by Dave Renol
“Eighty even!” Carl exclaimed. “She’s getting pretty damn good at this.”
“Yeah, there’s no way I can keep up with her now.” I needed to give it everything I had just to break sixty. “Come on back hon. You hit eighty and I think it’s time for a break.”
“About time,” she agreed. “It’s kind of fun, but it does wear on a person after a while.”
She settled to the ground next to me, gave me a quick hug, and went over to sit down next to Sara. Sid packed up the radar gun and opened up a box of steel ball bearings. Walking out a dozen paces away, he dumped them on the ground and spread them out with his foot. Returning, he nodded for me to start.
Acknowledging his nod, I grabbed a handful and lifted them up to eye height. After I spread them out into a line, I turned my concentration onto the first one. With a slight whistle of air, they started flying away one by one. It only took a moment before they were all embedded into the log that was my target.
I brought the log to us and pried out the bearings. One of the little buggers was really stuck in there. After Carl and Sid were done looking it over, I sent it winging over to the far end of the yard and got ready for my next round of shots. I sent those flying off and brought the log back a second time. It looked about the same to me.
Carl was taking measurements of the depth of the holes and Sid was rambling on about an estimate of comparable feet per second muzzle velocities. Sid didn’t know much science, but he sure knew his guns. While they were busy with that, I set up a pile of firewood in the yard to use as a backstop for our next round of tests. That task complete, I turned my focus toward making a strong shield in front of it.
Ready to proceed, I sent to Linda “I’m all set. Aim for the middle of the woodpile and see if you can get through my shield.”
“Brace yourself. Your puny little shield is no match for me!” she sent back teasingly.
She didn’t even bother getting out of her chair; she just started whipping the ball bearings toward the pile. The first one caught me by surprise and blasted through my shield easily. Bearing down, I concentrated harder and fed it more power. I finally gave it enough and managed to block the last three shots.
It seemed that I could do it, but barely. As Linda warmed up to the task, I knew that she would only fire them harder and faster, and they would get through. There had to be a better way. I decided to try something different and change the texture of my shield. First, I built them outward and made them more resilient so they could flex with the force of impact. Done, I added a third shield at the middle of where the first two met. This one I made as hard as I could and tied it into the others so it would ‘float’.
It worked flawlessly. This time Linda was sweating, trying to put more force into her shots, but the new combination shield stopped them all easily.
“Now that’s more like it,” Sid said, satisfied.
Reaching down to his supply crate he pulled out a handgun, hammered in a clip, and fired a shot at our target. I jumped at the report from the gun, but was pleased to see that my shield held.
With a big grin on his face he said, “I’m not sure on how powerful of a gun your thing can stop, but this is looking real good so far.”
“What exactly are you aiming at?” I queried.
“In a nutshell, I want to learn how to do all this stuff and bring it back with me to the rangers. Are you any closer to figuring out how we can do it ourselves yet?”
“Not yet,” I replied, “and don’t forget that you gave me your word that you would keep this a secret.”
“I haven’t told a soul yet, and I’m willing to give you some time, but there are limits. To be honest with you, I’m getting sick and tired of it being on the back burner. This is too important to be relegated to backyard hijinks and if you can’t figure it out yourself, then we’ll need to take it to the people who can.”
“Like the military?”
“Yes,” he replied bluntly.
“I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life as a lab rat.”
“You’ve watched too many hokey movies about the government. I can promise that it won’t go down that way.”
“Alright,” I said, not really reassured, “but that’s a discussion for the future. In the meantime, let’s keep working on it.”
“Ok, drop that shield and get ready for a new one.” Reaching down into his crate again, he came up with a cylinder this time. “M18 smoke grenade,” he explained, “I’ll toss it and you try to contain it.”
He pulled the pin and immediately sent it spinning down the yard. The smoke began pouring out fast and I rushed to get a shield around it. I started with a good sized dome field, and once that was working to my satisfaction I worked on resizing it. I brought the bottom of the dome inward until the edges met and made it a sphere. Once that was done, I shrunk the diameter in half, and raised the whole thing off the ground. It appeared to be holding well.
“I’ll be damned, that thing is really airtight!” Sid proclaimed vehemently. “Imagine if we would have had that in Kuwait with all the chemical attacks and oil fires?”
Not knowing what else to do with it, I moved my smoke ball over to the creek and sunk it under water before releasing it. It made a big splash accompanied by a huge ball of smoke, but the water helped to cut down the amount left to float away and be noticed. Like a kid with his Christmas morning presents, Sid was back in his crate, this time coming out with a small block labeled C4.
“Whoa there Sid,” I interrupted, “We can’t be setting off explosives here. The closest neighbors might be a ways off and ignore small things, but an explosion is definitely going to garner attention.”
I almost cracked up laughing. Now Sid looked like a kid who just had his shiny new Christmas toy taken away, but he slowly agreed.
“We could go down to Fort Bragg,” he said casually. “It’s not too far, and I’m sure they would let us use their facilities.”
“I already told you that we’re not ready for that yet. However, we could take a trip into the mountains tomorrow and find a secluded spot where we will be both safe and private.”
He thought about it briefly and nodded his assent. “I’ll put together a plan and pack a bag. No sense in hauling everything out. Some of the gear is heavy.”
“It looks like clouds are moving in. Let’s clean up here and take the rest of the day off. Maybe if we stop and think about it, we can figure out how to pass the ability on to you guys, too.”
“Maybe if a storm rolls in it’ll help,” Carl interjected.
“Maybe,” I replied. “But if it looks like you’re even thinking of running out in your underwear, I swear I’ll float you off somewhere and leave you there.”
Laughing, we made short work of the clean-up and got settled down inside before the storm hit.
***
The next morning we all got up bright and early to prepare for our trip. We had a quick breakfast, and then loaded our supplies into two knapsacks. One contained Sid’s gear, the second smaller one contained food, water, and a first aid kit. After discussing the logistics of the trip, we decided that Linda and Sara would take the two packs, while I took the burden of flying with Carl and Sid.
We made our first stop at the pool which Linda visited often these days. From there, we made our way up to the top of the mountain at the lowest point that was nearby. Looking into the next valley, we all agreed that it would be close to perfect. There were no roads leading into it, and it would be a difficult trip on foot, so privacy would be guaranteed.
There was a small lake at the bottom almost straight ahead, and we made that our goal. We flew onward and down, making good time toward the lake. On the north side, the lake was met by several wide, shallow streams over a large rocky area. This was ideal for our purposes, as we didn’t want to risk starting a forest fire.
Linda handed out some bottles of water to us while Carl and Sid set things up. While they were doing that, I was experimenting with ways to mak
e a shield stronger. I thought that if a layered shield was effective for small arms fire, then sandwiching several together might work even better for the more powerful trials.
They finally finished their work and started making their way toward us, running out wire from a spool that Sid was holding. I could see that they had set up a small block of the plastic explosive on a rock at the shoreline, and I assumed that the wire was for the detonator. They ran the wire a fair distance, finishing behind one of the larger rock piles in the area. I thought that was a good idea since I was unsure if we could actually shield the explosion, and the rocks would provide some additional safety.
Sid finished with his wiring and said, “Ok, this is gonna be big, so make sure that you make your shield extra strong. I was thinking that Linda could build a shield around us as a backup in case you suck. This way, we’ll have your shield, the rocks, and Linda’s shield all protecting us. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded assent, but I gave him a dirty look at his comment about my shield sucking. “Give us a few minutes to set things up. When we’re ready, I’ll give you a wave.”
“Sounds good,” he said as he handed out earplugs to us. “When you give me the signal, expect a countdown from ten, and then BOOM.”
I nodded, told Linda to begin, and turned my concentration out to the rock with the C4. I raised it off the ground a few inches and prepared to implement my plan. I started with my first shield in the middle being one of the solid ones. From there I began working outward, alternating between the flexible and the rigid. After I had done a dozen layers in each direction, I figured that it should be enough and I sealed the edges together.
“I think I’m good,” I sent to Linda. “What about you?”
“Good to go here,” she sent back as she ducked down behind her rock.
I ducked down behind my own rock and waved for Sid to proceed.
“… 3 … 2 … 1” he counted. BOOM, the explosion roared in both my ears and inside my head. In sudden pain from the mental backlash I cried out weakly and clutched my head.
“Mark!” Linda cried, rushing over to my side.
I was close to unconsciousness and couldn’t reply immediately. I felt the three of them around me, helping to lay me out on the ground, my head in Lindas lap. After a minute the world stopped spinning and I was able to reply that I thought I was ok. I started to sit up, but Linda held me down and told me to rest for a few minutes. With my head aching badly, I relaxed and nodded agreement.
After about fifteen minutes or so, I felt that I might be able to move without having my brains leak out of my ears. Getting up slowly, I made my way over to the front of our rock pile and sat down on one of the boulders with a reasonably flat top. Carl and Sid were standing over where the explosion had been, checking out the results. Sara was sitting near them, giving advice which they seemed to be ignoring.
My head seemed to be getting slowly better, but I felt cold and weak. After hearing of my complaints, Linda immediately began bringing deadwood over for a fire. Sara, seeing what Linda was doing, made a crude fire pit in front of me and began breaking up small branches for kindling. Within five minutes they had a small fire going and plenty of wood ready to add as needed.
“Thank you,” I said gratefully as I began to warm up a bit. “Don’t make it too big though. We don’t want some forest ranger thinking that there’s a wildfire in the area.”
Sid and Carl finished their inspection of the blast site and came over to join us at the fire.
“How’s it going, eh?” Carl asked me.
“I’m fine, you hoser.” I replied, making fun of his use of ‘eh’. “But for a while there, I thought my head was going to explode.”
“Speaking of explosions, you did it. Or you mostly did it, anyway. It appears that the explosion itself was contained, but the rock below the explosives busted through your shield. If I had to make a guess, I would say that it was the destructive failure of your shield that caused the backlash you felt.”
“What about you?” I asked Linda. “Did you feel anything?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Your shield stopped it all.”
Sid looked me over carefully and commented, “You look like hammered dog shit. There was a whole pile of stuff that I wanted to try, but I don’t think it’s a good idea now.”
I nodded my agreement vehemently and immediately regretted it as a sharp pain shot through my skull, causing me to wince.
“Mark might have broken his brain, but that’s not a big loss really. We could do some stuff with Linda still. I’m sure her brain is much better than his,” Carl said hopefully.
“That might be an exceptionally bad idea,” Sara opined. “Linda’s brain might be bigger and better than Marks, but if we put her out of commission, then we’re all stuck in this valley until they heal.”
I raised both of my middle fingers toward them, and stuck out my tongue for good measure. “Bad comedy aside,” I said to Linda, “The two retards have a point, and I don’t just mean the ones on the top of their heads. It’s going to be tough getting out of here now, so we shouldn’t take any risks that can be avoided.”
After a bit more teasing and insulting banter everyone was in agreement, so we settled down to allow me some time to recover. Linda handed out the sandwiches that she had packed for lunch, and I forced myself to eat mine even though I had no appetite whatsoever. I was a little nauseous at first, but soon started to feel a bit better.
The sun was starting to go down when I finally decided that we couldn’t put things off for much longer. “We need to leave. It’s going to be dark by the time we get back home, and I want at least some light to navigate by so we can get out of this valley without worrying about flying into a tree or something.” Everyone quickly agreed.
We didn’t have much to pack, so everyone was ready within a few minutes. Linda, in a stroke of genius, made a spherical shield under the surface of the lake and floated a ball of water over to douse the fire. Carl looked almost as impressed at that idea as he did at my explosive retention sphere.
Linda took control of Sid, Carl, and the gear for the flight back, allowing me to only carry Sara. Still feeling a bit out of sorts, I agreed and started retracing our flight up toward the pass. We went slowly, with Linda ordering several rest stops along the way. It was fully dark by the time we made it back home, and I was glad that the patio light was left on, as it gave me a target to aim for.
Arriving back at the house, Linda immediately escorted me to the bedroom and ordered me to get some rest. She helped me undress, got me under the covers, and then held me for the three or four milliseconds that it took for me to fall asleep.
Chapter 13
Linda: Violent Disagreements
Once I got Mark into bed, he fell asleep almost immediately. I carefully disengaged from him and floated myself toward the door, trying to stay as quiet as possible. The patio door was still open, and I paused at the corner before it as I heard what sounded like an argument coming from outside.
“Bullshit!” I heard Sid say. “I tell you, they’re holding back.”
“I doubt it,” Carl countered. “I swear I almost had a heart attack myself when Mark collapsed out there. I was looking right at him and could see the blood drain from his face.”
“If they had any intentions of sharing their powers, they would have done so by now. Every single task we’ve put to them, they’ve done without much difficulty. Every single task that is, except for the one that truly matters.”
“It’s not that simple,” Carl began.
“Yes it is!” Sid interrupted. “Even if I believed them, which I don’t, they could go and get experts to figure it out. Between your scummy money making schemes, and their insistence on secrecy, I’m starting to suspect a threat to national security in the works.”
“What?” Carl snorted. “Do you think we’re the psychic arm of the Taliban here or something? You’re paranoid, delusional, and an asshole to boot!”
�
��Fuck you, Carl. I’m right and you know it. If you can’t see it, then you’re either blind or stupid.”
“That really hurts, coming from someone with a shoe size larger than his IQ”
Fearing that the argument might soon turn physical, I lowered myself to the ground and made some noise before rounding the corner and stepping outside. “Keep it down guys, Mark is exhausted and needs some sleep.” I admonished.
“Screw you, sister,” he replied angrily. “I’m tired of the runaround. I had plenty of time to think about things on our way back tonight, and I figured out that you’re both sandbagging.”
“How can you say that?” I asked, hurt. “Mark almost killed himself today, and you think we’re just playing around?”
“I think there’s a reason that you’re keeping this for yourselves, and I don’t like it. I don’t trust you, and I want to bring all this to Major Matt Hatter. He’ll know what to do,” he said with finality.
Stunned at his intensity, I replied slowly, “You gave us your word that you would keep this a secret until we decided otherwise. Are you going to break your sworn word?”
His face turning purple, he emphatically replied, “My word is my bond. I won’t betray any trust that I have given, but I will warn you. There will be consequences.”
Sara stood suddenly and said, “Let me see what I can scrounge up for dinner. It’s been a long day, and emotions are running high. Let’s all just calm down for a bit and lay off the threats, accusations, and insults. Come give me a hand,” she said, grabbing my arm and steering me into the kitchen.
“Don’t pay any attention to Sid. He’s just frustrated and blowing off steam,” she soothed. “The combination of hunger and frustration has him in butthead mode, but he’ll calm down.”
“I think he’s a few steps beyond ‘butthead mode’ as you call it, but I’m all for calming things down. The nerve of him, saying that we’re sandbagging…”
