Tenth Squad caught up with me as I was heading off to meet Zee and rather blatantly abandoned me with Els. They’re finding the idea of him pursuing me tremendously entertaining, but he’s good at not making it awkward. He told me how jealous they all were that Fourteenth has just been assigned to Muina, then asked me how my Sights and oddly real illusions training was going as we rode the elevator down to one of the main junctions. That’s all no secret among the Setari now.
"The music from the Kalasa manifestation was particularly interesting," he said, as I headed for a connecting elevator. "A melody, instruments, revived for a moment from extinction. Can you do that with the music of your own world? Manifest how it sounds from memory?"
I stared at him, thinking through the possible differences in picturing something on Earth, and projecting something I remember, then said: "I don’t know. But I’m certainly going to try."
He laughed. "I’m relieved I asked that just before you were heading to a monitored session."
I could only nod speechlessly, too excited for words as my lift came. "Thanks for the idea," I said, very glad I’d ended up talking to him, then spotted Third and Fourth getting off one of the opposite lifts and waved just before my doors shut. Fourteenth must be swapping out to relieve the senior exploration squads.
Zee blinked when I showed up bubbling over with Eeli levels of enthusiasm, and gave me a dry look as I tried to sell her on the idea of music being the same as fiction and not at all like me trying to look all the way to Earth and it wasn’t even the Sight part that mattered, but manifesting something I remembered already.
"No argument in the world’s going to stop you trying, so I won’t even bother," she said. "Since you haven’t been able to manifest anything lately, it may be a moot point, but so long as you follow orders and don’t do this outside the test environment, it’s as good a test subject as any other."
I’ve never looked forward to a test session so much. In truth, I’ve never really looked forward to a test session – it’s hard to look forward to headaches and exhaustion. All the short train journey I was trying to pick which song I’d really really missed and decided on Hollaback Girls, not because it was my favourite, but because it reminds me of Alyssa. I’ve been really wishing I could ask Alyssa what she thought about the whole Els situation. Actually, I already know – Ruuel’s really not her type of guy. She’d think me mad for ever preferring him to Els.
Then I fretted about whether or not my manifestation would still be too sore to use, and it did still feel a bit stretched. But useable.
It was tiring to do, but nothing like looking at Muina had been. I didn’t get much further than the first chorus, then lost focus and stopped, panting slightly, but smiling hugely. I’ve never been so happy.
"Can I try something else?" I asked Zee, once Ista Chemie had confirmed that the power cost wasn’t exorbitant. "A picture instead of a sound?"
I was lucky that one of the walls of the warehouse was clear of boxes. It made for a really, really huge screen. And I had just the documentary I wanted to show.
"This is my world," I told Zee unsteadily. The glowing blue and green and golden ball revolved slowly. "That’s Australia." I wiped at my face, changing what I was trying to project. "This is Sydney. Where I – where I grew up."
I had to have a little emotional break. Zee gave me a hug and Ista Chemie fed me hot drinks, and it was just so nice that all these frustrating and painful talents can finally give me something I actually want.
I was already way too tired, but Zee agreed to let me do one more. I almost couldn’t concentrate from trying not to giggle, and made sure to get a good look at Zee’s face as I said: "Johnny Depp, playing Captain Jack Sparrow." It was impossible to hold it very long, and I was so tired, but laughing. "Maze going to kill me."
Zee made a deal with me – I can try and manifest any music or images I want once every day after my other training is done, but only if I have at least one person with me and weren’t somewhere inconvenient to get to medical. I emailed Els and thanked him for the good idea and then sent him and First Squad and Isten Notra and Shon and Mori and Par and Glade and Zan and Eeli the images which the scanners at the warehouse had recorded of Earth. My own log was useless since crying blurred all the images. The Captain Jack sequence I sent separately just to First Squad, because I think Maze is going to kill me enough already without spreading it everywhere.
I fell asleep on the trip back, of course, and had fun reading everyone’s email responses when I woke up, particularly Lohn’s about Captain Jack. I’m so happy, and beyond all the feel-good stuff it will just be really useful being able to illustrate some of what I’ve been trying to explain about Earth. I’m pretty sure some sort of Sight must be involved in the projection, because there’s no way my memory is as good as those images.
Excellent, excellent day.
Thursday, July 10
Voyeur
I was just hyped all day, totally looking forward to being allowed to try and visualise something else. Mara said all the enthusiasm was useful for making me do more for my physical training – which is either getting easier or I didn’t feel it as much. The bandages are off my legs again, so we could have swimming in the afternoon, which I think Mara chose deliberately so I didn’t feel so tired afterwards. All First Squad joined us, and then came back to my rooms afterwards since I particularly wanted to show them things. I think they were all enjoying me being happy instead of the mope monster in the corner. Maze brought along a scanner for me which I can keep in my rooms to record any images or sounds I want to keep since a good scanner has a much less contaminated quality than things filtered by human eyes and ears, but he warned me that if anything involved pirates he may just have to have Mara increase my exercise load. Maze took the whole Jack Sparrow thing pretty well – I think it embarrassed him, but he doesn’t mind a bit of teasing. And he agreed that Johnny Depp looks a lot like him (except much older, and Maze doesn’t go in for facial hair).
We met Mori riding the elevator, and I invited her along, but she said that Fourth is doing a lot of training catch-up after being away from the training facilities for so long, and had to rush off. She looked really tired, so I guess that was her way of saying Ruuel is working Fourth into the ground.
I was very keen to make sure no-one thought it was too much stress on my system, so kept each image that I was displaying to a relatively brief duration, but I finally got to show Lohn what I meant by surfing and skiing. Then I showed them some Mayan and Egyptian pyramids and Machu Piccu, which was strategy on my part, since I knew that Islen Duffen would be highly encouraging of being able to see pieces of Earth’s ancient world. They agreed that there must be some kind of Sight element to me remembering the fragments of documentaries I was replaying, but it didn’t seem to be costing me too much energy.
It’s still fairly tiring, though, and I can’t play a whole song in one hit. Maybe I can put them together bit by bit. I fell asleep leaning on Ketzaren, and woke covered up but still on the couch, with Ghost curled up snugly with me. I’ve really got to remember to eat dinner before doing stuff I know will make me pass out.
I’m a little worried about doing this, because it might make me stronger. And the stronger I get, the more chance I have of accidentally hurting someone. If I dream about monster insects again, for instance. My Sights have definitely been growing stronger, particularly since I tried looking all the way to Muina. Since then I can sense people four levels up, and the shielding is posing less of a barrier. That has its good points and its bad points, one of which I found when I woke up just now and I wasn’t missing Ruuel. Not because Els has succeeded in distracting me, but because he’s asleep one floor up. If he’s within my senses when I wake, it doesn’t ache nearly as much.