No Inner Limit

By David Kersey

Joshua, a savant, and reclusive, develops a mixture of phytochemicals that proves effective in fighting disease, including cancer. In time he is discovered to be the one that developed the miracle concoction. Public reaction, at first, is euphoric. As public awareness accelerates, the reaction becomes mixed. Why? Because he looks like Jesus. The polarization leads to condemnation by some, adoration by others. Then, as Chaucer wrote, All good things must come to an end. Tragedy strikes. The country shaken. An examination of determining whether current humanity is significantly different than that of two thousand years ago. You may think the way I chose to end the story is suspicious. That's by design, for Part Two is underway, which story will follow the abduction of both Joshua and Namanda by the U.S. government. Enjoy Part One.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Kersey
• Release date: Apr 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310414572

David Kersey

David Kersey is semi-retired and living in Naples, Florida

Book preview

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE – Dr. Jamison (Van) Vance

The red-eye flight from L.A. to Atlanta was the easy part. The next stage of the journey would be the more difficult….the drive through north Georgia, Tennessee, and then the most problematic, the wilderness of south central Kentucky. He had solemn concerns as to the wisdom of the journey, yet Adele had strongly urged him on. Who is this man simply named Joshua, the recluse living in the remote hinterlands of the Daniel Boone National Forest? Adele had described him as amazing. Atypical of his female comrade, like himself also a professor, she was evasive, offering nothing more than adjectives, such as remarkable, and incredible, when mentioning the telepathic abilities of Joshua with no last name. She did say to expect a profound experience, that Joshua was much more than a telepathist. And so he drove the rental car out of Atlanta in stupefaction, half wishing he had stayed in southern California, the other half in blind anticipation. Without incident he arrived in Corbin, Kentucky at six pm Eastern, three hours in advance of his California time, then called Adele.

Listen, you heifer, this better be worth it! I am in Corbin at a Days Inn.

You listen, numbskull. You just might be blown away. The real trip will be after you arrive. You’re less than two hours away and it won’t be a cakewalk getting there, but you’ll enjoy the scenery, some of the best this country has to offer.

You’re sure he’s expecting me? I don’t want to be staring down at double barrels!

Yeah, he’s on board. I told him to expect you around noon tomorrow.

So how is it with you in Lexington? And I’m sorry about your precious Wildcats.

You hush. Do you remember watching the video of a girl named Namanda two years ago?

Sure do, amazing twelve year old savant from India. Have you heard something more about her?

I have. We need to talk, but only after you meet with Joshua. He’s different, Van, you’ll see. Be prepared to experience something more bewildering than Namanda, you hear me? I want you to call me tomorrow once you’ve sat and talked with, uh, make that experienced him. OK? And another thing, your discoveries are strictly confidential. You’ll see why.

Will call you tomorrow. Stay off the Makers Mark, sot.

Fat chance. You’re too late. She hung up.

Van Vance, whose actual first name is Jamison but practically everyone calls him Van, professor of behavioral sciences at the University of California at Irvine, a fifty-five year old academic who had seen and screened hundreds of savants, prodigies, and otherwise noteworthy case studies bordering on the murky dubiousness of clairvoyance, prescient abilities, and those sagacious well beyond the norm, was intrigued by Adele’s description of Joshua as being different.

Adele Meadors, professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, would not use the term different cheaply. Yet she was deliberately withholding information from him and that was not her usual dutifully scrupulous style. The only reference she made was to Namanda, an incredibly gifted savant who, by the age of eight, had total recollection of all eastern hemisphere country names, in alphabetical order, and their capital cities.

Van knew of several savants worldwide; and, to a person, each had extraordinary abilities but also handicaps in brain function. Autism was the leading trigger, but not in every case, some being brain trauma through injury.

Adele said Joshua would be different, and adding to the furtiveness was the fact that she didn’t include the SOTs via teleconference. SOT, an acronym for Searchers of Truth, an assemblage of forty-two watchdogs worldwide of which he and Adele were two, was usually notified about a discovery of extraordinary intelligence. She cautioned him to keep his discovery confidential and left the SOTs out of the loop. He wondered why.

He awoke the next morning after suffering the nocturnal aftereffects of smothered, covered, and chunked fare at the adjacent Waffle House, in which the plump waitress had screamed his order to the short order cook merely ten feet away. Thankfully the June sky over south central Kentucky was cloudless and intensely blue, a good day to travel the serpentine, undulating roads into the wilds of the two million acre National Forest. And indeed the terrain was wild, rough, unsullied by the Spartan fabricated metal dwellings that tainted the roadside for a few miles southwesterly of Corbin.

Once inside the park, the interplay of foliage and rocky cliffs spoke of an ancient geologic event that forcefully ripped through the earth. He navigated a hairpin turn in the Cumberland Falls Highway, then gasped with surprise at the cinematic spectacle that lay just beyond its apex, the Cumberland Falls, affectionately named the Niagara of the South. He took advantage of the parking area populated by dozens of sightseeing cars and used the facilities, and also used his cell phone to snap a few pictures of the waterfall and Romanesque bridge over the Cumberland River. He was grateful Adele had recommended this scenic route which was mindful of an understated version of the Colorado Rockies, and a welcome departure from the synthetics of human intervention.

After ten more minutes behind the wheel he reached another scenic overlook, that of a rock formation known as the Natural Arch, to which he aimed his cell phone camera. The GPS furnished by the car rental agency indicated he was just two miles away from his destination. Those two miles were dirt roads, more aptly paths tunneling through overarching hardwoods, which rose in elevation rather brusquely. At the crest of the knoll stood an enormous barn with a rustic log dwelling off to the port side.

He parked near the barn, stepped out of the car, and took in the gracious beauty of the hillsides that flanked both sides of the property and joined together approximately a half mile straight ahead, as if he was standing in the bow of a gigantic earthen sailing vessel. Beyond the barn the terrain sloped downward to a valley completely enfolded by the hillsides, and there, some fifty yards beyond and below him, was a monumentally bizarre sight.

Van wasn’t a biblical scholar by any means, but the man standing in the blue grassed valley, and in the midst of a twenty fold herd of deer, immediately conjured up the image of Jesus perhaps in a valley near Galilee beckoning the children to come unto him. The man’s shoulder length ebony hair and beard, and the full length white garment bolstered the impression. So this was the mystery man, the Joshua of no known last name.

The man acknowledged his visitor with a wave and an unintelligible sound that caused the deer to hurriedly scatter to the safety of the surrounding tree lines. He slowly began to walk up the slope which stirred a wave of nervousness in Van, as if he was about the meet a renowned luminary.

Hello, you must be Dr. Vance? Welcome. The Jesus man offered his hand.

Jamison Vance, but people call me Van. And you are Joshua?

I am.

Van studied the man’s face. Strong features, smooth skin, and incredibly blue eyes….Paul Newman eyes that expressed empathy like the movie icon possessed.

No last name?

Not a real one, not yet anyway. Come.

Joshua, a rather tall, maybe six-two, slender man of perhaps thirty years of age, began walking toward the prodigious barn. Van followed in silence without the knowledge that his rather mundane life would be jolted to the core in the subsequent days and weeks.

+ + + + +

On the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation in northeastern Arizona, the old man stood in a cave near the top of Baldy Peak. Hachika, whom the tribesmen called the Wolfman, the ancient shaman, stared into the smoke rising from the fire. He sprinkled his mystic dust into the flames and soon began to chant in hushed, low tones, Sadnleel da’ya’dee nzho maggaanii, shiiyii’ii. (Long life, old age, all is good, my white son). In the cloud of smoke the image of his adopted son appeared. A tear flowed down the old man’s rutted cheek. Yashua, your time has come.

CHAPTER TWO - Joshua

Oh my God. Van stood aghast at the entry and could not believe his eyes. The entire interior of the barn, or so it seemed, was a forest, divided into sections by expertly crafted granite pathways. Overhead blue ultraviolet incandescent light shone down on the gardens which created a psychedelic syrup of earth and sky hues. Instruments played softly in a sound best described as a current of melodic whirring. And there was the pleasant odor of freshly cut flowers permeating the air.

Follow me. Joshua walked to the center of the area then turned to his left. He held out his arm to the left side garden in passing. This is native vegetation. I call it the spirit garden. Mixed in with the eucalyptus are beets, cabbage, dandelion, garlic, peppermint, flax, asparagus, and fennel.

He continued walking on the granite path on the left side of the barn, then lifted his arm to the right. This is the aquatic station, the place of unction. Here I have brahmi, also called bacopa minnieri, black root maca, ginkgo biloba saplings, field grown ginseng, and a tank of mineral water.

He turned and backtracked past the entry walkway to the right side of the barn. "To the right is yerba mate, gotu kola, goldenseal, rhodiola, kava, acai, basil, amla, also known as Indian gooseberry, soursop also known as graviola, passion flower, and black root yam. I call this area mission control.

To the left is my lounging area that is surrounded by Arabica, do you know what that is?"

I’m afraid I don’t.

Joshua laughed. It is coffee. Quite good for you if you use it moderately and you don’t adulterate it with sugar. There are closed off rooms to the rear. One is for the scat of my animals, I use that for fertilizer. There is a bigger room that contains my workbenches and refrigerated storage. There is also a loft above, where I sleep most of the time, and a small basement below. Come and sit with me.

Enclosed by the coffee trees was a round table large enough to comfortably accommodate six wooden chairs. The two took their seats, yet neither spoke for a few moments. Then Van asked, So what do you call this area?

Joshua smiled. The lounge. This is where I rest and have a morning coffee.

Joshua, what are you doing here? What is all this?

This is my passion, my obedience to a calling you could say. The bottom line is the promotion of not just good, but excellent health and function. So Van, are you taking, or have you taken, prescription medicines, especially warfarin or Coumadin?

No, I take nothing other than baby aspirin in the morning. Van took note of the omission of small talk, the how-was-your-trip thing.

Good. And as a psychologist, you have a good deal of understanding about the brain, I assume?

I could always learn more, but yes, I suppose I do. Then he added, But not so much about why the brain works, just how it affects behavior.

How old are you?

I’m fifty-five. And how old are you, by the way?

Thirty-three. Van, how many neurons do you have in your body?

Van laughed. How could I know that with any degree of accuracy? I’d guess nearly sixty billion. Adele had been right, this man is different.

That’s low. More like eighty-five billion, with about twenty billion of those in the cerebral cortex. How many do you think are firing right now?

Again, how could I know? Twenty percent maybe? Van tensed slightly. After all, he was the teacher in the room, not a suspect in an interrogation room.

That could be about right if you are at rest. During the course of a full day you probably use every single one of them unless there is damage to an area. A constant lightning storm without the thunder. You are undoubtedly familiar with the hippocampus?

Yes, of course. Part of the limbic system, the area that largely contributes to behavior, memories, and emotions. Also the olfactory center.

In the center of the round table there was a platter upon which rested a pot the size of a gravy boat and four sake sized cups. Joshua poured from the pot into two of the cups. Adele said you should try this.

What is it?

It’s the chemicals and minerals of the plants you have seen, mixed with mineral water. If you want to try it, first smell the fragrance by holding the cup below your nose.

He did so in the same manner as did Joshua. The aroma hinted of the peppermint and eucalyptus but was by no means overpowering. It was rather pleasant actually.

The sense of smell is important isn’t it?

Yes, important in the three areas affected by the hippocampus that were mentioned. Like the smell of apple pie just out of the oven should bring back memories for most people, and then elicit related emotions. I know it does for me.

Now wet your lips with the liquid and let your tongue lick your lips. Do you remember the exact roads you took to locate me?

I think so, but there were many twists and turns and road changes, and I had the help of a positioning system. There was a momentary interruption in Van’s concentration….the melodic rhythms, it became evident to him, were three cellos playing in thirds on the scale. He also pictured the three musicians, women, in their long, black privacy skirts caressing the large instruments. Weird. He didn’t know a thing about music or instruments.

What if, in twenty years, you returned here without using your electronic gadget, or a map? What if you could do it strictly from memory and without one single wrong turn?

That would take a miracle, a one in a million undertaking, I would think.

Now take a small sip, like this.

Joshua barely tipped the cup to his lips. When Van emulated him, he found the taste was smooth, vegetative, and greenish, without an acrid retort.

Van, are you familiar with long term potentiation, otherwise called LTP?

Yes, it’s the possibility of the fixation of memories into permanency, or long term, LTM, as opposed to short term disposable memories, and caused by increased signal strength in the neuron transmitters. Frankly I don’t know a whole lot about it since I’m not a neurologist. I’m simply trained in neuropsychology, the science dealing with brain related behaviors.

Joshua didn’t ask more questions for at least two minutes. He simply gazed into Van’s eyes. Van then asked, Joshua, how can you know all these things? Can you tell me more about your background? And how do you know Adele?

How many words in a list of ten can a subject repeat accurately? Joshua was being evasive.

Between four and five on average, rarely above that.

What if a subject could recall all ten, or twenty, or perhaps a hundred?

I’ve seen phenomena, like in an Indian twelve year old girl who could recall massive amounts of material. But in normal humans, ten items remembered, without having internalized memorization tricks, would be an anomaly.

The girl from India will be here tomorrow, only she is going on fifteen years old now. I trust you can stay for that.

What? She’s coming here?

Yes, her parents are vacationing in Orlando at Disney, and Namanda will rejoin them after she has met with us. There will also be a chaperone accompanying her. Tell me, how are you feeling?

Van thought about that and realized he had not moved one muscle, nor twitched, itched, scratched, shifted or drummed his fingers. He also sensed a pleasantness that was almost euphoric, and a complete calmness.

I am relaxed and feel good. Wonderful actually. Have I ingested a narcotic or opioid?

No. Can you name the nine items of vegetation in the first garden I pointed out to you?

Oh, goodness, let’s see. There’s eucalyptus, and….uh, fennel. Maybe cabbage and beets.

You named four of nine. That’s normal, and it’s normal to remember the first and last items mentioned. That’s a trick salesmen have used successfully for ages. Ok, eucalyptus, beets, cabbage, dandelion, garlic, peppermint, flax, asparagus, fennel. Can you name them now?

Eucalyptus, beets, cabbage, dandelion, garlic, peppermint, flax, asparagus, fennel. How did I do?

You remembered the nine items in the spirit garden because of what you drank. Van, every one of these ingredients in the entire room is well known all over the world, and each item has free-standing beneficial aspects. Yet there is a symbiotic relationship in combining the ingredients that should promote optimal health, well-being, and energy. I hope to establish a ‘whole-being’ phytochemical cocktail with health benefits from head to toe. There are an additional three ingredients I receive from a source in Arizona which are not indigenous to this area. Adele has been analyzing those in her university lab. She will be here soon and I am anxious to hear the results.

What? She made no mention that she would be coming here.

I know. I wanted to visit with you first, and the lab results were obtained after you had already left your home. You are a good man, Dr. Vance. She was right about you. I think we can move forward.

Joshua, you don’t answer some of my questions. Why is that? And just what would we move forward to?

Yes, I haven’t answered all of your inquiries and please forgive me for that. I will answer all your questions the best I can, including my past and how I became interested in this endeavor. As far as Adele, I’m sure she can fill you in when she gets here, but I can tell you, despite her brusque manner, she is my mentor and hero. And now, if you will excuse me, Van, I believe I hear the Sheriff pulling in. I have to check on Ben.

Who is Ben?

Ben is a black bear that checks up on me from time to time. The Sheriff gets a tad edgy when he sees Ben close by. I’ll be right back.

Van sat alone in tranquil stillness, analyzing not just the different man named Joshua, but himself as well. He sensed a conceptual shifting, a focus toward literalness and clarity, not the standard abstraction of thought processing that lessens the human ability to concentrate for great lengths of time. He stood to test his motor skills. They were fine. Yet the shading into the right brain, the land of the savant, could not, in his experience, be accomplished without being drug induced.

+ + + + +

Li Xiu Ying fell ill during the Air China flight that originated from Beijing. The petite twenty-one year old female, who was excited with the anticipation of meeting her family members in Alberta, began to feel nauseated and experience shortness of breath. Perhaps the summer break from her studies at Tsinghua University, the excitement of seeing her family once again, but more likely her extreme fear of flying contributed to her discomfort. For breakfast she had eaten her normal fare, jian bing, which is a pancake made from eggs, and you tiao, a fried bread stick, so she ruled them out as the cause, though the fried eggs were more runny than usual.

She waved to an attendant and explained she was feeling ill. She was instructed to keep hydrated at regular intervals during the remainder of the flight. The attendant provided her with six mini-bottles of water, a glass of hot ginger tea, and said if she worsened to let her know, that medical help would be provided for her upon arrival. The attendant placed the back of her hand across Li’s forehead and felt the extreme heat. Her passenger was indeed suffering. She notified the captain.

The following day Li Xiu Ying, bedfast in the Rockyview General Hospital in Calgary, died. Ultimately the post-mortem revealed the shocking truth, she had contracted the deadly H7N9 bird flu, the dreaded mutation of the original Avian Flu H5N1. The new strain, despite conflicting opinions among clinicians, could possibly be passed from human to human, unlike the H5N1 virus, which was contracted only by direct contact from fowl to human.

The Air China airliner which carried Li, which flew from Calgary to Houston, Texas, later the same day and carried some of the same passengers who had originated in Beijing, was potentially an incubator of the deadly strain. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) were notified immediately.

CHAPTER THREE – Sheriff Autry Kane

Sheriff Autry Kane, a robust, barrel-chested man of maybe 40 years, whose face looked as if it had been on the receiving end of numerous flying fists, sat in the Arabica-enclosed garden with Joshua and Van.

Pleased to meet you Sheriff. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with the first name of Autry.

My pleasure, Dr. Vance. You’ve come a long way to meet up with this spook. Well, put it this way, my parents were pre-hippie, more hippy-ki-yay-ki-yay. So the singing cowboy was their matinee idol and I got stuck with it. I ain’t met another Autry either.

The Sheriff had that hybrid dialect that separated Hoosier twang from Tennessee drawl. Words oozed out of his mouth in a crawl, maybe a practiced patter of Kentucky keepers of the law. The mental image tickled Van. A group of tough guys sitting in a room practicing what he from now on would label a Krawl. Van realized his giddiness could be attributed to the potion and he resisted the urge to swig down more of it. The smile on his face was set in plaster. He couldn’t frown if he wanted to, and damn, he felt good.

Autry turned to Joshua. You got another batch ready?

I do. Six Ball jars.

Joshua poured a small amount into the third sake cup. The Sheriff happily performed the routine….the sniff, whiff, lips, and swallow.

Excellent. Autry then faced Van. Before you git all righteous on me, this stuff don’t test for drugs or intoxication. It’s clean as morning dew. And it has made my job a hell of a lot easier.

Oh? How so?

Take Jeff Cook for example. He’s been in lockup two dozen times. Mean ole coot who can’t keep his hands to hisself. Beats his ole lady and his kids too. So I got to slippin’ a little elixir in the water we give him in the pokey. He ain’t been back in for two months. Word is gittin’ round that his wife is right proud of him. Even goin’ to church. So I ran some stuff by the Mrs. and she slips it in whatever he’s drinkin’. Then she got to cacklin’ bout it around town, an’ afore you know it we got us some real curious people askin’ me questions.

Van looked at Joshua. There’s quite a few more stories, Van. Sheriff, tell him about Mrs. Martin.

Well, Mrs. Martin, Linda Martin, was in terminal condition. Real bad, short-timer, up in the hospice in Somerset. That’s in Pulaski County so I had to sneak up there in my civies. Her kids found out about some of the stories I ain’t told you yet and wanted their mom to have a taste before she passed. Dr. Vance, you ain’t seen anything like it. This lady was like almost comatose, totally unresponsive when her kids talked with her, but she was able to swallow some of it. A few minutes later she opened her eyes and held out her hands to each side of the bed and grabbed on to her kids’ hands. Then she smiled and told them she was proud of them, that she loved them, and said she was ready to go. Wasn’t long after she slipped into glory. There weren’t many dry eyes that night. But the kids was real happy to git that last bit of blessin’ from their mom.

I don’t mean to take anything away from your story, but that often happens just before passing. So you could attribute her slight recovery to the….what do you call this stuff? Or maybe not.

Joshua responded. There is no name for it yet. I played around with NIL, short for No Inner Limit, but that seems a tad negative. So right now it is what it is, though the NIL moniker has stuck with the locals. We’ll hopefully know a little more when Adele arrives. As I told you, some of the ingredients come from Arizona where we have a similar setup. I can tell you that without the contribution of two of the three Arizona additives the over-all effect is lessened somewhat; especially in combatting tumor development. I am hopeful the completed results reveal that there’s nothing problematic.

I have so many questions I don’t know where to start. But I’ll start with this…..what negative side effects have you noticed?

Right now we know of none, but that wasn’t always the case.

The Sheriff chimed in. "You see that stuff over there in the corner in the aqua section? You take that out of the equation and you ain’t gonna have much luck in the sack. You put it in more than the current level and you make the ladies real happy. And that stuff is what puts the zippity in your doo dah day. You ain’t gonna lack for energy. That an’ some