Aaron Cyrus February 29th,20XX

After so long, I’d finally been able to carve out some time to meet with the scientists. Work had picked up recently both in school and professionally, so I hadn’t been able to come back to the building often.

I’d wanted to drop off the kids at school so they wouldn’t have to go on their own, but I’d gotten called in last night to come into the studio at four this morning. They had called me in a tizzy and made it sound like I absolutely had to be there, but once I’d gotten there, they had barely spoken or even looked at me.

It was confusing, and I got the feeling that I was being diverted, but I didn’t even know who to ask and confirm my theory.

While it was annoying, at least I’d gotten the rest of the day off. After looking over all of my options, I’d come to the dorms and check in with the scientists.

I’d been looking forward to running some more tests and figuring out what my powers were. It had seemed like a good idea, but my current situation made me regret it.

A lot.

“So, Force equals Mass times Acceleration. Meaning that the less mass something has, the less force you need to move it. Now, Mr. Cyrus, we still aren’t too sure how your powers work, but the most suitable field to explain them would be physics.”

Ivette looked excited as she ran through the basic laws of physics on the virtual whiteboard and tried to explain my powers to me.

I tried my best to keep up and dig up what pitifully small amount of knowledge I held on the subject, but it had been years since I’d last had to learn anything academic. I didn’t remember being a poor student, and I had done well enough in my science classes, but hearing Ivette run through unfamiliar concepts made me feel like an idiot in a country that spoke a foreign language.

“Taking what we know about physics and the way these laws interact with the world We have cause to believe that you do not manipulate these laws around yourself, but you have a barrier.”

She pointed to a stick figure she had sketched about an hour ago and drew a perfect oval around it.

“Like this, it would be a barrier that interacts with the world around you. This would explain why you can float in the air without compromising the integrity of your body, and why you can land on the floor and break the floors without suffering any injuries. Another potential explanation of the barrier is that you can disregard the laws of the world and create your own within the barrier.”

I tried to think back to earlier in the makeshift lesson and follow how we had jumped from how engines fly to why I occasionally ruined the floor when I came down from flying.

“You described flying like you becoming lighter than normal, and when you come back down you become heavier. Danka ran a few scans on you and your joints show some strain, but nothing out of the average for a semi-active athlete.”

Reference to my decorative status as a member of a tennis team made me flinch, but from how quickly Ivette moved past it, I could tell that she hadn’t been taking a dig at me.

I’d tried my best to keep up with practices at first and had tried my best at rehab, but I still hadn’t been able to keep up with the rest of the team. Eventually, I’d been called into the office and told to focus more on the promotional activities and to give up trying to take part in the tournaments.

Bitter bile bayed in my throat as I tried to put away the unpleasant memory, and Ivette’s high-pitched voice resurfaced in my attention priority list.

No, I needed to focus. Thinking about all that other stuff wouldn’t change anything.

“If we run with the barrier theory, then that would explain most of what you can do to yourself, but it doesn’t particularly explain what you can do to other objects. The current theory is that you expand the barrier according to what you want to do, and what you want it to affect. Another is that you replicate the barrier and apply it to other objects, such as you did in the earlier tests.”

She tapped the figure on the virtual screen and plugged in long, complex equations that were way above my paygrade or education level.

“I took the liberties of applying these theories to a model simulator, but as you can see.”

The figure on the screen moved semi-realistically despite its lacklustre two-dimensional form. And I watched it break various parts of itself and even completely perish as it replicated some things I had done.

She then redrew the ‘barrier’ around the stick figure and had it replicate the same tests to varying degrees of success.

After the last simulation ended, she turned back to me with an embarrassed expression.

“Obviously, we haven’t completely cracked the code. But we hope for your cooperation in helping us get closer to the truth.”

It would be a lie to say I understood any of what Ivette had been talking about, but as she got up and gestured at the open field, I got up as well and headed outside.

If running tests would help make things clearer, then I would run all the tests I needed to.

“Wait! Before you head out!”

Ivette pointed to the sidewall of the lobby and brought a row of lockers to my attention. They were tall and painted a dark blue colour that reminded me of the high school Joyce and I had attended together. All of our code names had been spray-painted onto them in a juvenile but artistic way.

“After the events with Miss Kila, Ms. Knightly has been insistent on protective gear. There should be a jumpsuit, a pair of protective goggles, and a pair of steel-reinforced boots. Once you’ve changed, we’ll be waiting for you outside. Sema had something interesting to show you.”