Justin settled back into his character with something very like relief, his jaunt to the real world finally over.

Accessing his camera feed, he checked everything was ok in his laboratory, and then commed Division to make sure things was ok with the team. Apparently the world had failed to end without him, so Justin settled back into his server to experiment with his new powers.

He inspected his essence with mental fingers, looking for changes. There was a definite hardening at the edge of his awareness, similar to the structured code that had protected his mind from the crash, but different, closer to his own code. More organic for lack of a better term.

Next he practised a little with the over-clocking, getting used to the required focus as everything around him slowed to a crawl, and the strange, doppler-like shift of the radio as it slowed and stretched into incomprehensible noise.

Wait a minute, he thought, suddenly realising something he'd missed before, something he probably should have realised straight away. How did the radio sound normal while he was still running fast enough that it should be a sluggish mess? It was probably the game system, smoothing things out, playing with his perceptions, what he considered normal in the same way it had messed with his understanding of language. It was probably nothing to be concerned about, something he should just accept and not look at too closely. For once he actually listened to himself, he had other more important things to think about.

Quantum Field Manipulation III

Type: Omni-Kinesis, Limited (1ft range, Quantum Effects, Control Only)

Description: Manipulate energy, waves and particles at a sub-atomic level.

Details: Uses the Visualisation and Control skills to determine effect.

It was almost a type of reality warping, an incredibly, prohibitively, expensive power in its base form. But Justin hadn’t wanted wide-spread god-like powers, he'd been happy to accept low-range god-like powers, and so with a few limitations, the cost had dropped to only moderately expensive.

He settled in to experiment, pushing and pulling at the universe a little around him. Nothing happened. He hadn’t honestly expected it to be that easy, but good experimentation has to start somewhere. He stilled his thoughts, and pulled back into his essence, shutting out the world and turning his attention inwards onto the core of his being.

Once he was suitably focused, he played with ideas, mental constructs, ways to visualise the concepts he wanted to interact with. It was one of the things he'd learned listening to his teammates and the problems they'd had in the beginning.

Successful Skill Use +10 xp to Meditation - Beginner Level 2 [67%].

Successful Skill Use +12 xp to Visualisation - Beginner Level 2 [26%].

New Skill Discovered! Control has been added to known skills.

Successful Skill Use +6 xp to Control - Beginner Level 1 [06%].

Justin admired the incredibly complex visual in front of him. It had taken him a while, but he’d finally found a combination of images that seemed to work with his new connection to the world.

He was still looking inward, inspecting his ‘body’, but it now looked nothing like it had before, more like a strange amalgamation of astrological phenomena and brain imaging. His essence a vast green-glowing nebula floating in space, energy flashing like lightening from his core, spreading through the gaseous mass as each region activated in vibrant colours before fading once more.

Just beyond the shifting boundaries of his being, galaxies spun and rogue solar systems and planets flashed by, disturbing, pulling, pushing at both his own energy, and the underlying fabric of the void.

The material of the entire image stretched and pulled like the surface of a rubber balloon, disturbed by the presence of everything within, every pulse, every flash of energy, every planet created waves and ripples, disturbing everything around them until they settled back into a new pattern and everything started once more.

Justin had never done drugs, but he’d seen enough holo-casts to know that he was tripping hard.

Pulling back slightly, he considered his being with a new appreciation of the possibilities.

He'd noticed early on that his essence seemed to exist alongside, but outside, the confines of his server cluster, more like a parasite latched onto a host, draining its energy, making use of its cycles as physical tools like abacuses to spur its own internal calculations, and its drives like a notebooks, somewhere to keep its conclusions but not exactly necessary for the thought process.

Looking at himself now, he couldn't help but wonder whether it would actually be possible for him to live outside of the system. He wouldn't be very smart without system processors to underpin his thoughts, more like an animal than a complex high thinking being, but there might be a way to replicate a quantum system with his power, creating virtual spin mapping out of the ether. It would depend on whether he could come up with a design that his new power could replicate.

The other thing he'd have to supply was energy, and a lot of it. You didn't dance with the laws of physics without bringing a big gun. But then energy was the main reason he chose this power in the first place. Nearly everything he hoped to build would require massive amounts of power, both to create and run.

And if there was one thing that was prevalent in the universe, it was energy. True, most of it was locked up in pesky knots of matter, but that wouldn't be much of an issue if he could figure out how to release it safely.

That kind of atom smashing could wait though, there was plenty of free energy floating around, waiting for him to put it to use. He focused on the idea of drawing a small amount of energy from the void. Trying not to visualise anything beyond the idea of the power itself, not wanting to limit things with his own ideas, curious as to what type of energy would be most reactive to his power.

After a moment, he decided he had probably done something wrong, because all that happened was something began flickering in the void at the edge of his awareness, particles flickering into life, spinning in strange circles, before disappearing again. Maybe he shouldn’t have focused on the void itself, he wondered, pulling back. But the dance continued, and then two of the flickering, momentary spheres of possibility collided, and they were spinning in different directions.

The pulse of energy that ran through him was incredible, vibrant, and it was like being caught in a flash-flood. Justin was pretty sure it would destroy him any second if he didn’t find something to do with it. He triggered his over-clocking, hoping desperately for more time to figure things out.

He tried just dumping the energy into the air, and watched through his camera as a thick sphere of lightning formed inside his lab, arcing and grounding itself amidst his delicate equipment, starting fires and shattering bulbs. Justin was fairly sure the power had already blown, and the only reason his server was still active was the incidental thread of power running in reverse from Justin's core, a minute amount compared to the quantities still pouring into his core.

His mind refused to focus, watching the end of his character in mingled fear and regret. Strangely his mind wandered to that moment of joy as he'd found his initial refuge on Manticore's system, and really, really, wished he'd never left.

Justin's consciousness flickered as the energy rushed back out of him, tearing a hole through the fabric of reality itself and depositing his essence inside Manticore's computer, still active in the depths of his salt mine lair.

Huh, he thought, as a black fog settled over him, I guess the police never did find this place.

You have been drained by an effect.

Warning! Integrity less than 5%.

Unconscious!