by Dave Nesbit
I sighed and looked at who I had run into. The same uber-WASP who said with his father’s connections he and his friends would run the place. Apparently it's true, nature abhors a vacuum. We had lost one douche at the school and another had chosen to take that crown in the social order.
“I heard you got your ass kicked yesterday.” He said, looking me over.
I sighed deeply. How is it that, in a world where we were all extraordinary, we were still saddled with idiots who had to play as if they were over everyone else? I stepped forward to get another piece of cake, giving him a choice take a full tray of food over his very nice clothes or back up.
He chose the latter, which was a pleasant surprise as I had no intention of stopping if he hadn't. He backed up and I grabbed desert. “What's your name?”
“Andrew.” He said. “Andrew Reynolds.”
“Hi Andrew. Look, next time you want to know about what happened to me why don't you ask nicely? Politeness does wonders.” I said and walked away.
Taking my seat back with the crew, Shawn looked at me. “What was that about?”
“I don't know, but if someone pisses on my pillow he's my lead suspect.” I said with a weary look and dug into lunch.
Chapter 20
It took a week for me to recover from the beating I had taken, but it was quite educational. Let’s be honest, most people take a fist moving at 500 plus miles an hour about as well as a balloon takes a needle. Which meant my beating was a good chance for the medical staff to examine the whys and wherefores of how the body of one of “The Touched” handled damage. The results were interesting.
Let's be honest, the human body is not designed to do the things I do. Moving faster than the speed of sound would likely break a lot of bones if you shifted direction suddenly. To compensate, my body had increased the density of its muscles, bone and soft tissue. It made me more resistant to damage in general. I couldn't stop bullets with my skin but it would take serious effort to damage me in a fight.
The other upside was that my sped up metabolism meant I repaired damage much faster than I normally would have. Which was great in one sense. Normally the punch I took to the back would have leave me laid up for a month. On the other hand, I could already figure out that I was gonna be healed up and made ready to fight faster than one would expect.
All that time being examined made me wonder, ‘what would my life be like?’ It was cool as hell to be able to do what I was capable of, no doubt. On the other hand, I had to think about what the coming years would be like. Those comet pieces had landed all over the world. Many in places that could become world hot spots. One had blown up over Mumbai and another over Karachi.This meant that two countries who liked to throw artillery shells across their border to keep the other awake would now have “Touched” of their own to complicate their lives.
Which meant that there was a high probability that we would be called upon to handle these situations. Or to take part in one side or another.
What was I? A soldier? A student? A cop?
These are the kind of things I thought about as I tried to find a comfortable way to sleep.
Chapter 21
The means to figure out new uses for our abilities was pretty much checked only by our imagination. Someone would have an idea in the house and we’d start looking at ways to make it happen.
Case in point. We were hanging out in the house in the transition between classes and actual training. I was gathering my super suit together when Ramon came in. “Okay, this is gonna sound weird but can you explain to me how you fly?”
I took a moment to stop and think about it. “I feel the fields of energy around me and use them to carry me up and move me. It’s kind of like what happens to an object in a light rail, or rail gun.”
Ramon shook his head. “Well shit.”
“What?”
“I’m trying to figure out a way to use my ability to fly. But the way you do it won’t work for me.” He said.
“Hang on. There’s a real obvious answer to the problem.” I said as he turned to walk out.
“What’s that?”
“Well when you generate fire it doesn’t burn you, or your clothes?” I asked. I had seen him use his ability and he would turn into a pillar of flame and his clothes wouldn’t so much as singe.
“Dr. Ng calls it a quantum irregularity field.” Ramon said in return.
“Well, why not generate flame violently in a cone around your feet? You know, turn yourself into a rocket.”
Ramon stopped for a moment, thinking about it. “Could work with some practice.”
“I’m doing flight practice today. Wanna come?”
“Let me grab my gear.” He said with a smile.
Ramon came rushing back down from his room carrying his travel bag. We both walked out to the test van I would take out to the lake to test my ability to fly.
“What are you doing here?” Dr. Ng looked at him dubiously.
“I want to test a theory on how I might fly.” Ramon said to them.
Dr. Ng shrugged and looked at Hamilton, who nodded and let him in. By now he was pretty much used to his charges coming up with a crazy new application to their abilities.
We did our usual escape trip. This time using two Illinois state police to shield us and give us a chance to break away from the media vehicles. We arrived at the lake test site about twenty minutes later.
Getting out, I waited for Bennie from Lockheed to set up his test gear and took the time to do a few stretching exercises. Flight at the speeds I went was hard on the body. Getting my muscles into a relaxed mode helped me to avoid soft tissue injuries when I took hard turns.
Ramon did as I did, and as Bennie finished up placing antennas and took a moment to confer with Dr. Ng I stood up and looked over Ramon.
“Feel up to giving it a try?” My grin was obvious, I wanted to see if he could pull it off.
Hamilton came up as I said this. “Try what?”
“Ryan wants to turn me into a rocket.” Ramon said.
“Do you think you can do it and maintain any kind of control?” Hamilton looked Ramon over with a question in his eyes.
“I’ll settle for just being able to do it.” Ramon said with a grin.
Dr. Ng listened in. “I’ll agree to this but Ryan I want you on standby to help out if this all goes sideways.”
I nodded and stood back as Ramon took a deep breath and summoned his power. Before he had tested his ability as a means to project heat and flame. I had seen him melt plate steel so I had no doubt that he could summon up enough power to do it. The real question was what would happen when he did.
There was a gout of focused flame under his feet that grew and seemed to spread to his knees. It was remarkably hot even for him. I could see him concentrating and the flame pushing downward.
Then his feet came off the ground. Hamilton’s eyes widened a bit at that and Dr. Ng lifted an eyebrow.
A second later, Ramon shot into the air like a missile. Having broken the inertial grip of gravity, the thrust he created sent him flying up faster than I would have thought possible.
“What are you waiting for? Follow him!” Hamilton yelled.
I didn’t need to be told twice. With a brief moment’s focus, I was airborne and following the bright red dot ahead of me. It took me about thirty seconds to catch up to him. Thankfully he had put on his glasses and had his microphone running.
“Hey Ramon. How ya doing.”
“This is fucking awesome!” He yelled.
“Mind your language on the radio guys.” Hamilton’s voice said over the head set. “Now then, why don’t you both come back and we’ll run a test profile for you both.”
Ramon arched his body and did a long banking turn to head back to shore. I followed along and trailed him a bit in case he ran into a problem.
I needn’t have worried. Having solved the problem of how to do it; he was now in his element. He even pulled off a decent landing.
&nbs
p; I touched down about fifteen feet from him, and heard him laughing. “Dude that was amazing!”
“Alright you two. Don’t get too involved in this yet.” Hamilton said coming forward. “We have to do exactly what we did with Ryan. Time to figure out what the parameters of your powers are.”
“What does that mean?” Ramon asked.
“We find out how fast you can go; how long it takes for you to feel tired doing it etc.” Bennie said looking us both over.
“That means more flying?” Ramon looked like a kid at Christmas as he said that.
“Yeah it does.” Bennie said.
“What are we waiting for?” Ramon said with a smile.
The rest of the day was a long flight session, which was amazing for us both. It also kicked off an arms race of sorts in the house. Soon Rachel was figuring out how to get herself airborne. She had an ability that allowed her to manipulate matter at a basic level, with some time, effort and will she figured a way to bend the air to her whim and was soon airborne.
After that it turned into a friendly in house competition. First to see who could go fastest or furthest. I had the speed element down but Rachel could stay airborne longer. Ramon kept going from strength to strength forcing us to review previously established records and push them higher.
Needless to say all this got kicked back to Washington, and people in offices took notice. None of us knew how much of an impact it would have on our lives, or how quickly.
Chapter 22
There are times when I just don’t think about the issues I cause when I’m trying to do what I think is the right thing. Case in point.
Walking around school with a backpack is great. Right up until your back is a mass of bruised and battered flesh. Then walking around school becomes about as much fun as sparring your local boxing champ.
That thought had run through my head when I heard rapid footsteps behind me. I turned to look and saw Lynn pulling up alongside me, slowing her pace to match mine as we walked toward the building that held most of our academic classes.
“Hey, how are you?” I asked as she settled into a walking pace.
“I’m good.” she said, her head pointed toward the sidewalk. It was a pose she fell into naturally. “Actually, I’m curious.” Her voice sounded shaky.
“About what?”
“Rachel told me you didn’t want my help when you got hurt.” She asked quietly. “And then you turned me down when you got out of the hospital.”
I stopped, this was not a conversation to be had on the fly. “Yeah, I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not about you. Well, wait, it is, but not like you think.” Looking at Lynn’s body language as she stood in front of me spoke volumes about how either rejection or abuse had been her life’s two primary default settings.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw when you healed those people at the bank.” I said.
“And...” Lynn prompted me. It was weird to have my thoughts kind of pulled out by someone who usually acted so frail.
“When you did, it looked like you were being tortured. Like you were being turned inside out. I couldn’t even imagine what you were experiencing.” I paused. “I figured I’d rather not put you through that if the only damage was bruising.”
She smiled, it was an odd thing. Like, in a way, her muscles didn’t really get what this sensation was. “It wasn’t like a...” She paused.
“I’m not rejecting you, I just didn’t want you to go through a pain for an injury that will heal fine on its own.” I said. “You’re in our house, and part of the team. Whether you care to admit it or not; we do like you.”
“Thanks. It’s all very new.” Lynn said.
“It bothers me that it is.”
Lynn stood there thinking about it. “Me too, I just feel...” She paused again.
“Like someone’s gonna take it all away?” I said. “That on some level you’re a terrible person and all the bad stuff is your fault?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”
“You’re not. You heal people, you look after us and under that is a person who wants to make people happy.” I took a breath as she raised her head and smiled. “Look, for three years I was the kid who got the shit kicked out of him every day at school. Total geek, no social skills. And after a period of time I just got used to taking the abuse.”
“What did you do?”
“I hit a big growth spurt in the sixth grade. I showed up for the first day of school and pasted the lead bully in the face.”
Lynn chuckled at that. “I bet it was amazing to see.”
“It was.” I thought about it. “I don’t know what shit you’ve been through, but just know this. You’re in a place with friends, and we will lighten the load.”
“Promise?”
“You’ve got my word.”
“Well then, next time you get hurt let me heal you dammit.” She said; surprising me with the near fury in her tone. “I’ve never been special before, let me be special dammit!”
I took a reflexive step back, then shook my head and grinned. “Sorry, sometimes I manage to fuck up my attempts at doing the right thing.”
“Hey at least you try. Now give me my chance.”
“Will do.” I looked at my watch. “Shit! We better get to English. Mr. Thomas will be pissed if we walk in late.”
Chapter 23
“All right let's check out your new gear.” Hamilton said as I slid on my new super suit. Sure, they tried to give them an official name. “Situation uniform” was the current attempt to give it an official feel, but we of course called them “super suits” and got a chuckle out of the reactions from the school's administration.
Mine was red with orange stripes, to increase visibility. There was another one set up for what they liked to call “high tension situations.” Or what we liked to call, “high probability of carnage” situations. That suit was black with dark blue stripes. It was almost but not quite camouflage.
The engineers who worked with the school had been taking notes about our comments regarding the setups we were initially given, and adjusted them accordingly. They had borrowed some technology from the military and given each suit its own transponder, now when you put on the glasses we had been given you could see where everyone on your team was in relation to you.
Then they had added a set of gloves where if you pressed a button, the palm would become a mouse and you could call up communication or data functions on the fly. Which, for example, could tune me into air traffic control at O'Hare airport and give me indicators as to where nearby aircraft were.
As you would expect, I almost had to be physically restrained from flying everywhere now.
Today though, it was not an issue. We were on the shore of Lake Michigan again with the telemetry truck warmed up and ready for a new test.
“Okay.” Hamilton said. Today he was dressed more casually; black slacks and a red polo shirt. “Ready when you are.”
I nodded and took off. My take offs were now automatic, within about a second I was pushing 100 miles an hour. The HUD pointed out the safe lane for me to fly in, and now I could see dots around me with range markers indicating planes, their direction and speed.
“Okay, find your altitude and look for the chase plane.” I heard over the headset. I looked around for it and saw an indicator marked green. I gained altitude to about 5,000 ft. and increased my speed.
The hard part is that everything I did was by feel. I could tell when I was going fast but it wasn't like I had a throttle built in my brain. Which made today’s exercise all about control.
I increased the push and pull of the magnetic field around me and soon I was catching up to the plane. An old Air National Guard phantom jet. I pulled up alongside it and waved. The pilot shook his head and waved back.
“Okay he’s going to increase his speed and do a few maneuvers. Back off a bit and try to follow him.” Hamilton said.
“If you feel like a maneuver is
stressing your body too much, pull out.” Doctor Ng said.
“Will do.” I responded wondering what antics they had in mind for me.
The plane pulled ahead and I let it go, falling back behind its jet wash. The plane turned suddenly to the left and I followed. The stress on my body was actually not too bad. The only issue was that at the speed we were going, moving through the air felt like moving through water at high speed.
The plane jinked right then took a sharp dive. I followed again; trying to compensate for the build up in speed that came with the dive by pulling back on my acceleration so I wouldn’t overtake it.
The maneuvers continued and I kept up all the way through it, not taking any massive G maneuvers until the end.
“This is the risky one.” Doctor Ng said. “If you feel like you're in any physical danger, stop.”
The plane below me dived again. As it did it began arcing in an inverted loop, and suddenly I could see why she was concerned.
Bennie, my nice friend from Lockheed, had explained more about the physics of flying to me before I took off. When you pull hard G's a lot of the issue is that your body can’t push blood out into your extremities. Like your brain for example. And you pass out. Which is why High-G maneuvers are dangerous.
This was actually even more dangerous. An inverted loop like this causes something called negative g-force. This is when instead of being slammed into your seat by g-force, the force actually pulls you up into a state of shall we say high powered weightlessness. The danger here is that negative g force pulls blood away from your core and slams it into your extremities. The human body can take about 9 positive G's but anything over negative four G's runs the real risk of blowing a blood vessel in your brain.
But don’t think that was gonna stop me.
I kept up; following the plane into the loop and trailed it as I felt my vision grow sharper then felt pressure in my head and hands. I forced myself to keep my eyes open all the way through as I felt the surge of blood into my brain and the sound of my heart pounding like I had strapped a concert PA to my ears.