Once they were all seated Jenken linked their minds then opened a link with one of the red tailed hawks. They could see, hear, smell and feel everything the hawk was experiencing. It was calmly soaring above a meadow by the dam breast about five miles away on the other side of Lake Ontelaunee. The clear view was breathtaking as they suddenly understood the phrase ‘a bird’s eye view’. The hawk was sailing with wings outstretched riding the thermals. As it glided in slow circles above the lake shore, the road (Pa Route 73) that crossed the dam breast, and the dam itself came into and vanished from view. With each revolution the hawk was spiraling slowly to the southwest away from the lake. They saw it the same instant the hawk did... a rabbit in the foot high grass!

Instantly the hurried flapping of it’s wings appeared at the edges of the hawk’s field of vision as they felt a sudden burst of energy sweep through the hawk... an adrenalin rush? The swooping head first wing tucked rapid descent almost took their breath away. They could feel the hawk’s tail flaring and shifting to maintain course and stability. With the target in site when the hawk was about 30’ up and 60’ away it let out a loud screech. They instantly understood the purpose of the screech. It was not to warn the animal to flee. Instead the screech made the prey freeze in an effort to become invisible, leaving the hawk had a stationary target. At the last second the wings flared out, the neck came up, and it struck the target feet first. By the time the rabbit saw the hawk’s shadow they could feel the talons grasping the rabbit, piercing it’s fur and holding it firmly even as it struggled to flee. The rabbit’s efforts only caused the talons to sink in deeper. They could feel the satisfaction in the hawks mind as it’s hunt was successful. The sharp beak opened as the hawk lowered it’s head to partake of it’s still living meal.

Jenken pulled the plug at that point. Everyone’s eyes popped open. Words were unneeded. They were forever changed. While before they would have felt sorry for the poor rabbit, now knowing the hawk’s point of view they understood the necessity of the death. As Jenken had explained about being an interspecies arbitrator, it was part of the cycle of life. They were all glad they didn’t experience the feeding.

After sitting quietly for a few moments to digest what they’d experienced, they stood to make their way home.

“I’m amazed by your ability to probe minds,” Judy began. “How did you know the Hawk was going to make his move?”

“It’s complicated but I’ll try to explain it as best I can,” Jenken stated. “I’ve discovered one of my abilities is what I call to TAG brains,” Jenken smiled. “I’ve discovered that every brain has a unique ‘mind print’ which is constantly ‘broadcasting’. It’s slightly related to the brain waves monitored by EEGs. I’ve figured out the mind print broadcasts are what I automatically sense with my empathetic and psychic ability. That’s why being in crowds can overwhelm me. When I consciously reach out and briefly touch a person’s or an animal’s mind I instantly know their personal frequency. So far I’ve only tagged living things I directly see. However, I’ve discovered that without any effort at all and without seeing them, I automatically ‘feel’ their presence and can identify every brain I’ve touched when it gets within about a hundred meters of me. I’ve also discovered I can re-tag any brain, be it human, animals or birds I’ve previously tagged at will. So far distance has not been a factor. But unless I know where animals and birds are I have no idea how far away they are. With people I can get an approximate distance, so far I’ve re-tagged people up to thirty miles away.”

“I can understand each mind has it’s own frequency,” Judy nodded as she thought about what Jenken said. “The brain functions due to the micro-electric signals across the synapses and taken together those signals would create a sort of unique frequency. Does the frequency signal broadcast from the brain?”

“Yes and no,” Jenken said. “The frequency doesn’t broadcast like a radio or cell phone, it more or less radiates much the way a fresh baked muffin radiates heat. That’s how I find those I’ve tagged. As far as I can tell the only ones I can’t find are those who are dead, but that’s just speculation as I have no evidence they died. But I’m pretty sure the mice and chipmunks I’ve tagged have not traveled outside my range yet some are off the grid.”

“If everyone is putting out their frequency, that must really create a mass of signals,” JJ pondered. “I can see why it can get overwhelming. Can you sense signals you haven’t tagged?”

“Partially,” Jenken said. “The problem is that they’re all jammed and jumbled together. Those closest are strongest so they’re easy to snag. But for signals I don’t know, it’s sort of like dumping a box of Alphabet cereal in a washing machine full of soapy water then looking at the water as it’s agitating. The letters are all jostled about sometimes on the top but most times submerged. But I can occasionally spot a letter as it swirls past on the current. The problem is it’s gone before I can grab it.”

JJ and Judy smiled at Jenken’s metaphor.

“As for what I did with the hawk,” Jenken sheepishly smiled. “I discovered I can also place what I call a FLAG in a brain. I formulate each flag to notify me when a certain event happens. Every flag I plant is specific to the brain it’s put in. When the event occurs, it’s sort of like a phone ring with caller ID in my head. I can ignore the call or answer it. When it was with us at the picnic I tagged the hawk to let me know when it was getting to a favorite hunting area. When it did I had us stop to link up.”

“If you could somehow film what we experienced in 3-D it’d make us all rich,” JJ smiled. “Of course, then we’d have to explain how we were able to get inside the hawk’s brain. On second thought, forget about filming it.”

Everyone laughed. The discussion about what they’d experienced continued until they arrived home.

Later that evening Jenken spoke with JJ and Judy about what he wanted to do during their trip to New Jersey. “I’d really like to telepathically ride with you. I want to see if I can follow you all the way but also see if I can tag people and animals you see. Since you’ll be driving, JJ, I’d maintain telepathic contact with Judy as you drive. That way when I want to communicate I can do so without distracting you. The reason I want to maintain an open link with you is so I don’t lose you and to see how far I can tag along. I promise I will not tap into your thoughts or emotions but merely monitor your vision. If I ‘see’ you look at JJ in that way and especially if you hold hands or kiss, I’ll close my telepathic ‘eyes’.”

“You’d better,” Judy admonished with a smile.

The next morning JJ and Judy headed off to New Jersey. As promised, Jenken did not inject himself into their journey. It was slightly unnerving to Judy having someone hitchhike inside her brain, especially as she could not sense his presence. Periodically Judy asked Jenken if he was still with her. Each time he mentally answered affirmatively.

Most of the trip was made on Interstate 78. About six miles into New Jersey from Pennsylvania JJ pulled off into a truck stop to use the rest rooms and top off the gas. They stopped at the Travel Centers of America in Bloomsbury just off I78 at Exit 7 onto NJ Route 173. Jenken tagged a few people including some truckers and site employees.

As they drove on, Jenken tagged drivers of vehicles Judy saw as they passed or were passed. Thrilled by the success, Jenken tried to spot drivers in vehicles in oncoming vehicles. That proved tricky since the direction of travel on the four lane road was separated by a grass strip about 50’ wide. Since the speed limit was 65mph, the oncoming traffic was doing so at 130 mph. Eventually he was able to achieve a consistent level of successful contact.

After a bit over two hours they reached a parking lot near the county seat of Hudson County located near the Five Corners on Newark Avenue in Jersey City. The Hudson County Administration Building at 595 Newark Avenue was their destination. Once they had parked and shut down the engine Jenken for the first time spoke to Judy telling her he was going to attempt to simultaneously link to JJ. There was absolutely no effort involved as he did so.

Jenken ‘rode’ with the couple as they headed across the parking lot to enter the building in order to file the claim. Seeing several pigeons in the parking lot, Jenken successfully tagged into one. Once inside the administrative building, Jenken began to tag other people he saw through JJ and Judy’s eyes. The effort to do so was no greater than what he used to do it to the patrons in the Raven’s Perch.

They were 25 minutes early for their appointment so they checked in and took a seat. Jenken popped about from person to person tagging everyone in sight. Judy and JJ summoned Jenken and told him they wanted a bit of alone time. Agreeing readily he broke off their connection and slipped inside one of the bored clerks where he could keep an eye on them to rejoin as they headed for their meeting. Wanting to experiment a bit, Jenken closed himself to the clerk’s senses so he was in essence deaf, mute and blind so that the link he maintained in her mind was merely an anchor for his probing. In this state he reached out beyond the worker with his extra sensory abilities.

As he’d discovered in the past, what he found was a thoroughly enmeshed mass of individual brain frequencies heading in every direction. The signals of people close by were easily seen and presented no difficulty for him to trace back to the sender. Jenken easily grabbed them and tagged the owner. Some signals were just a bit fainter but still distinct emerging through the walls obviously from the offices behind the reception area. With only a smidgin of effort he grabbed one and easily tagged it’s owner.

This excited Jenken since this was the first time he’d tagged someone new who was not in a direct line of sight from his anchor point. In seconds he mentally leapt about the Administrative complex successfully tagging everyone. Since it was a multistory building he realized that the brain frequencies were omnidirectional from the originating brains. Curious, he utilized his remote viewing to pull back a bit to look closely at the massed writhing brain frequencies. While he couldn’t pick out unknown signals he noted they were coming and going in every direction including right through the earth! Those from the greatest distance were barely discernable. They seemed to travel through solid objects with no delay like neutrinos emitted by the sun pass through the earth. With a bit of deep pondering he theorized brain wave frequencies were a type of electromagnetic radiation which would travel at the speed of light. Since the speed of light and also a neutrino is 186,282 miles per second and the diameter of earth is 7,926.41 miles, it would only take 0.0426 seconds for the most distant brain frequency to travel through the earth! So jumping from brain to brain anywhere in the world would only take microseconds.

Emboldened by his success he decided to jump back towards home about seventy miles to the truck stop. One of those he’d tagged there was the gas pump attendant (in NJ state law does not allow self service). Jenken easily found the pump jockey’s frequency and hopped into his mind. Flush with the easy success, he hopped back to the Raven’s Perch using one of the waitresses he’d previously tagged.

Now that his ethereal consciousness was back within a few hundred feet of his body, Jenken decided to go for broke and disconnected from the bored clerk in New Jersey who was serving as his anchor. Instantly his ethereal consciousness popped back into his body. After a brief look about the house and giggling with excitement, he scurried to the bathroom to relieve his bladder before successfully hopping back into Judy, a distance of about 130 miles!

He’d returned just as Judy was called in for her appointment. The case worker was amazed by the detailed information Judy presented along with the calculations of amounts due. As the man perused the documents he asked Judy pertinent information. Jenken easily gave her the answers the clerk needed.

“I’ll have to verify these figures and information,” the man said as he finished up the review. “You seem to have everything we’ll need. If what you’ve given me is verified, there should be little to prevent the state from awarding what you’ve asked for. Of course, getting your parents to pay may be another matter.”

“I’m sure they’ll initially have their lawyers appeal but once they verify everything is legit, they’ll pay simply to save face” Judy declared. “If this ever went to trial it would damage their business reputations.”

“I hope you understand they’ll probably never speak to you again,” the man stated.

“They hardly spoke to me when I lived with them,” Judy curtly declared. “All they were interested in was when I was going to the other parent. They never even attended my graduation. The day before the ceremony, my father gave me a used car and a $1000.00, told me to pack my bags and take them with me when I left for the ceremony because once I had my diploma I was on my own. I was so angry I packed and left that evening, heading to my mother. She gave me $8000.00, told me I could stay the night then had to get out and if I wanted anything to make sure I took it with me when I left. We haven’t spoken since so never talking to my so-called parents will be a pleasure.”

The man could feel the bitterness in Judy’s words and felt her parents were going to get what they deserved.

Judy was quite worked up when they left but Jenken soothed her. When she cooled down she thanked him for his help in getting the data and for calming her. Since it was just a few minutes before noon, they decided to head into New York through the Holland tunnel. As they drove, Jenken explained his efforts at moving about.

“So you jumped instantly from us to Bloomsburg, then home, then back here,” JJ clarified. “Wasn’t there any time delay?”

“Perhaps a few microseconds,” Jenken answered. “The jumps were a bit weird. I didn’t just ‘pop’ to my destination. I sort of rode intermingled brain frequencies, it seemed sort of like that show Stargate when they step through the portal into the wormhole except it was arrow straight not twisting.” “I’m jealous,” Judy chuckled. “Is there anyway we could ‘see’ the brain frequencies?”

“I think I can link you to see but it’s really weird,” Jenken said. “Think about the sun. It constantly radiates it’s energy waves in all possible directions at the same time. The further away you get, the more the intensity fades. Brain frequencies do the same thing. They wave radiate out in every direction while growing fainter. At the same time, EVERY sentient being is radiating their brain frequencies out in all directions. They simply pass through each other with virtually no effect, but to someone watching, they mask each other nearly into oblivion. It’s only by knowing a frequency that I can pinpoint it. As for letting you see it, I think we’d better wait until you’re home in case it makes you nauseous.”

“That sounds like a real good idea,” JJ chuckled as they neared the Holland Tunnel. “I don’t think it’d be too pleasant in here if someone became ill.”

Jenken easily followed them through the tunnel and as they traveled about Manhattan. Jenken tagged nearly everyone he saw. Then he had an idea and spoke to JJ and Judy. “Could you please go to Wall Street and the UN? I want to tag into financial and political minds to see what I can learn. Do you think you could visit JFK Airport too? If I tag the travelers and flight crews and security I can move around the world.”

“This should prove interesting,” Judy giggled as they headed to those locales.

Jenken tagged and flagged people heading into the New York Stock Exchange; Forex.Com, an online trading business who’s parent company GAIN Capital Holdings Inc. is a global provider of online trading services with over 240,000 accounts providing execution, clearing, custody and technology products and services to retail and institutional investors in more than 140 countries; Vornado Realty Trust, a New York based real estate investment business that controls over $20 billion in assets, including $12.7 billion in real estate, $2.8 billion in cash, and $1.5 billion of investments; and JP Morgan Securities, a leader in financial services, offering financial services to clients in more than 100 countries, a part of JP Morgan Chase & Co. with assets of $2.3 trillion, the largest bank in the United States by assets and market capitalization. It would take several days but by flagging those initial contacts he was able to ‘hop’ his way into the people who made every aspect of the financial world function. This included not only the movers and shakers but also the myriad of unrecognized workers who kept the system functioning

At the UN complex Jenken tagged and flagged the security officers since they would know the diplomats who were the people he was really interested in tagging. It took a few days of monitoring until he had the entire security staff tagged. The flags in the security team were set to alert him when a diplomat or other person of political import was spotted. It would take another week to tag the diplomatic staff.

JFK Airport was fascinating for Jenken. Looking through the eyes of those he tagged he was soon in every nook and cranny as well as numerous jets. Within 24 hours he had spread his ‘tags’ around the world.

The next morning JJ, Judy and Jane sat down with Jenken to discuss his tagging success.

“IT looks as though I don’t have any limits on my tags,” Jenken explained. I’ve followed them to the other side of the world. I can link to them without any problems. Language hasn’t proven to be an obstacle. Just as I translate animal thoughts, I automatically translate human languages. So far I’ve handled fifty seven languages.”

“How many tags have you made,” JJ asked.

“I had 11,340 tags before your trip,” Jenken explained. “So far I’ve made 123,739 tags since yesterday.”

“But we didn’t see that many people,” Judy exclaimed.

“True, but once I tag a person I can tag others from them,” Jenken declared. “I’m tagging others all the time.

JJ shook his head in amazement. “How many tags can you handle at one time?”

“I don’t know,” Jenken frowned in thought. “I hadn’t even thought about it. I just do it. Right now I’m in touch with 12,857 tags. To be an honest I don’t know if I have a limit. Each tag only takes a tiny bit to monitor and just a wee bit more to use that tag to tag another. Now that I think about it, I can download info or knowledge from any of the tags. It’s sort of like SIRI from the Apple I-phones. I simply think of something I want to know and the tags that have the info I want light up so I can download the knowledge. It all takes just microseconds.”

The adults were once more stunned by Jenken’s newest revelations.

Over the next two weeks most mornings were spent with Jane, Judy, JJ and Jenken hiking in the forests about Lake Ontelaunee. While his family spent their afternoons working in the Raven’s Perch, Jenken spent much of the time alone in the house or back yard expanding his tags and if he felt it beneficial mining knowledge. Most nights Jenken helped out in the Raven’s Perch by running the register. Jenken observed visually and with brief mental probes how the customers were reacting to him. A familiar and sought after sight, everyone smiled when they saw him. Day by day the clothing he wore slowly became more androgynous. By the end of the two weeks his outfits were a conscious gender blending mix. With just a tiny nudge, most people quietly accepted his mix of genders. If any asked, and several did so, Jenken explained that his prenatal injuries had split his brain so that each side had developed independently, in effect making him twins inside his brain and that one of the twins identified as female. Most accepted the explanation from the precocious child. A few required further mental nudges to accept his intersexed status

The plucky child accumulated over 75 million tags. Just as he was able to tap into the linguistic sites of animal brains to ‘learn’ their languages, he tapped the linguistic sites of the brains he tagged picking up the audio, verbal, and written language skills of 168 languages as well as hundreds of dialects within those languages. This also mean he could read and write in the native alphabet/writing system of each language. Not only that, but he also picked up dozens of sign languages from every inhabited continent and many large islands. That’s not to mention the lingo of different groups such as medical, communications, and numerous technical specialties.

In his thirst for knowledge he expanded his tags and flags into academia learning to read extinct writing such as hieroglyphics, cuneiform, Norse Runes, Mayan script, and dozens of even more arcane systems and languages. While immersed in the archaeological departments of prestigious universities around the world he was drawn into the sciences of geology, biology, and physics since they were used to identify where stone artifacts originated, what clays were used to make pottery, what plant pollens were in ancient botanical remains, what gases, dust, and pollen were in ice cores and sediment layers as well as various dating technologies. This in turn led to advanced mathematics and the study of matter and its motion through space-time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. This included classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, electromagnetism and special relativity.

Jenken had spread his tags around the world into every country, government, financial institution and university. Not only did he learn the ins and outs of the financial world he also learned of the all too pervasive deceit, corruption, and greed. All that was like a picnic compared to what he found in the realm of politics. The academic world of higher education was little better. Anyone who didn’t follow the ‘correct’ path of their ‘institution’ found themselves at best marginalized, often times ruined and occasionally even dead.

While Jenken was definitely the brains of the tripartite existence, Jen and Ken were far from normal toddlers. Jenken’s intelligence and reasoning overflowed into them. Individually Jen and Ken would easily had IQs above 160. Jenkens intellect was off the charts. With the intellect and knowledge came a level of maturity far beyond their years. As Jenken worked on his tags, Jen and Ken trolled the internet looking up information. With their two consciousness’ they rapidly scrolled through web pages devouring the information. Jenken only needed a tiny bit of his mental ability to coordinate their efforts, assimilate what they learned and guide them to the next target.

It wasn’t long until an idea percolated to the surface of Jenken’s thoughts. The web and computers in general were electronic pathways. When exploring his brain, once he crossed the line of remote viewing, he’d been able to see the electric sparks activating in his neurons. When he tagged people and animals, he did so by finding the electronic frequency of their mental emanations. If something had a brain it produced it’s own unique signal. Jenken had already mastered the electronic emanations of brains, able to pick any he had previously contacted out of the linear macrame created by every functioning brain, be it human, animal or whatever. When searching the mingled writhing mass of brain emanations he was able to see the electronic signatures of every brain and locate the ones he’d tagged or ID’d. Without realizing it he’d also ‘glimpsed’ the electro-magnetic emanations of electronic equipment. Now that he thought about it, they created another mass of energy emanations that were similar yet different than brain emanations. Computers functioned via binary code. If Jenken could tap into computers like he did brains, maybe he could link directly to the world wide web, in effect creating a personal computational cloud which would allow his mind to interface with any computer, storage device, or server without the need for a hardware interface!

At night as Jen and Ken slept, Jenken probed. Already able to ‘see’ the minute electrical emanations of brains, he used the same ‘seeing’ to look at his computer as it sat by his bed. He’d left it running a live web cam feed from Waikiki Beach in Honolulu after disabling the sleep mode. Now he concentrated on probing the electronic emanations. Slowly, a pattern emerged. With concentration he probed deeper, finally ‘seeing’ the electric pathways inside the computer. With growing excitement he slipped a mental tendril into the electronic stream.

As his mental probe touched the flowing stream, it bounced off but in that brief instant he picked up a sense of the frequency of the electronic signal, Jenken adjusted his probe to approximate the frequency. Once more he bounced but not as hard as he did during the first attempt, quickly tweaking his probe getting closer to the frequency. Soon he was hitting the stream like a rock skipping across the water until, like a skipped rock he slipped beneath the surface. For the first few moments he merely moved with current as if he was a cowboy breaking a horse. As soon as the current stopped bucking, he began to examine and analyze the electronic stream. Then he began directing his movement throughout the hardware maze of his computer. Finally moving into the solid state drive he delved into the stored memory data. Without too much effort he was able to distinguish between the software operating systems and stored data, quickly learning to read both thanks to his innate universal translator. By that time Jen and Ken were waking up.

The next night he quickly reviewed the hardware of his computer before moving into the wireless connection to the internet, easily following it into the web. With that, he was able to piggyback on the broadcast frequencies easily passing through receiving and transmitting devices until he finally reached the servers. Once he learned and understood the signal frequencies, he began jumping about similarly to how he was able to jump from mind to mind. Once he visited a hardware component he knew it’s unique signature or tag. Using that he was able to bounce directly from component to component without following a data stream. In the servers and networks he recognized the anti-virus software and firewalls. Stopping at a firewall, after a few attempts he was able to simply step across the barrier similarly to how you step over a low wall. The more complicated the firewalls were, the higher the fence, requiring a bit more effort to step past it. Soon he was exploring secured data.

Just as live brains each had a unique frequency, every computer, server, CPU and data storage unit had a unique frequency. In both cases, even though made of the same materials and assembled in the same way, every brain and electronic device had minute variations that resulted in a unique frequency. Just as he had tagged brains, Jenken was able to tag the electronic devices. Once tagged, he could link to them at will.

As he stretched his reach, his psychic abilities increased. Beginning slowly he discovered he could split his mental tendril to contact and explore more than one device at a time. By hitting a popular Youtube video, he found he was able to follow the world wide web to every computer that logged into the video. From there it was easy to expand so he was able to log into any computer logging into Youtube’s server. In quick succession, Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, AOL and thousands of other servers sprung open to his probing. By the end of the fourth night he’d followed the web around the world and breached every security system encountered without triggering a reaction. Jenken became the penultimate silent and invisible computer ninja. With practice he discovered he was able to simultaneously create and control millions of mental tendrils, downloading information into his brain.

During this time Jenken sensed dad, James Sr, was hiding something. Probing James’s mind he discovered his grandfather had an aortic aneurysm that he was keeping secret even from June. A proud man, he didn’t want pity. Instead he became even more determined than ever to help and encourage his family before his life ended. Jenken waited until everyone was asleep then sent his mental probes into James. After examining the dangerously swollen aorta, Jenken realized that any intense exertion could cause it to rupture, even vomiting could be fatal. Determined to help, Jenken searched James’s body for remnant stem cells. Once found and probed he spent hours trying to force them to respond to his mental exploration. Finally he discovered how to activate them to reproduce. It took little effort to guide them to the aneurysm, where at his instigation they latched onto the weakened area of the aorta to reinforce it. By morning the rebuilding process was in place. It took two days for James’s aorta to repair itself. Without realizing it, Jenken manifested another talent, that of Reiki kinetic, a healer.

Jenken searched the rest of the family but found nothing dangerous. However he tuned up their auto-immune system to fight off infections and to speed up healing. Jenken waited until their day off before he revealed James’s condition to the rest of the family. Naturally everyone was shaken and demanding James seek medical help as well as chastising him for keeping his condition secret. James was more than a bit upset that Jenken had revealed his condition. Once everyone had vented their angst, Jenken told them he had psychically entered James’s body to marshal the self-repair mechanisms to repair the aneurysm. Needless to say they were all stunned. Jenken then added he’d souped up all their immune systems. No one knew what to say but were grateful for his abilities.

June insisted she accompany James to their doctor to check on the aneurysm. The doctor was stunned to discover that somehow the aneurism had healed itself. New ultrasound and CAT scans showed no sign that there had ever been an aneurysm. All the doctors who compared the before and after scans were shocked by the miraculous cure. Blood work revealed no evidence of some mysterious drug that might have been responsible for the healing. They were baffled by the healing.