Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) by Dave Renol (sad books to read .txt) 📗

bag of chips,and a couple of sodas. Walking back to the office, I saw that Markwas still bent over his computer doing his research, so I put thetray on the table next to him and fixed myself up a plate to takeback to my chair. “Eat up. The web will still be there if you lookaway for a few minutes,” I said, putting action to words as I tooka bite of my own sandwich.

Nodding agreement, he turned his attention tothe tray and quickly inhaled his lunch with the same single mindedintensity that he gave to his research. “There’s a lot ofinteresting information on psionics that I’ve read so far. Ifcircumstances were a little bit different, I would put thistogether as a basis for a new science fiction book.”

Hearing that, I almost choked on my sandwich.Leave it to Mark to turn the impossible into the mundane.

Chapter 6

Mark: Theory and Practice

I studied the apple intensely as it rotatedslowly in the air, a foot away from my nose. If I concentrated, Icould feel that ‘magnetic field’ sort of disturbance that I haddiscerned before. I was sure that the field was the key to all ofthis, even though I was no closer to knowing how.

I glanced over at Linda and saw her staringat the empty soda can floating in front of her, a look of boredomon her face. I was always the one to approach a subject with logic,research, and testing. She was more of the mindset ‘do it now andlet someone else figure out the details later.’ The opposingmindsets sometimes caused a bit of friction between us whileworking on a project, but in the end usually provided a betterresult.

“I agreed to start slow with you on this,”she began, “but I didn’t think that you meant baby steps. What’sthe point of this anyway?”

“I’m trying to figure out where the power todo the work is coming from. The limits and dangers change dependingif it’s from inside us, from around us, or from somewhere in thefirmament.”

“Alright, Einstein, but hurry up. I alreadyknow that I can safely lift myself at one hundred twenty fivepounds, so the limit of an empty soda can for a test is a bitsilly.”

I frowned at her impatience, but slowlynodded my acquiescence. “Ok, let’s try a few different things, butthrough all of them, keep that can aloft as our baseline. See ifyou can lift me a few inches off of my chair. I’m one sixty five,so that’ll be more than you’ve tried before, but should be ok.” Ihad barely finished talking before I found myself slowly rising offof my seat. It felt far weirder to float while under someone else’spower than on my own. “Ok, how do you feel? Any strain, pain, oranything else that feels wrong?”

“Nope,” she replied. “All systems green, soto speak.”

“Ok, put me down and try to lift yourself upwith your chair. That should be approximately the same weight, butwithout any distance. Force needed should change with both mass anddistance.”

“It feels about the same, but maybe a haireasier,” she answered after completing her task.

I tried the two tests myself and found themfairly close to the same. I thought about it for a moment and thensaid “Let’s head outside where we have a bit more room. I want totest the distance thing a little more.”

“Ok,” she agreed in a hurry.

We moved outside and set ourselves up abouttwenty paces apart. “Try now,” I said, doing the same myself. Weboth rose sporadically, as the feeling of rising from someoneelse’s control felt very distracting. Distraction aside, it didfeel a touch harder with more distance. We had the mental lever, Ithought whimsically; maybe we need a mental fulcrum.

“Ok, put me down and let’s try another twentypaces.” Once in the new positions we did it again, and this time Idefinitely felt that it took more power to do the job. “Once more,from opposite sides of the yard this time,” I called out. Her lotwas about one hundred yards long, and as we reached our positionsand began the test, I found that I definitely had to strain inorder to lift her up. I lowered her back to the ground and lookedaround the yard. I saw the ashtray on the patio table and figuredthat it would do for a comparison test. Yes, that was definitelyeasier to lift at a distance.

We were making a good start on gatheringdata, but I had to admit to myself that the combination ofresearcher and test subject rarely worked out well. There wouldalways be things missed due to being in the middle of it all. Maybewe could trust my old lab partner Carl. I had just come back from atrip where I helped him calibrate his new lab, and he owed me forthat. Plus he mentioned that he was going to take a few weeks offbefore beginning his testing in there, so he would be free. Idecided to talk to Linda about it when we took a break later.

I walked back toward the house and motionedLinda toward the patio. I pulled out a chair for her beforeflopping into my own. Talking about the last test, Linda agreedthat distance seemed to matter in regards to difficulty. “Let’s trysomething a tad different,” I said. “Why don’t you reach out andget us a couple of beers.”

“Hmm …” she started, “Not having line ofsight might make it a bit tricky, but I’ll try.”

It took about three minutes before I saw thepatio door slide open and the two bottles of Newcastle float outand toward us. As they neared, their paths diverged slightly, oneheading toward each of us. Beads of sweat stood out on her foreheadas she frowned in concentration.

“That was trickier than I thought,” sheadmitted. “Finding the fridge, opening it, trying to grab bottlesthat I couldn’t see, and then doing all the steps together wastough. I had to get a sort of mental ‘echo’ from things before Icould interact with them.”

“You did great,” I said with enthusiasm.“Multi-tasking at its finest, but you did screw one thing up.”

“What was that?”

“You forgot to open them,” I said,