Stephen's Secure Blog #12
These stories about Stephen began was when he was 10 years old, and
moving to a new part of the country to attend a special school for
gifted students, in the 1950's. This was from a time before computers
would fit on a desk, and when people communicated with friends in other
countries by actual letters sent through the postal service. He wrote
225 of them to a friend. He stopped writing to his penpal, but found he
still wanted to record his life, in case he lost his memory again, and
wrote 30 entries in his first logbook. Then he wrote to an artificial
intelligence called Geenee, in the master computer in his school for
gifted students, which he started attending in 2016. Now it's 2018 and
later, and he's continuing to save his memories in a secure blog.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
The stories may not be posted in chronological order.
Stephen is 12 in this story, in March of year 2 of his special school.
Stephen's Secure Blog #12 "Playing With Balls"
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Ichi woke up and said, "I'm all excited about what I'm going to learn
today." I said "I can see that." He said "That's not what I meant, but
we should make it come to terms with us." I laughed, and we did,
squirting very well. Then I said, "Reflex training, mind management,
and then automated scanning. You have a right to be excited. We are
going to have some exercise and fun." He said "How so?" I said "By
throwing things at him." He said "Great!" I said "I think so, too." We
cleaned up and ate breakfast, and ported to Zander when he was ready. I
said "Any comments or questions?" He said "None that we aren't going to
answer by doing." I said "First, resistance and object sense practice.
Then we are going to do something interactive and maybe fun." That's
what happened. I said "Now for a little exercise. You can strike with
your energy, but can you do it reflexively to protect yourself? We will
see. Please stand a half meter away from that wall. Ichi and I will
throw these hollow tennis balls at you with varying velocities. You are
to knock them away from you, with your energy. One point awarded for
each success. One point deducted for each time one touches your skin or
attached accessories. When you are ready, say begin." He said with a
grin, "Begin!" I threw one, and it bounced off his chest. I said "Stop.
So you have found it is more difficult than you thought." He said "Yes,
but I must learn this. Begin!" Ichi tossed one. Zander was late and
missed, but showed he had improved. We tossed and threw the balls,
until he was scoring in the positive. Then Ichi and I separated, and it
became a little harder for Zander to block the balls coming from
different angles. Then I threw one hard at the wall behind him so it
would bounce off and hit him in the back, which it did, and surprised
him.
I said "Stop! Did you think you would only need to protect your
front? I would have died, torn in half, in a fight with a Dark Adept,
if I hadn't been able to reflexively protect my back. Yes, this is
serious. Ready?" He said "Begin!" We did some more, and he improved.
Then I said "Stop! Now, do this with your eyes closed. It's not that
bad. You are capable of doing this. Ready?" He said a nervous "Begin!"
He got hit a lot, until he learned to adjust to the new way with his
object sense. Then his positive score reached my goal, and I said
"Stop! 50 points. You win. Let's sit and relax, and you can tell me
what it is you have won from this." He said "Speed and coordination. In
a fight, you lose without those skills." I said "Right. But, this is
for an expected attack. Can you do this when you are not expecting it?"
He said "Probably not as well, or at all. I assume we are going to fix
that." I said "That program for the flashing lights. Think about it."
He got all excited and said, "My reflexes can be programed the same
way?" I said "Anything you can do, can be done with a program.
Attaching it to something which will make it operate in an emergency,
is another thing. I was once attacked by a murderous flying crystal,
traveling a short distance at high speed. If I hadn't stopped it with
my mind, it would have killed me. Interestingly, I had only thought
about being able to do that a few days before. That was the first time
I did it. What saved me was I had been so trained in fighting, that
anything I could do, automatically became part of my reflex system,
including psionic abilities. But you haven't had that kind of training
we had and still have at the school, so we are helping you learn this
in a different way. We don't intend to waste all our work on you, to
have you die in your first battle." He said "I have to agree with
that." We grinned. I said "After lunch, we'll work on mind management
to help with this and other things. It wouldn't hurt if you thought
about what that might be." We bowed, and did our usual lunch routine.
At the school cafeteria, Ichi said "That was fun. I hope Pete was
watching. We should have it in the school." I said "Right. An advanced
version of DodgeBall. Could even make it a real competitive sport among
Adepts, if we can turn off 4th controls for the duration." He said
"Lets try it after we eat. You have to hit it back with energy, too.
Any body contact counts against you." I said "Something like handball
without the hands?" He nodded and said, "Better. That way you can
bounce off the walls." I said "Balls, too." He said "That's not just a
joke. Doing it in null-g would make it even more interesting." I said
"Have to have rules. Can't jam an opponent's push." He said "Right. Can
only block it 2 or less meters from you, and can't push at the
opponent. Have to stay in your side of the court. In null-g you can use
energy to move." I said "Have to wear goggles and neck guard, and cup."
He said "Googles set to go opaque at random intervals." I said "Great!
We should put this in a crystal and pass it around. After we try it,
naturally." Which we intended to do. I took 4 steel cargo containers,
and welded two of them together side by side, and then two on top of
them, and cut out the insides. I added another container to the middle
of one side, for glassed in observation and equipment. Then I thought
it wasn't big enough, so I doubled it. I made everything air tight, and
made the outside reflective and installed an energy control system for
the outside, which included invisibility and meteor shields, and
environment controls and lighting for the inside. I made the goggles
and safety gear. Then I ported it to a follow Earth orbit, far enough
away from the Earth and Moon to be mostly unaffected by their gravity.
We didn't have time to try it out then, so we went back to Zander.
He said "I sense a difference. An excitement." I nodded at Ichi, and
he told Zander all about our new sport. Zander said "And you made this
new arena and put it in orbit, in a few minutes?" I said "Yes. What we
do isn't affected by scale or distance." He was too stunned by the
implications, to say the usual. I said "Right. Only true Guardians
should be trusted with even knowing about this. Being able to use this
technology without endangering entire solar systems, is something
altogether different. What can be done, doesn't mean it should be done,
such as moving the world of the Van to another galaxy." He said "You
can do that?" I said "I don't know. We haven't tried. Would you like to
visit our Arena, and conduct an experiment in communication?" He
grinned in excitement and said, "You are just being teasingly polite."
I grinned and said, "Ichi will stay here, until you contact him from
there and ask him to join us. Ready for weightlessness?" He said
"Ready!" We ported to the observation area. I nodded to him, and felt
him contact Ichi, who joined us. Zander said, "This method of
communication isn't effected by distance?" I said "It is, depending on
the relative condition of the receiver. Other than that, we haven't
found any, and we are millions of kilometers from earth. Oh, and don't
worry. We are shielded from radiation and impacts." He said "I trust
you." I said "Don't. Nobody is perfect. Never trust your life to
another, more than absolutely necessary." He tried to bow, and
discovered you can't do that and look serious in, null-g. We grinned. I
said "I'm really not perfect. Why didn't I put gravity controls in this
thing? Wait a minute." I added them to the observation gallery, and to
the sport court, but separate, and added a program to vary the gravity
randomly. I said "I had another thought. To bring this up to another
level, we could wear more protection, such as helmets and more pads,
and vary the gravity randomly in there. Not at first, though." Ichi
said "It's still a good idea." I said "Zander, I added a personal
environment control for you here, keyed to your personality, and
controlled by you through your telepathy. It will maintain an air
temperature you ask for next to your body surface, out to 2 cm, but not
affect anybody else." He said "Thank YOU!" We grinned.
I said "We can demonstrate the game at a different time. Now we
should go back for something I'm sure you would like to learn. Ready?"
I ported us to his apartment. We sat, and I handed Zander a crystal in
advanced mind management, which I had just made with some new things in
it. I gave it to Ichi, too, who was surprised and happy with what he
saw in it. I said to Zander, "Spend some time reviewing it, before we
start." He did, and then I said, "I'm going into your brain and mind to
watch you while you build some independent mind compartments. Ready?"
He was and I did, and he did it well. Then I showed him from the
inside, how to link commands in them and to them, including using
mnemonic triggers. Then I pulled out. He said "This is fantastic! I
never would have thought of this." I said "I think you underrate
yourself. Now lets talk about using your object sense with this. You
know that with concentration, you can perceive finer details at close
range. If you make that viewpoint as small as possible, and move it
across an area and back and forth like reading a book, you can sense a
larger area in unusually fine detail. Try it." He did and said, "It
works, but is difficult to make a picture of the results." I said "Yes.
Merging the scan lines is difficult to do consciously." I waited. Then
he grinned and said, "A program!" I grinned back. He tried it, and
said, "It works, but I will have to adjust the program a little after I
do some experimentation." I said "You can adjust many things, such as
the degree of resolution, and you can add detection of specific
objects, linked to an alarm. I did something like that when I was
decoding what your people were saying in telepathy. My alarm sounded in
the middle of supper, to tell me it had cracked the code. My family
noticed, when I told Ichi in contact."
Zander said "How did they notice that?" I contacted Ichi, and then
told Zander to feel the trace between us with the chakra in hand. He
did. Then I cut the contact. I said "Many psionic activities leave
traces while they are active, and sometimes for a while after. Remember
that, when going after a bad Adept." He said "I will. Thank you." I
said "Let's go to your bed for a demonstration." We went. I printed a
message in the sand. I said "I could have written that like with a pen,
a letter at a time, but I used a program to shape my energy thrust.
It's much faster that way." He said "I see." We went back to the living
room. I made a flame at the end of my upright finger, and said, "An
Adept I fought used fire as one of his favorite weapons, and I was
burned trying to absorb all the energy. I wasn't fast enough because he
was sucking that energy from hundreds of people. He stopped when I made
some painfully stinging insects crawl into his body cavities and sting
him. The lesson in that is sometimes distraction works better than
direct opposition." Ichi looked amused and awed, and said, "Sneaky
Suspicious Devious Devil rules the day!" Zander felt the same way, and
said, "Absolutely!" I bowed.
I said "You can control many kinds of energy. The only limit is your
ability to perceive, and your knowledge and control. I made a fireworks
display entirely from energy. Safer. No explosives and fire hazard.
This evening, would you like to see it, after we try out the arena?" He
grinned and nodded. I said "Then we will see you then." We said our
farewells, and I ported out before Ichi ported in some food for Zander.
We undressed in our bedroom, and took that opportunity for a fast
squirt. While we were resting, Ichi and I contacted Pete and told him
about the new sport and our arena. He said +You do think big!+ I said
+This could be important for training and fun. I think it will be good
for our adepts to exercise our abilities in a fun way. Serious is
boring. Want to referee?+ He said +Yes! I'll invite the other seniors.
7 Eastern?+ I said +Fine. Port to hanger one. We'll take you from
there. Discom.+ Ichi and I decided to squirt again, which we did very
well, before we went to help cook and eat supper.
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Grant
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