Chapter 31

Time: Saturday, July 12, 2008 3:32 PM

I was practicing with my abilities at home when the phone rang. I did a quick planet- wide search-pulse for Melanie's DNA. There were faint traces all over the Boston area, even a few micro traces in France, and then I found the mother lode. Melanie was at Biotherapeutics as expected. I zoomed in to see her on a phone waiting for a pickup. I picked up my phone without even looking at the ID.

"Hi Pumpkin!"

"Hi sweetie! How's your practice coming?"

I smiled. "Oh, just fine. I'll show you some neat stuff when you come home. Everything okay on your end?"

"Oh, I'm fine. I just called to check. Any changes?"

I took me a second to realize what Melanie was talking about. A new period was starting just as Melanie called. "No, no changes or bumps. All systems go."

"Well, that's good. Eric, I'll be working late again tonight. I should be home by nine though. Will that be okay?"

"Sure. Want me to pick you up?" Melanie knew what I was talking about.

She giggled. "No, I'll walk."

"All right. I'll have a nice dinner waiting. Lobster be okay?"

"Oh boy! Thanks sweetie."

We chatted for a few minutes and then hung up. I leaned back in my kitchen chair and did an inventory.

At five minutes into the tenth period of my fifth rotation, my sense sphere radius was 86,940 kilometers, I could generate a force of 5.43e20 Newtons, and lock photons down to station 1039 on the AM dial. That's frequencies as low as 1.04 MHz. My mastery of the EM spectrum is almost complete. There really isn't much below AM radio, mostly just some low frequency bands used for amateur radio and navigation beacons.

My biggest improvement though has been my power production. Over the last two months, my power output has grown a factor of eighteen squared. I can now create and destroy matter at a rate of 419 metric tons per second.

At my current ability, it would take me about forty days to reduce the worldwide concentration of CO2 by one ppm, forty days to turn 350 ppm into 349 ppm by destroying the carbon atoms and leaving the O2 molecules behind. I might get around to doing it. I would be so ashamed of myself if my powers suddenly disappeared, and through laziness I never took the opportunity to clean the planet while I had the chance.

Currently though I'm working on the world's waste dumps. I've have identified many billions of tons of crud and toxic sludge that's well deserving of my patented one-way ticket into oblivion. On a global scale, I'm just starting to make the tiniest of dents in it. But in a few local areas where my dents are, the world is a much cleaner place.

And now, back to practice! I was in the kitchen, sitting at our small butcher-block table and well out of sight of any windows. I placed my hand above the table and concentrated for a moment, and then brought my hand to my side, pushing it through the table as I did. The table offered only a touch of resistance.

How can I do this? Ever wonder why your body isn't pulled by gravity to the center of the Earth while you're standing? It's because the electrons at the bottom of your shoes start exchanging virtual photons with the electrons in the floor just underneath you. But I can suppress the interactions, down to AM frequencies, wavelengths 288 meters and less. These long wavelengths are ultra low-energy, 4 nano-eV and below, and the few ultra- low energy virtual photons just don't have the "ummph" to keep my hand out of the table.

I haven't tried to pass my brain, my mind, through solid matter yet.

I want to do some thinking before I try something like that.

Time: Sunday, September 21, 2008 8:58 PM

"Melanie, how about a break?"

Melanie looked up from her work desk and stretched. In addition to being a third year med student, Biotherapeutics had waved some serious bucks at Melanie to remain affiliated with the company as a part-time consultant. "Oh yeah, sounds good! What do you have in mind?"

"Well, right now my sense sphere radius just passed 410,000 kilometers."

Melanie looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Okay..."

"The Earth to moon distance varies between 356,410 kilometers and 406,740 kilometers."

Melanie's eyes went wide as she realized what I was hinting at.

"Eric, is this trip safe?"

"Oh, absolutely," I said. "I think... Just joking!"

Melanie gave me a playful glare. "Okay, I'll trust you. Is what I'm wearing okay?"

"Actually, no. How about a swimsuit?"

"What?! You're going to take me swimming on the moon?!"

"Did I say that?! Well, actually, yes."

Melanie laughed and threw out her arms high from her sides. "Do me!"

It took a second's thought, and then Melanie was wearing a two-piece swimsuit. She looked at her body at smiled. "Nice! Now, what do I have to do?"

"Nothing. Just relax. The whole trip will take about ten seconds.

I don't want to get too close to light speed. You'll be weightless, and you won't be able to see anything. Just breathe normally and relax."

"Okay."

Ten seconds later Melanie and I were standing in a cavernous room in front of an Olympic size swimming pool. As Melanie stared in astonishment, I started to boast about my creation. "Full Olympic size, fifty meters by twenty-five, and it's twenty meters deep.