"Boone?" "Yes, General?" "I'm going into the next office." "Yes, sir." "Damn it." "My name is Bob Wilton." "I'm a journalist." "Part of my job is finding where a story begins." "If you were looking at my story, you might think it began when I got a job at the Ann Arbor Daily Telegram." "Or you might think it began when I married my college sweetheart Debora." "But you'd be wrong because the real story of my life began a few years back, when my editor sent me to interview a local guy he'd heard on a talk radio show." "The guy claimed to have some kind of psychic powers, that he could travel with just his mind anywhere he wanted." "He called it remote viewing." "The man's name was Gus Lacey." "What have you seen lately?" "Lately I've been watching the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, England..." "Thanks, Mom." "And it turns..." "I've got it, I've got it." "Mom, I've got it." "Thank you." "Turns out... it's the ghost of a dinosaur." "Okay." "Wow." "So when did this all start for you, Gus?" "It started when I was a kid." "Gus told me that back in the '80s, he was part of a top-secret unit that got their training in the Army, in a program sanctioned by the highest levels of government." "When I asked him what the purpose of this unit was," " he said..." " We were psychic spies, mainly." "That was our initial tasking." "Once they realized what they were sitting on, we were trained to kill animals." "What, with your..." "With our minds, that is correct." "Just by staring at them." "What kind of animals?" "One of our units stopped the heart of a goat." "Wow." "The power they unleashed in us." "Last week, I killed my hamster." "You want to see?" "There." "Look." "You ever seen a hamster do that before?" "I never owned a hamster, Gus, before, so..." "Just look." "Look." "See the way it's glaring at its wheel?" "Yeah, I guess our hamster-owning readers would know what's aberrant behavior and what... what's..." "Oh, shit, shit, shit, he's down." "Yeah, he's down." "At this point I'd been staring at him for about three hours." "Bizarre, right?" "What does that..." "It didn't die." "You said you killed it." "Yeah, well, Mom said no." "She said "Don't show him the hamster dying." "Show him the tape where the hamster acts bizarre instead."" "You should have seen the Skipper at work." " Who's the Skipper?" " Lyn Cassady." "After Bill, he was the most gifted psi-guy I ever met." "He was like an occult force." "He runs a dance studio now." "The little man inside me dismissed Lacey as a nut." "You know the little man." "He's the one who says "Keep your head down." ""Stay in your little town, your little job." ""You're a lucky guy." ""Your wife loves you." "You have everything you want." "You're not looking for some great adventure."" "But then, one day, when you least expect it... the great adventure finds you." "Ron's sudden death was the catalyst for everything." "Debora told me later that it had been like a wake-up call for her, what people used to call a memento mori." "Ron's massive coronary had reminded her that life was just too short to waste any chance of true happiness and that his death had helped her put everything in perspective." "A week after the funeral, she left me for my editor." "It seemed like such a tragedy at the time." "We couldn't see beyond our little lives to the great events of history unfolding out there in the world." "I was like a child or a Hobbit, safe in the Shire." "Or a blond farm boy on a distant desert planet, unaware that he was already taking the first steps on a path that would lead him relentlessly towards the heart of a conflict between the forces of good and evil." "Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time." "Adversity has revealed the character of our country to the world..." "Had I known where that path would lead, had a soft wind from my future brought me the name of Bill Django," "I might never have gone." "But as it was, I did what so many men have done throughout history when a woman has broken their heart." "I went to war." "¶ We are young, we run green ¶" "¶ Keep our teeth nice and clean ¶" "¶ See our friends, see the sights ¶" "¶ Feel all right ¶" "¶ We wake up, we go out ¶" "¶ Smoke a fag, put it out ¶" "¶ See our friends, see the sights ¶" "¶ Feel all right ¶" "¶ Are we like you?" "¶" "¶ I can't be sure ¶" "¶ Of the scene as she turns ¶" "¶ We are strange in our worlds ¶" "¶ But we are young, we get by ¶" "¶ Can't go mad, ain't got time ¶" "¶ Sleep around if we like ¶" "¶ We're all right ¶" "¶ Got some cash, bought some wheels ¶" "¶ Took it out 'cross the fields ¶" "¶ Lost control, hit a wall ¶" "¶ But we're all right ¶" "¶ Are we like you?" "¶" "¶ I can't be sure ¶" "¶ Of the scene as she turns ¶" "¶ We are strange in our worlds ¶" "¶ But we are young, we run green ¶" "¶ Keep our teeth nice and clean ¶" "¶ See our friends, see the sights ¶" "¶ Feel all right ¶" "So have you seen any combat?" "Yeah, no, it's..." "Well, I won't lie to you, Debora." "It's been pretty damn hairy." "Yeah." "We've been watching it on Fox." "Yeah, but it's not..." "I've seen things that you shouldn't... you know?" "I don't even know why you're there." "Well, I think it's important people get an accurate picture of what's..." " What?" "  Ready to go?" "...what's happening." " Yeah." "So what, is that... is that Dave?" "Yeah." "He says hi." "Well, that's..." "Is he going to get his stuff out of here?" "That's..." "I got to go." "We're moving out." "We're heading up north to cover the fighting there." "Wait, Bob." "Just so you..." "So what's a useful phrase?" " "La tuplic, ana sahafi."" " Sahafi." "What does that mean?" "Don't shoot." "I'm a reporter." "I'll keep that in mind." "I'd been waiting for a month for permission to cross the border into Iraq." "All that time, I'd seen the embedded war correspondents coming back, swapping stories." "They all ignored me." "I had to get into Iraq somehow, or I would never again be able to face myself, my wife, or that one-armed fuck-head Dave." "DeWitt Resources, out of Arkansas." "That's right." "We make trash cans." "You're here for the conference, right?" "Looking for a contract." "I guess." "What's your pitch?" "Well, we're real cheap." "Bob Wilton." "Skip." "You mind if I..." "No." "So you're from Arkansas." "No." "Been here long?" "No." "Be careful what you wish for." "I wanted to prove myself." "And for my sins... fate taught me a lesson." "Lyn Cassady?" "Lyn Cassady." "After Bill, he was the most gifted psi-guy I ever met." "Do you know Gus Lacey?" "Skip?" "Hello?" "Lyn." "I have your hat." "Skip?" "Hah!" "You work for Hooper?" "Hooper?" "No." "I work for the Ann Arbor Daily Telegram." "How do you know about Lacey?" "I interviewed him a few months ago for my paper." "Little prick." "Follow me." "Let me ask you something." "What color were the chairs in the hotel bar?" "Um..." "You were there for hours." "What color were the chairs?" "Green." "Beige." "How many lights are in this room?" "A Super Soldier wouldn't have to look." "He would just know." "Super Soldier?" "A Jedi Warrior." "He'd know where all the lights were." "He could walk through a room, tell you how many power outlets there were." "People are walking around with their eyes closed." "At Level 1 we were trained to instantly absorb all details." "What's a Jedi Warrior?" "You're looking at one." "You're a Jedi Warrior?" "That's correct." "I don't..." "What..." "I don't know what that means." "I'm Sergeant First Class Lyn Cassady, Special Forces, retired." "In the '80s, I was trained at Fort Bragg under a secret initiative code-named Project Jedi." "The objective of the project was to create Super Soldiers... soldiers with super powers." "We were the first generation of the New Earth Army." "You've got super powers?" "That's correct." "Wait a minute." "You..." "If I'm..." "What you're saying is that you were a psychic spy like Lacey?" "We prefer the term remote viewer." "How does that work?" "Well, different Jedi had different techniques." "Mel Landau used to visualize packing all his troubles into a little suitcase to clear his mind, and Steve Tuttle would recite Bible verse, which was..." "What about you?" "I find drinking helps, and if I'm listening to classic rock." "Oh, yeah?" "Like who?" "I like Boston." "Boston usually works." "What other powers would you practice?" "Invisibility." "Invisibility?" "Yeah." "That was Level 3." "Like actual invisibility?" "Well, yeah, that was the goal." "Eventually, we adapted it to just finding a way of not being seen." "But once you understand the linkage between observation and reality, then you begin to dance with invisibility." "Like camouflage?" "No." "It's not like camouflage." "We also practice phasing." "Crossing from particle to wave, from physical to energy." "Solid objects seem to pass right through you." "That starts with a breathing exercise." "You go..." "And then you think black." "That's the nothingness." "Got it?" "It's..." "This is..." "I don't know what..." "Can I be honest with you, Lyn?" "I don't know what to make of this." "I don't know what to say." "This is amazing stuff." "I want to..." "Uh..." "Could I write a story about this?" "Not going to happen." "Because I've been looking for a story, Lyn." "I was going to write about the rebuild contracts," " but this is much better." " Not going to happen." "All I'm saying is we could meet tomorrow and..." "I'm shipping out tomorrow." "What?" "You're going home?" "Going to Iraq." "I'm thinking about partnering on a factory in Al Qaim." "Oh." "I could come." "What?" "I could come, maybe, and..." "I don't want to be a story." "I don't need the attention." "We could change names." "Stuff could stay..." "There's a war over there, Bob." "You understand that?" "War." "I don't want to be looking out for you." "You wouldn't have..." "I look after myself." "I've been in some pretty hairy situations." "I'm a journalist, Lyn." "You understand?" "I'm a journalist." "I go where the story is." "What is this?" "I don't know." "It's just a doodle." "What's the matter?" "Nothing." ""The U.S. Army doesn't really have any serious alternative than to be wonderful." "This does not represent the official position of the United States Army at this time."" "Bill Django." "Who's Bill Django?" "The man who wrote that book." "He said it all started when he fell out of a helicopter in Vietnam." "Okay now!" " Out, out, out!" " Go!" "Go, go, go, go!" "Get moving!" "Move it!" "Move it!" "Get down!" "Go!" "Go!" "Move!" "Fuck you, motherfuckers!" "Hey, knock it off!" " Soldier!" " Chris!" "Knock it off!" "Will you knock it off?" "Jesus." "Oof!" "Medic!" "He'll be all right." "All right!" "What are you waiting for?" "What the fuck?" "Why isn't anyone firing?" "Fire!" "Every single one of Bill's men fired high." "They instinctively hadn't wanted to shoot another person." "Later Bill would come across a study which revealed that only 15-20% of fresh soldiers shot to kill." "The rest aimed high, didn't fire at all, or pretended to be busy doing something else." "I got you, sir." "Stay with me, all right?" "I got you." "Hang in there." "Their gentleness is their strength." "While recovering in the hospital," "Bill wrote to the Vice Chief of Staff for the Army, explaining that he wanted to go on a fact-finding mission to explore alternative combat tactics." "The Pentagon agreed to pay his salary and expenses." "What Bill hadn't told the Pentagon was that he was really looking for the answer to his vision." "How could his men's gentleness, their general lack of interest in killing people, be turned into a strength?" "How could love and peace help win wars?" "Bill knew where to go to find out." "¶ Over bridge of sighs ¶" "¶ To rest my eyes in shades of green ¶" "¶ Under dreamin' spires ¶" "¶ To Itchycoo Park, that's where I've been ¶" "¶ What did you do there?" "¶" "¶ I got high ¶" "¶ What did you feel there?" "¶" "¶ Well, I cried ¶" "¶ But why the tears there?" "¶" "¶ Tell you why ¶" "¶ It's all too beautiful ¶" "¶ I feel inclined to blow my mind ¶" "¶ Get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun ¶" "¶ They all come out to groove about ¶" "Bill disappeared into the New Age Movement for six years." "Like all shamen before him, he had traversed the wilderness." "Now he was returning to his people a changed man." "He brought with him his confidential report, which he called The New Earth Army Manual." ""The New Earth Army is a banner under which the forces of good can gather." ""The courage and nobility of the Warrior blended with the spirituality of the Monk." ""The Jedi Warrior will follow in the footsteps" ""of the great Imagineers of the past..." "Jesus Christ, Lao Tse Tung, Walt Disney."" ""The role of The New Earth Army is to resolve conflict worldwide." ""Jedis will parachute into war zones, utilizing sparkly eyes technique," ""carrying symbolic flowers and animals, playing indigenous music and words of peace."" "What's..." "What's sparkly eyes technique?" "All right, you ready?" "Okay." " You got it?" " Okay." " You see it?" "You got it?" " I think I got it." "Yeah." "Okay." "As Lyn drove on, I wondered what the hell I was doing." "I wanted to go back." "This wasn't me." "This was crazy." "And so was Lyn." "But by then it was too late." "We'd already crossed the border." "What, does that direct your powers?" "What?" "The cone." "Does it direct your psychic powers or something?" "No." "It cooks supper." "That's solar." "Utilizing the power of the universe." "No pollution, totally renewable." "That's New Earth Army technology." "Pretty mind-blowing, isn't it?" "First time I saw that, I was like "What the fuck?"" "Yeah, but it..." "What?" "Well, it's just hard to believe the Pentagon paid for this." "There's nothing in here actually about fighting." "The New Earth Army was tasked with preventing conflict." "We're a force of peace, not war." "Bill understood if you want to change the world, you're going to start by changing the armies." "He was the guy that started the research into non-lethals." "Non-lethals?" "Check this out." " The Predator." " The Predator?" "Lyn, that's just a plastic..." " Ohh!" " See?" "You're mine now." "The Predator is 100% biodegradable, it's friendly to the earth," " and it can hurt you in a hundred ways." " Fuck!" "It has warrior capacities, and it looks a little bit funny." "Jesus!" "Stop it!" " I bought it online." " Fuck." "Funny thing is you could see this laying around on the ground." "You would never know it had such lethality." "Eyeballs." "Aah!" "Aah!" "God damn it!" "Well, I guess it's officially night now." "Piece of shit." "I've got Crohn's." "The steroids help." "Sometimes there's a need, Bob." "Sometimes people are calling out for something." "They don't know it themselves." "And then a man like Bill appears out of nowhere... because he heard the call." "We are a hollow army, gentlemen." "Vietnam has crushed our soul." "We have to dream a new America, an America that no longer has an exploitative view of natural resources, no longer promotes consumption at all cost." "But to achieve this dream, we must become the first Superpower to develop super powers." "We must create Warrior Monks... men and women who can fall in love with everyone, sense plant auras, pass through walls, stop saying mindless clichés, and see into the future." "I want you to join me in this vision." "Be all you can be." "Among Bill's audience that day was a brigadier general from the Defense Intelligence Agency," "Dean Hopgood." "For some time, the General had been concerned with Soviet research into psychic powers." "According to some stories, the Soviets had designed "psychotronic generators,"" "machines capable of bombarding the President with negative energy." "They were also conducting sadistic experiments to see whether animals had psychic powers." "Could they, for instance, telepathically detect that their babies were distressed?" "Sick bastards." "But why did the Soviets begin this type of research?" "Well, sir, it looks like they found out about our attempt to telepathically communicate with one of our nuclear subs, the Nautilus, while it was under the polar cap." " What attempt?" " There was no attempt." "Seems the story was a French hoax." "But the Russians think the story about the story being a French hoax is just a story, sir." "So they've started doing psi research because they thought we were doing psi research when we weren't doing psi research?" "Yes, sir." "But now that they are doing psi research, we're going to have to do psi research, sir." "We can't afford to have the Russians leading the field in the paranormal." "Two weeks later, the Army adopted the slogan "Be All You Can Be"" "and appointed Bill Commander of the first New Earth Army Battalion." "Lyn?" "Lyn?" "Lyn!" "What?" "Oh." "Uh..." "Nothing." "I..." "What are you doing?" "Salute to the Sun." "All right." "We're Oscar Mike." "That's "On the move," soldier." "Right." "What are you doing?" "Cloud bursting." "Keeps me in shape." "Really?" "Which one?" "That one." "This one?" "No." "That one." "The big one." "Isn't that one too far away?" "They're all far away." "And it's gone." "Ooh!" "Fuck." "Jesus, you had, like, the whole desert to drive in, Lyn." "I'm sorry about that, Bob." "Must have gotten a little bilocational there." "I wouldn't worry about it, though." "Somebody will come along soon." "Heads." "Right." "Heads." "Right." "What's your record at this?" "264." "Tails." "Right." "Well, that's pr..." "Thank you, Jesus, sweet Jesus." "Please, please, please." "Can you help us?" "Can you help?" "Can you help?" "We drove into a rock." "And I wondered if you could take us to some, like, a town or someplace." "Can we get in?" "Thank you." "He says "Futter."" ""F-Futter," he says, so we can get in." "Come on." "Thank you." "Thank you." "For picking us up." "No cars came by." "How..." "How far is..." "Lyn?" " Is this..." " Yeah." "We're going to die." "I'm going to be killed by al Qaeda." "I don't think they're al Qaeda." "What the hell do you know?" "You don't know." "You don't know." "You don't know anything." "This is all your fault." "Bob, there's something I have to tell you." "When I said that I was retired from the unit, that was a lie." "I'm on a mission." "DeWitts is just my cover." "I've been reactivated." "I couldn't tell you because it's a Black Op, but I think you have a role to play." "I think that's why you're here." "You're an idiot." "You know why I'm here?" "I just wanted to get into Iraq so I could prove to my wife that I wasn't a..." "And now I'm going to die." "I'm going to die, and she's right." "I'm such a... fucking..." "Bob, have you ever heard of optimum trajectory?" "What?" "Optimum trajectory." "Your life is like a river." "If you're aiming for a goal that isn't your destiny, you're always going to be swimming against the current." "Young Gandhi wants to be a stock-car driver." "It's not gonna happen." "Little Anne Frank wants to be a high school teacher." "Tough titty, Anne." "It's not your destiny." "But you will go on to move the hearts and minds of millions." "Find out what your destiny is, and the river will carry you." "Now, sometimes events in life give an individual clues as to where their destiny lies." "Like those little doodles you just happened to draw?" "It's the Ajna chakra, the third eye, the symbol of the Jedi." "When I saw that you were drawing it, well, the universe gives you clues like that, you don't ignore it." "You were meant to be here with me, Bob." "It's the Jedi in you that senses it." "Now, I don't think that these guys are FRLs or Mehdi Army." "I think we're talking standard criminals here, which means they're gonna try and sell us to another group." "We can't let that happen." "How are we going to stop them?" "There's three of them, and they've got guns." "We're Jedi, Bob." "We don't fight with guns." "We fight with our mind." "What do you mean?" "Okay, let's say that we have no choice but to fight these guys." "We're going to use visual aesthetics to instill psychically in the enemy the disincentive to attack." "What do you mean?" "Okay, you pick one of them out." "You lock eyes with him." "Then you go into this monotone, where you would go "Mmm... no." "I'm not going to attack you."" "You relax your body and your voice." "And you just rip out one of his eyes, or you get a pen and stab him in the neck and create this fountain of blood." "I mean a real fountain." "Get it squirting all over his buddies." "That is a psychic disincentive right there." "We haven't got a pen." "You're missing the point." "Come on." "Here." "Come here." "Let me show you something." "All right." "Choke me." "I don't want to, Lyn." "Choke me." "What am I going to do?" "I don't know." "There's too many sharp edges." "It's okay." "You can attack me." "What's with the quotation fingers?" "That's like saying I'm only capable of ironic attacking or..." "Choke me." "If I choose to choke you, what are you going to do?" "I'm going to interrupt your thought pattern." "See?" "I barely moved." "Physics-wise, not much going on here." "It's the psychic energy that's important." "You okay?" " Sharp edges." " Yeah." "You felt fear, though, in the beginning?" "Yes." "Would you say that that level of fear was abnormal?" "I don't know." "I was pretty terrified anyway, but the fear I felt on the run-up to the choking was, you know, unusual." "You know why?" "Because it wasn't you." "It was me." "I was inside your head, fighting with the mind." "Now, you must always, always..." "Okay, ya'allah, we go." "Ya'allah." "I'm sorry I freaked out back there, Lyn." "You learned a lesson." "Whatever you fear most has no power over you." "It's the fear that has the power." "Bill?" "Oprah." "Oh." "You really don't work for DeWitts?" "Just my cover." "Gus Lacey said you ran a dance studio." "That was just a cover, too, right?" "No." "I do run a dance studio." "I love dance." "And you're out here on a mission, right?" "In time, Bob." "Did you mean what you said back there when you said I had some Jedi in me?" "We learn to recognize our own kind." "Haven't you always felt like you were different?" " Yes." "Yes, I have." " That's the way it is for us." "We were the ones that didn't fit in when we were kids." "Have you always had powers?" "Kind of." "Foxtrot 117 has launched." "Tracking now." "Security code 180667." "What happened?" "Did you crash those computers?" "Yes, sir." "Far fucking out." "How would you feel about a transfer, son?" "I am Lieutenant Colonel Bill Django!" "If you pass this course, you will be a psychic weapon, an angel of death, our enemies' worst nightmare." "Until that time, you are nothing." "Less than nothing." "Do you understand?" "Sir, yes, sir!" "Uh, I'm just kidding about this shit." "Ah, okay, what shall we do now, huh?" "Hey." "Let's dance." "Okay." "Give it everything you've got." "That's it." "What's your first name, Cassady?" "Lyn, sir." "You've got to free your feet before you can free your mind, Lyn." "Not really much of a dancer, sir." "Now, that's not true, is it?" "You can dance." "It's just someone told you not to." "¶... goodness' sake ¶" "¶ I got the Hippy Hippy Shakes ¶" "¶ Yeah, yeah ¶" "Stop acting so fucking queer!" "Well, I'm your commanding officer, and I'm ordering you to let the dance out!" "Come on, dance, God damn it!" "Let it go!" "Whoo!" "Let it go!" "That's it." "Welcome to the heroes' journey, Lyn." "Okay, everyone, remember, we officially do not exist as a unit." "And remember, no solid food this first week." "¶ Looked all over the world ¶" "¶ And there's every type of girl ¶" "¶ But your empty eyes seem... ¶" "Primal scream, Belgian waffle, ginseng, and amphetamines." "Not to be abused, but very fucking handy." "Sense the opening." "Feel these bends now." "Feel it." "Feel it." "Yeah." "Fuck it." "Fuck it." "Whoa!" "Think cold." "Think real cold!" "Bravo Zulu, kid!" "Mother Earth, my life-support system, as a soldier," "I must drink your blue water, live inside your red clay, and eat your green skin." "Carry my body through space and time." "You are my connection to the universe and all that comes after." "I am yours, and you are mine." "I salute you." "Ah." "After years of feeling like an oddball," "Lyn had finally found a home." "At last he was with men who prided themselves on being different." "The left shoulder, that's it." "These were the golden days for Lyn." "There was something so noble and pure in Bill's vision that the Jedis felt inspired to be more than soldiers." "In a world torn apart by greed and hate, they would be a force for good, for peace." "For the first time in his life, Lyn felt truly happy." "Then, into the garden, a serpent did come." "Let me finish." "Let me finish." "Larry Hooper was a failed Sci-Fi writer from Colorado, recruited to the Jedis after General Hopgood met him at a spoon-bending party." "Oh!" " Jesus." " Unbelievable." " In fact, Jesus." " How did he do that?" "You did this?" "You son of a..." "Right from the start, he made himself unpopular with the rest of the unit." " Congratulations, Scotty." " Thank you." "I'm sorry it doesn't work out between you two." " What did he say?" " I don't know." "Larry made it quite clear that he despised most of the other Jedis." "Hey, man, how would you like it if somebody did that to you?" "But Lyn..." "Lyn was different." "Fuck off." "He really hated him." "K-9, Scotty?" "It's..." "It's something cylindrical?" "It's a pencil?" "Okay." "Larry?" "Uh, ah..." "This is Larry's spirit guide, Maud." "I'm looking into the cupboard now, and I see..." "I see... a tin mug." "Lyn?" "It's a man sitting in a chair." "No, wait a minute." "You said A, not K. He said A." "Bravo Zulu, Lyn." "Outstanding." "After a year's training, Lyn was given his first tasking." "A senior NATO general had been kidnapped by Red Brigade members in Italy." "Bill was unofficially asked if his unit would be able to help find him before it was too late." "North of Verona." "In a small town near a lake." "I can see a cinema." "Across the street from the cinema, there's a shop." "No, it's... it's a cafe." "He's in the apartment above the cafe." "The name of the town is..." "It's something sweet." "It's..." "Dolce." "The name of the town is Dolce." "Bill had never encountered anyone with such psychic capabilities." "And from that moment on, Lyn's reputation soared." "Rank, medals..." "these things mean little to the Jedi." "But growth in spirit, in wisdom, in psychic power, these are things that earn our respect." "Native Americans believed that when one received the eagle feather, it was the mark of love, of gratitude and ultimate respect." "Only true human beings may carry the eagle feather." "Way to go, Lyn." " Good job." " That's great, man." "You earned it." "The word soon got out in the intelligence community that there was a sergeant at Fort Bragg who could find whatever you needed found." "It was as if Lyn could fly anywhere in the world without leaving his room." "As Bill said, the force truly was strong with this one." "¶ I closed my eyes ¶" "¶ And I slipped away ¶" "¶ It's more than a feeling ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ When I hear that old song they used to play ¶" "Lyn?" "Don't worry, Bob." "We're not going to get in that truck." "You don't want us." "You don't want us!" "Put your weapon away." "Put your weapon away!" "Bob, don't move." "Put your weapon away." "Bob, don't move." "Bob, stay put." "Bob, stop!" "Huh?" "Aah!" "Now, at the time, I thought Lyn was having some kind of fit here." "Later I discovered what he was actually doing was performing the Echmeyer technique." "Ben Echmeyer was a Vietnam vet with 63 confirmed kills." "He remains the only non-Korean to achieve the rank of Master in Kwa Ra Do." "It's been said he could have a tug of war with a dozen men and not move an inch." "He was also able to lift bags of sand on hooks hung through his scrotum." "He was one of the Jedi teachers at Fort Bragg." "Sir, what is the practical application of this?" "Ben caused quite a stir by advocating his controversial shock and awe knife attack method." "The approach was hailed by some knife aficionados as revolutionary, but criticized by others who believed that the leaping and spinning might lead you to accidentally stab yourself." "Lyn Cassady, however, became a firm convert to the style." "Of course, Lyn didn't actually have a knife with him at this particular time, so I still think that what he did was kind of reckless." "You idiot." "Shit, shit." "They're not coming." "We're okay." "We're okay." "They're not coming." "We're going to be all right." "Oh, shit." "There he is." "Sir!" "It's okay." "We're Americans." "We're here to help you!" "Sir!" "Sir, we..." "Oh, crap." "What happened?" "What happened?" "I think I just ran him over." "Sir?" "Sir!" "Are you all right, sir?" "Bob, give me a hand." "Come on." "Help him up." "Get him up here." "Pick him up." "Pick him up." "Oh, shit!" "Oh, shit, who is that?" "Don't move!" "Let's see your hands!" "Now!" "Todd Nixon, Army Small Business Officer." "Mahmud Daash." "Ask me what business I'm in, Muhammad." "Mahmud." "What business are you in, sir?" "Right now, I'm in the quality of life business." "We've got over 25 million Iraqis out here that want to be independent, want to make something of themselves." "But more than anything else, they want to buy stuff." "Cell phones, digital cameras, leisure suits, you name it." "If it sells in Boston, we can damn well sell it in Baghdad." "Am I right, Muhammad?" "He knows what I'm talking about." "We've got Halliburton, Parsons, Perini just in their primes." "We're going to have McDonald's," "We're going to have Starbucks." "No corporate tax." "It's going to be a gold rush." "Oh, and by the way, fuck the French." "Did you hear that shit?" "Chirac wants to bring French contractors in?" "Hey, Phil?" "What's the most common French expression?" "I give up." "That's fucking funny." "Year Zero, boys." "Year Zero." "Okay, we are in Indian country now." "Check your 6." "We've got a line of cars at the gas station here." "You guys want to wait?" "Negative." "We're too exposed." "We're taking the station." "Go in fangs out." "Secure the perimeter." "Give her the go-juice, Eddy." "I filled her up last time." "That's bullshit." "He did fill her up last time, Gary." "With all due respect, sir, bull-fucking-shit." "I tanked her last time." " Bullshit!" " Every time." "Can we figure out some sort of fucking system..." "Contact!" "Contact!" "Where is contact?" "Where's the shooter?" "In what became known as the Battle of Ramadi, 12 people were injured, mostly locals." "Both security companies claimed that they had been fired upon first by Iraqis." "Of course, it was later revealed that they had actually fired upon each other." "My house is not far." "We could walk from here." " Sounds good, Muhammad." " Mahmud!" "Open it up!" "Let's go!" "As we ran for cover," "I thought, "This was what I had wanted."" "I was on a mission, even if I didn't know what kind of mission it was." "But I could hear the little man inside me again." "He was screaming like a little girl." "Krom 1, Krom 1, this is Freedom Frontier." "We are under attack." "This is fucking FUBAR." "Hold your fire!" "Mahmud led us to his home, which, as it turned out, had been robbed in his absence and also accidentally shot up in a fire fight." "Neighbors told him that his wife had left." "They weren't sure where she had gone." "I'm very sorry for running you over, sir." "It was an accident." "And I apologize for the security detachment." "I don't want you to think that all Americans are like that." "I apologize for the kidnappers." "Not your fault, sir." "I mean, we have kidnappers in America, and there's always bad apples." "Lyn?" "Are you awake?" "Just thinking about Mahmud." "People just trying to do something with their lives, something lasting and good, but there's always somebody that wants to smash it up." "What Lyn was really thinking about was Larry Hooper and the part that he had played in the destruction of the New Earth Army." "But in fairness, the Jedis' own eccentricities hadn't exactly won them many allies." "For example, there was Tim Kootz, who, on being asked to ascertain the whereabouts of General Manuel Noriega, had replied..." "Ask Angela Lansbury." "Say again, Tim?" "Ask Angela Lansbury." "Excellent, Tim." "Excellent." "We asked Angela Lansbury." "And?" "She said she didn't know where General Noriega was." "Or there was the time Major General Gilling was visiting the base and saw Jedi trainee Clifford Hickox practicing the ancient Sun Dance of the Sioux Nation." "The Jedis survived such minor scandals, protected, it was rumored, by President Reagan, who was a fan of both the Star Wars films and the paranormal himself." "But then, one summer, a young, likeable Lieutenant named Norman Pendleton was recruited to the New Earth Army." "Desperate to compete with Lyn," "Larry had been doing research into the infamous CIA MK-ULTRA experiments which he believed could enhance his own psychic powers." "All he needed was a lab rat to try them out on, check if they were safe." "It turned out they weren't." "Left, left, right..." "Gun!" "Gun!" "Oh, shit!" "Norm?" "Norm, give me the gun." "Left, left, right, left." "Norm's father, who it turned out was pretty high up in the Pentagon, wanted blood." "Although the Jedis were pretty sure Larry was responsible, nothing could be proved, and when he was called to testify at the disciplinary hearing," "Larry made sure to smear Bill with everything he could." "Lieutenant Colonel Django used funds from the project's black budget to procure prostitutes." "That's a lie." "And to get drugs for himself and his men." "That..." "Well, the hooker thing is definitely a lie." "Brigadier General Hopgood resigned and died some years later." "Bill received a dishonorable discharge." "Continue the work, Lyn." "The world needs the Jedis now more than ever." "After Bill left," "Major Holtz of Special Forces took command of the Jedis." "He didn't think much of Bill's unconventional training techniques, and he vowed to make some changes." "Nothing was ever the same again." "I really appreciate this, sir." "Jesus, we could have bought a map." "Bedouins have been navigating this desert for centuries without a map." "You can even use your wristwatch in conjunction with the sun." "Well?" " Well, what?" " Well, use a wristwatch." "I haven't got a wristwatch." "Oh, for the love of..." "Here." "What?" "It's digital." "So?" "You need a watch with hands." "Well, how am I supposed to know?" "You're the navigation expert." "You're the one who said you could find the way." " I will if you'd just be quiet." " You don't even have a watch." "I don't need a watch." "I'm using Level 2." "What is that?" "Level 2." "Intuition." "We were trained to make correct decisions." "Somebody runs up to you, and they say, "There's a fork in the road." "Do you go left or do you go right?"" "And you go, "We go right."" "Just instant?" "Instant." "Just like that." "We've been sitting here for half an hour." "How is that instant?" " Oh, it's this way?" " Yeah." "Oh, now you know." "Hang on." "What happened?" "IED." "What?" "Improvised Explosive Device." "Oh, Jesus." "Jesus." "You're okay." "You're going to be okay." "I can't believe it." "Great fucking intuition, Lyn." "I can't..." "Put me down." "I can..." "I can walk." "Oh, Jesus." "I think I may be bleeding to death." "You're not bleeding to death." "You're in shock." "It's just shock." "I'm so hot." "It's so hot." "Aren't you hot?" "Bob, it's pretty important you keep your mouth closed." "You lose a lot of water through an open mouth." "If we'd only stayed with the car, then we'd be all right now." "And now we have no water." "You're going to be okay." "No f..." "Will you stop saying that?" "I've been blown up." "I'm in the middle of the desert." "I'm not going to be okay." "Bob, you're in shock." "If you panic, your heart's going to stop." "Is that supposed to calm me down?" "Wait a minute." "Th..." "This is west." "Al Qaim is the other way." "We're going the wrong way." "Al Qaim isn't the mission." "We're going near Al Qaim." "Where?" "I don't know." "What?" "Is that a joke?" "It's a joke, right?" "That we've come 600 miles, and you don't know where we're going?" "Well, if the exact whereabouts of the target was known, it wouldn't take a Jedi to find it, would it?" "Who gave you the mission, Lyn?" "Bill did." "What?" "Bill." "He appeared in my trailer two months ago." "A psychic projection." "He called out my name." "Oh, Jesus." "Lyn, there is no mission?" "We're in the middle of the fucking desert because you heard voices?" "And there's no one here!" "There's no one fucking here!" "When the dust of Bill's discharge had settled, it revealed a surprising victor." "What do you have for me, Sergeant?" "This is a scientific report I've done on possible offensive psi applications, sir." "I showed it to Lieutenant Colonel Django, but he didn't seem interested." "No, I'll bet he wasn't." "We have men who can do this?" "I can think of one, sir." "We don't have the resources." "Well, sir, there is the Goat Lab." "Just 80 yards from Major Holtz' office was an abandoned hospital." "Most of the soldiers who lived and worked in Fort Bragg had no idea about the actual function of this building because although it was abandoned, the hospital was not empty." "The goats had been secretly flown in from Central America to avoid customs." "Special forces weren't worried about regular soldiers hearing the goats because they'd been de-bleated." "Goat Lab was originally created as a secret laboratory to provide in-the-field surgical training for Special Forces soldiers." "The goats would get shot in the leg with a bolt gun, and then a trainee would have to dress the wound successfully." "Goat Lab actually used to be called Dog Lab, but it turned out most soldiers didn't feel good shooting dogs in the leg." "The Army, though, had long felt fine about doing stuff to goats, even testing atomic weapons on them." "It's gone, Bob." "I can't find him." "I've lost my powers." "It's the curse." "What curse?" "It took this beautiful thing that we'd been building, and they destroyed the New Earth Army." "Who destroyed it?" "I did." "Hooper and Holtz wanted me to do an experiment." "They wanted me to stop the heart of a goat." "What had that goat ever done to me?" "It's completely against the way of the Jedi." "I was just going to pretend to try so that they could see it wouldn't work and they would forget about it, but then, as I sat there," "I felt this pulse inside me." "Couldn't stop it." "Maybe deep down inside, some dark part of me wanted to see if I could do it." "Holy shit." "That was it." "I'd used my powers for evil, and it was as if I brought a curse on all of us." "It's like that poem where the guy kills the seagull and they make him wear it around his neck." "Every night I would dream about that goat, its mouth opening and closing without making a sound." "The silence of the goats." "I finished my tour, and I quit." "I walked out, never went back." "But before he could leave," "Larry arranged one last parting gift." "What do you..." "It was the Dim Mak." " The Dim Mak?" " Dim Mak." "Quivering Palm." "The Death Touch." "It's forbidden in the New Earth Army." "What does the Death Touch do?" "It kills you, Bob." " One touch." " Jesus." "There's a story that Wong Wifu, the great Chinese martial artist, was in a fight with a guy who was beating him, and the guy gave him this light tap, and Wong looked at him, and the guy just nodded." "That was it." "He'd given him the Death Touch." "Wong died." "Then and there?" "No." "About 18 years later." "That's the thing about the Dim Mak... you never know when it's going to take effect." "In a funny kind of way, I admired Lyn then." "He believed in something so much, he thought he could really die from it." "I think that's what I'd been looking for all along... something to believe in, something to give meaning to my life." "That's why I'd fallen for Lyn's crazy stories." "That's why I'd followed him out into the desert." "Look." "Look." "Come on." "Come on." "You might want to talk to Private First Class Don Wilscom, who is in charge of the camp's remote-control car races going every Sunday." "These are friendly competitions held between members of the camp, but if you think this sort of thing's for kids, you'd better think again." "... 70 miles per hour while the monster truck models could be up to a foot and a half..." "Handling the models at those speeds allows for hairpin turns." "Of course it's a challenge of..." "Lyn?" "Lyn?" "Where are you going?" "Lyn?" "Weather today  with highs of 102 degrees, humidity at 13% and low southwestern winds." "Hello, Bill." "Hello, Lyn." "This is Bob." "Hello, Bob." "Hello." "Oh, good." "The gang's all here." "This is primarily a Psyops base." ""Psy" for psychic, right?" ""Psy" for psychological, but the irony isn't wasted on me." "Radio broadcasts, leaflets, things like that." "Oh, here's an Iraqi Psyops leaflet they dropped on us." ""American Soldier, your wives are back at home having sex with Bart Simpson and Burt Reynolds."" "Yeah, didn't exactly do their homework there." "How'd you find us, Lyn?" "I told you I remote viewed you." "If this is Psyops base, what are you doing here?" "I said it was primarily Psyops." "There are individuals in the current administration who are looking for creative solutions to the War on Terror." "They're far more open minded than their predecessors, and they've out-sourced experimental research to my company." "Sick?" "It's pronounced "psych."" "Psychic Systems International Corp..." "P.S. I.C." "Turns out certain people had heard about the New Earth Army." "They were very interested in some of the work we were doing back then." "They got a hold of me." "I got a hold of Bill." "Bill works for you?" "Bill's looking into subliminal messaging." "Oh." "This is one we designed to play to our own troops before going into combat." "Push "Play" on that." "¶ Wishing and hoping ¶" "¶ And thinking and praying ¶" "¶ Planning and dreaming ¶" "There's a subliminal message in this?" "This one's called "Don't Get Drunk Before Firing Heavy Machine Guns."" "We've got all sorts of new ideas in development." "Give him one of our new ideas." " Uh, Air bag mine?" " Air bag mine." "Non-lethal... boom, catapults the fucker up into air." "Give me another one." "Blast target with pheromones and then release Attack Bees." "Excellent." "Attack Bees." "The Forces of Nature." "Another." "Project Achilles." "We mutilate enemy corpses..." "We're not doing that one anymore, you idiot." "The point is we've got a budget, we've got supporters." "I'm rebuilding the New Earth Army, only this time without all the hippie crap." "How you doing there, Bill?" "Going to get some ice cream." "You get the occasional flash of what he used to be, but he's pretty burnt out on the booze." "Still, he's the best." "Oh." "Twizzlers." "You want one?" "No." "God, I love these things." "¶¶" "¶ We're together joyfully ¶" "¶ With a laugh and a kiss ¶" "¶ Over Happy Lake Canoe ¶" "What is it?" "¶ Sharing joy with me and you ¶" "The Dark Side." "What are you going to do?" "Lyn, what are you going to do?" "It's too late." "I'm dying, Bob." "Oh, you're not going to die." "I don't believe you can be killed by mail-order Dim Sum or..." " Dim Mak." " Dim Mak... whatever." "You can't just be tapped on the shoulder and whatnot..." " It's cancer." " What?" "I mean, I know it was the Dim Mak that caused it." "It's cancer." "At least that's what the doctors say." "There's different ways of looking at... different names for a reality." "Here." "Give that to Bill." "I don't deserve it." "Take it." "It wasn't the Dim Mak that was killing Lyn, and it wasn't the cancer." "He was dying of a broken heart... and maybe the cancer as well." "His mission had failed, and failure was something I knew too much about." "Bill?" "Lyn told me he didn't deserve this eagle feather." "He wanted me to give it back to you." "It's fake." "What?" "$25,000 fine for taking an eagle feather." "This one's off a turkey." "You just dye the tip black." "Don't tell Lyn." "It isn't real." "None of it was real." "Lyn told me about the curse... that by killing the goat he put a curse on all of you." "Wh..." "What's Larry going to do with these goats?" "Do you believe in redemption, Bill?" "Oh." "Sorry." "Didn't mean to wake you." "How did you find us?" "I told you." "I remote viewed you." "Scotty Mercer told you, didn't he?" "Yeah, he did." "We told Scotty we were coming over here." " Asked him if he wanted some work." " I haven't seen Scotty." "That's funny because he told me he ran into you and mentioned that there might be some jobs going over with us." "Isn't that why you came, really, Lyn?" "You want back in, don't you?" "It can happen." "You've only got to say the word." "This could be the new Golden Age for psi research." "You, me, Bill, back together again like the old days." "You don't have to make a decision now." "Tell me in the morning." "Mother Earth, you are my life-support system." "As a solider, I must drink your blue water, live inside your red clay, and eat your green skin." "Help me to balance myself as you hold in balance the earth, the sea, and the space environments." "Help me to open my heart, knowing that the universe will feed me." "I pray my boots will always kiss your face" " and my footsteps match your heartbeat." " Match your heartbeat." "Carry my body through space and time." "You are my connection to the universe and all that comes after." "I am yours, and you are mine." "I salute you." "I salute you." "Bill?" "Bill!" "Bill." "Bill, are you okay?" "I just saw Timothy Leary." "Timothy Leary's dead." "I know." "Hey, I got an idea." "Good evening, gentlemen." "Going to get some ice cream." "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." "Your attention." "Don't eat the eggs." " What?" " Don't eat the eggs." "Here, I picked these flowers for you." "What's going on?" "We put LSD in the eggs." "Bill showed me where Larry had some bottles of LSD, and we put some in the powdered eggs last night." "And in the water." "What?" "I put it in the main water tank as well." "But we drank the water." "Yeah." "Uh, hold on." "Uh, the weather today is going to be... hot." "I mean, I'm guessing." "I haven't really looked at the thing, but it's... it's going to be fucking hot as balls out there." "Again, because, you know?" "Big fucking shocker, right?" "It's going to be hot again." "Don't you think it would've been a good idea if we hadn't drunk the fucking water?" "No." "That might've aroused suspicion." "But don't worry." "Over the years, I've developed a massive tolerance to all narcotics." "Yeah!" "Woo-hoo!" "Woo-hoo-hoo!" "You're going to hit the gate!" "You're going to hit the gate!" "It's cool." "You missed it." "In the name of the New Earth Army and loving people everywhere," "I'm liberating you." "I'm liberating this base!" "Come on." "Let's go." "Let's go, goats." "Come on, go." "Go." "Come on." "Come on." "Whoa." "Atta boy." "Come on." "Come on." "I'm free." "Come on." "Everyone, come on." "It's okay." "It's okay." "Come on." "Put the gun down, Larry." "Wow." "I'm really hungry." "Let's go." "Come on." "Don't be afraid." "They're just goats." "Free to go." "Dismissed." "Don't worry about the soldiers." "Go." "Go." "Ma'assalama." "Peace be with you." "Go." " Go." " You're free!" "Ma'assalama." "Woo-hoo!" "Wait!" "Wait, wait." "Wait for me!" "Where are you going?" "What about the mission?" "You're the mission, Bob!" "Tell them what happened!" "Tell everybody what happened." "It's your job now." "At the time, I was hurt that Lyn hadn't taken me with him, but now I know it was because he and Bill had already seen what was to come." "Nobody exactly knows what happened." "The official story is that their helicopter must have crashed, either because they were hit by an RPG or because... well, that's what happens when you fly a helicopter while you're tripping on acid." "All I know is they've never been seen since." "Like all shamen, they returned to the sky." "When I got back, I wrote the story up." "Everything." "Lyn had handed the mission on to me, and I would see it through." "I would tell everyone what happened." "I understood now that Debora and I weren't meant to be together, and I was at peace with that." "It wasn't my destiny to return to the life I had before." "The universe has other plans for me." "I sent the story to the newspapers and TV stations." "I didn't care what the authorities did to me." "I was ready to go to prison as long as the truth came out, but they didn't put me in prison." "They did something much worse." "... an unusual tool to break the resistance of Iraqi POWs, and trust me, a lot of parents would agree." "Some prisoners are being forced to listen to Barney the purple dinosaur sing the "I Love You" song for 24 straight hours, according to Newsweek Magazine." "And that was it." "That was the only bit in my story that ran anywhere, and it was a joke, and if I ever needed proof of how the Dark Side had taken the beautiful dream of what a nation could be and had twisted it, destroyed it," "well, that was it, but I won't stop." "I won't give up because when I look at what is happening in the world," "I know that now, more than ever... we need to be all that we can be." "Bob?" "Now, more than ever... we need the Jedi." "END" "¶ It's more than a feeling ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ When I hear that old song they used to play ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ I begin dreaming ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ Till I see Marianne walk away ¶" "¶ I see my Marianne walking away ¶" "¶ So many people have come and gone ¶" "¶ Their faces fade as the years go by ¶" "¶ Yet I still recall as I wander on ¶" "¶ As clear as the sun in the summer sky ¶" "¶ It's more than a feeling ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ When I hear that old song they used to play ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ I begin dreaming ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ Till I see Marianne walk away ¶" "¶ I see my Marianne walking away ¶" "¶ When I'm tired and thinking cold ¶" "¶ I hide in my music, forget the day ¶" "¶ And dream of a girl I used to know ¶" "¶ I closed my eyes and she slipped away ¶" "¶ She slipped away ¶" "¶ It's more than a feeling ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ When I hear that old song they used to play ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ I begin dreaming ¶" "¶ More than a feeling ¶" "¶ Till I see Marianne walk away ¶"