Midafternoon. As I mentioned a few times, I don't have cable, don't listen to radio. Basically unless it shows up on cbc.ca, I pretty much don't
know it happened. So I was pretty much in the dark about events occurring halfway across the city. For myself, I had other issues.
I'd relocated to Bruce Pit. A collection of nature trails that had started out as a rock quarry beside a high school, it offered me plenty of leafy
opportunities to get well and truly lost. Oh well, I'd find my way back eventually. But the other thing it gave me was a little privacy.
Checking my memories, I learned that it was possible to trigger the clothing-swap thingie under special circumstances. Only recently added by Paragon techs, it
let heroes instantly swap outfits, while making their 'look cool' rolls at the same time. I know, I don't understand it entirely either. I mean, in
game it was a cool extra feature. Click on an emote and choose your outfit. Bind it to a keypress and tap the buttons for in-game cinematics. But apparently
they'd done it in the Paragon I remembered too. I guess if you have a whole world of supers, and an economy at least partly based on supporting these supers, you'll eventually start to get off on all the really cool things you can do with these people. Makes
me wonder what their movies are like.
The computer device had a recognition mode, that supposedly would let it work if I combined a power with a posture. So what the hell. I set it up for my
character's lightning power, and went into the back end of nowhere to see if it worked. I'd noticed that every time I used a power, I became Kara. That
may or may not be a permanent thing, but frankly, I had too much on my plate right now to try to train myself out of that. Besides, I'd rather have this
automatic transformation thing in place, because if people saw me using lighting powers, I'd rather they take pictures of Kara than me. Besides, she's
more photogenic.
So there I was in the back end of nowhere. Looking around self-consciously, I struck the pose, right hand up at the sky while at the same time summoning the
electricity inside. It pulsed around my hand, then it got weird. The sparkly electricity immediately started to crackle around the other arm, both legs, and
across my body. There was a really loud crash of thunder, and I found myself staggering back, clearing the spots out
of my eyes.
Okay... Next time I try that, close my eyes. Got it.
When I next looked at myself, I realized several things. I was Kara again. I was wearing the combat armor.
And there was a little boy standing at the end of the path with an open-mouthed expression on his face.
I gave him a nervous grin, held my finger to my lips in a 'shh'-ing motion, and ducked down a side path. Several minutes of cautious jogging got me far
enough away I figured that he'd never find me.
I leaned against a tree trunk and took several deep breaths. Stupid! Extremely stupid! I hadn't seen him before
the change, so he'd probably run up when he saw the flash of light. I doubt he saw me as a result. But he'd seen enough. Depending on who he told, word
might get around way before I wanted it to. Thank you Chaos theory.
After finding an old section of the quarry and ducking under some tree cover, I finally felt confident enough to try the second part. The Paragon Kara had
developed a hover power before the change. Marvel-Kara could generate kinetic force with practice. The CoH character had a device built into her belt which
harnessed stupid amounts of electrical power to essentially generate a counter-kinetic force. In my case, it took that power from me instead of a generator,
since I had power to burn. Not really antigravity, because it wasn't negating it. Instead, the machine generated a
field that created a matching negative kinetic field aimed at the highest gravity potential. For instance, jump into the air. As you peak and begin the trip
down, you're generating kinetic energy. This is caused by your mass interacting with Earth's gravity. What the device did was it created a field that
matched the pull down with a negative kinetic effect, which would basically cause me to come to a stop. It had safeties built into it so that it only kicked in
when your motion toward the gravity potential was greater than zero. So jumping up with this thing on wouldn't put you in space, but you would stop at the top of your arc and just sit there. It was the method used by most tech-based flight types in Paragon whose
technology didn't originate from somewhere else.
I turned it on and hopped into the air. Sure enough, I came to a stop roughly a couple feet off the ground. The machine was presumably drawing off of my
electrical power, but I didn't feel it. Strange that I could be essentially tapped for power and not notice it. I leaned forward, as they'd taught me
in City Hall, and the machine translated that into forward motion, playing a shell game with the counter-gravity thrust and my pull to Earth. It got up to a
reasonable rate of speed. about that of an idling car. But it really didn't go any faster. And unlike the game, there were no sound effects. It was
completely silent.
I settled to the ground by angling my body downward and turned it off when it touched down. I closed my eyes and concentrated. I was trying to use the
Marvel-Kara's power to duplicate the technique. Just enough to hold steady. When I thought I had the construct in my mind, I hopped lightly into the air.
I rose for about four feet before I wobbled and dropped to the ground. I didn't care. It worked, and that was what mattered. I could refine it down the
road. And if I could generate thrust this way, it meant I could actually fly, even if only with the belt at first. Counter grav combined with thrust equalled
speed. Once I knew what I was doing, of course. But I had two really big reasons for trying to master the flight powers myself. First, I couldn't
possibly fix that thing if it broke, so I needed an alternative. Second, it was just damn cool.
I struck that pose again, gathered the electricity and concentrated on becoming myself. Another massive thunderclap later, and I was walking out of a side path
in my shorts and polo shirt. It actually worked.
By the time I reached the car, I realized I still had two more hurdles to overcome. First, I needed a way to keep track of things happening in Ottawa. Second,
I still needed to talk to my sister. Yes, I was putting that off, because I had this feeling I knew how she'd react after the initial shock had worn off.
And coward that I am, I wanted to delay that inevitability at least a little while longer. Not that it mattered in the
long run...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
know it happened. So I was pretty much in the dark about events occurring halfway across the city. For myself, I had other issues.
I'd relocated to Bruce Pit. A collection of nature trails that had started out as a rock quarry beside a high school, it offered me plenty of leafy
opportunities to get well and truly lost. Oh well, I'd find my way back eventually. But the other thing it gave me was a little privacy.
Checking my memories, I learned that it was possible to trigger the clothing-swap thingie under special circumstances. Only recently added by Paragon techs, it
let heroes instantly swap outfits, while making their 'look cool' rolls at the same time. I know, I don't understand it entirely either. I mean, in
game it was a cool extra feature. Click on an emote and choose your outfit. Bind it to a keypress and tap the buttons for in-game cinematics. But apparently
they'd done it in the Paragon I remembered too. I guess if you have a whole world of supers, and an economy at least partly based on supporting these supers, you'll eventually start to get off on all the really cool things you can do with these people. Makes
me wonder what their movies are like.
The computer device had a recognition mode, that supposedly would let it work if I combined a power with a posture. So what the hell. I set it up for my
character's lightning power, and went into the back end of nowhere to see if it worked. I'd noticed that every time I used a power, I became Kara. That
may or may not be a permanent thing, but frankly, I had too much on my plate right now to try to train myself out of that. Besides, I'd rather have this
automatic transformation thing in place, because if people saw me using lighting powers, I'd rather they take pictures of Kara than me. Besides, she's
more photogenic.
So there I was in the back end of nowhere. Looking around self-consciously, I struck the pose, right hand up at the sky while at the same time summoning the
electricity inside. It pulsed around my hand, then it got weird. The sparkly electricity immediately started to crackle around the other arm, both legs, and
across my body. There was a really loud crash of thunder, and I found myself staggering back, clearing the spots out
of my eyes.
Okay... Next time I try that, close my eyes. Got it.
When I next looked at myself, I realized several things. I was Kara again. I was wearing the combat armor.
And there was a little boy standing at the end of the path with an open-mouthed expression on his face.
I gave him a nervous grin, held my finger to my lips in a 'shh'-ing motion, and ducked down a side path. Several minutes of cautious jogging got me far
enough away I figured that he'd never find me.
I leaned against a tree trunk and took several deep breaths. Stupid! Extremely stupid! I hadn't seen him before
the change, so he'd probably run up when he saw the flash of light. I doubt he saw me as a result. But he'd seen enough. Depending on who he told, word
might get around way before I wanted it to. Thank you Chaos theory.
After finding an old section of the quarry and ducking under some tree cover, I finally felt confident enough to try the second part. The Paragon Kara had
developed a hover power before the change. Marvel-Kara could generate kinetic force with practice. The CoH character had a device built into her belt which
harnessed stupid amounts of electrical power to essentially generate a counter-kinetic force. In my case, it took that power from me instead of a generator,
since I had power to burn. Not really antigravity, because it wasn't negating it. Instead, the machine generated a
field that created a matching negative kinetic field aimed at the highest gravity potential. For instance, jump into the air. As you peak and begin the trip
down, you're generating kinetic energy. This is caused by your mass interacting with Earth's gravity. What the device did was it created a field that
matched the pull down with a negative kinetic effect, which would basically cause me to come to a stop. It had safeties built into it so that it only kicked in
when your motion toward the gravity potential was greater than zero. So jumping up with this thing on wouldn't put you in space, but you would stop at the top of your arc and just sit there. It was the method used by most tech-based flight types in Paragon whose
technology didn't originate from somewhere else.
I turned it on and hopped into the air. Sure enough, I came to a stop roughly a couple feet off the ground. The machine was presumably drawing off of my
electrical power, but I didn't feel it. Strange that I could be essentially tapped for power and not notice it. I leaned forward, as they'd taught me
in City Hall, and the machine translated that into forward motion, playing a shell game with the counter-gravity thrust and my pull to Earth. It got up to a
reasonable rate of speed. about that of an idling car. But it really didn't go any faster. And unlike the game, there were no sound effects. It was
completely silent.
I settled to the ground by angling my body downward and turned it off when it touched down. I closed my eyes and concentrated. I was trying to use the
Marvel-Kara's power to duplicate the technique. Just enough to hold steady. When I thought I had the construct in my mind, I hopped lightly into the air.
I rose for about four feet before I wobbled and dropped to the ground. I didn't care. It worked, and that was what mattered. I could refine it down the
road. And if I could generate thrust this way, it meant I could actually fly, even if only with the belt at first. Counter grav combined with thrust equalled
speed. Once I knew what I was doing, of course. But I had two really big reasons for trying to master the flight powers myself. First, I couldn't
possibly fix that thing if it broke, so I needed an alternative. Second, it was just damn cool.
I struck that pose again, gathered the electricity and concentrated on becoming myself. Another massive thunderclap later, and I was walking out of a side path
in my shorts and polo shirt. It actually worked.
By the time I reached the car, I realized I still had two more hurdles to overcome. First, I needed a way to keep track of things happening in Ottawa. Second,
I still needed to talk to my sister. Yes, I was putting that off, because I had this feeling I knew how she'd react after the initial shock had worn off.
And coward that I am, I wanted to delay that inevitability at least a little while longer. Not that it mattered in the
long run...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.