Chapter 39

That night, sometime near ten pm, I moved my first speck of dust. I almost passed out from either the shock of it, the effort or perhaps some of both.

"You did it!" Bud exulted.

"It was just a single speck of dust," I reminded him. "And look at me. It wiped me out!"

"Yes, it did, but that's to be expected. Think about the three or four molecules you were locking onto this morning and think about this speck of dust."

"Sure," I said, remembering this morning's effort, and especially how it had gotten to me.

"Did it feel any different to you, holding the lock on that speck of dust. Compared to holding those three or four molecules?"

"Not really," I said, replaying the sensations over in my head. "Moving them sure felt different though."

"Of course," Bud agreed. "Remember, the sense that lets you lock onto them is really a completely separate thing. Its what allows you to grab the molecules, but it is not what you're using when you move them. That gift you used for the first time today."

"So once again I'm stretching new mental muscles?"

"Exactly."

I'd recovered enough by then to respond to the grumbling in my stomach. It was demanding food and the rest of me was agreeing with it. I walked up the stairs slowly, felling the last couple of steps in my back and legs. I didn't yet understand how I could feel so physically drained from what I was doing, but the thought that I felt weak in the legs like I'd run ten miles was even weirder.

I opened the fridge and grabbed the unfinished half of my sub and an iced tea. My fingers actually shook as I unwrapped the clingy plastic. The first bite was sheer bliss, and the second and third were not far behind it. In between bites I guzzled iced tea.

Breakfast the next morning was prefaced by a new routine. I spent thirty minutes working on my upper body strength with the pulley system that was the main component among those installed. I moved to the new treadmill from there and began experimenting with using the device as a substitute for my normal running. I ran on the treadmill for thirty minutes and then moved to a Hack machine to do squats. I did fifteen minutes at a slow pace, not worried about the number of squats so much as getting a good feel for how comfortable I felt with the amount of weight I'd started with. I'd always had strong legs. My time in service to Uncle Sam had made them stronger still. The last three years in particular we had driven ourselves very hard to push our bodies to places they hadn't been able to go. I was smiling after my fifteen minutes and went back to the treadmill to cool down on for another fifteen minutes.

The ninety minute workout was followed by a shower and breakfast. Breakfast was bacon and eggs with four slices of toast with butter and cherry preserves. The coffee was good and I brought the laptop in from the living room so I could surf the news sites while I ate. The local Santa Rosa news was mildly boring, except for a report on a gang or drug-related shooting near Cook Park.

"This is the sort of thing we would expect you to take more interest in, when your training is complete," Bud said as I digested the story. "Not something so small as this particular event, but the drug activity here and, as time passes, over a wider area."

Knowing the little enough that I did about the way my parents died, I nodded grimly to that idea. I would have no problem at all when the time came, focusing on drug traffickers. No problem at all.

Once I'd cleaned up after breakfast I called Lloyd McCoy at FiberDyne. He had warned me that there were press conferences and military liaisons and other exciting things happening there, some of which I was expected to be a part of.

"Cooper, good to hear from you. I was going to call you this afternoon," Lloyd greeted me.

"Oh?" I asked. "Something come up?" I asked, knowing there were several potential somethings.

"Nothing new, but Major Lancaster does want to meet with you, Monday if possible."

"I can meet Monday, no problem," I agreed. "What time?"

"He's supposed to come by to take us to lunch, so I'd be here before noon. My guess is he wants to get us to agree on what will be said at the press conference."

"From what you told me before, I would think so. I don't have a problem with that if you guys don't. My schedule is clear after the weekend."

"Good, we need this," he said with a sigh. "We're not close to running out of our seed money, but we can't get paid until the government gets to make their announcement."