Welcome to Chapter 28! I don't really have much to say this week, so enjoy the chapter and I'll see you next week.
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28
Fucking catalysts again!
The next three days were a blur of eating and climbing and fucking. Every morning and early afternoon Shawn and I climbed the wall. Afterward, we went back to the apartment and tried to climb inside each other. The nap I took on Thursday wasn't repeated. My energy was up. I felt great. Shawn's energy was up. He felt great. I was performing well at the climbing center, and according to him, performing well in the sack.
I was having a blast. Even the climbing was getting fun. By Sunday, Shawn was trying to goad me into racing him up the wall. I didn't succumb. I was getting better, but I wasn't anywhere near his level and we both knew it.
I also practiced my magic constantly and was getting better with it. My control was getting so precise that, on Sunday night, I used what Shawn had started calling my `solid energy' to brush an eyelash from his cheek. We talked about how quickly I was improving and tried to figure out why. "I think what I learned in my old career applies to this." I reasoned. "As a welder, I had to have focus and patience to control the weld process. Recognizing how much and what type of energy was needed for each application was critical. Magic power feels very similar except the energy comes from me, instead of just being guided by me."
Shawn thought that sounded reasonable, but as it wasn't a question that really needed an answer, or one that could be answered definitively, we didn't break our brains over it. There were other things to be concerned about.
As much as the climbing and the magic were getting easier, the eating was becoming a chore. Shawn proclaimed himself my dietician and programmed all my meals. The stuff he put in front of me would have horrified even the worst quack physician. Friday morning's breakfast was a good example; a full plate of cinnamon buns, slathered with frosting, six strips of thick-cut bacon, coffee with enough cream and sugar to be a milkshake, and a large orange juice.
I stared into the plate, then at Shawn's very reasonable two eggs and two slices of toast. "Is the goal calories or diabetes?" I asked.
"Diabetes I can fix. Eat." He commanded.
I ate, and ate, and ate, and ate. Shawn was relentless. If we took a breather in the middle of sex, he'd shove a bag of nuts at me. The one consolation was that as long as I ate constantly during the day, I was able to sleep through the night. That meant I had to consume three giant meals and two pounds of nuts while I was awake. Only then, the hunger wouldn't drive me out of bed in the wee hours. Peanut butter at two in the morning was not repeated.
Eating that much was difficult, a thought I never expected to have, but it worked to keep weight on me. My weight loss slowed from almost three pounds a day down to a little more than a pound. That rate of loss meant I'd leave for the mission at a little under two-hundred-forty pounds. Shawn and I reasoned that shaking-off forty pounds would make the climbing easier and would still leave me thirty to forty pounds of fat to donate to the cause. I didn't know how much magic that would be. Shawn guessed it would be a fuck ton. He didn't actually say that, but the words he did say, I didn't understand.
I was also sleeping better. Not going to bed drunk helped the quality of my sleep and not waking up to eat helped the quantity. Shawn still had to knock me out every night, but I didn't have any more waking dreams. I think having a routine, having fun, and feeling better kept the demons at bay.
The only really difficult thing was not drinking. It was hardest in the evening. Shawn was very careful with me from dinner time to bedtime. He avoided deep conversation and always had a distraction handy. A good example was when he caught me brooding on Saturday night. Something triggered a bad memory and it stuck in my head like a catchy advertising jingle or an unruptured brain aneurysm.
We were sitting on the couch. The TV was on, but I wasn't watching it. I was staring at the screen and brooding. Shawn got up and went somewhere. I heard the closet door open and close. He came back and sat down, then he fidgeted around. "Are you cold?" He asked. "It seems cold in here."
I turned from the screen to respond and lost the simple `no' I'd planned to say when I saw him. Shawn sat on the opposite end of the couch with his back to the arm. One of his gorgeous legs was stretched out toward me and the other hung over the cushion, with its foot flat on the floor. His left arm draped over the back of the couch. His right elbow was bent behind him and was resting on the couch arm. He was nude and trying very hard to be nonchalant.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm trying to give you something else to focus on."
His body was very much on display, to the point of making my mouth water, but I was still confused. "Didn't we do this, like a whole a lot, just a couple hours ago?"
Shawn pouted like I'd refused to have sex with him. "Are you saying you want me to get dressed so you can get back to being miserable?"
"No, it sounds silly when you put it that way."
He stood with effortless grace and came to me. He deliberately tensed all my favorite muscles to tease me as he closed the distance between us. He straddled my lap. I let my hands explore his body. He leaned into me, and I sent my busy hands to his back. "Do you want to kiss me?" He breathed.
I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him against me. I held him tight and reveled in being with him. "Thank you." I whispered with tears in my eyes.
"For what?"
"For keeping me safe."
"We keep each other safe." He said and ran his fingers through my long hair.
I held him like if I let him go, he'd vanish. A long time went by. It was a moment I could have lived the rest of my life in, and I didn't want it to end. "Church," Shawn said in his normal voice, "we are going to have sex, right?"
I laughed at his parroting of a question I'd asked him once when circumstances were more or less reversed. I released him and remembered the original event. It was the time when he'd first wanted to use our emotional link to `set the pace' of a sex session. He leaned back to grin at me. I wiped my eyes. "Yes, Shawn, we are going to have sex."
He kissed my lips very gently and stood up. "Come to bed, make love to me, and I'll put you to sleep."
I watched him cross the room to the bed and thought, `If I had to live my whole life over again, just to get to this moment, I would.' I pushed off the couch and went to him, shedding clothes and tossing them around the apartment for his amusement. I slipped between the sheets, and we melted into each other.
It was much better than brooding.
Monday morning came. Neb and Bem met Shawn and I at the climbing center. I showed off my improved climbing skills. All three of my audience members rode my magic platform and watched my technique from the bottom of the intermediate section of the wall, to the top and back down. I made it in just under three times what it had taken Neb. They acknowledged there was still work to do but congratulated me on doing as well as I had in a short amount of time. Neb decided we'd leave for the planned mountain training the next morning. She told us to bring our gloves and shoes, but the suits would be unnecessary.
"They seem to be a distraction." Neb said. "Especially between the two of you." She indicated Shawn and me with a tilt of her head. "With Shawn's ability to heal and the resilience of standard issue fatigues, there's no reason to continue using the suits. We will endure the minor added risk and forgo the greater risk of distraction."
What she said sounded reasonable to me. Not that I needed to see Shawn in a clinging suit to fantasize about him, but the body-paint fit of the climbing suit made fantasies automatic instead of deliberate. The other problem that I hadn't expected but that had started to present itself more and more often, was Shawn's attraction to me. With my climbing getting better and Shawn not having to focus on every little move I made while on the wall, his attention had started to wander and was apparently finding its focus on my back, my arms, and my shoulders as I climbed. More than once I'd had to call out to Shawn to get his mind off my body so I could stay focused on climbing. It was a hell of a compliment, but a dangerous one.
"Any luck on getting through the barrier?" I asked to change the subject.
"Maybe." Neb replied without elaborating. "Keep working on this," she gestured to the wall, "meet us at The HALL, in the conference room at one o'clock. The Steward's scientists have an idea that sounds promising. We need your magic to test it."
That sounded ominous enough for me to be nervous. I hoped I wouldn't wind up covered in blood again.
A little before one o'clock Shawn and I arrived at the conference room. Bem was leaning back in a chair with his eyes closed. Neb was reading something on a glass tablet. She greeted us, set the tablet down, and beckoned for us to follow while she led the way down to the holding cells that Preacanto had used to activate my power. Shawn and I followed Neb into the first cell while Bem stayed in the corridor to operate the cell doors. Neb explained what we were doing.
"We can't recreate the barrier to experiment on and we don't want to experiment on the actual barrier, because that could alert Pravus that we're trying to get to him. The closest thing we have to a barrier of pure energy is the shield generator that serves as a door to this cell. Obviously, this is much less powerful than the actual barrier, but it should let us test the theory."
She signaled Bem. He did something at the control panel and a yellowish forcefield projected from the door jamb to fill the opening. Neb took a collapsible rod, like a blackboard pointer, from her pocket, extended it, and pushed the tip into the yellow. There was a buzzing sound, like a gnat that flies in your ear, and the end of the rod disappeared.
She nodded to the forcefield. "See if it will stop your white magic."
I shot a low-powered beam at it. The field buzzed again, but nothing went through.
"You could probably apply enough Vitalis force to overwhelm the field generators, but that won't work with the barrier." Neb handed the rod to me. "The cell forcefield is made from magically-channeled electricity. It will destroy any solid object and dissipate any magic, but what will it do to solid energy? We submitted a report on how you gather telekinetic force into something tangible. The scientists reviewed it. They think you could build a tunnel through the barrier."
The theory sounded reasonable to me. At the very least, I was willing to play along. Curiosity brought me up to the edge of the forcefield and I squinted into the door jamb where it emitted. "What generates this field?" I asked.
"A staggered row of catalysts takes power from..."
I waved at her like I was trying to flag a passing car. "That's all I needed to hear. Fucking catalysts again." I got Bem's attention and dragged a hand across my throat. He shut down the field.
"Giving up already, Big Guy?" Bem teased from the control panel.
"No, but we're gonna take some safety precautions if I'm gonna be around catalysts again. So far, I'm batting a thousand and I expect my record to continue."
"You're batting what?" Bem asked.
I shook my head at him and muttered. "Never mind, baseball reference."
"Baseball?"
"NEVER MIND!"
Bem shrugged and went back to fiddling with the forcefield controls. I rapped on the door between the small jail and the main corridor. "Open this, someone."
Bem said his name to it and the door opened. I gave some directions. "OK," I said, "because these fucking catalysts keep blowing up around me, I want to try to avoid collateral damage or damage to my person. I'll go in the cell. Neb and Shawn, you go into the outer corridor. Bem, you turn the forcefield on and join them. I'm going to make a solid tunnel from the inside wall of the cell to the outside wall of the jail hallway. If it works and I'm confident it's holding, I'll walk through it. I'll keep the tunnel up as long as I can. You three stay in the corridor until I tell you to come in."
Neb was the most reasonable in her reaction to my instructions. She went to the corridor without a word.
Shawn grabbed my hand. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"
"No. I fully expect to be injured. I want you safe so you can put me back together when this goes wrong."
Shawn squeezed my hand and leaned in like he was planning to kiss me. "I can't work miracles. You still need to be careful."
Bem whistled a short, shrill whistle. "Hey, do you guys need a minute, or maybe an hour and a bottle of lube, or maybe an hour, a bottle of lube, and a hot blond?"
I fired back at him. "I'll take the last one, where's the hot blond?"
Bem cackled. "That's good, you're getting better."
I physically turned Shawn and pointed him to the corridor. "You, out, now." He reluctantly joined Neb.
I went into the cell and signaled Bem. The forcefield reappeared and I suddenly found myself alone in my mind. I hadn't realized the forcefield would disconnect me from Shawn, but I suppose if I would have thought about it, I would have realized it. The fact that the forcefield stopped magic meant it would disconnect our link. It was strange being alone in my head after the little more than a week I'd spent linked with Shawn. His absence made me feel lonely.
I didn't dwell on the feeling as there were other things to do and people waiting for me to do them. I looked up from my thoughts and noticed Bem's eyes fixed on me. He'd been waiting for a signal of some kind. I gave him a thumbs up. He waved at me and went to the corridor with the other two, leaving me to focus on the task at hand.
I moved to the back wall of the cell and built a box around myself, like a telephone booth, just big enough to stand in. I made the walls tough, imagined them as four inches of reinforced concrete, then added length to the sides of the booth and stretched them toward the cell door. When my magic pressed against the forcefield, I felt the pushback through my power. It didn't feel like much, like pushing the branches of a sapling aside. I extended the box through the forcefield to the far wall of the hallway.
The field was not happy with me. It fought against the box, the yellow rippled and flashed as it struggled. I held the extended rod that Neb had given me and waved it around where the forcefield should have been. Nothing happened. I assumed that meant my tunnel was working. I walked out of the cell and looked toward the three in the corridor. They had their hands over their ears and winces on their faces. I was busy trying to signal them to find out what noise they were blocking out when bright light from behind me drew my attention.
The door jamb of the cell glowed white, flashed, and went dark. The three in the corridor dropped their hands from their ears, and their faces smoothed. I released the magic of my tunnel. As soon as it dissipated, my link to Shawn reestablished. The first emotion I felt from him was relief. I didn't know if it was relief that our link reestablished or that the noise, whatever it was, had ceased.
"Did you hear that?" Shawn asked.
"No, my magic blocked out all the sound. What did it sound like?"
Shawn shut his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingers. "It was like when Neb stuck the pointer into the shield, but a lot louder."
Bem checked the forcefield controls, disabled the power to the first cell's field generator, and went to inspect the damage. "You really don't get along with catalysts, do you?" He asked as he peered into the blackened door jamb.
I didn't answer him because his statement didn't seem to require an answer. Neb spoke up with an actual question. "How difficult was that?"
"It wasn't. I barely felt the forcefield when I pushed through. It was like breaking the tape at the end of a race."
"Could you get through something a hundred times more powerful; a thousand times?" She asked. I crossed my arms over my chest to consider. A hundred strips of tape would still break easily, a thousand might be a challenge. "I don't know. I had to keep the magic thin because the doorway is narrow, and I take up a lot of it. If I had the room, the space I mean, I could make it much stronger. Do you have any idea how powerful the barrier is?"
Neb ran her right hand up and down her left forearm, smoothing goosebumps that weren't there. Her hand made a raspy, dry skin sound against her arm. "No one does. The lack of records is very frustrating. The Steward calls that barrier the single greatest feat of direct magic ever executed, yet the only information we have comes from the diary I mentioned. There is every indication of a deliberate purge of information surrounding Pravus' reign and exile. We don't know why. Whoever destroyed the records either didn't leave a trace, or the evidence is lost to time."
I asked a question that shined a spotlight on the elephant in the room. "What if we get to the mountain and we can't get through?"
Neb stopped rubbing her arm and propped her closed fists on her non-existent hips. "We'll come back, regroup, and try something else. We have time, but not much. The Steward is pushing us with both hands because he wants to give us time to fail and try again. We have three months, maybe four before the general population will notice the lack of available magic. If the ancient evil isn't destroyed by then, we will likely be dealing with anarchy."
Her words weighed on me. The end of the world was one thing; I hadn't considered the suffering and chaos that would lead up to it. I rubbed my neck with the heel of my right hand and worried. Neb must have noticed my concern. "Go home, Church. We have to put one foot in front of the other. Tomorrow we go to the mountains. We'll climb and test your magic. That's the next step. I won't tell you not to worry, that's impossible, just don't get ahead of yourself with worry. Do your job and let us do ours."
"But what is my job?"
She counted us off on her fingers. "You're the strength, Bem is the daring, Shawn is the stability, and I am the brains."
She made it sound so simple, like she was checking off the standard issue team to save the world. I wondered if that made me Mister T, or that rock guy from the Fantastic Four. I didn't think about it, I was afraid of giving myself a stroke. "What time tomorrow?"
"Seven. I want to be on the road by eight. We'll have fatigues and boots for you both. Bring underwear and basic toiletries. Be prepared for four days."
"Shawn," I called, "we're leaving now."
Shawn drove us toward home. Home...I'd started referring to his apartment as home' almost as soon as I moved in. I couldn't really say I moved in' because I had nothing to move. It was then I realized I owned nothing on Solum besides my car and its contents and two weeks of clothes. Out of those items, the clothes were the only things of any use. The car, and the junk it had inside it, was all useless shit as far as life on Solum was concerned.
I wondered if that mattered, my complete lack of material possessions. It wasn't that I pined for anything I'd left on Earth. I didn't own much that was worth a damn. I rented my place. My furnishings were all either old, second hand, or both. My wardrobe consisted of faded black jeans and free t-shirts from pipe vendors, welding supply houses, and equipment rental outfits.
One thing that I sort-of missed was my records. Solum music was all acoustic and mostly instrumental. I wasn't impressed by the little I'd heard. On Earth, I had an extensive vinyl collection and an old stereo turntable. When I drank at home, the early phases of drunkenness were usually accompanied by a soundtrack of classic rock and jazz. I missed that music. My CDs were in the car, but without a way to play them that wasn't attached to four-thousand-pounds of Detroit iron, they weren't much good.
"Church, we're here." Shawn said, dragging me from my thoughts. I blinked and looked around. We were parked in front of his building. "What are you thinking?" He asked.
I looked in his face and felt his mild concern. `Fuck the records.' I thought. "Nothing that matters a damn. Let's go in. We've got to pack up and I want to try something."
Shawn didn't move. "What do you want to try?"
"I want to fuck in the kitchen." I admitted.
"Why?"
I shrugged. "It's the only place we haven't done it. I don't count the balcony. I'm not an exhibitionist."
"I don't see the attraction. Bare skin on cold glass seems uncomfortable, but sure, we can fuck in the kitchen."
"YAY!" I bounced in the seat like a rammy child. I meant to amuse him, but the car rocked so violently I almost made us both seasick.
We went in and had a nice evening...a very nice evening.