Thea Alexander - 2150 A.D.

I concentrated with all my Macro power on convincing the two officers that they need not arrest me because I would be glad to visit their police station that afternoon and submit myself to a lie detector test of everything I had said and for any further, questions they might wish to ask me. I succeeded so well that they even agreed to drive me to the university so I wouldn't be late for Karl's first class.

That afternoon, after teaching all three of Karl's classes and joking with the students about his elopement, I went to the police station. There I found that the two officers had had real trouble explaining to their chief why they had let me go that morning. I was just in time to prevent their being sent off to bring me in.

Once again I repeated the story I had given that morning concerning Neda, but this time I was hooked up to a lie detector and was questioned by the police chief and two hard-faced detectives. My ability to control my mind and, thus, my body, naturally made the lie detector support my story. Then tremendous Macro persuasiveness got me released in spite of a rather unpleasant confrontation with Mrs. Cricksley in which I strongly planted the suggestion in the minds of the police that if any harm had come to Neda, Mrs. Cricksley was probably a partner to it. When I left, she was taking her turn with the lie detector.

During the following week the local newspaper featured the disappearance of the missing college student with a picture of Neda. Two other coeds had disappeared recently. Their bodies, raped, murdered, and buried in a woods near campus, had been recovered only two weeks ago, so the first thought was that Neda, too, had become the victim of their murderer. One look at the old picture of Neda, however, made it difficult to entertain the possibility of a sex crime, and since her parents were virtually paupers, it was a certainty that she hadn't been kidnapped for their money.

I made one more visit to the police station, at which time I discovered that the police had made an exhaustive study of my life history which did not support the theory that I was a kidnapper and murderer. As a crippled Vietnam War veteran and a respected graduate student who was more interested in his studies and doctoral research than in girls, campus politics, or student hijinks, I didn't fit their concept of the criminal type at all.

By the end of the week when Karl called, I was so optimistic about my relations with the police that I told him our problems were over and to enjoy his honeymoon. However, he insisted on returning with Neda so he could finish teaching his classes. They returned on Sunday and moved into Neda's apartment as Mr. and Mrs. Karl Johnson. The following morning Karl resumed his teaching and Neda resumed her typing. While Karl and Neda were interviewed by the police, I managed to be present during the questioning and succeeded in convincing them that these two people could not possibly have been connected with the disappearance of Neda Cricksley..

So ended Neda Cricksley.

The case of the missing co-ed and the recovery of the bodies of the other two brought the fear and tension of our university community to a fever pitch and provided me with my second precognitive experience.

It was on Sunday, exactly one week after Karl and Neda had returned, that I awakened with a clairvoyant impression of Central Park not far from the 109th Street entrance. I clearly saw two vicious-looking men chasing a young girl. In the vision I knew that these two men were responsible for the rape-murders of the two co-eds whose bodies had recently been discovered. I woke with a sense of urgency that I must get to the park immediately. It was only a matter of minutes before my precognitive dream would become a material reality.

Ten minutes later I approached the park wishing that I had my magnificent 2150 body. It was a little before 7 a.m. and the park appeared to be deserted. I realized that I could spend a long time wandering through it without seeing anyone at this time of day.

Then I began using my telepathic power like a radar to sweep ahead of me through the heavily wooded park. I must have walked along the concrete paths for almost ten minutes before I picked up the thoughts of a young girl whom I could not see because of a rise between us.

As I focused my mind more closely on hers I realized that she was riding a new bicycle along the paths of the park. She had been doing this every morning and evening, before and after school, since she received it as a gift for her thirteenth birthday recently.

I stopped walking in order to concentrate all my energies on telepathic contact with the girl. I waited right where I was, since I felt she would soon be riding into view over the ridge nearby. The trees stood sharply black against the cold morning sky. A recent thaw had melted most of the snow, leaving isolated dirty little piles around clumps of shrubbery or beside walkways.

Suddenly my mind contact with the little girl chilled my bones. She was being harassed by two men on motorcycles.

I visualized my body as feather-light and started a grotesque hobble-run that soon brought me to the top of the ridge. I looked down upon a wooded path and saw the girl running through the trees followed by two shaggy-haired young men in grimy motorcycle togs, just as they had appeared in my vision.

The little girl had left her bicycle behind in hope of finding protection among the trees, but the men had abandoned their cycles and were fast overtaking her.

I reached out to touch their minds and encountered lust and menacing glee as the tall one with a long droopy mustache caught a handful of the girl's long blond hair. I watched with mounting horror as this dark-visaged man slammed the girl to the ground, then, clasping both hands about her waist, lifted her like a banner high in the air.

His pudgy companion grabbed her and began slapping her with huge hamlike hands as they both ripped at her clothing.

Suddenly red waves of rage crashed through my mind. I slipped back in time and became, once again, the Indian medicine man fighting white soldiers who were raping and killing the women and children of my tribe. I found myself running faster and faster toward these monstrous invaders.

Suddenly my elbows dug into the hard wet ground and I cursed my crippled body for failing me. I was still some thirty yards from the enemy.

The little girl's heart-rending scream of anguish snapped me back to the present, and I shouted at her assailants as I struggled to my feet.

They looked up at me with surprise. The pudgy one laughed at the audacity of a one-legged man trying to interfere with the two of them. I headed toward him. When he was within ten feet I launched myself at his legs, managing to knock him down. We rolled about on the ground as this pudgy-faced youth tried to get room to slam his fists into me. I tried to stay close and harkened back to my army hand-to-hand combat training. I felt his huge fist slam against the side of my head, and for a couple of moments was lucky just to be able to hold onto him. My rage had made me clumsy, but now with cold angry ferocity I began slashing at his face and throat with short powerful karate chops.

With a scream of frustration and pain he broke away from me and got to his feet. They were shod with heavy lethal-looking boots. I telepathically picked up his murderous thought of stomping the life out of me with them. This gave me the split-second margin I needed, and the boot whizzed harmlessly past my face. I grabbed it and with a sharp twist brought him to the ground. Before he could recover I began slamming my fist into his jaw with all the strength of my rage. How long I kept at this I don't know, but another scream from the girl brought me to my senses and I realized that I was beating at an unconscious face. As I looked up, the tall fellow was sprawled on top of the little girl mauling her small round breast with one hand as he tore at the last bits of her clothing with the other.