I am a lean, mean violation of the laws of physics. We are officially on sick leave. My mates are sick. Those potions have done bad things to their gut flora and poor Ulrike has some kind of gynecological hormonal issue, as it found a uterine lining without a viable, not irradiated beyond hope, developing gamete to be something that needs to be fixed immediately.

My meanness ought to be a secret, but obvious fact. That is, as I am writing this, somewhat contradictory. Where is Alanis Morisette, when you need her song? The truly surprising thing is how much of my body mass I lost there. I have been wondering how much of the unpleasantness I can blame on radiation. According to the doctors, its effects on me are gone. None of us is showing signs of radiation damage.

I did an experiment. I weighed myself, downed a whole liter of water and weighed myself again. I gained one kilogram of weight. Twenty minutes later the additional weight is gone. I have done that math. That should have released about as much energy as a 20 megaton hydrogen bomb. You do not understand the mindset of a STEM person, if you do not get, why that is making me nervous. Am I a walking singularity? I do walk, by the way. I do not want people to know that I can teleport. Neither do I run, though it feels like I am much better at it than I used to be. I have standards. I am on sick leave.

Instead I am getting used to my new sense, which is not purely a sense and also breaks the laws of physics. I am also using the fruits of another ability. Dark purple is a bit garish a color, but my walking stick is stylish. The newest version I have conjured has a softer rubbery foot piece and my monogram on the handle. Strictly for training fine control, of course. And I am entitled to a walking stick. Sick leave, as you ought to know by now.

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Thus I am walking through a half-empty base. Our experience, except for its happy ending, has not been unique. Our mission has been a classic pyrrhic victory. I cannot blame the colonel. He did what he had to do with what he had available and has achieved a reasonable outcome. I still blame the Network. Their individual members may have been heros – or now one villain fewer, I am not sorry – but the organization is worse than the mafia.

Anyway, many of them should still be in the walking ghost stage but the doomed have not been returned to this base or in case they returned in the confused aftermath of the battle have since been transferred away.

I can sense people. And some devices. I can sense our detection device in the next room over, through a wall. It really works. People whose life you have saved from a death by decaying internal organs while they are still alive are willing to play games by randomly entering and leaving a room and making notes of their comings and goings for you to compare your notes with.

It does not stop there. I can make things move with my mind. Thereby also violating the laws of physics. I step onto scales and lift the refilled pitcher from my previous experiment. I do not become heavier. Nor am I manipulating gravity. The liquid inside the pitcher stays undisturbed apart from some sloshing and ripples. It definitely does not form the sphere it should form in weightlessness. Violating Newton’s Laws is even scarier than letting mass disappear.

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Ulrike being on sick leave it falls to poor Osmanoğlu to deliver the memo of doom. I have been banned from the cafeteria and will get my ration of coins at the armory every day. It explains my incipient worries about certain needs disappearing, not that I have been missing them after the degree I experienced them in the woods, but a slight worry had set in.

At least I am still allowed to use the vending machine for cooled beverages.