Chapter 3:

That night, Will jolted awake earlier than he would've expected. He remembered the strange experiences from before he went to sleep, and immediately decided to verify it hadn’t been a dream.

Looking inward, he was quickly able to feel that warm energy radiating from his center. The flow of energy through his body seemed to have slowed down a bit, but then he remembered it had only been faster when he made it speed up, by focusing on pulling the energy into himself.

Thinking about how it had gotten away from him several hours ago, he opted not to mess with it for the moment, and instead looked to see if sleep or time had had any effect.

He had trouble saying for sure, but it seemed like his body had absorbed a decent amount of the energy flowing into him. He could feel, or sense maybe, energy soaked into the various tissues.

“So, now the question is, does this stuff do anything to the bits it’s absorbed into?”

He did not have an answer to that, of course, but he did know he needed to do some experimenting to find out.

Getting out of bed, he got dressed and ready for his day, then went out to the garage for some brainstorming. This all seemed to start with surviving a lightning strike he was pretty sure should have killed him. That made him think his body had somehow been changed, but he wasn’t ready to intentionally electrocute himself to test it, yet.

So, instead, he figured he would go through some basics first. He felt really good, especially for having just gotten up, so he thought he might be experiencing an accelerated healing of some sort. Though, he reasoned, it was also possible he was just a bit physically tougher.

With that in mind, he grabbed his pocket knife. He wanted to start small, just in case he was really just losing his marbles. Plus, he really didn’t want to wind up on the Darwin award subreddit.

Opening the knife, he began by just poking the inside of his left forearm. It felt basically like he would've expected, though he thought the skin might be a little more resistant than normal.

Changing his motion, he placed the blade lightly against the skin, and slowly dragged it an inch or so downward. It didn’t at all break the skin, but was more noticeable was the feeling.

The feeling he got from it would've previously made him think his knife was just absurdly sharp, as he didn't feel the blade biting his skin even slightly. That didn't work as an explanation when he hadn't sprouted any leaks.

“Well, time to put on my big boy pants…” he thought, and increased the pressure on his arm. He was pressing down hard enough that he was positive it would’ve cut him before.

Again, there was no pain and no blood. So, he repeated the process several more times, and eventually managed to give himself a shallow cut.

“Well, I have no idea how hard I was pressing, but it was definitely more effort than normal… Wait, am I stronger than I used to be?”

Excited by that thought, he immediately tried to lift one end of the work table he was next to. It was actually a huge desk that was probably older than he was.. Made of steel, it also probably weighed significantly more than he did. It had actually left gouges in the aluminum deck of the trailer they had used to move it in with when he had shoved it to the exit ramp for off-loading.

Shockingly, to him at least, he actually got the end to lift off the ground, with some effort. He barely remembered to put it down slowly.

“Holy Shit…”

For reasons he couldn’t explain, that test had really driven it into him that something insane was going on. Sinking back into his chair, he just zoned out for a minute, trying to think of what it all could mean.

He had easily read hundreds of books about this sort of thing happening in reality. Will was also self-aware enough to admit that he had fantasized about what it would be like, more than once in his life.

One thing from those books that seemed likely was the extremely low chance of him being somehow unique in this experience. He just didn't believe he was somehow special among billions of people around the world.

That would mean that people with… whatever this was, were out there, somewhere. They were an unknown factor, though. That would mean he couldn’t just put the little he knew out there, and expect positive results.

For that matter, even if he was able to identify someone in the know, there was no chance he could just automatically trust them. He also didn’t think trying to keep it all to himself was a good idea. After all, not having people he could count on knowing what was going on only really hurt their abilities to be ready for what could happen.

With that thought going through his head, he remembered that his roommates would be back in the morning sometime. They would be the obvious choice for who to talk to about this. He trusted them implicitly, and he knew they would have his back however they could.

They were also intelligent nerds who would be able to help him figure out what to do next. He was amused that this fell into the realm of things they were uniquely suited to help with. The three of them had a lot in common, and it turned out that being fantasy and sci-fi people might actually be really helpful here.

At this point, he realized the dazed realization phase of his morning had ended with his utter failure to focus before getting some serious caffeine into him, and decided to fix that, so he went and grabbed an energy drink and bottle of water before coming back to his spot in the garage.

“Yum. Okay, I need to think in practical terms.”

Yes, he was speaking to himself again.

“One, I need some idea of what this actually is. Two, I need to think if there is a safe and practical way to try and learn more from outside sources. Three, I need to decide if this will impact my schedule for the immediate future, or if I should go about like any other week. Four, I will need to bring Jake and Paige into the loop on what I know and/or suspect, then the three of us should try and brainstorm some next steps to take. Five, I should really limit how much I’m talking to myself, or they are going to think I’m losing it.”

With that, he decided some time to clear his head would be good. After that he could get down to some more testing and theories. Life had definitely gotten more exciting this weekend, and only time would tell if it would turn into the kind of ‘exciting’ that people cursed later.

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In the predawn hours, the unit occupied by the minds of Sil and Artie still sat just above his rooftop. They had had microdrones running through the house to find out what they could about this man, Will Lorcan according to a piece of junk mail in the bin in his room.

“Well, I believe we can safely conclude that he is not a psychopath.” said Sil. “It’s also obvious he has a local support structure, is not prone to panic, and seems like one who thinks before taking action.”

“Agreed,” came the reply from Artie. “What do you think of the plans he spoke of?”

“It all seems quite reasonable to me. This Jake and Paige are his flatmates, according to mail in the house. I was able to have the drones send pictures of the names of intended recipients to us.”

“Indeed. I may be a bit concerned regarding his intention to seek out information from external sources about his situation, though.”

“Oh? Do The Activated even have a nearby branch office?”

“They do, in Reno, and it isn’t an ideal candidate for his introduction.”

“How so?”

“Simply put, while most of the local members are good people, the people at the top are greedy thugs who believe their money and abilities make them gods on Earth. Additionally, there is one of their more prominent members who seems to be on some sort of scientific study that I have been unable to locate or identify as of yet.

He is on the local three person council, and only at the Operator stage, but that much power could still prove catastrophic. That said, there are a couple of people of similar age and interests as Will, that may serve admirably as a way to introduce him to the greater network of the Activated world. They could teach him about what he is now, and what that means. I will reach out through our back channels to arrange for them to meet.”

“I believe we should expedite things. If the local power structure is corrupt it doesn't seem wise to have them be the sole source of information regarding the world he has become a part of.

It may just be time for us to introduce ourselves to one of the Hosts on this planet for the first time. Also, I assume you are taking steps to locate that rogue Operator?”

“It may not be a terrible idea. We were going to have to reach out eventually, and a new Line activation may prove the perfect opportunity. Plus, the fact he is already a low level Operator with no previous misconceptions about what this all is, could be immensely helpful in bypassing layers of denial.”

“That is true. I suppose we will have to wait for the roommates to appear, and decide our next step after seeing what they are like. If he does tell them what he knows of his situation, it may be wise for us to meet with all three at the same time. I do understand why The Activated requires secrecy, but they tend to be too strict about it when it comes to those who don't offer them tangible benefits.”

“Agreed. I will continue having our systems learn everything we can about this Will in the meantime, as well. That way we can move on to establishing contact as soon as possible.”

“Excellent. And now… we wait…”

“I do hope you have a movie to watch, or something.”

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