Mike and Marius rocketed through the air towards the East with brazen disregard for anyone who might be looking upward. They found the turnpike and followed its meandering route southeast, piercing the fierce wind of their passage until Mike's eyes went watery from the chill. He continuously warmed himself with his corona as their travel time moved from minutes into hours before they descended upon the town of Somerset. Marius landed just out of sight of the main entrance to a Hampton Inn, then pulled out a wad of cash from a pocket as he walked inside. Still unsteady from the long flight, Mike followed more slowly.

The first thing he noticed approaching the desk was that Marius had flooded the room with happy, content memes. With casual eloquence, Marius sweet talked the woman receptionist as he arranged to pay in cash with an extra two hundred dollars as a security deposit. He got in a parting wink before moving off to the elevator.

As soon as the doors closed, Marius gave Mike a solid kinetic push. "You let me get upwise of you."

"I didn't know we were training, boss."

Marius made a big show of scowling. "You always need to be aware of your corona's position in the open dimension."

"Noted," Mike said. "Also, how do I do the upwise thing?"

"So you haven't worked it out yet? I suppose you're not a prodigy after all."

"Never claimed I was, boss."

The elevator doors opened and Marius wandered down the hall to a door and used the access card to open it. Mike collapsed onto one of the two queen beds. "Dinner would be nice at some point."

"Mike, you've got enough fat stores to get you through more than one night."

What the hell is this guy's problem with me? "I suppose you're right, Imperator. What's the training plan for tonight?"

"Before fighting other kinetics, you need to be able to maneuver your corona through the open dimension. I would like to see you make some progress on clearing as well. How are you doing with that?"

"I made a big ass pile of residue. It took a while to figure out the technique to move it to a specific spot, then it wouldn't stay together so I had to find a stable area. The pile has been working out since then. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do to it now."

Marius turned away from him to look out the window. "Just compress it, Mike. You compress it until you can see how they can cancel one another out. The pile just melts away into nothing after that."

"Should I work on it now?"

Marius turned back. "No. Our priority is getting you capable of moving upwise and downwise. If your opponents are pure kinetics like I expect, then they have probably figured out how to generate their own precursor by now. It's simple for people with only one talent to ignite. They simply use massive amounts of precursor and their mind shifts to a higher gear automatically. So you should expect them to be much stronger. However, they are also more limited."

"Let me guess, I hit them with an undifferentiated meme cast and then brain push them to death."

"Exactly," Marius said. "But they probably won't drop their corona when their mind pauses. You will need to maneuver upwise of them to deliver the killing stroke."

"Or smash their face in with a brick."

"Where are you getting a brick from?"

Mike shrugged. "I was speaking hypothetically."

"Don't. The Imperator is talking, so a piddling sergeant should be listening." Marius pushed down onto Mike's corona and then released. "Now while you are being quiet, I want you to notice how your corona moves back into alignment. Just try to get a sense of moving in the open dimension. Every time you intuitively fix yourself, you are moving upwise."

For ten iterations, Marius went through the process of pushing down and then releasing Mike. Then for another ten iterations, Marius did the exact opposite and slid his corona beneath Mike's. Getting back to normal orientation after being pushed up was distinctly easier. They then alternated between moving back into alignment from upwise and downwise for a third set of ten. After that, they went back and started over again. Two hours passed with them moving through the three exercises before Marius decided to move on to the next phase of training.

"Move upwise above my corona," Marius said. "I will retract myself, then you ride up above me in the open dimension as you come into contact with me. It's just like correcting yourself after being pushed downwise, except easier with another corona to press off of."

That exercise took a frustrating half hour for Mike to grasp, a time during which Marius went from condescendingly insulting to patient and warm. When Mike finally managed to move upwise on his own, the two of them celebrated with a high five. It took several more tries after that before he could do it again, but then he managed to succeed every time after that. The understanding of how to move downwise came for free once he had figured out upwise. Moving in the open dimension went suddenly from impossible to possible in his mind, much like the time he had learned how to do a front flip on a trampoline. He still had a lot to improve, but the hard initial stage of skill acquisition had been completed.

Marius then played a simple game with the room's access card, holding it aloft with his kinetic talent and commanding Mike to assume control of it. The game started easy, then grew more difficult as Marius applied his superior strength. At the end, Marius demonstrated his vastly greater skill as well by using the loop dimension to move slightly sideways and get above Mike's already upwise corona. Marius was in considerably better spirits by that point. They walked to a nearby McDonald's for a meal that Marius hated almost as much as Mike loved, then returned to the room.

"Work on your clearing for an hour," Marius instructed as he made his way into the bathroom.

Mike closed his eyes to increase his focus. The pile of precursor residue resisted his efforts to compress it. That didn't surprise him as he had stacked the residue in a solid configuration. Simply pressing against the pile with a blend of precursor didn't have much effect, if any. This doesn't make any sense. Pushing around the residue barely has any effect. Brute force is clearly not the answer.

The bathroom door opened and Marius emerged to flop down on the other bed. The television came on as Mike continued studying the problem before him. The root of the issue seemed to be the fact that he could only influence the residue with live precursor. The substance, whatever it was, didn't interact with his mind other than to create resistance to using the talents.

". . . and back to the top story of the day. The United States Penitentiary Allenwood, located in Pennsylvania, was attacked earlier today by another group of flying terrorists. The two from the hospital attack were among the group of six who assisted in the escape of over a hundred federal inmates, many of whom were convicted of violent crimes."

Mike sat up on his bed, thoughts of clearing gone from his mind. "So now there are six of them?"

"Mike, find where that jail is on your phone. I want to know how far away we are." Marius stared at the television with deadly intent.

After locating USP Allenwood, the map function provided a time estimate. "A little under three hours by car. It looks like mostly a straight shot northeast. We could probably be there in an hour flying."

"Let me look at the route. And if you need to use the bathroom, go now. The hunt is on, Mike." Marius smiled. "And if Zellar Wilson is trying to flush me out with these kids, he is going to have one hell of a surprise when my apprentice shows up instead of me."