I let the door slam shut behind me heavily before resting all my weight against it and slipping down to the ground with a groan. I was really regretting using four days of PTO two and a half months ago to attend a book convention. Otherwise, I could have used them for this last week at Silk & Silver before starting my new job at Hubert Industries. Which was tomorrow.
“Have a good day at work, sweetie?” Leo teased from the kitchen. I mumbled incoherently, ready to crawl to my bedroom and sleep for the next twelve hours. Inventory days usually did that to me, but this one was worse than usual with the arrival of the rest of the autumn collection. There had been boxes on boxes of stuff, stacked dangerously high above my head. We had all worked our asses off to get it done by seven in the evening. And after my last day there tomorrow, I’d work two more days at Hubert Industries since all I had finished all the orientation videos. Instead of the usual four ten-hour days in a week, I was doing six.
A quick, short knock on the door startled me. I only had the energy to roll away and shout, “Come in,” through the sound-dampening hunk of metal and fabricated wood.
Alex let himself in, nearly stepping on me.
“Are you okay?” he immediately asked. I let myself sprawl further on the floor like a starfish. They had a nice, calm life, didn’t they? No slippery silk scarves to count? No boxes to break down?
“Inventory,” I managed.
Alex raised his eyebrows, but it was Leo who clarified, “At Silk & Silver, they do inventory every two or three weeks, depending on shipments. It always wears her out.”
“I’m not fit enough for this bullshit,” I whined. “And it’s not like I could use my new abilities to help out. I wish I had telekinesis. Or strength.”
Leo chuckled. Alex dropped his bag at the door and reached two hands down towards me. “Come on. Up you go, Callie.”
Reluctantly, I grabbed his hands and let him haul me to my feet. He took it a step further, scooping me up in his arms to deposit me on the sectional sofa closest to the kitchen and the new, non-glass faux-wood dining table Leo had delivered yesterday. The chairs that came with it were even more comfortable than the previous ones, an upgrade I thoroughly enjoyed.
“You up for tonight?” Alex asked quietly, giving my forehead a kiss.
I shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. I haven’t used my ability at all today or yesterday. It should be fine.”
“Coffee?”
“Hell, yes.”
Alex wandered into the kitchen, pausing awkwardly as he worked around Leo who was finishing up our dinner. Since Alex and I both worked today and Leo hadn’t, he volunteered to make us dinner before we started our experiments. I was already regretting to agreeing to doing this today. But I had promised, and I wanted to stick to my promises.
The life-giving smell of coffee and whatever pasta dish Leo was making wafted over to me, drawing me willingly into the kitchen. I took a spot at the new table, running my hands over the smooth surface. This one was better. It wasn’t so cold, both visually and literally, and it suited the space better. Maybe it had been a blessing in disguise.
“We should go over things,” Leo suggested as he plated our dinner. Alex brought over my coffee, made perfectly. I thanked Alex for remembering.
“I wrote it down,” he admitted. It was still sweet of him to make a note that I liked my coffee with extra cinnamon and non-dairy creamer. I told him as much, reaching up to plant a kiss on his cheek.
Leo cleared his throat and Alex moved out of the way, taking the seat next to me. After putting the plates down at each setting, Leo joined us.
“So, game plan,” Alex prompted.
“Yes. I’ve got a scale, measuring tape, and painter’s tape to mark the floor and where the objects will be. Basically, we’ll take turns bringing the object to ourselves. We can just toss them back to Alex, and Alex, you can put them back in the exact same spot marked by the tape. When we’re done, we’ll look at the stats and see what we find.”
“Simple enough,” I said, twirling the linguini and blush sauce on my fork.
We finished dinner in comfortable silence, chatting occasionally about the cooling weather and Lucie’s new habit of hiding underneath Leo’s bed to attack his ankles. I suggested Leo wear thicker socks so he wouldn’t get clawed, but he refused, stating it was now a matter of pride that a damn cat wouldn’t control what he did in his own home. I sputtered a laugh and let it go. He’d find out soon enough that she did own his home, like any cat did.
Once we finished and the plates were cleared, I asked, “So, Mr. Scientist, what will the parameters be?”
Leo gave me a dry look, unamused.
“What?” I wondered. “Are we just picking any distance, or did you have something in mind? What objects are we using?” I turned to Alex. “Those are good questions, right?”
“They are,” he assured me. I turned back to Leo, who just sighed. He pointed to a box on the counter that I hadn’t noticed. Alex walked over, pulling out a bowling ball, smallish figurine of some winged creature, a pen, and a coin. He lined them up on the counter before getting the scale, tape, and measuring tape out.
“Who’s going first?” I asked, watching Alex tear off a strip of tape and put it on the counter’s edge. He tossed the roll to Leo, who caught it and pulled off another, longer length to place at our feet.
“It doesn’t matter. I can,” he offered.
“I did think of something else,” I said. Leo levitated the measuring tape to him, measuring two feet. He tore off another strip of tape to place down to mark how far back our feet could go. “Mine happens basically instantaneously. Are we placing a time limit on you?”
Leo paused in his work and looked up at me.
“That’s…” He frowned at the ground. “That’s a great question.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling proud of myself. “I thought so, too.”
“Yeah, that’s a good one,” Alex agreed. He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “What should we do?”
“I think that could be another set of experiments for Leo,” I answered. I was on a roll tonight, full of good ideas and questions. “I don’t think that really impacts me, or others. But it’ll be interesting to see if moving things faster releases more gamma radiation or not. I bet it does, but only a little bit.”
Leo gave me an approving little nod. “Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. I can do that tomorrow while you work and let you know.”
I clapped my hands together. “Perfect. So, for this experiment, what do you want to do? Time limit? No time limit, but record how long it does take you?”
“I think no time limit, but we’ll see how long it does take. And then after I do my own tests tomorrow, we can repeat it with you if we see a need.”
We both positioned ourselves within the box marked on the floor, and I watched the coin as it zipped into Leo’s hand. My forearm tingled with a notification that I’d been exposed to gamma.
Alex whistled appreciatively, catching the coin as Leo tossed it back. Alex made a note in his phone of the time, which was probably something like one whole second, and looked to me when he was finished.
My turn.
I held out my hand, taking a moment to envision the coin and where I wanted it to go before summoning it. Just like Leo, it appeared in a second, and I tossed it back as my arm buzzed again. We repeated the coin two more times each, just to be thorough, before moving on to the pen. It whizzed to Leo’s hand almost as fast as the coin had.
The rest of the tests with the pen and dragon figurine went well. But the bowling ball… I had never teleported something as big, or as heavy, as the bowling ball. Yes, I’d been practicing, but my phone was usually the largest item I summoned.
“So…” I drawled. “I don’t know how well this is gonna go.”
“Why?”
“That’s big,” I answered, gesturing to the bowling ball Alex carefully placed on the tape.
“So?”
“So, I don’t know that I can do it. My ability is different than yours. I just can’t give up halfway if I realize it’s too much for me.”
“Callie, it’s only twelve pounds.”
“And that’s, like, ten pounds more than I’ve ever done before.”
“Seriously?”
My fists went to my hips. “I’m taking things slow. I’m being careful. Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not, I—”
I cut him off. “You absolutely were. And I do have other things in my life than just practicing for hours on end like some boring people.”
Alex coughed, presumably to hide a laugh. Leo switched tactics, opting for reassurance. “It’ll be fine.”
“If I end up with a broken toe,” I murmured, turning to glare at the bowling ball. It floated effortlessly to Leo, though took him the longest amount of time yet, which Alex recorded. I felt a little smug.
“Here, can I?” I held my hands out towards the ball. Leo handed it over, and I made a show of almost dropping it. He lunged towards to try to catch it, old habits still overriding his new ability.
“Hah.” I stuck my tongue out at Leo. I turned to face Alex to hand off the bowling ball to him, extending my arms as I did so.
Suddenly, the weight of the ball just…vanished. It appeared in Alex’s hands that were stretched towards me. Caught off guard, he fumbled the ball and it dropped to the floor with a loud, reverberating thwunk.
We all stood frozen, and I wasn’t sure who was more surprised. Me, who had no idea I could even do such a thing, Alex, whose toes had barely escaped unharmed, or Leo, who stood with wide eyes at my empty hands.
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Several beats passed without any one of us saying anything.
“Well. That’s…new?” Alex finally asked, looking to me.
“Um…yeah. New,” I confirmed. I ran a hand through my hair. “That’s, uh, interesting.” Leo just nodded. I could see the gears in his head turning, smoke coming out of his ears.
“Why do you think…?” I trailed off, my own thoughts swirling.
Alex answered first. “Exposure to the abilities of others helps unlock it,” he reminded us. “Perhaps that’s what’s happened? Your ability just…leveled?”
“Leveled,” I repeated. “I like that. Like a game.”
Alex picked up the ball from the floor and placed it on the tape. With considerable focus, it came easily to my hands but the sudden weight was still a shock. I almost dropped it.
After two more times, I felt more confident summoning the bowling ball. I had a theory that not seeing the object coming at me first made it more difficult for my brain to handle its sudden appearance. Hopefully with more practice I’d get used to it.
In the midst of cleaning up our little experiment, Leo froze. Bent over with a strip of tape half pulled off the floor, he cocked his head towards his hallway. I paused, listening and hearing a soft beeping alarm coming from that direction. Leo straightened, smoothing the portion of tape he’d pulled back down.
“They’re ready,” he announced. “Don’t touch anything.”
“What’s ready?”
He didn’t answer me, disappearing down his hall. I met Alex’s gaze and shook my head. He shrugged in return and walked to me, wrapping me in his arms loosely.
“Do you ever feel like you’re living with a mad scientist?”
I tossed my head back on a laugh. “Yes. Often.”
“Care to show me your stats while we wait for the him to return?”
I led Alex over to the sectional and pulled up my stats, clearing the two dozen plus alerts I’d gotten before navigating to the correct tab.
I swiped through the timeline, noticing how the spikes that were my own gamma were sharp and sudden, whereas Leo’s gamma were smaller, gradual hills. They alternated, a hill then a spike, and after three repetitions, the gamma increased. It was clear to me that the larger the object, the more gamma emitted, though not by a whole lot. At least for me. Leo’s little hills were more stable, though there was a slight variation in them.
“Looks like the bigger the object, the bigger the spike,” I said.
“Yeah, I agree.”
“I wonder if—”
“Got them!” Leo proclaimed loudly. He came over and handed Alex a small box. “Your lenses are done.”
“Nice. You haven’t tweaked them to spy on me, right?”
“Course not. I have better things to do than watch your boring life,” Leo answered.
I cleared my throat loudly. “Thanks, Leo.”
“Put them in, make sure they fit right. And then we’ll test you.”
“Test me? My power is vastly different than both of yours,” Alex reminded Leo.
“So? I have an idea. It’ll be fine.”
“How will Alex be able to see his stats?”
Before Leo could answer, Alex said, “I have no interest in keeping track like you two. I really don’t see a need to. I deal with this well enough on my own.”
Leo said, “Fair enough,” and ushered us back into the kitchen, were he finished setting things back up again. Alex put in the lenses with only a little struggle, blinking rapidly until they settled.
“All good,” he confirmed when Leo asked if they were working properly.
Leo made Alex do all the same experiments we did, except by carrying the object with his super strength and walking the distance.
“This is the most boring thing I think I’ve ever done in my life,” he said after the third time carrying the little dragon figurine in his hand. “And such a waste.”
“It’s for science; it’s not a waste,” Leo argued. Alex rolled his eyes, and I hid my smile behind my hand.
Once Alex finished the very riveting and not at all yawn-inducing tests, we all settled onto the couch while Leo collected our stats and threw them together to project on the wall like last time.
“Are those all the same scale?” Alex wondered, pointing to his on the bottom. The spikes were drastically higher than mine or Leo’s.
“Hmm.” Leo checked. “Yeah, they’re the same.”
“Why do you think that is?” I asked.
“Could be several things, I think.” Leo paused, looking closely at his tablet that displayed the same stats projected on the wall. “You’ve built up your ability over the past couple of years, which might make it stronger. Or maybe because you’re exerting your ability on yourself and not a smaller, non-organic object, it requires more.”
“Does it matter?” Alex asked. “Originally, we were looking at the two of you because yours are more similar than mine. I don’t really fit in this equation.”
A funny thought occurred to me, one that both men would likely hate. “Now, a fun thing to figure out would be if the same amount of gamma is exerted if Leo were to use his telekinesis to move Alex and each object across the same distance. Then compare it to Alex walking with it. You get the idea?”
“I’d rather you teleport me,” Alex answered blandly. “Save some time.”
“I haven’t tried with anything living. I might accidentally kill you. Or get you stuck in the in-between,” I answered nonchalantly. “Maybe I should practice with butterflies or something first.”
“We’re not using our abilities on each other,” Leo said sternly.
“Spoil sport.”
Alex nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. I gave him a “who, me?” look.
“Do we care to find out why Alex’s abilities give off more gamma?” I asked.
Alex shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“You’re not even a little bit curious?” Leo prodded.
“Nope,” Alex insisted. I suspected that was a lie. But I didn’t blame Alex for not wanting to go through more of Leo’s little experiments. I certainly wouldn’t want to if I had mastered mine.
“Another question,” I said, changing the topic. “For the times that there were major spikes, they were still counted the same on our bio-screens. Should we change that?”
Leo considered. “Probably. We could pick a standard unit, like one microsievert, which is around the level of gamma radiation the screens picked up on for the coin and the pen, and go by a decimal system from there.” Like I knew what a micro-whatever actually was. I’d have to look it up later.
“Cool. Also, do we think the bigger spikes affect us more? Like, does a bigger spike have a bigger effect than two smaller spikes that add up to the same amount?”
I grinned when Leo rubbed his temples at my questions. “I don’t know, Callie.”
“You can’t blame me for wondering.”
“Alright, miss smarty pants, what do you think we should do?” Leo’s tired gaze met mine.
I considered for a few minutes, staring up at the stats projected on the wall. There were several good options that would likely work, but until we had more information, there was only one that stood out to me.
“Okay. I think that we should have different levels based on the size of the spikes. We’ll still give them each a decimal rating based on the amount of gamma, and add that up for a total. But if I start teleporting some big objects and that tires me out, but doing a bunch of little ones afterwards doesn’t, then we’ll know if there’s limits based on size. And if I don’t start to get tired until I reach a total in general, then the extra division doesn’t hurt and we can get rid of it.”
Neither of them said anything.
“What? Do you think that’s a terrible idea or something?” I worried.
“It’s the best idea based on what we know,” Leo finally said. I let out a relieved sigh. “Alex, do you mind if I make that change real quick before you go?”
“Do I have to take the lenses out?”
“No.”
“Then go ahead.”
Leo sank back into the couch, tapping away on his tablet again as he adjusted his modifications to match my suggestion.
I reached over to Alex and rested my head on his shoulder. “Hi.” He reached around me, stroking my arm softly.
“Hi,” he answered.
“I’m tired.”
“Me, too.”
“We both work tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
I swallowed. Alex and I had been together for nearly three weeks—twenty-two days since our first date, to be exact, but who was counting? While I was comfortable with things, it was starting to feel like it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. So I had done a bit of preparing for an opportunity like this.
“Do you just want to stay here tonight?”
“I’d rather make the trek back home than stay on a couch.”
I swallowed again. Quietly, I clarified, “That’s not what I was suggesting.”
Alex pulled away to look at me. He looked adorably confused, which relieved a bit of my anxiety.
“I don’t have anything with me,” he said. It wasn’t an answer.
“I’ve got some things. We could swing by your place in the morning if need be. But I just…” I trailed off. I couldn’t look at him, and instead stared down at my hands. “I wanted to offer. You don’t have to say yes. Obviously.”
“Callie, I think—”
“Done,” Leo announced. I shot a glare at Leo, not that he noticed. He just came over, holding his tablet close to Alex’s face first, then my forearm, and finally his own. “Give it a minute, and it should rework the stats.”
It was more like ten seconds. But while Leo worked on displaying the adjusted stats on the wall again, I checked my screen instead.
P1
6
6
P2
3
6
P3
4
12
P4
0
0
S1
9
3
S2
3
1.5
Total
28.5
“I thought the decimals would be more…complicated,” were the first words out of my mouth.
Leo shook his head. “Not yet. I set the parameters for each level, but it’ll take me more time to code it so each individual instance is different based on the specific amount of radiation. For the coin and the pen, they were similar enough that they’re both grouped together in P1. It has a multiplication of one, so no change. For P2, the figurine, it’s a multiplication factor of two. P3, it’s three. And so on. For S1, it’s dividing by three, and for S2, it’s dividing by two. If there’s an S3, it’ll stay the same, since it’ll be comparable to the same amount of gamma as P1.”
I continued staring at my stats, taking in Leo’s words and seeing how they fit with what I was looking at.
“Alex, I didn’t worry so much about yours since you’re on a different level than us. Your primary gamma groups have a larger range to accommodate. I’ll work on coding a bit more for you specifically, maybe tomorrow.”
It was a great start, I thought. For right now, it would work perfectly. Leo’s desire to make it even more specific was very much a Leo thing to do. Finally looking up from my screen, I saw Leo’s and Alex’s stats up on the wall, along with mine.
“So, yours and mine are the same?” Leo’s matched mine exactly, except for that one time I accidentally sent the bowling ball. Alex had nothing in P1, but plenty in P2 and P3. His, I noticed, went up to P5.
“Not exactly. Yours, Callie, are ever so slightly higher than mine, but still within the range for each level. That’s why they look identical.”
“And when you have the detailed code finished, it’ll reflect that.”
“Yes.”
A yawn escaped me despite the earlier coffee. Leo shut everything down.
“It’s late. Goodnight.” He turned and vanished down his hallway.
Alex looked at me. “That was abrupt.”
“Whatever,” I said. “He’s probably going to stay up past two working on things and wanted to get started without us bugging him.”
My unanswered question hovered between us. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Alex. I was waiting for his rejection, staring off into nothing and waiting for him to make the first move to leave. Because if he was going to says, he already would have.
He cleared his throat. “Callie, I appreciate the offer, and I wish I could say yes.”
“But?” There was definitely a but.
“But I’m not prepared with anything.”
“I assumed, but I do have a few things for you—”
“And I don’t think I’m ready for that. Not yet, at least.”
“Oh.” I blinked, forcing the tears to retreat. “That’s okay. I’m sorry if you felt like I was pressuring you.”
“Not at all,” he promised quickly. He stood up and I followed him to the door. He grabbed his bag, slinging it over one shoulder casually. “I really appreciate the offer.”
I nodded, barely keeping it together enough to avoid him noticing. “Sure.” It came out small, weak. “I’ll see you soon, then.”
Alex paused in the open doorway to plant a kiss on my cheek. And if that didn’t sting like rejection. I felt like an absolute fool.
I closed the door softly behind him. It wouldn’t be me offering next time, that was for damn sure. That ball was fully in his court now.