Chapter 4

It was lost. It was scared. It was detached from itself.

It could feel the energy around it. Several container-things. They held energy and being. Its thoughts were very basic. Find an empty container-thing. None around the current place were empty. It needed to move.

It rose up, above the sphere that held billions of container-things. Almost all of them were full of being, or being and energy. None of them were empty. No. There was one. It could feel it. Empty, barren, isolated. Perfection. Full of energy, plentiful with energy... but no being. It could take the energy. Use the container. So it did. It swept down, filling the container-thing with its own being. It was whole.

Paul awoke with a start. That had been one hell of a dream. Pyrokinetics... floating above the Earth... he really needed to schedule an appointment with the base psychologist.

But there was time to worry about that kind of thing later. He tried to sit up and check the time, but was shocked to find metal restraints pressing against his wrists and his feet, as well as a leather strap cinched around his neck. He couldn't even look around to get his bearings. All he could see were the bright lights of a high ceiling.

Now that he was becoming a little more aware, he could make out the voices around him.

"How is the experiment becoming conscious? It is not possible! He is supposed to be a blank template!"

"If you failed in your creation, doctor, the High Guardsman will be most displeased. His own consciousness was supposed to be transferred into this template... this supposedly perfect creation."

"I know I removed all ability for it to have its own will! Maybe it's just a normal biological response... he might not actually be awake."

What were these people talking about? One of them spoke with a thick Japanese accent, and the other with a British accent. They were speaking of perfect creations and the High Guardsman, so they had to be Supernus researchers. But what would he be doing in the same room with Supernus researchers?

It hit Paul like a blow to the gut. The battle with Pyrokinetic had not been a dream... nor had his vision of floating over the world been one. He had actually somehow managed to fling his essence halfway around the world into a different body as he died. He would have been astounded, had not his soldier's instincts been kicking in. The fact that he had accomplished an impossible feat did not matter. He was restrained, surrounded by the enemy. This was an unacceptable situation by any standard. He had used up too much time thinking already. Now it was time to get to his job.

With the most mere flick of a tendril of his thoughts, Paul shattered the steel bolts that kept his hand restrained to the lab table he was laying on. The leather strap unwound itself from around him smoothly, at his slightest suggestion. It was as if his telekinetic abilities were on hyperactive mode. He felt more powerful then he ever had before.

"It's loose! It's loose!" He heard somebody scream.

That person was to be his first target as he sat up. He hurtled a powerful wave of kinetics at him, smashing his chest so badly that his sternum was sticking perpendicular from his back. Four guards charged him, and were all hurtled backwards with a massive burst of power.

Paul automatically formed a shield around his body as seven different attacks from various Mentalists throughout the room converged on him. The impinging of the telekinetic powers against his protective bubble really accomplished nothing, but it did serve to make him want to end this quickly before he discovered the limits to his newly increased abilities.

He searched his brain, attempting to find out rapidly what was in his arsenal. The same abilities he had before were there: telepathic, telekinetic, and combat kinetic abilities. But there was also the healing ability (transmissible regenerative powers), teleformism, pyrokinesis, as well as a few others that he had no clue how to identify. Since he had seen the power of a pyrokinetic explosion first hand, he decided he would call on that ability first.

Droplets of sweat formed all over his face as the ambient temperature began to rise quickly in the room. Heat waves began to form, turning every surface into a wavering hallucination. Reaching out with his telepathy, Paul judged the approximate size of the base he was within, calculating his burst of power to match what he thought would be necessary to completely vaporize it. He completed miscalculated. He didn't need a fourth the power he used.