 9:00 AM, which will last precisely twenty minutes. That’s a generous amount of time, considering I’m meeting the President of Romania. That’s why I’m wearing a suit. After that meeting, I’ll fly home – in a manner of speaking.

The hotel manager shows me to a private suite on the 3rd floor. It’s a lovely couple of rooms with a king-size bed. A colorful piece of modern art hangs above the headboard, revealing the best parts of a naked woman in front of a mirror. I don’t like contemporary art, but I like this painting. I’m comfortable here.

On the balcony, there is a small table with two chairs. I sit down and see a quiet, tree-lined park a few blocks away as – a potential escape route.

Dusk is my favorite. The setting sun is a blur, and the sounds of the city are like music – Bucharest at its finest.

My thoughts are of an old friend, the brand new President of Romania. He’s a cuddly teddy bear of a man – tall, handsome, fun, smart, with great instincts. We were college kids when we met at a bar in Berlin late in the 1980s before the wall fell. Our common denominator was quantum physics, and we sat at that bar debating my ideas about astral projection and teleporting. It got hot; he thought I was defying the sacred laws of energy and physics. That was so not true. I remember the moment that he got it. His eyes lit up; he realized I was holding the winning hand, conceding defeat; he picked up the tab. I’d won, and that was before quantum physics was cool.

We became close friends and spent many late nights drinking German beer, exploring topics like the possibility of parallel universes. Eventually, life took us in difef rent directions. I became a spy, and he became a politician. Some say that we are lucky to have five friends we can genuinely trust in our entire life. He is one of those.

Tomorrow, after I submit to a body search, we will be allowed to hug each other, and I’ll congratulate him on running an entire country. Who would have thought? More importantly, I’ll ask him about his health and beautiful wife. He won’t ask me the same because he knows I lost someone I loved. Someone he knew well.

Instead, he’ll ask me how I arrived, knowing there is no record of me entering his country. I’ll say, “I walked.” Then, with an eyebrow up, he will smile, shake his head and ask me again to teach him teleporting techniques. I’ll remind him that he owes me the favor, and we will hug again. My twenty minutes will be up, and the trip will have been worth it.

I take off my coat and the damn tie and head downstairs to have a beer and check out the in-crowd. The room is full of beautiful people oozing energy. I plunk myself out of the action at the end of the bar. I don’t do small talk unless I need information. It’s a discipline that helps keep me alive.

A few minutes later, I realize there should be an exception to my rule.

In struts, a tall brunette wearing a black jacket, her spectacular body brimming and highlighted by a white silk blouse sans bra, and long legs are not well hidden underneath a black mini-skirt. Designer heels and a hint of red lipstick top it off. She’s a 10. The girl floats in on a cloud of sex appeal, everyone eyeing her. I want to say something, but I’m too shy, even when she sits beside me. But, of course, she doesn’t notice me. I’m at least a couple of decades older.

Some Russian guy in a designer suit orders her a drink; he boldly walks up and starts a conversation. Yuck. Her back is to me, but I can see his eyes; they are ravenous.

He asks her what she does, and she replies in perfect Russian, “I’m a physicist.” Darn! The Russian guy ofef rs her his room key. She politely gives it back to him and hands him her key. What? It can’t be that easy. Something is off. The way-too-beautiful girl walks out of the bar like a supermodel going back up the runway, and I say to myself: Now, she was worth watching. It’s almost 10:00 pm. I’m jet-lagged, so I finish my Timisoreana, pay the tab, and head back to the room. Opportunity lost.

Minutes turn into an hour, and I can’t sleep thinking about the girl and the Russian. In my underwear, I go out on the balcony and open the bottle of red the concierge left on my dresser. I like being alone, under the stars, thinking, and listening to what’s out there. In the dark distance, I see a maze of headlights and vaguely make out people doing whatever they want to do in the park. Then a tiny red dot catches my eye. I tilt my head and follow the line. I’m staring at a laser beam above me emanating from a rifle 300 meters away. I hope I’m not the target! That’s not very far.

It doesn’t take long. The bullet disturbs air density as it flies in my direction, allowing me to see it coming. There isn’t any wind, so there is not much drift to its path. When a bullet travels fast, its arc isn’t dramatic, and the drop is predictable. The shell disappears above my balcony’s ceiling. I hear a sound like a knife plunging into a watermelon just before it’s carved.

As it turns out, the shooter knew what he was doing, and I wasn’t the target. Someone one floor above me bought it. So I quickly go back into my room, shut the door, close the curtains, turn off the lights, and finish the bottle of Babeasca Neagra.

Amazingly, nothing happens. Nothing at all. Bucharest is like our old wild west. Anything goes.

A couple of hours later, adrenaline still coursing through my system, I take a sleeping pill. 9:00 am is coming quickly, and I need to sleep. So how do I describe the most unusual event that happens next?

Well, I have a dream.

Why is that unusual, you might ask? Because I rarely dream. My nights are peaceful and boring. But God compensates; I can join someone else’s dream if invited, and I can do that at a very high level of proficiency.

In this dream, I see the same beautiful girl in the bar, and she notices me. Wearing a brilliant smile and nothing else, she extends her right hand with long fingernails painted black, and I take it. She looks and feels good, and the dream ends right there. That’s it. For me, a remarkable event. I’m now wondering if she was inviting me into her dream. Another opportunity lost.

At 8:40 am, I hear a knock. I open the door to find three Romanian secret service agents who will escort me to the President’s ofifce. We take the elevator three flights down and walk out into pandemonium in the lobby. Police are everywhere, and the hotel entrance is cordoned off as a crime scene. I hand in my key and walk out of the hotel with my new best friends.

The School

Five Years Later

A two-story brick wall stretches fifty yards to my right and left. The wall is interrupted in the middle by a forbidding, rusted iron door wide enough to accept the occasional vehicle. This morning the door is shut. I look at the brick wall. I can make out one word in the stone above the door. I’m not fluent in Romanian, but I know the word “school.” This place can’t be a school; it’s a fortress.

A guard house looms about forty feet above. I look up into an ominous sky serving as background to the tower and shout, “Hey, anybody up there?”

My unexpected greeting creates a commotion resulting in heads popping out of the guard house and three rifles pointed haphazardly in my direction. I doubt these knuckleheads could hit me. One of the guards in the tower speaks broken English.

I rearrange his jumble of words and incorrect idioms to arrive at what I think he is saying: “This is a military installation, and you are in a restricted space. Place your hands in the air and state your name and purpose.” He sounds angry. Junior guys in Romania don’t like taking career risks.

I hold up a white envelope with my name engraved in gold letters. Hoping he understands more English than he can speak, I say, “My name is General Crew Thomas. I am an American invited by SRI General Director Helsing for a meeting tomorrow. My arrival date is today, and here I am.” They immediately pick up the phone, and the gate opens a few loud minutes later. I feel confident that in the decades-long history of the “school,” this is the first time an American has walked through this gate.

An apologetic General Helsing and a few of his staff greet me. One of them, a young woman, speaks nearly perfect English. “Good morning, General Thomas. Welcome to the school. Please tell us how you arrived here?” The female ofifcer is stunning. Dark brown hair, hazel eyes, perfect complexion, statuesque, great body. Head-turning in every way. This girl is unforgettable; she is the one. The girl I saw in the bar and my dream five years ago. She wears a uniform this time, and she is still a 10.

“May I know your name?” I try to sound casual, but my mind is a mess.

“General Thomas, I am Ofifcer Natalia Net of the SRI.”

Standing there with feet spread and arms hanging casually at his side, the general makes an excellent first impression. He’s confident, wiry, sports hazel eyes, and has big hands. I like big hands. There is nothing on his left ring finger. My gaze flits to his right hand, where I see a black onyx ring with a small diamond piercing the surface. My chest tightens. I’ve seen this man in a dream.

I glance at the onyx ring before settling in on his eyes. They have a touch of permanent and regal sadness.

He says, “Your position here, Ofifcer Net?” I’m nervous but try not to show it.

“I’m from Bucharest. My English is better than that of most government employees here, so they asked me to help.”

“I see. Thank you for helping. To answer your question, I walked.”

I know he’s lying, and I laugh, shake my head, and translate his words to blank stares. No one walks here.

The Astral Plane

Two Hours Earlier

A swirl of green and orange aurora borealis splash across the dark canvas of sky as I arrive 100 kilometers above the earth’s northern surface. Stars twinkle an invitation.

My name is Crew Thomas, and I’m addicted (in a nice way) to the Millennium-Falcon-like feeling I know is coming next: Hyper-acceleration through the astral plane and descent into the Hoia-Baciu Forest in Romania. Why there? It’s a long story, but I don’t mind.

In Romania, there is a girl. Not just any girl. A lucid dreamer who sees the future. She’s special. Natalia Net … Na. Ta. Lia. Net. It rings in my heart and soul like poetry, and I keep repeating it. Na. Ta. Lia. Net. I will find her and ask her to jump blindly and dangerously into my life. Most girls wouldn’t do that, of course. But she may. Rumor has it that Natalia Net is an assassin. If true, that’s a big plus.

My first stop today is the Hoia-Baciu, a centuries-old forest. Every Romanian knows that strange things happen there. But, most importantly, the gods blessed it with a gusher of energy that seeps through the ground, shared by all its creatures. I need a lot of energy, so I stop at the Hoia-Baciu whenever I travel to Europe.

You’re probably asking: Who is this guy? The answer is: I’m a ghost, a nobody. It was always that way. I grew up in a military family with a strict dad and a quiet mom. My dad was a control guy, so I didn’t have much spare time. To escape, I read science fiction and pretty much any science I could get my hands on. It paid off.

After my dad died young, I went off to college and figured out a couple of the missing links in quantum physics. That made me a freak. My dad would now marvel at my capabilities, at the hard work I put in. Maybe not. Perhaps he would simply give me his usual hitched nod, asking me what all this quantum garbage means. I imagine his reaction so that I can close this still-open chapter.

You probably haven’t a clue what quantum physics is. I explain it as an out-of-body experience; my consciousness separates from my body and travels through the astral plane. I can go almost anywhere. Sometimes my body and consciousness travel together. That’s a fancy way of describing the quantum sequence required to project my body for long distances. When I figured out a way to do that, people noticed. Not long after, I became a spy. That was a long time ago.

And today? The world is a mess. The Russians are winning the race to hypersonic missiles, and the Chinese are committed to winning the race to deep space. So, where does that leave us Americans?

In trouble.

With a downside scenario of global calamity, the CIA asked me to come out of retirement, astral project into the future, report on the relevant evil outcomes, and prevent them from happening. So much for retiring to a white sand beach. The problem is this: breaking the time barrier and traveling into the future can be accomplished only through a portal. Entering that portal can be done only through a dream. And I can’t dream.

Romania

My consciousness hurtles toward a forest glen in the Hoia-Baciu. The objective is to land softly just above the ground and reconstitute the atoms of my body just like they were before I left. I can’t carry much metal because metal atoms can’t be put back together for some reason. The exception is my ring, my portal for projecting into the future. More about that later. Hugging a soft bag of clothes is okay, and that’s what I brought with me. When the plan works, it’s a beautiful thing.

I land on my butt. “Ouch.” Embarrassing! Glad nobody saw that. The forest holds the same stillness I’ve expected; sunlight peaks through rare breaks in the trees, streaming to connect with the soft, mossy ground. The stems of the trees curve in numerous directions, unable to contain their powerful energy.

I slowly stand up. My knees aren’t what they used to be. It’s 0500 hours in Eastern Romania. I want to arrive at the “school” at 0800 hours. After I recharge in the Hoia-Baciu, I will teleport again to a spot closer to the school. I need to work on my landings.

But first, I relax, connect with nature, and absorb energy. My eyes remain closed as my body becomes translucent, and a few seconds later my atoms reconstitute on a grassy knoll a few miles from my final destination.

Now I must hurry. There are no clear paths, and getting through brush isn’t easy. On the positive side, the view is nice. Scots Pine trees draped in green lichen grow near the top of the hills, with majestic, light-colored European Beech sprinkling the ground with golden leaves below. Gorgeous. I cover several miles as quickly as I can.

Most visitors to the school arrive by air via Bucharest, which is 207 kilometers to the west. The school is remote – nearly unreachable except by helicopter – near the coast of the Black Sea. I arrive at the guard gate at precisely eight hundred hours. Above the tall fence looms a metal tower housing guards eating breakfast. The guards are not watching their screens and do not notice me approaching. No one ever just shows up at the school.

Back to my girl. Na. Ta. Lia. Net… I need to find her. That won’t be easy because we have no photos of her; remarkably, there is no record of her growing up. So I must figure out how to find her and then win her. What does that mean? That’s the tricky part. Natalia doesn’t know it yet, but once we get past the basics, she must sleep with me so I can access the future through a portal in her dreams.

As I said, this is going to take a lot of work.

The Real People

Romania is not a strange place for me. I’ve been here quite a few times and like the people. Romanians are Latins descended from ancient Romans, now surrounded by Slavs. The cultures are very difef rent. I prefer Latins because they are more like us.

The country has always been poor. For this reason, when the Slavic people migrated to Europe, they passed through Romania on the way to wealthier places. Because they didn’t stay, Romania remained true to its unique culture and religion. Its people are Orthodox and very parochial. The everyday person is welcoming, honest, and highly educated. Just poor. My kind of people.

I can’t help but envy the Romanian men because their women are scorchingly beautiful and much more. If a Romanian woman says she loves you, she means it. She will bathe her man in her hot blood – if she trusts him. If unfairly crossed, he better beware. She will serve him a cold dish of revenge. Oh, those Romanian women. Na. Ta. Lia. Net.

My name is Natalia. I’m visiting the school this week, but not as a student. They asked me to translate for a visiting American named Thomas. I’ve patiently waited for him. You are about to learn why. The school is a highly selective, unique place. Our government brings “employees” here to study. For most, it’s a charm school preparing us to disappear into the world of spying. Emphasis is on the study of linguistics, geography, psychiatry, transcendental meditation, chemistry, and quantum physics.

Staff in white coats perform diagnostic testing and try to figure out if any of us are special. The last time I was here, our parapsychologists discovered something about me that interested them. We all knew I was a lucid dreamer. Not such a big deal. But on that last trip, I exhibited an off-the-chart potential in the extrasensory perception tests, prompting a decision at high levels of the SRI to include me in an experiment that introduces lucid dreamers to a psychedelic drug called anteril that enhances ESP capability.

Anteril was a black-market psychedelic that quickly became a favorite of the American hippies in the 1980s. It was deemed safer than LSD and with fewer side effects. Scientists wrote articles and even books about it. Some claim that it can take users to a different dimension. For example, the CIA and the KGB investigated anteril. Schools like Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and Boston University researched potential commercial and military applications.

In Moscow, the Landau Institute, the elite producer of physicists in what is now the former Soviet Union, jumped in. The Russians weren’t about to lose the quantum physics race.

My life changed during that last trip. I sat back on a couch in the medical clinic and got comfortable. I took off my jacket, placed a pillow under my neck, and put my feet up. I swallowed a blue tablet containing 30 mg’s of anteril. A nurse told me I should feel tired and disoriented but encouraged me to stay awake. Drowsiness set in roughly one minute later.

A parapsychologist sitting in the next room, separated from me by a glass window, spoke into a microphone and asked if I was ready. The unexplainable happened next. I felt myself rise from my body, leaving it behind on the couch, and I walked through the wall to join the parapsychologist in the next room. The doctor was unaware of my presence. She was laying down cards, preparing to ask me to identify their shapes without being able to see them. I looked back through the window at the chaise, where my body remained, and thought, What’s happening to me?

I still had control of the voice in my inert body.

“Fire away.” My body on the couch mimicked what came from my mouth. The female doctor started turning cards. “Natalia, please relax, keep your eyes closed and tell me what you see.”

“Circle, Wavy Line, Square, Cross, Circle, Star…” I watched the cards as she turned them, calling them out with my body in the next room. Of course, I got 100 %. In disbelief, the parapsychologist shuflfed the deck and asked me to try again. I re-ran the table. The tester excitedly summoned her supervisors, and the SRI Ops Manager, Florin Oltean, hurried into the room.

With the eyes on my inert body still closed, I called out the third deck – 100 %. Oltean was flabbergasted. Oltean checked the barriers on both sides of the window and questioned the card flipper to see if she somehow cooperated. Finding no such evidence, he deemed the experiment “well-controlled.”

I walked through the same wall to rejoin my body and fell asleep on the pillow. But my first out-of-body experience was NOT over.

O.B.E

The parapsychologist and her team hovered over me, locked in animated debate. They had never seen a patient pass out after taking anteril. Now deep in a dream, I walked barefoot past Oltean with my body still comfortably asleep back on the couch. I walked through the wall into a dark hallway, where light from a small crystal down the hallway caught my eye. My chest felt tight; my heart was hammering, and I started to panic. Then I took a deep breath and allowed myself to float and experience. The panic faded, and curiosity gripped me as I tiptoed toward the light, finding a large square of black onyx inlaid in the ground. The light originated from a small crystal embedded in its middle.

I stepped onto the onyx with one foot and found it cold and refined to the touch. I did the same with my other foot, and a hole opened, causing me to fall through. The hole swallowed itself and was no more. The walls around me spun, glowing green and orange, then blue and red. Feet first, down a narrow tunnel, I plummeted. The colors melted into bright light as I landed on the floor. What floor? I had no idea.

I was still on the onyx square, straddling the glowing crystal I now recognized as a diamond. Stepping off the square, I walked through a wall into a bright hallway bustling with people in white coats. Some carried charts, some pushed equipment, and one guided a bed on wheels with a person on it lying under a blanket. I was standing in a very modern hospital, invisible and without substance. No one could see me. People were conversing, but not in Romanian. I was listening to English. Why am I in a hospital? What year is this? Nothing made sense.

Pulled by some unknown force, I passed through a closed door to find a beautiful dark-haired woman in bed. A fluid pouch hung above the woman, dripping through a tube into her wrist. Her bed was inclined, and she was breastfeeding a newborn wearing a pink gown! The baby girl had a spark in her eyes and a full mop of black hair. As I crept closer, my stomach tightened. The calm, statuesque mom could have been me, though maybe five to seven years older, perhaps mid-30s. She held her baby with fulfillment and love as if God had favored her. Hearing her mom’s cooing sounds, the adorable baby stopped suckling. At this point, I realized the woman I was staring at was me. A future me. But why? How? And with a baby! Whose baby? Her mother kissed the baby’s cheek, taking off her diamond-encrusted platinum cross; she gifted it to her daughter.