May 11th

Thirty minutes down the interstate from Rolla was Fort Leonard Wood. Twenty minutes of getting IDs checked and winding through the Army base was the base enlisted housing. A few minutes past that, backed up to the on-base woods, was officer and family housing.

Melissa had decided to throw herself full time into the Seekers and asked if she could bum a room from me when we moved. I’d brought it up to Danny in front of Brent. Brent then decided to preempt the Seekers by arranging for a family housing unit on base, which included base access and everything that went along with that.

Staying in the mostly unfurnished house three days later was interesting, though. This morning, I sat on the nice back porch that looked out over a somewhat muddy lawn that was still struggling to grow from the water deluge. Past the lawn it quickly turned to a tangle of trees that stretched out all the way to the base fence, only crossing a few small roads.

Sitting across from me was Melissa, both of us quietly pushing our individual power. I breathed in, cycling my energy tightly in myself. Already full on power, I wasn’t yet trying for the next breakthrough, instead I was trying to gain a better control over my power. Instead of a general flood of energy into myself, I tried to guide the overflow in myself. Test where in my body I could send that energy in particular and see if it reacted like a block. Testing how I could possibly do something similar to what Barry had done to strengthen himself with his earth technique.

I frowned. Barry. I knew moving here made it a lot harder for Barry to figure out where I was and the Seekers building in Rolla now had a few actual military guards for general protection, even if Barry could probably walk through them. But he hadn’t shown up again. Joe was apparently under observation at a motel in Rolla, as Brent had said the people following Joe saw him meet up with several others before splitting apart.

I exhaled, letting go and letting my energy flow outward normally once more. A repeated idle thought crossed my mind as I wondered what happened to the energy I didn’t use when it overflowed. I was fairly certain we were breaking the law of conservation of energy, so where did that ‘waste’ energy go?

Not something I could answer right now, we didn’t even have a good way to measure energy in the first place. I put the thought aside once more.

Inhale. Cycle. Exhale. Release.

Breathe. Why, though? I could understand the people using the Earth’s energy needing to breathe it in and exhale the exchange. But I wasn’t using external power, it was all internal to myself.

I got up, irritated with myself now and unable to focus. Melissa looked at me, and I could sense her cycling, the energy rolling off of her. The feel of lightning sparking, before it faded away.

“You OK?” Melissa asked, looking worried and standing from where she’d been sitting on a step.

“Just…this. Everything.” I waved my hand around, encompassing the house, the base. Hell, the world as far as I was concerned. “We’re well beyond me bitching and wanting things to go back to the way things were before the alien arrived. But can I complain for one minute to have a new normal settle?”

The plaintive tone to my voice set Melissa off and I felt her cycling slow back to it’s normal rate as she laughed. “We’re actively working to figure out how to kick an alien at his own game when no one knows the rules. We’re not going to have normal until we at least know the rules we’re playing by.”

I sighed, looking out past the lawn to the woods. “Yeah, and who the hell knows what ‘regained balance’ is going to end up being,” I airquoted Zhaohui. “I wish I could get a better understanding when he says that piece.”

Although, just in case… “What is the strength of the world’s soul?” I hadn’t asked in a few days.

Your world has cleared the second block of the [Initiate’s Realm] and begins to regain its balance.

The words pushed against me. But even knowing what he was going to say and focusing on the last part of the sentence, I couldn’t get anything else.

“Yeah, still nothing.” I shrugged, unable to do anything else. “Nothing I’ve done recently has apparently been interesting enough to get his attention to dig something else out from him either.” I paused and laughed. “At least it’s another point we’re not doing anything for the alien, though.”

“Also in ‘no help from the alien’ news, I think I’ve gotten my light walking trick figured out. I’ve been messing with it all morning and I’ve got it down to forming my energy just right, instead of the brute force absorbing impact I was doing.” Melissa grinned.

“Wait, seriously?” I looked at her. “That’s awesome. What is it?” I sat back at the table. “Come on, explain.”

“Alright, so a really dumb, doesn’t actually explain it, explanation? Lift yourself,” Melissa started. “It doesn’t make sense, but that’s basically what I’m doing.”

I almost said something, but instead nodded and waited for her to continue.

“I originally started with the whole ‘absorb the impact’ thing because that’s how I got started with it back when we were dirt digging. I then started looking into things like surface tension and how maybe I was reducing my weight to something that didn’t break the mud’s surface tension,” Melissa explained before continuing. “I mean, I could stand on a scale and by brute forcing it I literally got lighter on the scale. So, it made sense.” She paused.

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I took the offered interruption. “How’d you get from that to lift yourself? And how the hell do you lift yourself?”

“I was going back through everything we had recorded on weight and whatnot. It was actually the first training class you did, holding the vending machine, that made me stop and think.”

Melissa flexed her arm. “I’ve got muscle, but nowhere near enough to lift something like that, especially as easy as you did that. But you can. And I can. And that thing is heavier than I am. So if we’re lifting weights with energy and my weight is less than my maximum lift, why can’t I lift myself with that energy?”

“Because you should need something to provide a lift from? I mean, I’ve seen people lift themselves via pulleys and buckets.” That sounded almost like a cartoon. “Can you literally lift yourself in the air?”

“No, not that far. I haven’t figured it out that well, so I still need something at least vaguely solid to do it from.” Melissa motioned me to stand back up, so I did. “Here, boost me up on your hands, I’ll show you.”

I set my feet and held out my arm, palm up. Melissa jumped up onto my hand. Huh. “I can still feel your weight.”

“Yeah, I wanted to make sure you saw the difference.” This close to her, I could feel Melissa’s power cycle as she did something and I felt the strangest sensation in my hand as the energy cycling in her legs and feet seemed to stiffen up, pulling up on her body. The weight of the adult in my hand vanished just as fast.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, holding my hand steady. “You have no weight.”

Melissa took a step off my hand, dropping onto the back of my chair without tipping it. “Moving is like shifting my weight around, but still holding it.”

“Alright, let me grab a tablet to record this, then you’re going to go over this whole thing with me. This is definitely something new and good.” I was in and out of the house in a moment, returning with my tablet and clicking the recorder on.

Melissa nodded to me and the tablet. “Alright, the first thing I had to figure out was how to disentangle how much of something I’m lifting is me physically versus with energy. Hopefully we don’t have to go through a week or two of my tests on surface tension to figure this out for you.”

“Wait, what do you mean disentangle?” I paused her.

“Just that. After all those surface tension experiments, I finally figured out how to tell just how much of a lift is my energy versus me. So you need to be able to tell how your energy is doing the lifting when you pick up something heavy.”

“This is going to be a pain in the ass.”

~~~

When Brent came by an hour later with some paperwork, the look on his face was pretty priceless.

Even as I was picking up the empty fridge we’d drug onto the porch, Melissa was sitting on what looked like empty air.

“What on Earth?” he asked, trying not to interrupt. “Melissa, are you flying somehow?”

She shook her head, grinning. “Sitting on some fishing line. Twenty pound test we found in a closet that someone hadn’t gotten rid of when they moved out. It’s a lot harder than it looks.”

I set the fridge down, frowning at it and then my arms. “Yeah, I’m not going to figure this out immediately. I kind of see what you’re getting at, Melissa, but it’s almost more instinctive than purposeful. Like learning to move an involuntary muscle.”

“Karen would love that description,” Melissa laughed, before hopping down from the line. It didn’t even lift up like she’d be placing any weight on it or the limbs we’d tied the string to. “That’s seriously exhausting to sit on that, by the way. I don’t think I’ve burned energy that fast since I lit my dantian.”

“Melissa figured out that technique she started a few weeks ago. Turns out if you try hard enough, you can negate your weight. Or maybe mass. We haven’t figured out which yet. Gravity still appears to work though, so no flying.” I looked at the fridge with a frown. “I’m still trying to get her step one myself.”

“That’s mildly terrifying,” Brent agreed. “What else does it do?”

“Still working on that,” Melissa answered. “I figured I should be able to jump like nobody’s business, but I haven’t been able to use this yet and also apply my strength to a jump as well. Anytime I try, it collapses and I’m back to my normal weight.”

“The less said about me trying to lightly toss you onto that string the first time though, the better.” I laughed and Melissa just blew a raspberry at me.

“Huh.” Brent then shook his paperwork. “I’ve got a schedule for your Combatives training course. I’d prefer if both of you were going.”

“Combatives?” I asked. The answer sounded obvious, but still. “A fighting course?”

“Army Combatives are a military martial art, yes. The base has multiple trainers, so I’ve arranged for a two hour evening lesson daily until further notice. Either just you, Nicole, or both of you.” Brent paused, then looked to Melissa. “I’d like to learn whatever this trick is as well. Is it teachable to someone using the Earth’s energy?”

“I wouldn’t see why not,” Melissa answered, then looked at me and shrugged. “Aren’t you the one teaching stuff, though?”

“Only what I know. You’ve got something new, let’s teach everyone we can and see where it goes.” I looked at Brent. “I think actually using it’s going to be limited to those who can lift their own weight just with energy, so you may not be able to on just the first breakthrough.”

“The theory can probably be taught to anyone to get started,” Melissa chimed in.