Fifty-eight stories above Schmarlo’s Landing, Tomar Donovackia kicked his feet onto his desk and leaned back in his chair. No one would question anything he did. In any event, he was alone in his palatial office. He’d sent one of his assistants down to the Landing to get him a Greolsch. He enjoyed snacking on those meat-filled, sweet pastries but had little use for mingling with the people on the Landing. He had servants and assistants to meet his needs. After all, he was the Chairman of the newly renamed Donovackia Corporation. He’d led the shareholder revolt, ousted the previous Chairman, and launched a campaign planning to become the biggest Corporation on the twin planets of Koranth and Zoranth.
The orbits of the two planets synchronized perfectly, on absolutely opposite sides of their shared sun. In many respects, Koranth and Zoranth were very similar. Both had over a hundred separate countries, with a multitude of governments, and each had three dominate super-power countries that balanced each other and kept the entire planets from sinking into regional or global conflict. Despite all the differences in languages and skin colors and belief systems and so on, they were all pretty much the same. They were all human. In Tomar’s mind, there were simply billions and billions of customers waiting.
He stared intently at the water glass that sat on his desk. His focus became more and more concentrated. The glass began to vibrate; its movement just barely perceptible. Tomar raised his hand, and the glass moved upward. It hovered a few inches above the desk and then began floating across the room. Tomar focused, pushed his hand away from his body and then lowered it, gently setting the glass on the table across the room, using nothing but his mind. A smile spread across his face. No one knew that he was a Transprophetic. In his mind, only charlatans and religious nut jobs ever revealed such a thing. It was nothing but a parlor trick, but it validated for him that he was more evolved and intelligent than those around him.
Ironically, it was one of his ancestors that had validated the existence of what had been previously believed to be impossible. Over a thousand years ago, Koranth thought itself alone in the universe. The appearance of a young girl, unlike any other, changed everything. Tomar’s ancestor was a brilliant medical doctor with a passion for physics. The girl was brought to him for examination. She could move objects with nothing but the power of her will. The doctor validated that she genuinely could do this, but how? Over the next fifty years, Koranth’s development progressed at a speed never experienced in history. Nearly every notion, theory, and “accepted fact” in physics, physiology, psychology, chemistry, and every other scientific discipline was upended.
The capability discovered within this girl was neither supernatural nor divine in origin. The ongoing evolution of the human species explained the phenomenon. In extremely isolated incidences, a human developed a capability enabling their minds to grasp concepts and gain experience from the world around them like no others. They learned to use the molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, and even sound and light waves around them. It appeared like magic but was no more than the mind and body doing things previously thought to be impossible.
Within a few years of the discovery of that little girl, a second evolutionary capability of the human mind was discovered. A mastermind of a thief was shot while he was stealing a priceless piece of art in a national museum. Despite impenetrable security, he managed to get into the building. As he lay dying, he told a story that few would believe. He could move from one place to another in the blink of an eye, including through the smallest of holes, such as a keyhole.
Within a few decades, another person was found to have similar capabilities. Much like flexing a muscle, she had learned to flex her molecular structure. It was like turning herself into a gaseous state and directing herself to another location to reappear.
Within a hundred years, a handful of corporations had arisen based on the new technologies stemming from the revolution in thought. The two most significant inventions coming out of the advances and new scientific understandings were space travel and the portals. A twin planet on the exact opposite side of the sun was discovered, and, like separated human twins, Zoranth was experiencing the same changes as Koranth.
A pop-psychology historian coined the phrase “trans-prophetics,” and the name stuck. On both Koranth and Zoranth, the scientific validation of a next, even if rare, level of human evolution ushered in a new wave of technology.
A knock on the office door shook Tomar from his thoughts, and he placed his feet back on the floor, sitting up straight at his desk.
“Mr. Donovackia, the board meeting will commence shortly,” disclosed the short, stout man wearing business attire. By the look and the nod that Tomar gave the man, it was apparent that he was simply one of Tomar’s small army of underlings.
“Make sure all the board members are comfortably seated in the boardroom, and tell them I will be there shortly,” instructed Tomar.
“Yes, sir.”
“Wait, tell them I have been detained by the Chief Executive Minister for Interplanetary Corporate Relations. Have them wait in the boardroom, and have lunch served.”
Tomar smiled as the man nodded his head affirmatively and closed the door. “Let them sweat a little bit waiting for me,” thought Tomar. After all, he had just upended the previous board of directors, renamed the company, and personally held the controlling interest in the organization. He was now firmly in charge of the third largest corporation on Koranth and intended to make it the largest, regardless of who stood in his way.
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