Chapter 15: A New Beginning

Cassie spent the next couple of months experimenting in her lab. She had finally built her own lab behind the Dojo on the estate. There she moved all the exotic experiments she had previously conducted at the college labs.

Cassie's doctors, using various tests had determined that her visual cortex was now operating normally and that her eyes did not appear to have any damage.

The pain that she had been feeling was symptomatic of her cortex relearning how to see. They could not figure out why she was having problem with this. Cassie thought she knew. The cortex was interpreting her ESP sense as visual input rather than ocular input. As a result the extra signal from her eyes was being acting like noise to the visual cortex and the brain perceived it as pain.

Cassie tried spending an hour a day closing down her ESP senses and using her eyes.

Cassie sat back in her chair with her eyes open and with her ESP senses pulled completely in. She knew that in front of her was a desk with a book on it. If she tried, she could visualize it completely down to the molecule level as she had done that using her senses before closing them down. But no matter how hard she tried she could not visually see the desk and book.

She opened her 'senses' and used them to scan her eyes and the nerves connecting them to her brain. After days of doing this she was beginning to be able to see the nerve impulses from her eyes to the visual cortex.

The days, weeks, and months that she had spent exercising these senses had stretched her range and sensitivity tremendously.

Cassie had reached the point where she could actually sense the light photons from the desk and book entering her eyes. A side effect of this observation was that, as she had previously proved, the observation could affect what was being observed. She found this so interesting that she quit actually trying to see.

She held up her hand and slowly began to affect the light photons being reflected from it.

"Cassie!" Grace was scrambling toward her. Cassie had to really concentrate to continue what she was doing.

"Stop Grace!"

"Your hand!"

"What about my hand?" Cassie asked.

"It is gone!"

"Are you sure? Look closer."

Cassie turned slowly moving her hand so it was closer to Grace.

"Oh, I see a wavering in the air, like a heat wave on a hot pavement. What are you doing Cassie?"

"I am experimenting with light." Cassie said as she let go of her concentration. To Grace, it appeared as if her hand had returned. Cassie thought for a minute, then once more began to concentrate on her hand.