Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) (9 page)

After dinner we sat around discussing options
and plans. Carl was free to stay all month with us, but Sid had
only booked their tickets for one week. It didn’t take much to
convince them that a single week wasn’t enough to do more than
scratch the surface, so Sid vowed that first thing in the morning
he would arrange to get more time.

***

Living up to his word, Sid spent all morning
on the phone with Fort Benning arranging more time here. He was
able to get it, however he would have to go back for the weekend in
order to make sure that their replacements would have all of their
training information. The rest of the week went by without any new
breakthroughs; we just got a bit better at the things we already
knew.

When it was time for him to leave for his
flight, he let us know that he would be back in three or four days.
He was planning on driving back here from Atlanta, so Sara gave him
a big list of things that she wanted him to bring for her. I could
tell that Sara wanted to go with her hubby, but didn’t want to
chance missing out on the possibility of getting our
ability
herself.

She made me take her on a flight every single
day, and probably would have spent from dawn until dusk in the air
if she had her choice. Every day, Carl had a new get-rich-quick
scheme that he tried to sell us. They ranged from clever to
ludicrous, and we vetoed them all. Finally, late Monday night, Sid
pulled up in the driveway.

We all went to welcome him back, Sara giving
him several long and deep kisses. Wrapping an arm around her, he
turned to the rest of us and said “Ok slackers, tomorrow we can get
some REAL testing done.” He didn’t explain his comment, but a
glance into the back of his truck sent a shiver down my spine.

DANGER: High Explosives.

Mark: Dangerous Practice

The radar gun beeped. “That was a good one;
seventy eight MPH,” Carl said as Linda went flying by.

Sid had borrowed a radar gun and brought it
for our experiments, along with a pile of supplies from his
military base. Guns, tear gas, explosives … I didn’t want to know
how he was able to get all that stuff. While we waited for Linda to
head back out for another speed run, I amused myself by thinking of
how the airport TSA people would flip out if Sid had tried flying
back with this kind of luggage.

“
Y’all ready for the next run?
” Linda
asked me.

I looked up and sure enough, Linda was over
by the dead tree that we used as a starting point for the flight.
“
Anytime
,” I sent back to her. I warned Carl that we were
about to start again.

“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 make 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.