by Jason Levine
“Yes,” Murray replied.
“First things first. Your watch, please.”
Murray handed over his watch. Sean deftly opened the case with his small screwdriver and stared intently as he fiddled with the inner mechanism. Murray didn’t have a good angle to view what was going on, but he could have sworn that some parts within the watch glowed as Sean worked.
“That should do it,” Sean said handing the watch back to Murray. “We should be good to go.”
Murray put the watch back on.
“So what do I do now?”
“Activate your powers. What was it you called it? Ghosting?”
Murray looked at Sean. “That’s the thing. I can’t seem to ghost on command.”
Sean pointed to a button on the left side of the watch.
“For now, your watch will assist you. Simply press this button and it will make it easier for you to trigger your powers or suppress them. Press it one time and you will have an easier time ghosting. Press it again and you will de-ghost.”
“Just like the bracelets before?” asked Murray.
“Exactly,” Sean replied. “For the ghosting itself, just imagine yourself becoming intangible. It will become easier and easier every time you do it. Eventually, it will be second nature to you just as you don’t need to think about how to move your legs when you walk.”
Murray took a deep breath and pressed the button. He imagined himself going intangible. He pictured himself floating and passing through objects. No matter how much of a ghost he was in his mind, though, his body stubbornly remained solid. Finally, Murray pressed the button to reactivate his watch and let out his breath.
“Didn’t work,” panted Murray as he tried to catch his breath.
“Few get it on their first try,” Sean answered. “Try it once more.”
Murray held his breath again, pressed the button again, and imagined himself as a ghost again. Again, his body didn’t cooperate. A third, fourth, and fifth time didn’t change the outcome either. After four more times, Murray was ready to give up.
“Maybe I just can’t will this to happen. Maybe something else triggers it?”
Sean thought for a second.
“Life or death situations can trigger powers, but I try to refrain from putting my students in those situations. At least, not on the first day.”
Ruth had been sitting down on a bench quietly, but chimed in loud enough for Murray to hear: “That’s the third lesson.”
Murray laughed.
“Maybe we can’t do life or death, but perhaps we can trigger the same response,” Sean said. He pointed to a pile of random electronics. “Do the same thing you’ve been doing, but this time run towards that pile. See if you can pass through it or if you’ll crash into it.”
Murray looked at Ruth. She gave him a thumbs up and he took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He pressed the button on his watch, took a deep breath, focused on intangibility, and then ran towards the pile of junk. As he neared the pile, he put his hands in front of him–sure that he would crash into it. Instead, at the last second, his feet left the ground. He tumbled end over end through the pile emerging on the other side. As he cleared the pile, Murray quickly pressed his watch’s button and collapsed on the ground gasping for breath. Sean and Ruth came running over.
“Fantastic,” Sean exclaimed.
“You did it,” said Ruth, her face beaming with a giant smile.
Murray struggled to catch his breath.
“Why can’t I breathe?” Murray gasped.
“I beg your pardon,” replied Sean.
“When I ghost, I’m not able to breathe.”
“Ah, yes. That’s actually rather simple. Your reality distortion field doesn’t project far beyond your body. It simply doesn’t encompass enough oxygen to allow respiration.”
Murray looked confused for a second.
“You’re not ghosting air along with you so you have nothing to breathe,” Ruth translated.
“I believe I can assist you with this problem,” Sean said. “Unfortunately, our time today is up. Return tomorrow and I’ll have designed something new to help you.”
The next day, Murray and Ruth made the now familiar journey to Sean’s. Once there, Sean greeted them with a giant grin on his face. Quite frankly, Murray found it a little unnerving. He hadn’t known Sean for long, but he never struck Murray as the kind of person who smiled often. The fact that Sean was wearing the same clothes, hat, sunglasses, and gloves for a third day in a row just added to the effect.
“Murray, this should solve your breathing problem,” Sean said while holding up a small chip.
“What’s it do?”
“Right now, nothing. The design was challenging. I didn’t have time to build the entire thing, but this should provide the base programming. Before I build it though, have you ever wondered what Ruth or I can do?”
Murray looked at Ruth. She was staring wide eyed at Sean.
“To be honest, I have. I just wasn’t sure if it was rude to ask or not.”
“My abilities began small,” Sean said as he turned his back to Murray. Sean removed his sunglasses and hat. Murray wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Sean seemed to be balding but his scalp appeared gray
“At first, I had an intuitive grasp of all things technological,” Sean continued. “I knew how they worked and could tell why nearly anything was broken. As my powers grew, I found that I could design new machines. Things that were more advanced than anything anyone else had ever designed. Then, my powers extended into controlling technology if I was near it. I could even ‘reformat’ old machines into new technology.”
Sean removed his gloves and placed them in the pockets of his pants.
“Unfortunately, this power over technology had an unforeseen side effect.”
Sean turned around and Murray stifled a gasp of shock. Sean’s right eye was a round, green camera lens of some sort. Out from it, radiated gray “skin” that Murray guessed was more metal than flesh. Sean’s hands also had random pieces of them replaced by robotics. His entire right thumb whirred as it moved up and down.
“As you can see, technology is literally taking me over. As my powers grow, I find myself becoming less human and more machine. This is why I warned you before we started training. I know first-hand of the dangers of heading down this path.”
Sean put his sunglasses and hat back on. He kept his gloves off.
“Now, about your breathing problem.”
Sean turned away from them again and raised his hands up. Murray heard movement coming from the junk piles surrounding them. All around them, small robotic creatures emerged from hiding places in the trash heaps. They were three feet tall with four long legs coming out of their thin, cylindrical bodies. The legs bent at the knees and ended in a sharp point which allowed the robots to scale the junk piles with ease. In front of the robots, two additional appendages stretched which looked just like the legs except they ended in a three pronged “hand.” The heads of the robots looked pretty bare bones–just a pair of lenses atop a round head.
Though the robots were small, they were obviously strong. Each approached Sean with a different piece of technology. Everything from old vacuum cleaners to broken down hot water heater tanks to car parts were being carried along. Some robots proved that they weren’t just designed for brute strength as they gingerly carried bundles of wires or motherboards from old computers.
As the robots skittered down, they formed a line which passed by Sean. He evaluated each item that the robots brought him and indicated for some robots to step aside. Robots that didn’t carry items meeting Sean’s approval walked off, disappearing into the trash piles presumably to replace the items that they had retrieved.
Ruth walked up to Murray and whispered to him. “This is a huge honor. Not many have seen Sean at work. Amazing, isn’t it. He’s controlling all of those robots at the same time.”
Murray was stunned and could only nod in re
sponse. Sean waved his arms and the robots that hadn’t been chosen scattered. The remaining ones huddled close to Sean. His hands moved too fast for Murray to see what was going on, but it seemed as though Sean was pulling apart each item, selecting various components and placing them together. Occasionally, one robot would touch surfaces with its hands releasing showers of sparks. Murray guessed that they had hidden tools like soldering guns and welding torches to aid Sean in making his constructions.
After a few minutes, Sean picked up the result as the robots scattered back to the junk piles–taking various leftover parts with them.
Sean turned around and presented his handiwork to Murray. It looked like a backpack of sorts. It was smooth and black with two shoulder straps. The top was slightly narrower than the bottom. Sean handed the backpack to Murray. Even from up close, there didn’t appear to be any seams at all. If Murray hadn’t seen Sean make it right then and there, he would have sworn that it was one solid piece.
“Put this on. Let me know how it fits.”
Murray pulled on the backpack. Despite being made of metal, it felt incredibly light. The two straps went over his arms, tightening themselves automatically. They met in a round clasp in the middle which, when fastened, seemed to meld into a solid piece. Like the backpack itself, Murray couldn’t see any seams at all.
“It’s a bit snug, but fine overall.”
“There are five buttons hidden here,” Sean said, indicating the clasp. He pointed to each button as he explained their functions. “At the bottom, is the release. This will disconnect the clasp and loosen the straps. The center button will deploy the mask.”
“The mask?” Murray interrupted.
Sean motioned with his hand and a pair of robots lifted up the polished metal plate. They carried it over to Murray and Sean, holding it so that Murray could clearly see his reflection. It wasn’t as good quality as an actual mirror, but it still worked pretty nicely.
Sean pressed the center of the clasp. The top of the backpack extended upwards. It seemed to come apart as if it were made of a hundred thousand puzzle pieces. Each piece would connect to and disconnect from the other pieces so that they remained attached to the pack while still radically changing shape. As they moved, they wound their way around Murray’s neck. For a split second, Murray panicked, thinking that this contraption was going to strangle him to death. Then, he realized that it was contouring to his jaw, fitting snugly but allowing for movement. It ended its transformation by covering his nose and mouth entirely.
“Pressing that button again, will retract the mask.” Sean explained, though he kept the mask deployed. “Pressing the left button will start or stop your air supply. Pressing the right side will refill the air pack. Obviously, you can only refill when you aren’t ghosting. The air pack should give you oxygen for fifteen minutes before you need to refill.”
“What about the fifth button?”
“Ah, that button is a based on a hunch I have,” Sean explained. He pressed the right button and Murray heard a low hiss as the tank filled up. Sean then pressed the left button and Murray could feel his breathing ease. He hadn’t realized that, while it was possible to breathe in the mask without the air flowing, it was much easier with the unit activated.
“Now, ghost,” Sean said.
Murray instinctively took a deep breath and held it. He pushed the button on his watch and pictured himself becoming intangible. Suddenly, he felt his legs lose contact with the ground. He was floating, ghosting across the junkyard. Surprised, he gasped and then realized he was breathing normally. The backpack was operating perfectly. Murray was surprised that the garbage he had seen brought in could result in such a sleek design.
“Now, press the top button,” Sean said.
Murray pressed the button and he felt the backpack shift. Though his reflection in the metal mirror was shakier than ever–ghosts, apparently, don’t show up well in polished metal mirrors–Murray caught sight of the bottom of the backpack opening. A light green color emanated from the bottom and Murray felt a slight push upwards.
He was hovering in place, ghosting without drifting in any particular direction.
“Very good,” Sean said. “The pack will automatically sense if you are upright and will have you hover. If you lean, it will move you in that direction. Try moving around the piles. I know you could go through them, but this should help you get control over what direction you’re going in.”
Murray twisted his body, aiming for the nearest junk pile. He started moving towards it, gaining speed as he went. A few feet from the pile, he tried to turn. Instead, he wound up drifting partly through a refrigerator on the edge.
“I figured you might have this problem,” Sean said as Murray looped back to his starting position. “There is little to no friction acting on you when you’re ghosting. So changing directions becomes tricky. Did you ever pilot a boat?”
Murray shook his head. He was never one to leave the safety of land behind.
“When you drive a boat,” Sean explained, “there is less friction acting on your craft. So turns take time and need to be planned out in advance. You need to be thinking about what you’re going to do three steps ahead of where you are currently.”
Murray tried again. This time, as he reached the first pile, he started to turn early. As he went into his turn, he noticed that his current course would take him into the second pile. He tried to correct himself but glided through an old air-conditioning unit instead.
Over and over, Murray practiced steering. When his air was running low, he would de-ghost long enough to refill his tank. A few times, Sean gave him a break to eat or rest. For the most part, Ruth stayed quiet, watching Murray practice.
At the end of the day, Murray’s muscles ached. This was different than his normal workouts, but definitely felt just as effective.
Chapter Eight: Icarus Ascends
On his third day of training, Murray knocked on Ruth’s door so they could head to Sean’s junkyard together. Ruth opened the door and ushered him inside. Thomas was standing in the room also, zippering up an oversized jacket.
“Thomas is going to drive us today,” Ruth explained.
“I thought it was too dangerous to have too many of us together.”
“I won’t be staying for your training,” Thomas clarified. “I have business to attend to and might as well get an early start by driving you two. Besides, I like to get all the driving that I can get in while I’m able.”
“While you’re able?”
“I’ll explain later,” Ruth answered. “Let’s head out.”
“Just one second,” said Thomas, staring into space. He rushed off into one of the bedrooms and returned with the collar that Murray had worn the first day he ghosted.
“You’ll need this,” Thomas told Ruth.
Without questioning why they would need the collar, Ruth fit it into her purse. As they headed down, Murray hung back to talk to Ruth.
“What was that about?”
“Let’s just say that it’s a good idea to listen to Thomas’ hunches–no matter how weird they might seem.”
“So what did he mean by driving ‘while he’s able?’”
“Thomas’ gifts come in waves. Sometimes, he’s in a state where he can’t be trusted driving.”
“I see,” said Murray. He was about to point out that he still didn’t know what Thomas or Ruth could do, but the sight of their ride pushed the question out of his mind.
Thomas unlocked the doors to a brightly colored, lime green minivan. The van had to be at least thirty years old and looked as though it would fall apart if shaken too much. Murray felt like he should consider himself lucky that it even had seat belts.
Murray climbed into the back seat and placed his backpack on the floor in front of him. Thomas got into the driver’s seat and Ruth buckled up in the front passenger side. Murray got his seat belt buckled and noticed that Ruth was holding onto the handle near her door. Before Murray could even begin to
wonder why, Thomas gunned the gas.
Despite the age and size of the van, Thomas drove it through the busy city streets as though it were a small sports car. Murray gripped his seat tightly, his feet barely holding his backpack in place. Thomas didn’t slow down at yellow lights, but instead sped up.
Suddenly, Thomas slammed on the brakes at a green light. Out of nowhere, a blue sedan came around the corner, completely ignoring their red light. Thomas didn’t honk or yell at the driver. Instead, he waited patiently for them to clear his path. The second they had passed, he floored the gas again.
Thomas skidded to a halt in front of Sean’s junkyard. Murray quickly unbuckled himself, grabbed his backpack, and clambered out of the van. He didn’t think he had ever been so happy to leave a vehicle in his life. Ruth slowly unbuckled, talked to Thomas for a few seconds as if nothing extraordinary had happened, and then joined Murray. As they entered the gates, Thomas speed off, leaving behind tire marks and a cloud of dust.
Sean was waiting for them in the clearing.
“Today, we’re going to work on speed,” Sean said. “Put your backpack on.”
Murray pulled the backpack over his shoulders and fastened the clasp.
“You already know how to steer, but you can change speed as well. Twisting the clasp to the right will speed you up,” Sean explained. “Twisting it to the left will slow it down. Try it out. Fly around the junkyard as fast as you can.”
Murray extended the mask, filled up his pack’s air tank, and started his air supply flowing. Then, he disabled his watch so he could ghost. He went intangible and activated his pack’s boosters.
Hovering in midair, Murray leaned forward and glided ahead. He turned the clasp to the right and felt himself being pushed forward faster. He made a wide loop around the shack and headed back towards the junkyard’s entrance.
Murray quickly hit his maximum speed. He didn’t have a speedometer but he guessed that he was moving at about twenty miles per hour. Not bad at all. As he approached the entrance, Murray swung around and headed back towards the clearing.
