Chapter 31: Progress Report Meeting

Saturday, April 9, 2005

Saturday morning I woke up feeling energetic and decided that I wanted to go for a run. It felt like I wanted to burn off some energy, although it seemed that I could run without using ANY energy. Despite the impossible physics, not playing soccer while my arm was healing meant I didn't get enough running around, and I felt like it this morning.

It was about the time we normally get up for school, so I lightly tapped on the girls' door in case they were asleep. Donna, whose bed is closest to the door, called out to enter.

I invited her to come on a run with me, but she had to decline because she didn't want to be tired when she got went to her athletic club soon ("The Corvallis Athletic Club". I think it's just a running club with a more impressive sounding name). She was going to take my 10k registration with her too. Mom had given it to me to fill out last night, and Dad was paying the entry fee, happy about my new sporting interest. The race was next Saturday.

I was about to turn to leave after Donna's declining, when Carol surprised me by asking if she could bike alongside me. Donna and I are slim and running suited us, but Carol wasn't really the running type, being too "plush", which wasn't an issue for biking. I was happy to have her with me and we could easily find somewhere suitable for us to run and ride together. I left her to get up and dressed while I had a snack or two.

Carol joined me, and we hit the street. I settled into my optimal rate that Carol easily matched, and we started chatting. It turned out to be very one sided as Carol had a great deal to say. I'd hoped that she'd talk about the guy that'd rejected her, but she was far too busy raving about how wonderful Julia was, how much she enjoyed being friends with Julia and me, how happy it made her to have such a great brother, especially one who had such a great girlfriend, etc.

She was considerably more than happy, so I didn't think I should remind her of the asshole. For the first fifteen minutes of our bike/run, my contribution was limited to managing a quick, "She's your girlfriend too," but it barely caused Carol to pause. She was counting down the hours until her sleepover with Julia on Wednesday night. She was also eager to go shopping with Julia next Saturday and to have a fashion parade for me afterward. I must admit that I stumbled a bit at that thought; so much for Julia's claim that I never do that.

After Carol's gushing had vented sufficiently, we talked a little about the most recent "Jock Attack", but it didn't need much discussion. I insisted that I had been safe and not worried. Carol was very happy that I'd rescued Julia so well.

Some guy jogged up and joined us while we were cruising along. When he learned that Carol was my sister, he put a lot of effort into trying to chat her up.

I wasn't at all surprised, given the tight shorts and tight T-shirt Carol was wearing. I can't recall having seen her dressed in such tight clothes before, and she looked very good (#4 told the rest of us she looked <Hot!>, while the rest of us kept our thoughts to ourselves). I could understand the jogger's interest, even though I tried not to notice how good Carol looked, and had repeatedly "tried not to notice" from the moment she'd walked into the kitchen. I guess she must've grown in the last few months, so it was just as well that she was going shopping for some new clothes soon.

The stranger tried to get Carol into conversation with him several times, but she was completely uninterested, even cold. It didn't take long before her lack of encouragement and the pace I was setting caused him to fall back.

After he was gone, I commented to Carol, "He seemed like a nice guy - fit and good looking too - but you weren't interested in him?"

Carol looked down at me for a while, and I could see her thinking about what to say. But in the end she just said, "No, I wasn't interested in him." She said it with an air of finality, so I didn't pursue the topic further. The unknown asshole had obviously had a bad effect on Carol's attitude to guys.

After an hour or so of exercise, I suggested heading back home.

Carol said, "Thank goodness; I was getting tired. How can I get more tired on a bike than you running? I'm not that unfit because we've only been using the car for a week, and you've been using it too."

"I just like running, I guess. Talking to you is nice too. It makes the time go quickly."

On the way back home Carol tapped her bike's speedometer, and said, "You've kept up this average speed, about 13 miles per hour, for about an hour, and you don't appear to be tired. Could you keep running this speed for another hour if you wanted to?"

"Probably." With a probability of 1.0.

"A marathon is 26 miles. I'm guessing you could do a marathon in about two hours. Do you know what the times marathons are normally run in?"

She'd be able to find out for herself, so I said, "I think I've heard that the record is just over two hours."

She looked at me, and said, "Does that mean what I think it means?"

"Um, probably." With the same probability value as previously.

After a pause, Carol said, "Julia keeps telling me how special you are, and I've been enthusiastically agreeing, but I haven't been agreeing for enough reasons. I've been thinking you're special because you are the nicest, most caring, most loving guy I've ever met. But she also means for things like world-record marathon times, driving cars on the first attempt, being an expert 8-ball player first up, and the world's best lover. There's much more to you than just being super-nice isn't there?"

I could have done without my sister mentioning my lovemaking prowess, but otherwise, "Yes there is. I've been waiting for a good moment - probably when you, Julia and I are alone in her room - to talk more about it. There are a couple more things I'd like to share with you. Maybe we'll get a chance Wednesday evening, although there will be a lot of parents around and I'd rather do this with as much privacy as possible, and with plenty of time. If we can't do it Wednesday, maybe you and I go around there on Thursday evening, and spend some quality time talking together with Julia."

#2: <And if our TK makes Carol scream, the room will be soundproofed by then.>

Carol said, "That's wonderful. I'd like to know you better, Mark."

"You sound very positive. I thought you might be a bit scared. Some of the things I do scare me, so they must seem even stranger and perhaps threatening from your point of view?"

Carol's answer was an eloquent, "{Raspberry}. As if you'd do anything to hurt me!"

#2: <Carol is picking up Julia's succinct way of refuting our statements. I can't recall Julia ever doing that in Carol's presence before, so goodness only knows how Carol learned about it.>

That ended that conversation, except I added, "Please don't tell anyone what you discovered about how well I can run."

"Can I tell Julia please? Julia and I like to talk about you."

I can't say I was in favor of the reason, but I said, "Sure. I don't have any secrets from Julia."

"Can I tell people you're a good runner? Donna said that at breakfast after your last run, and if you enter that 10k race it's going to be public knowledge isn't it?"

"Umm, yeah, you're right. No details though. I do NOT want anyone other than Julia to know anything about world records! Not even Donna, unfortunately, in case she bragged about her brother at her running club."

"I understand," agreed Carol. "No details about your running; only details about what a wonderful person you are."

"Ahh, yeah. Something like that."

When we got home, Mom said that Julia had called, and had asked me to call her back.

I called back and Vanessa answered, "Julia has gone to look at cars, but we wanted you to come over at lunchtime. Is that all right with you?"

Being invited for a meal is always "all right with me", so I accepted gladly.

^

I had an interesting little idea while riding to the Williams' place. I had just rolled down a little hill and was coasting along a flat section, when I wondered what would happen if I TK-pushed the bike forward. So I tried it. I TK-pushed against the front fork, just below where it met the handlebars, where the push shouldn't unbalance the bike. I steadily increased the push until I had a three-mind, max-force push going. The bike didn't speed up, but the deceleration rate reduced noticeably. Wind resistance is a drag (by definition, and with the pun intended), and my TK force wasn't strong enough to overcome it at these speeds, but as the bike slowed wind resistance reduced, until I was going slow enough that my TK force equaled the wind resistance plus whatever friction the bike had. I coasted along 'for free', having to do no more than concentrate a little.

It was much slower than I normally would've ridden, but it was fun to see it happening. Anyone watching me might find it strange that I was rolling along endlessly without pedaling, so I started doing so. Normally I'd ride along at about fifteen miles per hour, more if I was heading for sex, so I tried pedaling as hard as I normally would while having the TK-assist going too. At that speed the wind resistance was a major drag, so my TK-assist seemed to add only a single mph or two to my speed.

I wondered whether I could set a world record in biking too, but I knew that the slight boost TK gave me wasn't nearly enough to close the performance gap between me and world-class cyclists. Then I realized that my world-record running rates weren't because of TK at all, but were because I could run a very decent speed without getting tired. So there were two questions: Could I ride at a very decent speed without getting tired? Could I use TK to help me run faster?

The first question I'd have to do by experiment. I hadn't done any long distance riding since my first merge, so I hadn't found out whether I had a tireless biking rate. I'd be at the Williams' house too soon to test it this trip. The experiment would have to wait, as it would've been rude to be late to lunch.

The second question's answer seemed fairly obvious. A boosting push by TK when I was running would have much less effect on my speed than the same push when biking because bike riding gets much more speed out of the same energy than running does. TK barely affected my biking speed, so it'd be pretty useless when running. I made a mental note to try it though, probably the next time I went running with Donna, early Monday morning.

When I got to the Williams', there was a car parked in the drive that I hadn't seen before.

"Our new car," announced Julia, who'd run out of the house upon seeing me arrive. After an enthusiastic welcoming kiss she added, "We bought it this morning."

It was an old-ish but tidy, small, 4-door car. When I walked around it, I saw it was a Honda Civic. Its make and model was something I was indifferent about. I'd never gotten 'into' cars the way lots of guys do. Probably because Dad never made a big deal out of them and I didn't hang around with other guys who did.

I queried, "How come you said 'our new car'? It's not my car in any way."

Julia laughed, "I've given you my body, heart and soul. Do you think half of an old car matters to me? It's in my name because that was easier, but I could care less who drives it the most, whether we keep it at your house or mine, or whatever. It's our car; we can do whatever we want with it, or get another one if we need two. It's just a car."

It wasn't worth arguing about, especially as I don't have a license anyway.

I changed the subject, "How's your arm?"

Julia pulled up her sleeve to show me the bruise. It hadn't had much time to heal yet so still looked just the same. "It doesn't hurt unless I press it. It'll be fine. How are your bruises?"

"I forgot about them. I went for a run for an hour this morning and they never gave me any trouble. Carol rode alongside me on her bike which was nice. She's never done that before so I was a bit surprised, but it was nice."

"Good girl. She did it because I told her to. I told her to get more exercise, especially with you if she could. I'll give her a call shortly to tell her I'm happy with her."

Those comments confused me. They made sense, but also seemed somewhat bizarre at the same time. I had to ask, "How come you're telling her to get exercise? Not that I'm complaining or anything; it just seems a little strange."

Julia explained, "She's too passive and needs pushes to help her along. She looks up to me so I'm taking advantage of that to push her in the directions I want; in the direction that'll be the best for all of us, especially her."

As you can see, it was a 'female type of explanation'. In other words, it explained nothing. I just looked more confused.

Julia saw it and said, "Don't worry, darling. Just leave it to me. She'll be happy, I promise."

The response to that was easy, "I'm sure she will. I've already seen how happy Carol's been since you became her friend, and it's very good to see. I'm getting used to not understanding you so one more thing not to understand you about is no problem."

"Good attitude, haha. Have I mentioned how much I love my life? It's so good being your girl!"

Lunch was ready, and it would've been rude to keep it waiting, so we went inside.

Toward the end of lunch, while everyone was around the dinner table, Prof gave his Progress Report, "Mark, here's the status on the items we agreed to do at last Wednesday's dinner:

^-- "The Math Department bureaucracy have moved their pieces of paper around, not that there was much to do. You can audit any courses of ours you want. I've left overviews of all of them, lecture times, etc., plus some orientation material for the university itself and degree information in Julia's temporary bedroom, on the safe bet that you'll end up in that room sometime today.

^-- "I've talked to the Dean. He's agreed it would be useful for you to have a license so you could get back and forth to OSU quickly and easily. To a large degree that's a fake excuse because OSU is close enough for you to bike there. The fakeness of that doesn't worry him because if you do well enough to become famous, it'll be an excellent example of OSU's going out of their way to help you. It wasn't hard to convince him that someone with your IQ could be trusted driving a car a few months early, compared with half the drivers on the road these days.

^-- "He's very experienced at getting bureaucrats to do what he wants, and to using his clout in this town, so I expect he'll get that done in the next week or two. I must remember to email him about your most recent fracas at school, as that might give him another justification.

^-- "Julia's room is mostly done. They're about halfway through putting it back together. That should be finished Monday. It has a great deal more closet space, the cost of filling it being something I'm very worried about." His smile proving that he wasn't really worried.

^-- "Everything needed for the study has been ordered for delivery Monday afternoon, and won't take long to install. The computer comes pre-loaded from OSU with various software packages, I'll leave you to let me know if you need any more. The internet is already connected and we've ordered a router so both computers can use the same wall socket.

^-- "You saw parked outside the status report on getting a car for you and Julia.

^-- "And that's about it. Everything should be done by when your family comes around for dinner on Wednesday. We're looking forward to having you and Carol spend time here, and to helping you. I'll let you read the material that's in Julia's room first, and get your study set up, but in about a week we should sit down and have a discussion about your educational choices. The school year is nearly finished and you've got a double-dose of exams shortly, so I don't expect much to happen until after those, but there's no reason we shouldn't do some planning soon. Do you have any questions?"

"Ahh, no. Wait, yes I do. Why are you going to so much trouble for me? I don't want to seem ungrateful, but you barely know me and I'm getting overwhelmed by how much you're doing and how quickly too."

Julia started answering, but Prof cut her off with, "Let me, Julia. Mark knows love motivates you. He needs to hear about Vanessa's and my motivations." Julia relaxed and Prof carried on, "I'll start generally. A key word is 'support'. Vanessa and I want to support your education. We're not making your choices for you or forcing you in any particular direction. We're encouraging you to make your own choices, and even your own mistakes. You'll set your own direction and you'll go down it as far as you want and can. We want to do what we can to ensure that there are no unnecessary constraints on what you can achieve academically.

^-- "We've learned enough about your academic accomplishments - mostly from Julia's boasting about them to us - that we're VERY excited about your potential. You have the highest-ever-recorded IQ, Mark! With your cutting a swathe through your schoolwork confirming its accuracy." [[In other dimensions my IQ result was only the second highest. Not that the distinction matters, as my score was a - currently very guilt-inducing - fiction anyway.]]

^-- "In all seriousness, what we're doing for you now is far less than we're willing to do, especially as OSU is paying for most of it. In a year you're going to be receiving offers with inducements running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Countless organizations are going to be competing for you and they're going to be bidding a great deal in the hope of winning you. When that's happening, you'll realize that what's being offered to you now isn't anything special. It may seem a lot compared to what's been spent on your education previously, but in truth it's almost embarrassingly small, especially as Vanessa and I are going to be getting a great deal of personal satisfaction and pleasure out of helping you.

^-- "We know you're special and unique. We believe you have incredible potential and are a good person. Julia insists you're the BEST person. You're still young and have a lot learning to do. As much as we can, we'll help with that. After all, it's possible that you might become our son-in-law."

I try not to show any unease at statements like that, especially when I'm in front of Julia's family, but so much of what Prof was saying was making me uneasy - if not outright guilty - so I probably showed something.

Prof responded, "Don't worry about it, Mark. You're only fifteen and there are several years before that can happen, regardless of how eager this family's females are. Take your time to do what you want. Don't let them push you around. It took Vanessa ten years to convince me to marry her, and people are even slower to marry these days, so there's plenty of time before you have to face that decision."

^-- "Let me finish my explanation. Your academic potential alone would justify far more expense and effort than what we've talked about today. You don't currently need any more, so that's not an issue, but if you did it would be easy to get it for you. If not from us, then from OSU, your school, the Corvallis and Oregon Boards of Education, and I'm sure many other organizations if we sought them out. You know your school and the Boards of Education are already giving you special treatment, but your low opinion of yourself is preventing you from realizing how appropriate such reactions are.

#1: <We really fucked up by getting such a high score on that damned IQ test.>

#3: <Yeah. EVERYBODY is going to be terribly disappointed by us when we get past the rote-learning stuff they spoon feed us at school and we hit a brick wall with the college courses.>

#4: <There's no way of pulling the plug on their excitement though. We're just going to come over as pathetically pessimistic.>

#1: <Yeah, we fucked up AND painted ourselves into a corner, at the same time.>

Prof was still speaking, "In addition to your academic potential, there's also your physical abilities. We're all amazed by your being a physical genius too. Julia is particularly appreciative of that, but we're all impressed beyond words at it. The phenomenal speed at which you pick up physical skills, and the degree to which you develop them, is mind-boggling in itself. Perhaps we should be doing something about that aspect, but it's not something that appeals to Vanessa or me, so we've not done so. That omission should convince you that a large part of our motivation is for our own selfish pleasure. You don't have to feel guilty about our helping you academically..."

#4: <Wanna bet!>

" ... Your possibly becoming our son-in-law is icing on the cake, if you'll excuse an attempt at a small joke. You more than justify our support because of each of your academic, physical and matrimonial potentials.

^-- "Then there's the unnaturalness of what's happened to you. Intellectual and physical genius doesn't develop almost overnight as yours did. I can see you're looking uncomfortable already, but hear me out on this. You only have to listen; not talk. We're not going to be pressuring you. We've seen that you become uncomfortable when the topic of conversation skirts close to how you get to be so good at anything, Julia has warned us away from pushing you about it, and we've decided to respect your privacy on this topic, but it's one we need to say a few words about.

^-- "Vanessa and I have discussed the issue several times because the stakes are potentially very large and the correct decision isn't obvious. Something happened to you and it's had an unbelievably profound effect. We understand that you don't want to talk about it, and we assume you're in a position to judge whether or not you should. You don't strike us as a selfish person, so we're assuming your reasons for keeping it secret are good ones.

^-- "I'm sure you've thought about it so I'll cut straight to perhaps the major reason for our decision not to press you about it. Whatever your secret is, it's a big one. Perhaps the biggest ever. Whatever it is, once it's let out there'll be no way call it back. That argues for a great deal of caution. You're far too young to be the center of the storm your secret would unleash, so we agree to your keeping it secret. We won't pressure you for it, and we won't raise the issue again in the foreseeable future because we can see that doing so would only drive you away. Naturally we're enormously fascinated, and we hope that you'll one day confide in us, but in the meanwhile it is YOUR secret. Our doors are open if you feel the need to discuss any aspects of the situation, even just the fringes of it. It seems likely that you're carrying a burden that no 15-year old should have to.

^-- "I'll leave that topic there. In answer to your first question about why we're helping you, I think you should be able to see that our reasons for doing so FAR exceed the picayune effort we're going to. If you need support for anything, don't hesitate to ask for it because Vanessa and I will provide you with a GREAT deal more than we are already. Ok, son?"

#1: <Christ! We didn't do a very good job of hiding our being so unusual from them, did we?>

#4: <No. By the sound of it they've even known for some time. Thank God they're good people. What do we say to them?>

#3: <How about "Thank you, and can we please change the subject now?" I think the less we say the better, especially because they are so sharp. Even Mom and Dad don't have a clue.> [[Mom and Dad DID have a clue. Mom about my intellectual abilities and Dad about my physical. They didn't understand as much as Prof and Vanessa did, especially about the future implications, and they'd seen my abilities show themselves slower since my first merge so they hadn't had the jolting experience the Williamses had. Mom and Dad's response was to keep an eye on me and worry more, rather than discuss it.]]

I said, "Thank you, and can we please change the subject now?"

Vanessa agreed, "Yes, after I make one point. Prof and I are taking the long view with you. We suspect you're going to have a busy and stressful life, so try to avoid feeling pressured while you're so young. Let the issue sit for a few years, don't study too hard, and get some fun while you can. I know Julia will be volunteering to help with that."

Robert said, "If you're looking for a change of subject, Andrew and I have got one. We've got an idea to make some money using your 8-ball expertise. Would you help us with that?"

They were helping with Julia's/my car, and with setting up the study for me, so I easily agreed: "Sure."

"Let's discuss it in the Guys' Room." So the three of us, plus Julia attached to my arm as usual, relocated there.

Robert led off, "Andrew and I were discussing last night how to maximize how much we can win from our 8-ball 'friends'. We decided that we'd invite several of them around, have a few minor games to get them warmed up, then try to get them all to place very large wagers on a 'Their Champion versus Our Champion' match. We'd suggest each side picks their best player in the room. We thought of having you hang around with us, maybe sitting in the corner doing schoolwork and we'd introduce you as our little sister's boyfriend that we're minding for a while.

^-- "Andrew and I could get moderately drunk and they'd think they could eat us alive. They'd offer large bets. Then we'd name you as our champion. We'll only get to do this once, so we think that gives us the best return. Our main worry is who to invite. We don't want to invite anyone too good, otherwise they might beat you."

When Julia heard Robert's last statement, she snorted at it, declaring, "Invite EVERYONE. There's NO possibility of Mark losing."

Andrew said, "Some of the guys we could invite are sharks Julia. They can eat us alive. If one of those guys is here, and the others know they can pick him as their champion, they'll make heavy wagers against us. It's great you've got faith in your boyfriend, but those wagers would wipe us out if we lost. Mark's good, but he's not that good."

"Yes he is. Listen to me: he CANNOT lose. He's a LOT better now than he was last time you played him. Invite everyone. If you lose I'll sell my car and pay you back."

"Sis, if we lose, your car wouldn't come close to covering it. These guys won't show any mercy. They'll be sure we'll lose and they'll bet thousands. As much as they think we can pay, and then some."

Julia looked at me and said, "It's up to you. You can forget the whole idea, do it partly just by inviting the easy players, or do it the full hog by inviting everyone. But if you go the full hog, you're going to have to show them that they can have faith in you. What do you want to do?"

In other words, did I want to show my TK to her brothers? I didn't know them that well. I thought the Williams family was wonderful, but as individuals I didn't know Andrew and Robert well enough. I was thinking about the arguments both ways, when I realized that in the real game I wouldn't be able to show obvious TK either, so there was no need to show it now.

So I said, "Why don't we have a few games, and you can decide for yourselves?"

The balls were racked and I won the break versus Andrew. I was a very good player without TK because of my ambidexterity and other benefits of being so fantastically coordinated. This time I was going to use TK as well. [[I also had very accurate eyesight, although I didn't know that yet. My body's improvements were more thorough than I'd realized.]]

I briefly studied the racked balls to see where all the "Unders" were, as I'd picked them as my targets. I broke, and had one mind control each of three Under balls. One was pocketed, and two rolled up table, clear of the bunch. I'd left the cue ball in a good position, aided by an assist from one mind while its Under ball was rolling smoothly.

I sunk one of the exposed Unders, making sure that another Under or two was knocked out of the bunch. I repeated that process until all the Unders were clear and conveniently placed for relatively easy sinks. I just worked my through them, exposing the Black at a good time, then sinking that ball at the end.

On the next game, I didn't interfere with Andrew's break, and he sunk a ball. His next shot was a long one, so while the cue ball was en route to its target, I gave it a few sideways TK-pushes, using a tiny fraction of a single mind's maximum force. As soon as I could see that it was going to hit the target ball very slightly to the side of where Andrew had wanted it to, I left it alone. Sure enough, the target ball was sent in the wrong direction, missing the intended pocket. My turn again. I repeated my previous performance, cleaning the table of my balls. Long, slow rolls of either the cue or target ball were my favorite, as there was plenty of time for minor adjustments. Long rolls alongside a cushion were very easy too, as my targets always seemed to drop into the corner pocket at the end, and my opponent's almost never did. One of the biggest helps was controlling where the cue ball stopped, ready for the next shot. That alone made the game far easier.