Chapter
THE CONVERGENCE
1,644 words · 9 min read
The flumes were empty except for the four of them.
Jennifer had arranged it—a word with the staff, an early arrival. The Saturday morning regulars wouldn't come for another hour. For now, the Fluminarium belonged to a physicist, a botanist, a wellness guru, and the woman who'd brought them together.
Steam rose around them, catching the first light through the skylights. David sat at one end, his modified spectrometer in a waterproof case on the deck beside him, a sampling tube trailing into the water. He felt absurdly out of place. He was used to laboratories. Clean rooms. Controlled conditions.
This was hot water and mineral steam and a man who thought he received transmissions from ascended masters.
But David had seen the drawings. He'd seen the Pictish symbols they echoed. He'd spent the week running calculations, tracing the fault lines that connected Bear Valley to Wilbur Hot Springs. The same formations. The same chemistry. If the iridium signature was present here, the hot spring water would carry trace concentrations that fluctuated with the geothermal dynamics below.
He was here to measure that fluctuation. And to see if it correlated with anything else.
"How does this usually work?" Susan asked. She sat across from Starseed, her scientist's caution visible in the set of her shoulders. "The visions—do they come on a schedule?"
Starseed shook his head. He looked different this morning—quieter, less performative. The guru polish had receded, leaving something rawer. David had noticed the change in the parking lot: less Starseed, more David Coyote.
"Dawn is strongest. The light, the water temperature, being alone—something about the combination opens the channel." He glanced at the group around him. "I've never tried with an audience."
"We're not here to judge," Jennifer said. "We're here to witness."
"Can you describe what happens physiologically?" Susan asked. "When the visions start?"
"Pressure first. Behind my eyes, at the base of my skull. Then the shapes—faint at first, like afterimages. If I stay relaxed, they get clearer."
David checked his spectrometer. "I'm measuring trace element concentrations, including iridium. I want to track how the mineral content fluctuates while you're receiving. See if there's any correlation."
Starseed studied him. "You think the water chemistry affects what I see?"
"I think you're perceiving something in the substrate—the iridium-bearing material the hot spring carries up from deep formations. If your vision intensity tracks with concentration fluctuations…"
"Then I'm not imagining it."
"Then there's a physical variable correlating with your experience. That's not proof—but it's a starting point."
The steam rose around them. Light strengthened through the skylights.
Starseed closed his eyes.
Nothing happened for a long time.
David watched the readings—iridium hovering at about 12 parts per billion. The number fluctuated slightly as geothermal dynamics shifted the water chemistry, but nothing dramatic. Susan sat motionless, observing. Jennifer breathed slowly, matching her rhythm to Starseed's.
Then Starseed's breathing changed.
Subtle at first—a deepening, a slowing. His face relaxed in a way that paradoxically made him look more focused. David had seen that expression in meditators, in people entering trance states.
The spectrometer reading ticked upward. 14 ppb. Then 17.
David leaned closer. The concentration was climbing—some pulse of mineral-rich water from deeper in the system. He noted the timestamp.
"There's pressure," Starseed murmured. His eyes were still closed. "At the back of my skull. The water's responding to something."
"Iridium concentration is rising," David said quietly. "Keep going."
22 ppb. 26. Still climbing.
"Shapes. Faint. The crescents are coming in first—they always do. Like doors. Like openings."
Susan had pulled out her phone. Recording. Good.
31 ppb. Nearly triple baseline. David stared at the reading. This wasn't subtle fluctuation—this was a surge.
"Nested curves," Starseed said. His voice had gone dreamy, distant. "Spirals inside spirals. It's showing me—" He broke off, his face contorting.
"What?" Jennifer asked softly.
"A tree. Not a tree—a branching. Like roots, or rivers. Everything connects. Every branch leads to other branches. And at the nodes, the crescents open and close." He struggled for words. "Navigation. It feels like navigation."
David filed the description away. Branching structures with decision points. It sounded almost like a map—or a filing system. He didn't know what to make of it yet, but he noted it alongside the concentration reading.
"Concentration is at 38 parts per billion," he said. "More than triple baseline."
"There's something else." Starseed's voice dropped to a whisper. "Watching. Always watching. Not hostile—just attentive. Like the whole thing is paying attention. Recording."
The reading peaked at 41 ppb—then began to fall. 38. 34. 29.
Starseed's eyes snapped open.
He was breathing hard, gripping the edge of the flume. Jennifer moved immediately to his side.
"I'm here," she said. "You're here. Come back slowly."
"It's so much bigger," Starseed said. His voice cracked. "I've been seeing fragments. Pieces. But there's so much more. I couldn't hold it—"
"You don't have to hold it. You just have to witness."
David looked at his readings. The concentration had dropped back to 15 ppb. But he had the data—the timestamp correlation. Vision intensity had tracked with concentration. When the iridium peaked, his experience peaked. When it fell, he came out.
"The timing matches," David said. "Your experience intensified as the concentration rose, and you came out as it dropped."
"Slow down." Susan's voice cut through. She was still recording, but her expression was troubled. "We observed one experience in one person in one location. The concentration fluctuated—interesting geology. His experience tracked with the fluctuation—interesting correlation. It's not proof."
"The timing—"
"Could be coincidence. Could be temperature effects—hotter water from deeper in the system also carries more iridium, and he's responding to temperature, not chemistry. Could be observer bias—he knew you were measuring something." She lowered her phone. "I'm not dismissing what we saw. I'm saying we need more data."
David wanted to argue. But Susan was right. She was the field scientist, trained to distinguish signal from noise.
"More data," he agreed. "Amara goes to London. We test Margaret's full collection—crystallographic analysis across all five extinction boundaries. If the same signature appears…"
"Then we'll have something," Susan said. "A foundation."
Starseed was recovering, his breathing steadying. He looked at David.
"The water changed. I felt it change. You measured that?"
"I measured iridium tripling and then dropping back to baseline. Your experience tracked with those changes." David paused. "I can't prove your visions are caused by the iridium. But I can prove they correlate with a measurable physical variable."
"But you didn't see what I saw. The branching, the nodes—" He shook his head. "Your machine reads chemistry. It doesn't navigate."
"Not yet," David said.
He heard himself say it. Wondered when he'd started thinking in terms of yet.
Jennifer caught his eye across the flume. She was smiling—not triumphantly, just with recognition. She'd known something was going to happen here.
Twenty minutes in 109° water was David's limit. His skin was flushed, his heart rate elevated, and he needed to get the data onto a proper screen.
Susan was already climbing out. "I want to map the concentration curve against his reported experience—see if there's a lag or if it's synchronous."
David toweled off, glancing back at Jennifer and Starseed, still settled in the mineral water.
"You two staying?"
Jennifer nodded. "Integration. He needs to process."
"Go do your science thing," Starseed said. His eyes were still slightly unfocused. "I'll be here."
The dining hall was empty. Susan scrubbed through her video while David pulled up the spectrometer data.
"Concentration started rising about thirty seconds before he reported the first visual phenomena," Susan said. "He came out maybe ten seconds after the readings dropped."
"So there's a slight lag. The concentration changes, then his perception follows."
"Consistent with a dose-response relationship." She sat back. "That's actually clean. Cleaner than I expected."
David stared at the curve on his screen. A geothermal pulse, rising and falling over twelve minutes. And a man's consciousness riding that wave.
"I need Amara in London," he said. "Margaret's samples are solid substrate, not dissolved minerals. If the crystallographic structure shows the same signature across all five boundaries—"
"Then we'll know the material is consistent worldwide." Susan nodded. "And if we can correlate structural features with what Starseed perceives…"
"Then we start understanding mechanism. Not just correlation—causation."
Susan was quiet, looking at the data.
"I've spent my career doing fieldwork," she said. "I've seen a lot of correlations that turned out to be nothing."
"And this one?"
"This one has too many independent sources. The plants, the drawings, the stones, the crystallography—all pointing at the same forms. And now a living receiver whose experience tracks with measurable chemistry." She met his eyes. "I'm still a skeptic. But I'm a skeptic who wants to see Margaret's data."
"Amara flies out this week."
Susan gathered her things. "Keep me updated. I want those crystallographic analyses as they come in."
She headed for the parking lot. David lingered, looking back toward the Fluminarium where steam still rose through the skylights.
His phone buzzed. Jennifer: He's asking about the stones again. The Picts. He wants to know why they could see it too.
David typed back: Tell him we're trying to find out. London first. Then we'll know more.
A pause. Then: He says he's not special. Just tuned to the same frequency as some ancient Scottish stonemasons.
David smiled despite himself. That was as good a hypothesis as any.
He loaded his equipment into the car and headed south toward Palo Alto, toward phone calls and flight bookings and the slow machinery of science grinding toward revelation.
Behind him, the hot springs continued their ancient rhythm—water rising from deep formations, carrying minerals to the surface, falling and rising again.
