Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) (7 page)

Linda: Up, Up, and Away

I watched the boys file into the office, but
as Sara remained seated with her cup of coffee, I decided to stay
out here with her. “How are you this morning?” I finally asked as
an opener.

“A little better than I was last night,” she
admitted. “Sid and I were up half the night talking about it. It
all seems unreal.”

“Welcome to my world,” I said wryly. “My head
hasn’t stopped spinning since this thing started.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s not really easy to explain. I feel kind
of tingly whenever I do something mentally, but that’s the only
external connection that we’ve been able to identify so far.”

“What does it feel like to fly?” she asked
with a hungry look on her face.

“Again, it’s not easy to describe how it
feels mentally, but the physical sensations are wonderful. Ever
since I was a little girl reading comic books, I wished that I
could fly away at will, so this was almost like a dream come
true.”

“I’m with you on that,” she replied
wistfully.

“I’ll take you out flying with me later, if
you want,” I offered.

“I’ll hold you to that promise,” she quickly
replied with an excited look on her face. “In the meantime though,
how about getting me a refill on my coffee?”

“Easier done than said,” I said confidently,
floating the coffee pot over from its place in the machine. She
grabbed it tentatively and I waited to release my hold upon it
until she had a firm grip. When she finished refilling her cup, she
suddenly raised the pot up and let it go. She caught me by
surprise, but I was proud of the fact that I managed to stop it
before it made impact with the table. I topped off my cup before I
floated it back to its place in the kitchen.

“Nice try,” I grinned. “But Super Linda
prevails!”

“Super Linda indeed,” she snorted. “Don’t
make me knock you down to size,” she threatened, waving the sugar
spoon at me in a mock threatening gesture.

We talked all through the morning before Sara
finally started loosening up. It wasn’t that she was overtly
hostile, but I could tell that she was uneasy about abilities that
were beyond her control. A growling stomach reminded me that we had
skipped breakfast, so I suggested a break to get some food
together. Sara must have been hungry herself as she simply got up
and went to forage in the fridge.

We put together a plate of food each, and
then made up some sandwiches to bring to the boys. They seemed
pretty focused on their discussion, so I just left them their lunch
and went back to join Sara. Feeling better with some food in my
stomach, I cleaned up the small mess left from our preparations
while Sara lingered over her plate.

Finally finished, she looked up and impishly
asked me, “Wanna go outside and play?”

Grinning in reply, I nodded agreement and
grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. Offering it to Sara, she
declined but asked for a Coke instead. I grabbed a can, and
followed her out onto the back deck. “What did you have in mind?” I
asked.

“Nothing in particular, but before we’re done
for the day, I’m going to hold you to your promise of taking me on
a flight.”

“No worries on that score,” I said, “How
about this for starters then?” With a quick mental flip, I knocked
her legs out from under her, but kept control of her body so that
she fell into a lounging position, three feet off of the deck. She
squawked in alarm when she lost contact with the ground, but
relaxed marginally when she figured out that I wasn’t going to let
her slam into the deck.

I raised myself into a similar position and
then grinned with success at my maneuvers.

“You caught me off guard there,” she
commented, “but I’ll give you points for style.”

Before I could reply, I heard the patio door
opening and saw the boys file out, talking about different things
that they wanted to try. Mark did a double take seeing the two of
us floating above the back deck, but carried on forward with only a
slight stutter step. Sid looked like he was going to say something
to us, but changed his mind at the last second. Carl just gave us a
big grin and shifted his golf clubs to his other shoulder.

“Shall we go see what the boys are up to?” I
asked.

“Sure, but if they’re gonna just be whacking
golf balls around, I’m out of here.”

I was going to float us down to where the
boys were setting up in the yard, but opted to play it safe and
just move some chairs down there. I lowered us down carefully, and
went over there with two chairs and a small table following behind
me like little ducklings in a row. Once the furniture was set up to
my satisfaction, we settled in to watch their play.

Carl had his driver out and was sending the
ball flying out toward the western tree line. I thought that was
some nice shooting, since the trees were over three hundred yards
away, and he was almost hitting them. They would all watch the
shot, and as the ball finished rolling, Mark brought it back like
some kind of auto-reloading driving range. Convenient, I
thought.

It didn’t take long for me to get bored, and
looking over at Sara, I could tell that she felt the same way. I
gave her a speculative look and made a flying type gesture with my
hand. She quickly gave me an affirmative nod and stood up, ready
and eager to go.

“You boys have fun, we’re going to take off,”
I said. Mark gave me an inquiring look and I just smiled innocently
before rising up.

“Up, up, and away!” Sara urged me on, blowing
Sid a kiss as I brought her up next to me.

I gave her a ‘thumbs up’ gesture, and then
started moving us along the stream path that I had followed last
week. I kept things slow for the first ten minutes or so until the
confidence in my control grew. I had never tried flying with a
passenger before. Picking up the pace a bit I started to follow the
curves of the creek closer, banking our turns as sharp as I was
able, like a freeform rollercoaster.

“Yee-haw,” Sara shouted, “This is
awesome!”

Smiling, I glanced over and saw a look of
pure rapture on her face. She really loved to fly!

Arriving at the pool I slowed our progress
and brought us to a gentle stop near the larger rocks where we
could sit and rest. I immediately sat down to catch my breath. That
was the hardest that I had worked my abilities so far. Sara, on the
other hand, was practically bouncing around with the adrenaline
rush that she experienced from the flight.

“That was amazing! You have no idea how much
I enjoyed that!” she exuded. She finally wound down enough to be
able to sit still, and flopped down next to me, giving me a big hug
in the process. “I would do
anything
to be able to fly
myself,” She said with a dreamy look on her face. “If the boys
figure out how this works and how to pass it on, you’ll never see
me on the ground again.”

After resting for a few minutes, I got up and
walked over to the pool. Scooping up a handful of water, I rubbed
it on the back of my neck to cool myself down. Refreshed, I asked
Sara if she was ready to fly back and she quickly agreed. Deciding
to try something different, I floated us up above the tree tops and
peered downhill, plotting out the course that the creek carved
through the forest. With the necessary direction firmly in mind, I
started us moving back the way we came, but higher and straighter.
I poured more power into our flight, accelerating us faster and
faster. The wind was whipping through my hair crazily as I thought
“now
this
is flying!”

Our return trip was near an end, accomplished
in a fraction of the time that our trip up had taken. Peering
ahead, I looked around to make sure that nobody had come up to the
area around my house. The road was a dead end, with my place being
the last one so traffic was very infrequent, but occasionally lost
people would drive by. Seeing nothing untoward, I kept up our speed
and flew over the yard where the boys were still playing. Sara let
out a huge rebel yell as we passed overhead and then I started to
slow us down, banking back to land near them.

When our feet were back on Terra Firma, Sara
briefly raised an arm high in victory before leaping toward me and
giving me a tremendous tackle hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said
enthusiastically. “That return flight was both scary and wonderful
at the same time, and I can’t wait to do that again.”

“That was exhilarating,” I replied. “We’ll
have to do it again soon.”

“Anytime, but next time please warn me before
you crank up the speed like that. I almost peed in my pants!”

I rejoined the boys, giving Mark a quick hug
and kiss for a greeting. Sara went inside, presumably to take care
of what she almost did in her pants.

“That was pretty cool,” said Carl. “I wonder
how fast you were going.”

I shook my head, saying “I’m not sure, but it
felt kind of like sticking your head out of the car window while
driving down the highway.”

“That sounds like maybe fifty or sixty then.
I wonder if we could get a radar gun and clock your max speed.”

“I could probably borrow one for a few days.
I have several friends in law enforcement,” Sid replied.

“Nice,” Carl nodded, “I wonder what other
empirical measurements we can take.”

They immediately started arguing amongst
themselves on what they wanted to measure and how to go about it,
so I left them to it and headed up to the house for a fresh bottle
of water. Turning the corner into the house, I was almost run over
by Sara in her rush to rejoin the gang and tell them about her
adventure. Amused, I shook my head over the way she was behaving.
She was just like a little kid getting a new toy, or getting off of
her first ride at Disneyland.

Mark: Practical Practice

I concentrated on the golf ball. It was
harder than I thought, since from the moment that the club made
contact and sped it away, I had to mentally ‘follow’ it and
reacquire the feel before I could gain control. There it was.
Wrapping my mind around it, I waited until it was near the top of
its arc and then gave it an extra little boost.

“Woot!” cried Carl, as his shot landed at
around three hundred yards. “I sure got ahold of that one.”

“Well,
WE
got ahold of that one” I
corrected.

“Whatever. Bring it back for another shot,
this is fun.”

Complying with his request, I silently agreed
that it was fun. Happy Gilmore, eat your heart out. After thirty
minutes or so, Linda stood up and said for us to have fun; they
were going to take off. The words were barely out of her mouth when
she started flying up toward her stream trail, Sara flying beside
her. I watched them go until they rounded the first bend of the
trail and then turned my attention back to our tests.

“You seem to have Carl’s golf idea down, but
what else can you do with it?” Sid queried.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Can you turn it, stop it, or deflect it?
Think defensive.” He urged.

“Well,” I started, organizing my thoughts.
“Turning and deflecting is part of what I’ve been doing in addition
to the distance boost. Carl sucks too much to have had
that
many straight drives here.”

“Hey!” Carl exclaimed, offended.

Laughing, I continued. “Stopping or blocking
shouldn’t be too different. Let’s give it a try. Tee it up,
duffer.”

Throwing me a dirty look and a rude gesture,
Carl complied. Once I acquired contact with his shot, it wasn’t
really any different to stop it or turn it down to the ground than
it was to boost it. Only the vectors changed. Blocking would be a
bit different though.

“Ok, think,” I said to myself. “If you can
lift something, then you’re exerting force on it. Theoretically,
that same force could be applied without the object there. If
that’s the case, then anything that hit the ‘force pocket’ would
then come under effect of the field and thereby be affected. That
might work.”

Motioning for Carl to hold his next shot, I
started to set up my field. I picked a spot about twenty yards
ahead of us and pretended that there was an object that I was about
to move. With that spot firmly in mind, I started another mental
move, this time in the opposite direction. I felt a bit of pressure
at the spot where the two forces met and thought that this just
might work after all.

A bit move confident now, I expanded the
diameter of the two fields until I had a good sized ‘shield’ in
place. Keeping my focus on it, I gave Carl the thumbs up and waved
for him to take his shot. The familiar
ping
announced the
launch of the golf ball, and we watched it sail off into the
distance.

“You sliced it and missed my shield, noob.
Try again.”

Carl grumbled, but teed up another ball. He
aimed and slowly brought the club back. He held the pose for a few
seconds and then let loose. He then ducked as his shot, this time
flying straight, hit my shield and bounced right back toward him. I
was too surprised at the success of this experiment to grab it on
the rebound.

“That seemed to work,” I said in triumph,
“any other requests?”

“Try that a few more times and see if you can
set up your force field on the fly. If you were in combat, you
would rarely get the opportunity to set it up in advance.” Sid
replied.

Nodding, I had Carl whack a few more balls at
my existing shield so I could get a better feel for the needed
control. Once that was set firmly in mind, I modified it. First, I
rotated it so that the deflections would go off on a tangent.
Successful with that, I made it a bit smaller and practiced with
moving it into the path of the shot. That was a bit trickier, but
not too bad. I could move it around easy enough, but often the ball
moved faster than my reactions could compensate for.