Chapter 9

Time: Thursday, July 4, 2002 10:43 PM

I kissed Melanie goodnight and walked back to my own house. We were coming back from a fireworks display and my dad had dropped us off at her apartment. I couldn't be happier. I have a girl who loved me, an exciting future at M.I.T. starting in two months, and unbelievable kinetic powers. The world is my oyster!

Melanie got a summer job at Reading Eagle, the local newspaper. She started as a part- time proof-reader, and the editorial staff was so impressed with her they also hired her as a junior reporter. She's now working 40+ hours a week and loving it.

She now has her own room that's she's renting, her own bank account, and a decent set of IDs, including originals of her birth certificate and a PA driver's permit. It's been a wonderful experience for both of us, living near each other now and preparing for college together.

And my kinetic abilities are growing right on schedule. My sphere of influence now has a radius of over 19 meters. I can generate a 22 Newton force and 229 Watts of power. And I just used my power tonight to commit a crime. After I got back home, I said goodnight to dad and closed the door of my room.

I pulled out the dark-brown envelope and stared at it. My great accomplishment! At least, that's the way I was thinking about it when I pulled my heist. But now? My conscience was starting to bother me, and I couldn't figure out why...

It was just before the finale at the fireworks display. There were a couple of tough looking guys standing against a wall sixty feet away, just inside my sphere of influence. I thought they looked like drug dealers, and I probed the duffle bag on the ground between the legs of one of them. I was right. It was filled with tiny quantities of powder wrapped in clear plastic. I was disgusted.

I probed further. There was an envelope filled with cash. I didn't probe for how much exactly, but it looked like a lot. And then the fireworks finale started, and the ground was shaking from the explosions overhead.

On the spur of the moment, I saw my chance. It was so simple to unzip the bag with a few Newtons of force, float the envelope up, re-zip the bag, and then float the envelope along the ground to my feet. And then, on a particularly big boom, I floated the envelope up my pants leg.

So now here I was, alone in my bedroom with the fruits of my victory. I shrugged off my nagging conscience and began to count. After a few minutes I had two piles of money before me.

One pile consisted of the loose bills in the envelope, two $100 bills, three $50's, eight $20's, two $10's, one $5, and two $1 bills, for a subtotal of $537.

My second pile came from a stack of $20's neatly bound with rubber bands. I counted them twice. They had random serial numbers, but were all neatly stacked and sorted face up, exactly 100 bills, $2000.

So, a total of $2,537, a nice pile of money, and the fact that most of it was in common twenties was also nice. I felt very confident I could spend it off gradually during the summer and dad and Melanie would never notice. And I was hurting a business that was killing people. I should feel great! And Melanie and I were going shopping in Philadelphia center city on Sunday afternoon. I could buy her a nice present! And yet... somehow...