Chapter 10: Were Exaggerated

I woke up from my uneasy sleep feeling jangled and afraid.

I was convinced that had my muscles not been enhanced, all of them would have been aching the following morning. Several times the previous night I was convinced I was going to die, and my body had been flooded with adrenaline.

It occurred to me that since I found Colt's blasted journal, I have been in two confrontations where I came close to dying. Of course it was only the things I learned from it that saved me, but I would not have approached the shed with three rapists. The homicidal Nalu would not have shown up at my apartment had I not been manipulating plasm.

I calmed down a bit when I considered that had I not bought the journal, poor Mandy would have been raped in that shed, and the police would likely still be no closer to arresting the rapists.

I needed to get myself under control for the classes. Magic battles or not, there will be students waiting for me to give the next lecture and start preparing for the second hour test. Unlike most mornings, I opted for a cup of strong Assam rather than the typical green tea. While caffeine and the warmth of the tea did its own magic on my body, I used my breathing exercises to calm myself down. I have rarely appreciated what a luxury it is to breathe fresh oxygen-rich air.

In another departure, instead of going to my office early, I scanned the journal and sketched out additional plasm defenses. It was possible that the Nalu considered me taken care of last night, but I had better prepare for more attacks when they discovered I was still kicking around.

I considered stopping all plasm manipulation. If they found me by the unusual use of plasm, perhaps that would let me hide. But I had no certainty they wouldn't find me, and I was not eager to abandon my body-shield. Last night it had saved my life.

Could I get some allies? Were there other humans who could do real magic — or more precisely plasm manipulation? I never heard of any other than Colt, but perhaps, like me, they were reluctant to be known? Maybe there was a society, avoiding notice from the Nalu through total secrecy. However, at this point I thought that unlikely — I think the only way to hide from creatures who could see tints would be to stop any manipulation of plasm.

Could I ask for help from the police or other law enforcement? To avoid being locked up in a padded room I would need to demonstrate that plasm existed and that I could move objects with it. I was reluctant to do that. There was a strong possibility that the government would want to lock me up to study this — except of course the walls couldn't keep me contained. Nor would they keep the Nalu away. And if I escaped, I would be on the run from both the feds and Nalu.

That brought me back to the subject I kept putting off — what were the Nalu? For that matter, what was my proof that the being last night was indeed, one of them? I considered the evidence. First, he spoke the language I was now convinced was the language of the Grimoire. My own pronunciation was wrong, based as it was on some instructions about spoken exercises early in the text. I opened my encrypted notes file to add what I could remember about the Nalu phonemes.

Second, the rather circumstantial evidence from Colt's journal about ape or ape-like bones. Colt noted that the bones were delicate, as that of a woman. That corresponded with the fact that the Nalu were a gracile humanoid — a creature shaped similarly to humans. Based on their similarity to both humans and apes, I was confident that they were in fact our close relatives, and not, say, aliens.

I had to cut my fascinating train of thought to return to the defenses. I had to survive to continue studying this problem. I strengthened my shield, and prepared additional spells to anchor me within the shield should an attack come. Last night the visitor was able to move me by creating an envelope of "traveling" plasma large enough to enclose me and my few attachments to the walls. I thought if I could make my attachments more numerous and much larger, it would be really hard to move me. Now that I was used to traveling through the underground streams of plasm, I thought I could create a kind of brake that would resist such movement — instead of anchoring to the walls and floor, I could anchor to the large streams of plasm itself.

By the time I started my classes I distracted myself enough that my hands were no longer shaking. I didn't think any of the students noticed. However, by my afternoon lecture I found I wasn't fully successful. Jenny Sanders approached me after class, looking more serious than usual.

"Hello, professor, a very good lecture, as usual. But are you all right, Dr. Acker?"

"Yes, Jenny. I am fine — why do you ask?"

"You looked kind of tense and a bit tired. I can't say exactly what, but you seemed more precise in you speech, didn't joke much, and you didn't play with your pen like you normally do."

I was rather surprised. I didn't realize I played with my pen all that much, but even more I didn't expect Jenny to pay such careful attention.

She took my silence wrong. "I am sorry, professor. I am being nosy. I just worried..." She petered out.

"I am not offended, Jenny. I didn't expect you to watch me so closely, that's all. In fact I am kind of flattered. But I am really all right. I may have exercised more than usual yesterday."

I didn't lie — I did get more exercise than usual, but fighting a magical hominid, and traveling under an ocean, twice! I didn't think Jenny needed all the details, though.

"Okay. I am glad everything is good. You should get more rest." She blushed suddenly. "Good bye."

I was touched. And confused. I really needed to get some distance from Jenny, but I was having a hard time with that. A concerned Jenny was more dangerous than a flirty Jenny.

My office hours were mundane, even boring. I worked on the mid-term problems, and the final projects for my classes. I did not get any calls from Department Heads, Deans, lawyers, police, or enraged Nalu. I appreciated the routine and the boredom.

In the evening I started going over my defenses. I modified my body shield to have two layers, and tested my "wide anchor" spell. I could activate it almost instantly; and I created an automatic trigger based on sudden acceleration. I stole the idea from vehicle airbags: under normal circumstances my body should not be accelerating more than a few g's. I thought of more sophisticated algorithms, but decided to put them off to focus on the more significant issue.

The Nalu last night was much stronger than me. I could overcome his or her strength using higher-level spells, but it took time to create and test them, whereas the Nalu was able to react almost instantly to my resistance. The only way I knew to increase my strength was by making my visualization skills stronger. I had to enhance my visual cortex, or I might not survive the next confrontation.

The good thing was that there were explicit instructions in the Grimoire. The bad thing was that it was not for a human brain. I now understood why so many exercises, from creating sounds using the tongue, lips and palate, to enhanced hearing, to describing the visual effects of rapidly changing plasm seemed off. The book was not written for humans!

We were their close cousins, though. Probably even closer than chimpanzees, who were considered by every expert to be the closest species to homo sapiens. Of course I now knew better, but I was not really an expert. Primatology — the study of apes — is about as far from Epigraphy as you could get within the wide field of anthropology.

I had studied the sections on visual enhancement on and off for months now. I had a pretty good idea how to adjust it to my own anatomy. It was my perception of risks that stopped me from doing it; however, now the risk equilibrium got bumped.

I followed what had become a familiar ritual. I sat in my recliner, which was restored to its usual place in front of the speakers. Unlike the previous enhancements, I activated the anchors to walls, ground, and even the smallish streams of plasm underneath the campus. I did not want to be moved during the enhancement.

I executed my set of automated tests on the proposed enhancement sequence. As I expected, all the tests I had devised to simulate the visual cortex manipulation, without actually doing it, passed just fine. It was time.

I looked at some photos I loved of my family, in case things went horribly wrong and I could no longer see them. For a moment, I wished I had a photo of Jenny. I performed my breathing exercises to calm myself, closed my eyes, and activated the first part of the enhancement sequence.

I never quite lost consciousness, but I was dazed and not really thinking for a while. After I became fully conscious I checked my watch. I was extraordinarily relieved that I could see its face. It looked like I was out for about thirty minutes. I had a strong headache, but my sight was clear. I hoped I had not caused a stroke by some mismatched plasm manipulation of brain cells. That reminded me — I could usually detect significant injury by unusual plasm patterns. As I really had no eyes to focus, I could actually perceive plasm flows inside my head.

I focused on it, and could see the effects of enhancement for the first time. My perception of plasm inside my head was far, far more detailed and sharp than ever before. As I hoped, my visual processing ability increased as well; it felt like I could perceive and keep clear millions of strands of plasm, all within the space of my brain.

I spent hours looking at everything around me. From my hand, to the spider on the ceiling, to the blurred but still recognizable plasm-shapes of my neighbors, I could see far more than before. Even my regular vision improved, although not nearly as much as the direct visual perception of tints in my cortex — the foundation of all plasm manipulation.

It was past midnight when I first tried actually doing something with my enhanced vision. The normal visualization of plasm movement became almost automatic to me. Now I could see where I was sloppy and lost force by not aligning the strands I was moving in one direction. I could also see where I spent too much time flailing about, not imparting much direction at all to the plasm components of a complex spell. Doing it differently required me to look closely at the effects, but with my new perception I could pay attention to plasm manipulation, keep an eye on the surroundings in case another Nalu was getting close, and read a book at the same time.

Without stopping my practice of basic spells, I also examined the underground streams of plasm. I could now see where they came from — from the minute strands of plasm generated by every living creature. The strands of this natural "free-flowing" plasm were not affected by gravity, but seemed to attract each other, so the small ones tangled with each other to create thicker strands, and the process continued until they became "brooks" flowing into huge "rivers" of plasm, miles away from my apartment. If I focused, I could see that even those huge rivers had smaller strands of plasm still within them.

It was fascinating to be able to keep focus on so many things at once; like a multi-processor computer. I may have been the first human in history to have this type of vision. I finally had to stop playing, perform my nightly ablutions and go to bed — after releasing the anchors that kept me in my recliner. Before I fell asleep I mentally patted myself for muscle enhancements again — without them I would have been painfully stiff after spending hours in one position.

The walk across campus next morning was a revelation. As it was, the campus was worth gazing at — the lush green of grass and leaves after the spring showers, the flowering wild cherry, dogwoods, and other trees I didn't know, the bright blue skies, made walking distracting even without enhancement.

However, with the visual enhancement my sight was hyper-sharp. I could see the leaves in minute detail, as though I was staring at them from less than a foot. I could see thousands of insects, in the grass, on the leaves, in the air. I could count the feathers on the birds sitting in the trees.

And all of that was backed up by the tints of plasm contained in all living things and spilling over on the ground and sinking through it. If I concentrated, I could see the bones inside the students, with the faint outlines of the organs – different tissues generated plasm at different rates. It was a bit like a CAT scan — but all at once.

I had a hard time seeing much internal detail in briefcases and purses. Sometimes there were faint tints on paper, or on hair brushes, left over from recent contact with living skin, but for the most part they had no tint.

I thought that electricity might be perceivable, but I found that electrical wires were as "dark" as the surrounding air or plaster as far as plasm was concerned.

The classes were okay. I think I kept my wandering eyes under control, but I was not fully certain about Jenny, as she appeared amazingly observant of me.

I did not, in fact, have to move my eyes to focus my enhanced plasm perception, but habits of decades are hard to overcome.

In the afternoon I got a couple of pieces of good news. An article submitted by a group of three epigraphers, including me, was accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. And my attorney said that SecureDesign wanted only minor changes to my proposed license agreement. After emailing my acceptance of the changes to Clara, I worked on a new grant application — another one for the government, but not of any interest to the three-letter agencies.

While waiting for students to show up with questions, I also contemplated the Nalu. Were they truly an independently evolved hominid, or could they be modified humans? I knew that the same approach used for enhancement spells could be used to alter the body shape and create a fur cover. But could they have modified the genes so the children bred true? Or were these body changes applied to every child? If the latter, could every Nalu be different? Could the body shape be a work of art, or at least personal preference? Perhaps it was their equivalent of tattoos and body piercing — pick your own shape when you reach 18.

At no point during the day was I completely relaxed. I was very conscious of my two-layer body shield, and of the dormant acceleration-triggered plasm anchors. I kept waiting for another attack, and I was also slightly worried about the anchors — could they deploy accidentally if I bumped into a wall, sort of like the early versions of airbags?

When I got to my apartment I put in another shield, this one just inside the apartment. Basically, only air could get in without a significant push. That led to another nasty thought — what if the Nalu fed poison gas into my rooms? Should I sleep in a gas mask? I decided that until I figured out a plasm-based toxic gas filter I would have to take the chance.

As I settled down to my after-dinner cup of tea, I wondered how many days, weeks, maybe even years would I live waiting for the other shoe to fall. I was wondering what I would do if no attacks would ever come. Would I try to trace the Nalu, looking for the plasm manipulation? Was it worth bearding a lion in his den, as it were, when they were willing to leave me alone? But perhaps it would be better than the endless waiting.

My thoughts were interrupted by hearing a plasm vibration approaching. Now that it was clear that I would not need to wait for weeks for the next confrontation, I desperately wanted more time to prepare. Why is it you always want what you can't have? My libido insisted on adding like a pretty coed.

In what felt like all too short a time I could perceive a Nalu approaching the wall of my apartment. He would have been visible through the living room window in front of me, but the phase-shifted plasm envelope made the Nalu invisible as he hovered outside.

After a few seconds of stillness that I spent repeatedly double-checking my body-shield, I felt a light tapping of plasm on the boundaries of my apartment shield. The taps were far lighter than the buffets I got two days ago. After a period of stillness, the Nalu tapped twice again. From the faint plasm image inside the envelope I thought I could see his lips and throat move. Was he speaking?

I finally decided that if they were using politeness this time I had better follow suit. I cautiously moved one edge of the apartment shield about six feet toward me. As soon as I did that the Nalu entered, aligned his feet to the floor, and flipped the plasm phase to materialize in my room, standing about a foot from the wall.

It took far less time for the Nalu to do this than for me to describe it. It was intimidating to see how fast and effortless was his manipulation of Plasm. I was a fumbler by comparison. I wondered if I would ever get that smooth — perhaps I would, if I didn't get killed in the next few days by irate Nalu.

The Nalu today looked much like my previous visitor, except an appearance of even greater delicacy and slightly darker fur. Before I could contemplate what that meant to my theories of Nalu origin, he, or maybe she, shocked me again by speaking in excellent British English.

"Good evening. I hope I didn't disturb your rest. My name is Eliraet."

The voice suggested female to me. She waited patiently while I did my imitation of fish. Once I got my lips under control, some sort of intellectual ego made me respond in Nalu, trying to match the sounds on what I heard during the previous encounter.

"Greetings, Eliraet. I am Mitch Acker. I expected your visit, but not your knowledge of my language."

She paused for a second. I'd like to say it was from surprise, but perhaps she was trying to decipher my barbarous accent.

"Neither did I expect you to speak mine. Our meeting is yet short, but full of surprises. I came largely to apologize for your assault by Aniraet; and to discuss certain alternatives with you. Your knowledge of Nalu makes some of these alternatives more attractive. I would like to find out, if you will, whence comes your knowledge of my tongue and your obvious skill with plasm."