The Wider World - Dee
"Okay I give up," Michael said, watching the people in the fields hoeing by telekinesis. "How does this stuff work?"
It was about two weeks after his own personal end of the world, and Michael had managed to cope rather well. He wasn't exactly fine but was doing okay, enough to function in society, and it had gotten to the point where Dat had put him on the duty rotor. People had more or less accepted him and gotten on with their lives and even the Flyball kids had forgiven us once we remembered to give back their ball. I can't say he was being very sociable but at least he wasn't freaking out whenever he met someone new.
One thing that was getting him though was the telekinesis.
"Long and complicated answer?" I asked. "Or short and simple?"
"Long and complicated please."
"Damn," I sighed. "I was really hoping you'd go for short and simple."
We were on yet another type of guard duty. This time making sure no one snuck up on the fields where we grow all our food. It's not just us admittedly, because there are a lot of fields, but it was more boring 'waiting for nothing to happen' duties, made worse by the fact there was a seven foot fence around the perimeter. I tend to get stuck on the grunt duties because Dat dislikes me for some reason, and as Michael was being paired with me for a while we were going to be stuck up another wooden watchtower for some time.
"Why, so you could say 'its magic' in that annoyingly bright tone?"
"Maybe," I admitted sulkily and Michael rolled his eyes. "And how did you know I'd say that?"
"Pattern recognition," he replied with a knowing smile that I think he stole off Robin.
There was a brief silence.
"Well?" he asked. "How is it you disobey physics then?"
"Ah," I said brightly. "We don't. We disobey the laws of logic, not physics."
"And that's different how?"
"Simple," I explained, levitating a bolt out of my quiver and let it hover above the palm of my hand. "I actually have to supply energy to fight gravity, and if I try this for more than about thirty seconds I get the shakes. All that energy has to come from somewhere after all and I'm not good enough to drag it anywhere but from me."
"May I ask how it's getting to the bolt?"
"You can," I said, dropping the quarrel into my hand and sheathing it. "But I haven't got a clue. Ask one of the twins if you really want, but I heard something about W minus particles and mega electron volts and gave up."
"More importantly though," he mused. "What the hell was it bouncing off the bolt to keep it airborne?"
"I don't know," I admitted, shrugging noncommittally. "Air maybe. We just kind of do these things. Actually understanding it is a whole new band of ability."
"I really need to talk to these twins of yours," he said sighing. "Wait. Bands of ability?"
"Sure," I said with another shrug, breaking into lecture mode. "Basically all levels of telekinesis fall into five general ranges. Level one people like me can only use energy from their own bodies. Level two can use the energy around them but have to use themselves as a router. Level three can manipulate energy all around them without using themselves as a router and that's where our really powerful psychics are. Level four's could start messing around with abstract concepts, atoms and such, and the theoretical level fives can implement EMC squared."
"Einstein's equation?" he asked, surprised. "What's that got to do with telekinesis?"
"Well, we manipulate energy at a distance. And if mass and energy are the same thing, well..." I left that hanging, mostly because I'm not wholly sure what it means; unfortunately you tend to pick up statements like that when you live with a level three.
Michael's jaw dropped as he clearly did get the implications of that.
"Holy…" he began, awestruck. "No one has that kind of power do they?"
"Nope. And we're probably lucky because anyone who did would be border line omnipotent. On the other hand the top five psychics have an energy draw in the megatons, though after a certain point being able to get more power becomes redundant. The twins are both more proficient a psychic than Apollo but he's got a good two miles of draw over them."
"Megatons?" he asked in sheer disbelief.
"That or kilotons," I admitted. "I always get those two confused."
"That's very, very scary," he said weakly. "One person with that much power…"
"Meh," I said with a shrug. "It's actually finesse that defines how scary you are. You may well be able to throw the equivalent of a nuke at someone, but that's fairly redundant when you take out everything within two miles. Yourself included. And I think humanity proved that blowing people up rarely works."
"That we did," Michael sighed. I'd shown him some of the devastation from humanity's final war and let's just say it didn't cheer him up much. "Still, it jars to have some people an order of magnitude more potent."
"Why?" I asked confused. "It's not like they're threatening and without psychics we wouldn't have survived. None of us low levellers would have powers either."
"Suppose. I'm just kind of used to democracy…" he stopped suddenly. "Wait, why would none of you have powers?"
Ah, that was one of the things I wasn't really supposed to mention. Until Michael was trusted implicitly Dat had said not to go into to much detail about our telekinesis. It was the ace up our sleeves so to speak. On the other hand Michael was smart enough to figure it out in about two minutes and I did actually trust him with this small titbit of knowledge.
"You have to be unlocked," I explained sheepishly, glancing round for anyone who might over hear. I don't know why I did as we were on a good thirty foot tower in the middle of the growing fields, and that basically translates to there being absolutely no one nearby. "It's a ten second thing by one of the psychics and suddenly you can move objects with your minds. I think its bird people only but I suppose now you'd probably be able to too now."
"Cool," he said. "How tough is it to…"
I held up a hand to stop him and cocked my head. I thought I'd heard something, something rather like a storm of people chopping wood and judging from the number of people on the ground dropping their tools and looking into the sky they'd heard it too.
"Is that?" he began as a dark shape roared over the tree line, big as a house and stirring up a storm with twin rotors.
"You guys don't do Chinooks do you?" Michael yelled and I just shook my head as the helicopter circled the fields slowly.
Alarm flares were going up from the other towers and while I've already said I'm not strong enough to do a flare it was fairly redundant.
"Erasers?" he asked, shouting right in my ear over the noise.
"They don't do powered flight!" I roared back as the helicopter stopped above the rough centre of the fields, and just guess where our tower happened to be.
I would like to say it landed gracefully but that would be lying, it hit the ground with a bang, crushing a crop of corn beneath it wheels and throwing dust into a spiralling cloud that clogged the air. Joy was going to be furious about that later but right now an unknown, potentially hostile, force had just landed in our only field.
I swung myself off the tower as Michael scrambled down the ladder and flared my wings at the last second, completely forgetting the small tornado being created by the helicopter. The wind caught in my wings and I went flying off my feet, desperately trying to clamp my wings shut and went smashing into Michael, throwing both of us to the ground.
"We never mention this," I growled, getting to my feet and hauling Michael up after me. I'd never live down such a stupid mistake if it got out.
"Greetings!" a Voice boomed though the maelstrom of dust. "This is Lieutenant Parkinson representing the United Peoples of Earth. We welcome you to our collective and offer military support, technological expertise and medical care."
We rushed towards the centre of the hurricane and saw a pompous looking man shouting into a bullhorn. He was obviously from the military with an overly fancy uniform and a royal stick up his ass. I disliked him on sight.
"You there!" he barked spotting me, using the bullhorn even though we couldn't have been more than five yards from each other. "Go get someone in charge and be quick about it!"
"How do you know I'm not in charge?" I shot back, stalking towards him and yelling over the cacophony.
He looked me up and down slowly and I put my hands on my hips, glowering at him.
"Get out of my way you silly girl," he said dismissively, pushing me to one side. "I need to speak to your boss about your joining our collective."
"And what if we don't want to join?" I shot back, pushing him back and almost bowling him off his feet.
"Dee…" Michael began cautiously.
"You'll join for the sake of humanity," Lieutenant Parkinson said angrily, regaining his feet and puffing himself up in front of me. I might have been impressed if I couldn't snap him like a twig.
"Ah," I countered loftily, flaring the tips of my wings for him to see and almost went flying again. "Well there you see is the problem."
His eyes bulged and I grinned from ear to ear. That had so been worth it.
"Dee!" Dat roared furiously and I winced. Apparently I'd spoken too soon.
Dat landed heavily a hundred yards away and rushed over, flanked by Talon and Apollo. The dust had more or less settled and I realised that I was standing in the centre of a rough circle made up of people who were, without exception, better suited to first contact then me. I hadn't realised that I was being so obvious.
"If you're quite done causing an international incident," he continued angrily. "We can actually deal with this like rational people."
"Finally some sense," Lieutenant Parkinson sighed, turning to Dat. "Can you direct me to who's in charge?"
"I am," Dat said simply, half yelling to compensate for the rotors. "And I would…" He paused. "Could someone please turn that bloody engine off?" he asked angrily.
There was a momentary pause and then a choking sound as the engine stalled and the blades spun to a stop.
"Thank you," he said more calmly, and Apollo shrugged. I was guessing it was him; the pilot was desperately trying to restart the engine so I assumed it wasn't their choice.
"How…" Lieutenant Parkinson began then shook himself out of it, going back to his usual pomposity. "I am here to offer you the chance to join the United Peoples of Earth, we offer military protection, professional expertise and…"
"Military protection? That means you'll have an occupying force," Dat cut in.
"Well yes…"
"And you'll want something in return. Food perhaps?"
"We all have to band together in this difficult…"
"Then no," Dat pronounced.
"Sorry?"
"We don't need your help," he said simply. "Trade? Yes. Collaboration? Sure. But we are not going to accept your sovereignty.
Lieutenant Parkinson scowled at him. "Fine," he said darkly. "But don't come crying to us when the sun bleaches your crops and the monsters come to eat your diseased ridden bodies."
A lovely image there.
"Get the hell off my field," Dat said levelly, as the engine miraculously started up again.
"You'll regret this," Lieutenant Parkinson growled, stepping back into the helicopter and for the first time I realised just how many heavily armed soldiers were in there. I probably could have done with noticing that before.
"Whatever," Dat said with an offhand shrug. "Come back when you're willing to negotiate."
The chopper began to claw its way into the sky and we watched it go, Dat scowling and a good half of the people there had their crossbows loaded. The mood was unpleasant to say the least, people had more or less accepted Michael, but I don't think they were going to be as friendly with these new comers.
I began backing slowly towards Michael, who'd cleverly slunk into the circle of people, hoping to get away before Dat noticed.
"Dee," Dat cut in suddenly as the helicopter faded into the background and I froze. "I'd like a word."
Damn.