“I can’t believe we’re still doing this,” Bec said as she watched the bars slide shut on her new prison cell.

“You are a walking hazard Bec, we have to do this. For your own good.” Robert said from behind the bars.

“For your electronics’ good, more like it.” Bec crossed her arms.

“It’s absolutely crucial that you learn how to stay off the radar, in this case, literally!” Ms. Scarlet said with a chipper tone. “Think of this as our first bit of training. I would have done something similar anyways.”

“This lock won’t open until your Geiger counter shows that ambient radiation levels are normal. We’ll check in on you in the morning!” Robert said, starting to leave.

Bec looked around the room to see it was covered, from ceiling to floor, in crisscrossing bars with a floor lamp provided all the light in the room. “Did you make this room just for me or do you just have a Faraday cage for funsies?”

Ms. Scarlet snickered. “Oh Lauds, she sounds like my mom.” The black and red duo wandered away as Bec pressed her face against the bars.

“HEY. Come on guys, haha very funny, let me out! And you’re gone.” Bec saw them turn a corner. With a sigh, she plopped onto the floor. “You could have at least given me a chair…” The counter crackled. “Ugh, shut up.”

“What do you think you’re going to do to stop oozing radiation?” Al asked.

“Robert said that people can push and pull the Fabric on command. Maybe I can pull and hold the Fabric inside of me? Or push it away so my Word doesn’t work as strongly? The Timelet isn’t gonna bail me out of this problem. I’ll need to think my way out of this.”

“Hmm, sounds like a plan. I have some ideas if that doesn’t work. It’ll probably be a lot harder, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“Harder than learning to push and pull on an intangible, invisible object?”

“Maybe not, when you put it that way…”

Bec laid on the hard, cold floor and held the Geiger counter up to look at the redlining meter. “HERNK HERRRRK,” Bec flexed her everything and thought about drawing in the energy around her. The Geiger counter crackled loudly. Was it more or less crackling? Bec couldn’t tell, but she knew it wasn’t good enough. Bec tried to push everything away from her, not like she knew what it really felt like, she more just imagined a muscle that did that action and expanded it. She didn’t have any indicator of how she was succeeding or not.

"Al, I’m not done giving up on this task, but I was wondering if you had any idea how we could measure my success or failure.”

“Do you think it would be too hard to multitask? Make your hand glow and try to push away the Fabric around it? I think I’ll just tell you that my idea was to get you to actively modulate the EM waves around you. It seems to me like you’re constantly, unintentionally, pulling, and pushing energy into the radiation around us. The Geiger counter is picking up Gamma Rays, but I’m concerned that you’re actually scrambling a wide band of radiation. I can only presume that the reason you aren’t a complete blurry mess of colors is because you’re subconsciously keeping the visible light band of radiation clear.”

“Am I just going about this wrong? Screw the push and pull of the Fabric and just try to tamp down the way to not mess with the EM band?” Bec was really feeling full of choices on how to approach this issue. Hmmm, maybe if I… no… what if I… ah ha! “I have a new idea! I should learn how to pull the Fabric so I can apply my powers into a blob of light I can see without moving—”

“So, then we can have a better visual indicator of how well you are controlling the EM radiation! That’s a real plan!” Al sounded excited for the first time in a while, which made Bec smile and hop to her feet.

Bec needed to be in the dark to most effectively see the light she was generating, so she turned off the lamp. She was disappointed to remember this room was barred and open to the lit hallway, but it was dark enough for what she needed. She was about to start working when Al caught something she missed. “Bec! The Geiger counter! It’s crackling less right now! Bec looked at the cube bathed in light from the barred door. She walked over to pick it up and it started crackling with increased vigor. Shit, I’m so much more radioactive than the area around me.

“No! Bec, it’s because you stepped into the light! Bec, you’re not subconsciously avoiding visible light, I think you’re absorbing it and re-emitting it!”

“If I’m scattering visible light into the entire EM spectrum, wouldn’t that imply that I’m walking around slightly dimmer than I’d look otherwise? Why didn’t everyone say something?”

“Maybe it’s not that much dimmer than you’d normally look? You’re probably absorbing all EM radiation, so all forms of that stuff would be scrambled. You’re converting non-visible light into visible light at the same rate as you’re turning visible light into non-visible stuff. Assuming it’s random… it does seem fairly random since it seems like it’s hitting all edges of the spectrum.”

Bec yelped as a revelation hit her like a truck to a light novel protagonist. “Wait! I KNOW how to turn this down. I’ve already been practicing with dimming light. I can ‘dim’ the non-visible portions of the spectrum. I can steal and add to the amplitude of the waves!”

“I see. You’ve already been manipulating this stuff as early as the campfire day! Waves are broken down into frequency and amplitude. You’ve accidentally been messing with the broad spectrum of Electro-Magnetism by subconsciously changing the magnitude which, invariably and inversely, has been messing with the frequency!”

“If I add energy, the frequency goes down. If I take it away, it goes up… Oh no…”

"Oh dear, I see the problem here.”

“I bet you do. Al, I need to learn how to change the frequency and the amplitude—”

“You can’t crank down the radio wave interference by dimming it because—”

“It’ll raise the frequency and it will be pushed up the spectrum.”

Al rattled off the EM spectrum with an increasingly disappointed tone, “Gamma rays, X-rays, Ultraviolet, Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Infra-red, Microwaves… and, at the top of the frequency list…”

“Radio. The reason I’m locked up here is because I’m messing with their radios.” Bec sighed. “Until I can change frequency AND amplitude, I will permanently emit either gamma rays or radio waves as I push things up and down the spectrum.”

“Right now, you’re emitting both right now though. Very impressive.” Bec just closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know, you could stop emitting Gamma rays and get out of here anyways.”

“No.” Bec moaned. “I can’t. Not if I don’t want Robert to figure out my Word…”

Al’s tone suddenly got really sarcastic. He started slowly and his pitch and mocking tone increased with every question that he said, “Backed yourself into a corner with that bet, huh? Maybe, just maybe, it was a shitty thing to bet using me after trying to convince me I’m a real person, huh? Maybe, I dunno? Maybe you’re a hypocrite and thinking only of yourself, huh? Maybe karma hates you? I might.”

Bec grimaced. “Ah dammit. Al, I’m really sorry. I didn’t even think of you when I made that bet. I’m sorry. Please chime in if I’m doing something you don’t like.”

“I know you didn’t, and I see that you are. I guess I have to accept that as an apology.” Al paused for a moment, then said with exasperation, “Also, please stop thinking how life-like my mocking was.”

“Sorry. What… what am I going to do…” Bec shook her head. She was distracting herself from the real puzzle in front of her. The idea to learn how to pull Fabric was one she might have a visual indicator for. This new problem was much, much harder to pin down. What to do first? Practice one solution or figure out how to approach the other problem. Bec was sure they both needed to be addressed, eventually. “Hmmm. HMMMM. Screw it. Al, let’s do pulling practice, if it pans out, I’ll be better equipped to solve the frequency/amplitude problem.”

Bec slapped her face with both her palms to psych herself up. “Okay Bec, you can do this.” Holding her hand, she willed it to become brighter as she stood there. “Brighten the hand brighter than this without moving, you can do this.” Focusing hard on the dim red glow that shrouded her hand, she was impressed that she’d managed to do even lame manifestations of her power. It was a dim light coming from my hand. My actual hand. I can do this! Bec repeated the confident words, knowing that morale was key to the diligence she’d need to master this power, fast. The people she’s met so far were leagues ahead of her for many reasons. Obviously, from being culturally immersed in a world that ran on Fabric and the Words of the people in it, but she had a feeling that, typically, people got their Words as a child given a few pieces of evidence, 1) She only needed to worry about hurting babies with her radiation leak. 2) It seems like computers can control nanites so why wouldn’t they integrate as soon as possible to help with development. 3) The verbal component of Words was important but something that could be forgotten. Robert was concerned about the memory lost… or at least saying, “my condolences,” when losing memory wasn’t normal back on Earth.

“4) He said you “healed like a toddler” in the first timeline you met him. I had a feeling that your healing would be stunted for a while, based on my programming’s analytics calling you a tier 0 healer.” Al reminded Bec that there were layers to peel back in the Timelet.

“Something for later.”

Staring at her hand, she felt relaxing was making her channel her Word better, but not obviously churning with the energy of when she moved. “I can’t guarantee that the Word is always given at the same time as the nanite cocktail, but it seems, to me, like the nanites built the textura organ inside me. Just a guess though.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you. It would be better to get ahead on big genetic and biological changes. The earlier, the better.”

“Don’t I know it. This is a handicap that, frankly, I have no idea how to overcome. It’s easy to say don’t get hurt but doing so is another issue entirely. Al, do you think we could buy something in the Intel Shop for this? Maybe read off some titles related to Fabric manipulation and, if you see anything, anything on how to improve the effectiveness of nanite healing.”

“I’m sorry but, due to the Faraday cage, I can only peruse my cached records of the Shop so titles only… not that we could afford anything anyway. I had looked up “self-help” once when you asked me to look up stuff relevant to the Fabric. I think there is barely anything there that we can glean anything from, unfortunately. Basically, I see something called “Learning to Weave,” which I now would assume to be a Fabric thing, not a fabric thing. The self-help topic pinged a few things about nanite regeneration, but they are all way out of your budget, as well. I’m seeing two books called, ‘Rough and Tumble: 10 Ways to Up Your Regen Safely From a S&M Practitioner’, ‘Give Me A Break: Nanite Regen and Surviving the Suburbs’, and a scholarly journal article titled, ‘The Diminishing Returns on Regenerative Effects of Superficial Lacerations: A Longitudinal Study of Self Harm in the Post-Deliverance Era.’

“No immediate help, but I see that getting roughed up is a way to up Nanite regen. That journal article makes me think that we’ll need to get messed up worse and worse to see improvements on regen. I would’ve hoped that two bulletfish wounds and a mauling would have upped me to ‘not a toddler’ levels but I guess I don’t get to be an OP protagonist with mega nanites from the super factory.” Bec waved her hand, lighting the room up red. “I guess I have you, Al. You’re pretty helpful.”

“I can literally see that you’re trying to butter me up.”

“I like things that are buttered. Is that so wrong, Al? You’re the cream of the AI crop. I must have gotten lucky.”

“I hate that I can see you saying that sincerely.”

Bec smiled. “Okay, focus Bec, ‘weave,’ eh? Robert said you can make Fabric into a thread. Maybe, I can…” Bec started making grasping hand gestures at the air while keeping her hands glowing. She tried pantomiming a tug-o-war match. She tried braiding invisible hair. Eventually, she threw her hands down. “Al, I feel stupid and this clearly isn’t working.”

“I would agree with that sentiment.”

“Maybe I can feel the Fabric if I give myself as much Fabric power as possible. Bec stood, back to the wall, and lit her hand. She began dashing back and forth, looking at the way the light brightened and dimmed as she hit top speed and how it dimmed when she caught herself before slamming into the wall opposite her. She started doing laps, really trying to grasp the feeling of the Fabric flowing through her. She was feeling the air rush through her fingers, hair, legs, arms as she dashed in circles. Wait… what?

Bec looked down at her legs. She was wearing cute as fuck jeans that went below the knee. Sure, there was now a huge hole in the thigh of one of the legs but that didn’t explain how she felt a breeze… there… She felt something like air passing her thighs even on the totally covered leg. “My, my, my. What do we have here?” Bec knew this was going to look dumb, but she had to know. She put her arms inside her t-shirt and ran around looking like a lumpy, straight jacket wearing weirdo. She was fine with being only two of those things. Her madness paid off huge when she knew what she was feeling. She was sensing something pass through the gaps of her arms when they shouldn’t have felt the breeze.

“Oh whaou…” Was this the Fabric? Bec was totally wrong with her assumption that the Fabric suffused the body, it seemed to pass around us. But why? Bec chewed on this conundrum when, oddly enough, a completely separate revelation emerged. I might be right and I can actually be able to shape the Fabric a little just by moving. She stuck her hand out and spun, feeling the air and Fabric running through her fingers. She closed her eyes and focused on keeping at an exact speed. She was feeling a consistent flow of everything over her arm and hand, so she started to swing it in a circular motion as she spun. She felt the Fabric flowing between her fingers more than the new movement would have indicated if it was just air.

Am I wadding it up? Bec opened her eyes and focused on making light on her hand. It was bright, extremely so! The red glow was rather strong and was more comparable to when she was bicycle kicking on her bed a few days back than any other attempt she made. Bec really, really felt the Fabric helping her out here. She focused on bringing that light up her arm and to her shoulder. She was going to try to juggle the light-up one arm and down the other when something went wrong. The light got brighter. Way brighter, as it climbed her right arm towards her shoulder. Bec liked that so she pulled it closer, towards her chest, and, when it reached her center of rotation, it all got out of control.