Chapter No.5. Contact.

A few days later, Robert and Janet went to the mall to shop for new clothes. She had disposed of most of his clothing over the ten year wait, assuming that he would never wear them again.

The mall had the usual Saturday crowd of shoppers, mostly women with their children in tow or older couples out for a stroll.

Robert caught sight of a teen girl sitting in a wheelchair not looking up at anything. He could sense that she was severely autistic. He went over to her and placed his hand on her forehead. Her parents were sitting on a bench nearby. Her father caught sight of what was happening and went over and shoved Robert.

"Get away from her! What the hell do you think you're doing!"

Robert looked back at him for a moment before walking away and joining his wife.

The girl's father was still ranting when his daughter, now standing, looked at him. "Why did you shove that man, father? He made my mind open up."

Both Devin and his wife stood staring in awe at their daughter.

"Oh my God!" Phillis, his wife, exclaimed. "He cured her!" She went to her daughter and hugged her, rubbing her face with tears streaming down hers.

"Oh, shit!" Devin said looking around. "And I shoved him. I had better go find him and apologize."

Robert and Janet were still walking away. She turned to him with a scolding expression. "You shouldn't have done that without telling them what you were going to do."

"They would not have permitted it. No one would believe that I could completely cure a seriously autistic individual. I had to completely remove all of the damaged neurons and replace them while connecting them correctly."

"And it only took you a few minutes to do all of that?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much."

She shook her head. "This is beyond my comprehension."

Devin caught up to them. "I'm really sorry about what I . . . "

"No need to apologize. I would have done the same under the circumstances," Robert replied.

"May we talk?" Devin asked.

Robert looked over at a bench in the center of the mall. "Okay with me."

Robert and Janet sat down on the bench with Devin sitting in a chair opposite them.

"Obviously, you are not what you seem to be," Devin said to Robert. "Maria was a high spectrum autistic. She was totally unresponsive. There's no way that you could have cured her in just a few minutes . . . unless you're an angel."

Robert smiled briefly. "Nope. I'm just a guy who woke up from a coma after ten years in which I had an encounter with someone who told me that I would be given powers to defend against an evil person who is trying to instigate an Armageddon."

"Was he Jesus?"

"I don't know. He didn't identify himself. He also didn't tell me who the evil person was or how I was going to stop him."

"Some would say that what you experienced was a theophany."

"I didn't think it was a dream at the time, but it could have been that. In order to be a theophany it would have had to have been God."

Devin leaned back in the chair and sighed. "If what you are telling me is true, it's possible that this evil person is among us."

"I doubt he's going to give me his business card," Robert quipped.

"Let's assume that Armageddon doesn't refer to the bible reference, that it's a more modern concept that would involve massive death."

"What are talking about . . . a nuclear war?"

"That's one possibility. It wouldn't take much to cause it with international tensions the way they are."

"I'm not sure how I could prevent that," Robert said. "I can cure people, but I don't know how to stop missiles."

Devin rubbed his jaw. "You're thinking one dimensionally. You might be able to disable their arming devices."

"I'm not privy to those things. They're secret."

"I know about them. I worked with the AEC for several years."

Robert wasn't sure how to take that. Was he the evil person? The one thing that would indicate that he's not is his wife and autistic child.

"Okay," Robert said. "If I knew what they look like, I could deactivate them."

"I think you can see them in my mind," Devin said.

Robert visualized them and studied the mechanisms and electronics carefully. "Yes, I see what you mean."

Devin stood up. "I want to thank you for doing what you did. I hope you are successful in your mission." He turned and walked away.

"This is becoming more bizarre by the day," Janet said. "Even if you did know how to deactivate the arming devices on nuclear weapons, how would you know when they were launched?"

"I'll have to believe that I will be able to sense that if it occurs."

Janet didn't know what to believe. She was working on pure adrenaline.

Sunday morning, and Robert and Janet decided to attend the eleven o'clock mass. Father Johns caught them on the way into church.

"I was thinking about a wellness evening," he said. "There are many in our congregation who need help."

"I'm not sure that I want to become a celebrity. It could lead to violence. The last thing I want is for this to get into the media. It could expose my family to danger. Maybe it would be better to do it individually in more private settings."

"I understand," he said. "the news about these miraculous cures is already running wild."

"I think it would be more appropriate to cure people who shouldn't be facing death," Robert said. "That should reduce the number to a reasonable number."

"Yes," Father Johns said. "I think you're right. I'm happy that you decided to do this."

"I may as well. I can cure people but not kill them."

Father stared at him with confused eyes.

"I was told that I'm not to kill anything, not even a fly. I'm not sure how I'm going to stop this evil devil that's about to annihilate mankind. I suppose I'll have to kill him with kindness."

Father didn't know how to respond to that, but he was convinced that it proved that Robert had made contact with Jesus.

The first session occurred on a Tuesday evening at the small chapel in the back of the church. The three candidates were relatively young people with stage-four cancers, which meant they probably didn't have much more time to live.

Father Johns pointed at a woman in her forties who was wearing a wig to conceal her baldness due to chemotherapy.

Mary Wells has stage four brain cancer," he told Robert. She has constant head aches and is losing her vision."

Robert looked at her for a moment before saying anything. "Would you mind if I removed your wig?"

She looked up at him. "Yes, please do."

Robert carefully pulled the wig off of her head to reveal a large scar from a failed surgical attempt to remove the tumor. He carefully placed his right hand on her head and rubbed it across the area of the scar. After a few minutes he pulled his hand away.

Father Johns' eyes grew larger when he saw that the scar was gone.

Mary looked up at him and smiled. "I don't feel the pain anymore."

"You might experience a few cognitive issues. I had to remove the tumor and attempt to connect up the neurons correctly. I might have botched a few connections."

Father just shook his head and smiled. He had seen a miracle and it made his day.

The other two participants were men with stage four Colon cancer. All Robert had to do was hold their hand and they were cured. It wasn't as spectacular as the first case, but it was just as amazing a miracle.