The newsfeed continued to stream, but I tuned it out while I thought. I finished my food and stuck the pot in the sink and half filled it with water. Mom would flip shit if I left it dirty but I could usually get away with soaking it.

Watching Kevin get shot yesterday, narrowly avoiding a conflict in the parking lot this morning, I'd decided something defensive was on the table for rune making today. I closed my eyes and turned my focus inward to try and pull on that connection to the akashic field. I pictured concepts I associated with defense, bullet proof vests, a knight's armor, Patrick Roy smacking a puck out of the air. A host of runes materialized in my mind's eye, wheeling across the horizon as I focused on what I wanted until one grew larger and floated to the front.

After tapping into the knowledge of the universe, I chose the shield rune. The next step was figuring out materials. I wanted something that would last, but I also wanted something I'd always have on me. Something like a medical alert bracelet, put some bs about diabetes on one side and nobody would ever ask me to take it off. It would be sturdy, functional, and not too ugly.

It also wasn't possible. I needed to get the cash from the pawnshop into my account so I could order an engraving tool, some metal blanks, a tattoo gun, and hell, if I could get more cash maybe a laser sintering CAD setup. For this morning I had my soldering iron and a sharpie. I tried thinking outside the box, but nothing seemed to come to me.

As I was aimlessly looking around my room it came to me. It had been at least a month since I'd washed that hoodie, and I'd worn it like a dozen times. Since it went over a t-shirt it didn't really get that dirty and I hated carrying stuff up and down 3 flights to use the laundry. Sharpie on cotton, if I washed it sparingly ought to last a really long time.

I went into my dresser and found a clean Central High Wrestling hoodie and turned it inside out. Meditative breathing to focus, and I dropped down to the edge of my soul space to pull anima and start drawing my rune.

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Before I knew it, a couple of hours had gone by and I had a hoodie with a shield rune on it. No way in hell I wanted to go play bullet catcher regardless of what kind of runed gear I came up with. But I did need to know how well this thing would work. I turned it right side out and tried it on, then pulled my head out of my ass and took it back off so I could test it without risking injury.

Instead I raided the fridge to find a person substitute Gallagher style. An egg was tempting, but I was afraid that was setting the bar a little too high. In the end I decided to go with an orange. I was at least smart enough to pop it in a zip lock bag first cause I didn't want to get my new stuff sticky. I laid the shirt on the table and stuck the orange inside it, then gave it a light smack.

Felt normal when I hit it, but when I pulled the orange out for a visual inspection it didn't seem excessively bruised. How hard do you have to hit an orange to squish it? Based on what triggered my mom to yell at me when I was bagging or carrying groceries they should be pretty delicate. I stuck the fruit back in the shirt and hammered down with my closed fist.

It actually hurt my pinky a little, like I'd smacked a table top. I was expecting the bag to look like something from orange julius when I pulled it out, but it still looked decent. Okay, time to take this up a notch. I put the fruit back in the shirt but this time I picked it up by the sleeves. I twisted it around a couple times to keep the orange from flying out then started whirling the shirt in the air to build up speed. A couple seconds later I swung with my whole body, smacking the table with a loud whack.

It was loud enough I immediately straightened and looked around. I was in the apartment by myself but I had that instinctive oh shit mom must have heard that reaction. The coast was clear though, so I untwisted the shirt and pulled the bag out to see one mauled orange in it. Definitely not bullet proof then. I could probably get on the internet and do some math about the weight of an orange and how fast I swung it to get an idea of how many newton's of force the shield was good for. I was happy with the general, somewhere between a smack and a hell of a whack.

The hoodie was basically like one of those Styrofoam bicycle helmets. Better than pavement to noggin, but not exactly the carbon fiber jobbie you'd want if a buick was coming at you. Maybe I could add more runes later.

I was considering options when one of the news stories that auto played pulled my attention.