Chapter 13

Time: Sunday, January 4, 2004 1:03 PM

We had a wonderful morning adjusting to being a couple again, walking the streets of Boston, catching the 10 AM sitting at the Parker house, wandering back to my dorm room afterwards. We both probably overate a bit at the sumptuous brunch, but all the miles of walking burned it off. It was wonderful just walking and holding hands with her again, even through the gloves.

We were alone as we walked across the Harvard bridge from Boston to Cambridge. Holding each other closely by our waists, I filled Melanie in on the details of my strike against the Russian Mafia. She was pretty quiet about it, non-judgmental... Her one comment was that she could see now why I was a "cash only" kind of guy.

Melanie looked around my dorm room and smiled as we got back. It was her first time here since the summer. "So," she said, as I closed the door, "This is where you stashed the loot, huh? Aren't you worried about a random theft?"

"What? Oh yeah, I didn't tell you. I moved to loot out of my footlocker two days after the heist. It's still in this room though... sort of..." I gave Melanie a playful smile.

Melanie grinned back, accepting my challenge. She walked and looked around the room, touching nothing. I could see her mind working. Then she looked up at me and smiled. "The walls?"

"Ah Melanie, you are good! Yeah, take a look at the radiator pipe by the window, where it enters the room."

She went and knelt and examined the floor connection under the vent. "Yeah, quite a bit of room around the pipe. I can't feel anything though... Oh, of course! Your force!"

"Right!" I tapped the center of the wall perpendicular to the windows. "I floated the stuff down here."

Melanie batted her eyes playfully. "Can I see it?"

"Sure! Let me float you up some samples." Melanie sat down at my desk. I floated three packages to her. Two were obviously money wrapped in cellophane, the third was one of the ingots. I had those individually wrapped in green velvet.

Melanie unwrapped the European money first and giggled. "This is the first time I've seen Euros... They look so strange! Like Monopoly money, so colorful! So many purples... wow... and all the pretty bridges... Do they all have bridges?"

"Yep."

Melanie smiled at me playfully. "Spend any yet?"

"The Euros? No, not one. I haven't touched it, not even to convert it."

Melanie nodded. "How much to you have?"

"1,680,500 euros... 2,080 of the purples, the 500-euro notes, 2,040 each of the 100 and 200 notes, those are the olive-green and yellow-brown ones, and about a 1000 notes of the smaller denominations..."

Melanie nodded and re-wrapped the euro package. She stared at the ingot for a while, running her fingers across it and hefting it, and then re-wrapped that too. She finally unwrapped the third package.

It was a stack of $100 bills, with a small pile of $50's and $20's at the end. "How much is this?" she asked.

"That? Around fifteen thousand, I think... The total from the heist was just over $1,500,000 U.S.; $1.3 million in $100's, and about $100-K each in $50's and $20's, just those three denominations..."

"And how much have you spent?"

"Uh... A little less than $20K..." I gave her a very sheepish shrug.

Melanie nodded, and then started re-wrapping the package.

"Melanie, wait! Couldn't you use some cash?"

Melanie looked uncertain, looking back and forth between me and the money. She finally let out a huge sigh. "It is tempting. I've just bought my textbooks for next semester. I have over $800 outstanding on my charge card."

"Please take it. The bank is used to seeing students pay off debt in cash. It'll be no problem..."

"I know... Maybe that's my problem, that it'll be no problem." Melanie sat and stared at the money. "Heck Eric. I feel like I'm crossing into new territory with my morals... Why is this decision so complex? The drug dealers don't deserve their money back..."

I just nodded. I knew the struggle and didn't want to pressure her.

Melanie finally separated out nine $100's and five $20's and looked at me. I smiled back in encouragement. She finally put the money in her purse and I lifted the remainder back into the wall.

Melanie sighed and seemed eager to change the subject. "How do you get passed the wall joists?"

"There were precut holes to pass wires through; fairly large holes in the thin steel. I did have to make them a bit larger."

"Oh..." She looked faintly troubled. "You melted holes?"

"No, just with force. It's very easy, just scan and double lock, with the boundary between the two locks along where I want to cut. Then I just push in opposite directions. I can set up a shear along a single plane of molecules, a precise tear in anything I want."

Melanie nodded thoughtfully. "And your maximum push?"

"All my forces have to be less than 3,597 Newtons, a raw lift of about 809 lb. But I can use a lever or a pulley if I need to lift something heavier."

Melanie nodded again, and then suddenly her face lit up in amazement. "Eric! You could hold me and take me flying, like Superman!"

I laughed. "I know! And you wouldn't believe how many times I've dreamed of doing just that! But I wouldn't have to hold you. As long as you were within my influence sphere..." I turned thoughtful for a moment. "Melanie, if we worked out some simple hand signals, I could give you a taste of what it's like to fly yourself. I could fly you anywhere you signaled... within the sphere of course."

"And how big is that?"

"A radius of 68.92 meters, ever since September 1, 2002."

Melanie sat on my bed, nodding and looking thoughtful. "I'm trying to memorize all this, so maybe I can make useful comments or suggestions later on, but..." There was a pause and then she grimaced. "Oh Eric, my mind is rebelling! How is this possible?!"

I sat down next to her, put my hand around her shoulder and hugged her. "I know. I've been shrugging my shoulders in frustration about this for two years."

Melanie nodded. "Two years ago... My gosh, so much has changed! I remember our phone conversation so well, Thanksgiving of 2001. I remember being caught talking to you... All this started right after our phone call, huh?"

"Well, that's when I first noticed it. I think maybe it started a lot earlier, maybe the week my mom died."

Melanie looked at me and waited for me to continue.

I described the strange flash my dad and I had both seen, and then went on. "Until September of 2002, my sense sphere was doubling in radius every 31 days, 19 hours, and 56 minutes. Over the same period, my maximum force would increase by a factor of 16, my maximum power output increase by a factor of 18, and my minimum mass for a lock would decrease by a factor of 9."