Author's note: As usual, italics are used to indicate telepathy. I'm sorry about the delay in getting this chapter up, I ended up writing a lot more than this...and then realizing that it had gotten way off topic. I had to go back three chapters to this one and start over from here. Whoops! This chapter is a bit shorter than I'd like it to be, but I couldn't add much to it without this chapter becoming overlong. Enjoy!
For the next two weeks, I got on with my studies. I lead a normal life, or at least as much of one as I could manage. I did my best to deflect questions about Sarah's absence from the classes we shared, although I couldn't do much for the ones I didn't have with her. Eventually, Silver told me to come as soon as I could. I told him I couldn't leave without suspicion for another hour or so. I soon got out of class and walked to a secluded area. When I was confident nobody could see me, I returned to my trueform and flew away to the island.
When I was about twenty miles away from the island, Silver contacted me. Get underwater now. A fishing boat was destroyed by a rogue wave, and the crew made it to our island and is sheltering there.
Really? I hope they aren't too injured. Have they seen any of us yet? I asked while diving into the water.
Not yet, thankfully. But you were closer than I would have preferred by the time I noticed you.
Sorry about that. I was flying rather quickly
Just get here, Michael.
I'll be there in a moment. I'm almost to the tunnel. I told Silver. I swiftly arrived at the tunnel, and swam through it. I exited the water-filled tunnel and looked around. I noticed that Bozu, Sarah, Ryujin, and Silver were all here, in their human forms. I shifted to my human form and sat down with them.
Now that we are all here, we can begin, announced Bozu. First, there is the matter of your renaming.
What? Sarah and I asked at the same time.
Your old names don't suit you anymore. You will need to select new names, names that shall be used among us. Bozu told us. Please consider this carefully.
I sat for a while, and finally said, Alastair. It...feels right.
Are you sure? inquired Silver. This choice is binding.
It has a feeling of rightness about it. Yes, I am sure.
Very well, Silver said. You shall be known henceforth as Alastair. We sat for a while longer, waiting for Sarah.
Sarah finally came to a decision. Marajha, she said.
An interesting choice, Bozu said Are you sure about this?
Yes, Sarah said. As sure as I have been about anything in this.
You shall be known henceforth as Marajha, then, said Bozu. Now, it is time for you to take up your duties. As there are two of you, we believe that it should be possible for the two of you, working together on this, to remain in human form while maintaining your shared sector of control.
That would be wonderful! I said.
I would have loved to have that capability, said Silver wistfully. I was rather enjoying myself before I was changed, and then I had no time at all to remain human.
Speak for yourself, Silver. Bozu said. I was happy to get away from my old life.
I had a troubled life as well, Ryujin said. It did not pain me to escape it.
Well, Sar—no, wait, Marajha—said, before we get started down memory lane, could you get on with showing us how this works?
Very well, Silver says. Thank you for preventing the derailment, we really do need to get on with this. The most important portion of managing the climate is knowing how to do it without overloading yourself. You can't just shove currents and tropical waves around with your mind, you'd burn out. You have to find a critical point where a slight push can get things moving.
Define, 'slight', I requested.
Only totaling a few tens of gigajoules over the course of a few hours.
You have a very interesting definition of 'slight' I said. That would be...several megawatts of power that I'd be exerting!
Yes, well... Silver said. Slight in comparison to what would be required if you could not find such points.
And just how much would be required if I couldn't find such a point?
Well, your average hurricane releases roughly a petawatt of power. Assuming you let it get that far, and really needed to get rid of it, you'd have to channel that into a harmless system. You're looking at at least a few exajoules to effectively dissipate that.
Dear God, I said.
Yes, Silver said. It would be nearly impossible if there weren't easier ways. The easiest is to find points to avert the pattern that leads to a particularly nasty hurricane. Therefore, your initial training must be in locating these points. Let me show you how.
The rest of the day was spent learning the minutia of climate control on a global scale. A great deal of it boils down to recognizing patterns that lead to problematic situations, and applying the minimum necessary force to slide it into a different pattern, with a better result. It doesn't have to be done constantly, but the situation has to be monitored constantly.
We were also introduced to our other duty—dealing with certain man-made nastiness. Some of it is fairly low-key, subtly maneuvering existing environmental campaigns, establishing new ones online, and so on, but some of it was more "hands on." There have been a few times when personal intervention by a guardian had prevented what would have been a horrible disaster, and, sadly, a few times when a lugia was unable to reach the scene in time. Silver said that, for some of these incidents, it was only luck that had a lugia close enough to prevent them. He also mentioned a few times when the guardian who arrived had been too late to totally prevent damage, but managed to at least reduce the harm done.
Eventually, well after dark, the training was called for the day. We agreed to meet again over the weekend to continue training. I flew back to the woods by my college, and walked back to my dorm. I let myself in to my dorm room, and was surprised to notice that my roommate was already asleep. I must have spent longer than I had realized training. Sighing, I booted up my computer and got down to my homework.
I stumbled my way through what should have been easy problems about hardware design, and made mistake after mistake on simple antidifferentiation. My mind was abuzz with new information, unpacking itself and storing itself neatly away for later use. It was all absolutely fascinating information, to be sure, and I was sure that I would need it in the future, but now it was just distracting me. I asked Silver if he knew of any way to postpone it, and he told me he knew of no way of stopping this. I'd just have to deal with it on my own time.
Because of the distracting buzz of information in my skull, my homework took me much longer than it should have to complete. The sun was rising by the time I had finished, and I knew that if I went to sleep I wouldn't be up in time for my classes. I stumbled from class to class, and actually fell unconscious in the middle of Dr. Scott's lecture on the red scare. He was, understandably, pissed.
"Is my lecture really that boring, Michael? Should I just give up on teaching now?"
"No sir," I said. "I just had a...late night."At that, several of the other students in the class sniggered. "What?...oh, I see. No, it wasn't that."
"Then what, exactly, was it?" Dr. Scott asked.
"It's a bit complicated. I'll tell you after class." I said. Dr. Scott nodded agreement, then went back to his lecture. After class, he waited impatiently for the other students to exit, then nodded curtly to me.
"Explain yourself." he commanded.
"I'm terribly sorry, but I did have a very late night. I was with Sarah."
"...I thought you said it wasn't sexual. Also, Sarah was absent for just as long as you were, and now she's suddenly back and you're acting like this is the most natural thing in the world."
"It wasn't sexual. It wasn't even dating. It was just, well, I shouldn't explain. But I have gone over this with you. As for Sarah...I know where she was, but I shouldn't explain. However, "late night"
was a bit of an understatement"
"So, you didn't get much sleep?"
"I didn't get any sleep, Dr. Scott." I said.
"Well, that's unfortunate. Try not to let it happen again."
"I'll try not to," I said. "I'm not sure how well I'll succeed, though."
"By the way, do you know anything about ornithology?" Dr. Scott asked.
My throat went dry. "No, I don't know much about birds."
"Well, I've seen a really unusual bird around occasionally. It's pretty big, I wondered if you had seen it."
"No, Dr. Scott, I can't say that I have."
"Hmm. Figures." With that Parthian shot, he walked away. What had he meant by that last line? Obviously, I had been too careless when I left, but...surely he couldn't have realized? Hopefully he didn't realize the truth. Then again, he was a very observant man, so he might have. At least Sarah, apparently, had been more careful with her selection of a flight path and a landing site. It really wouldn't do for him to notice both of us flying, and then returning to class.
The rest of the day was uneventful, if viewed through a tired haze and sustained by more caffeine than could possibly be healthy. I made it past dinner, then immediately crashed.
The next day, I had almost completely recovered. I was still tired, but that was my usual state. I enjoyed my classes rather more than usual. I even managed to sit through my CS teacher rehashing concepts we had already gone over to help the slower people in the class. Monitoring the status of the climate, globally, provided far more entertainment than calculator games did. It was also rather more useful, and managed to get me through the drudgery just as effectively.
I was also excited, because that night gave me the opportunity to watch Godzilla for credit. There's nothing like free extra credit, except free extra credit that gives you an opportunity to amuse yourself! The movie was quite good, and the free pizza was both not bad, and not Chartwells. Then again, the second was rather implied by the first. Still, it was good to have good food on campus for once.
A few days later, I was idly scanning the currents in the Atlantic to pass the time in a particularly boring lecture when I noticed an exceptionally warm mass of water near the surface. Looking a bit farther out, I noticed a tropical cyclone—I wasn't sure if it was strong enough to be named yet—that would soon pass directly over it. Rapid deepening was the last thing I wanted to happen to this, as a quick projection of the storm's track showed that it was heading for a perennial favorite target of hurricanes—Louisiana. They were still in the process of recovering from the last hurricane to strike them, and another strong storm. Thankfully, there were ways to prevent rapid development of a storm system, and I intended to put them to the test. Then, I remembered the inconvenient habit my eyes had of glowing when I used my powers, and realized that there was no way I'd get away with anything in this crowded lecture hall.
I waited impatiently for class to end, and headed straight for my room. I closed the door and lied down on my bed, and put my pillow over my face, covering my eyes. I quickly got to work, adjusting winds here to enhance wind shear, finding a nearby cool current deep below, raising it slightly, and...damn. Right as I was starting to get some progress done, my roommate had walked in.
"Don't you have class?" he asked.
"Lecture," I grated, putting on my best suppressing-pain voice. "Go away, I've got a migraine."
"And why do you have a pillow over your head?"
"The light...hurts like hell."
"Right," he said. "Shouldn't you head to the health center?"
"Not if I can help it. Now go away."
"Fine. I'll chill out in the lounge," he said.
"Thanks," I replied, and returned my concentration to the task at hand. As he walked out, I resumed my efforts to shift the path of the cold water to cool or at least split up the warm water at the surface. It took more effort than I had anticipated—until I remembered the limits that being in human form applied to my power. I was using up my energy reserves quickly, and I was worried that it wouldn't be enough.
Marajha, I sent. What are you doing right now?
A study group, she replied.
Well, I'm going to need your help soon on this. I'm tracking a tropical cyclone, its headed towards a large mass of warm water. And that means...
Rapid deepening, Marajha replied. Yes, I know. I'll help you now.
No, don't! I sent. Not unless you have a damn good excuse for glowing blue eyes in the middle of a study session.
Ah...good point. I'll leave as soon as feasible, and help you with that current.
Thank you, I sent, and returned to my exertions. My energy stores were almost entirely depleted, so I shifted to merely maintaining the artificial elevation of the current. Even that was a challenge in my exhausted state, so I was very grateful when Marajha managed to find a secluded area and start helping me.
Thank you, I sent. I'll have to stop now, I can't sustain this any longer.
Its okay, I've got it, Marajha sent back. The others weren't kidding when they said it would take both of us to fulfill our duties in human form.
I'll start helping you as soon as I regain some energy, I sent, then lapsed into unconsciousness.
Ending notes: I did some work on the energy calculations. I massively oversimplified things, but assumed that diverting a strong deep ocean current to the surface would be sufficient to prevent a tropical cyclone from intensifying. I further assumed that such a current would be carrying roughly one Sv at around ten cm/second, and (to simplify calculations enormously) that it would need to be diverted roughly 30 degrees toward the surface. A few megawatts is on the low end of the scale of power that would require, and assumes an upward acceleration of merely 1/600 m/s2. And yes, an average hurricane releases roughly a petawatt of power (tens to hundreds of exajoules per day). Finally, I would appear to have no life, since I bothered to calculate this. Of course, this is just "back of the envelope work", but it shouldn't be that far off. I'll get the next chapter to you soonish, hopefully next weekend.
I made a minor change in one person's title, but that's it for this update...I *WILL* be back by December, and maybe I can fit some writing in this month.