Kaleb’s cast was broken open with a small round saw. The doctor who performed the procedure was silent throughout. Kaleb watched, entranced, as the man silently and with half-lidded eyes, cut deftly through the padded shell. It had been a strange memento of his first real life-or-death fight in cable city these past few weeks – the first few of the strangely many life-or-death moments he’d experienced hardly counted as fights, after all – but he was overjoyed to be parted with the burden. He experimentally opened and closed his hand and wiggled his fingers while turning his nose up at the smell of stale sweat that rose from the covered skin. His arm was thin now, he noted, and he didn’t like its pasty hue. He’d have to be gentle with it until it was strong again. He’d broken a few bones in his life – one didn’t climb a pillar daily for years without earning a few – and he was used to the process of healing. Yet this injury had felt different from those as well. It wasn’t an accident, but rather the direct result of going beyond his capabilities, and of overcoming the odds – but at a cost. He’d still only been able to do the most basic of control exercises while his arm was damaged, and making up for it with refining his field sensitivity. It had been enjoyable, and he’d developed more in his sensory capabilities, but it wasn’t what really interested him. After he’d flown in the curious glow of that whirlpool he desired nothing more than to be able to control his field better. He wanted to be able to be active with it, to use it more effectively. He’d been able to employ it to navigate a fall or to cushion a landing on Haethea, but he wanted the kind of finesse that Erid demonstrated, and the kind of power he had shown it could provide. Kaleb impatiently waited out the day and the night until he resumed learning under Erid’s tutelage.

“It is perhaps basic and simple to say, and usually implicitly understood but bears repeating that fields interact with fields. One’s own field can interfere with itself, but most often they are utilised in harmony, and quite easily at that – any number of fields that we produce all having a common origin in our bodies which fosters synchronicity, and in this manner they can produce results that magnify, direct, and focus all manner of field generation. I say this because mostly now, people use rods and coils to manipulate their fields – but this is, much as people use capacitance spikes to overcome limitations, largely for two reasons: ease of use, and speed of deployment. However, rods and coils are both simply redirections of field energy, and we can instead use our field to affect itself, or a secondary deployment of it. The basic design of rods and coils is actually very useful to understand how to go about this: They are essentially the same device, arranged in different ways. Both are simply methods of shaping fields. Coils focus field energies while rods direct it. These two functions may seem identical, but they are quite different – a coil used alone will only focus as much field energy as is directed towards it, while rods alone will only create a field with a greater tendency towards one direction without any ability to change the falloff and diffusion of energies. In combination, they are extremely useful.”

“What is ‘falloff’”

“Hmmm… well, when things get further away from you, they become harder to influence with your field, don’t they?”

“Yes”

“Usually, this falloff is spherical in shape, but with rods, and to a lesser extent with coils, that falloff can be redirected, and the extent of your influence can be increased without having any more power.”

“I see. I guess…”

“This is the base understanding that everybody in cable city will have, even those without the opportunity for schooling. It’s important that you understand it too.”

“Yes, ok”

“It’s also important that you understand how to use it. People with coils sometimes manipulate their field without using the coil, but this is prone to going out of control with the excess strength they have by virtue of the capacitance spike. So, mostly they tend to use rods and coils – often they have them implanted at the same time as capacitance spikes, and modify or augment them with worn or wearable instances when necessary. I’m sure you can guess at the disadvantage?”

“Adaptability”

Erid laughed mirthlessly. “I’m glad. It seems you’ve had an excellent teacher.” Kaleb rolled his eyes “There are limits to how generic you can make rods and coils before they become impractical, and how many arrays – of coils and rods rather than spikes – you can fit in the body, or that you can wear externally for that matter. There is, therefore, a kind of limit on the adaptability of rods and coils. They are powerful when used effectively, but we can outmanoeuvre them if we don’t use them. Those goons of Arleigne’s you encountered are a good example of a typical system: I’m sure they had some internal rods and coils, but nothing serious, no external ones. They’re a classic example of the adaptable sort, but without much fine-tuning and, as you are testament to in your survival, easy to outmanoevre. But there are some instances where rods and coils can be more dangerous than capacitance… If you encounter a point-generator, who is using highly focused fields, or a blade who’ll use a highly directed field – well, you’ll need to use evasive techniques there in particular. But they’re not all aggressive purposes. Medical specific fields will also have such directed fields – but much lower energies.”

“So… the next thing I want to teach you is this” Erid held up Kaleb’s windsuit, which he’d carried with him into the room, wrapped in cloth, which fell away as he lifted it.

“My windsuit?” Kaleb was puzzled

“Yes, you know, it’s an interesting piece of tech. Of course, it is also a rod and coil construct. They were originally made in the early wire age, before people really began to understand how spikes and coils could work together. It’s unique in that it is of the kind made before spikes were widely adapted. It doesn’t, as you are proof of, require spikes to use… do you know what this means?”

“N..no?”

“It means that even as you are now, you are strong enough to construct a windsuit-like field… but without the windsuit.”

“huh…What?”

“They’re quite useful too, you know. So long as you’re not up against a sensory field generator or anything, they’re practically silent and don’t make any noise. Also very efficient on your field use.”

“But … that’s… What?”

“Ah, don’t worry, I’m not going to push you off a pillar. Though…” Erid’s eyes took a dark gleam and he looked Kaleb up and down. “...hmmm… Maybe once you’ve finished healing that bone fully. As to the how of the matter. Well, you already know how to pretend to have spikes, and you have even successfully used that knowledge in a fight. It takes time, and it isn’t easy, and you have to be dedicated and practice a lot, but you can also ‘pretend’ to have coils and generate the same effect as the windsuit within your own body.”

“So… That means… that means I can… I can fly without a windsuit.”

“Wow, oh, is that what got you all lost. I thought you weren’t following. Yes. Yes you can. It’ll be a very useful skill to have, actually, especially since you already know how it feels to use a windsuit.”

“Yes! Please! Teach me!”

“Woah, woah, hold your horses! That’s what I’m trynna do!”