Chapter 7

"He's not in here" I heard a voice call out. I knew the voice from somewhere but I had no idea what the words meant at the moment since I was waking up. That changed as I heard the shop door slam shut.

What did they mean I was not in there? Whoever it was that had shouted was close enough to wake the dead or at least me from a sound nap. Opening my eyes I realized that I was not in my bed and with the strong smell of oil in my nose the memory of last night came flooding back. Getting to my knees I could see the stool I had been sitting on was still close to the socket but was now warped and twisted like a piece of metal that had been super heated. Seeing the stool in that condition I checked myself to see if I had been burned, the only thing I found was that the shorts I had been wearing the night before were now charred rags in the seat area.

Realizing that my backside was exposed worse than if I was wearing a hospital gown. My first thought was to get back to my room for a change of clothing. Reaching for the stool to assist in getting to my feet I was surprised as the stool flew away from my hand accompanied by a flash of light a sharp crack along with the sound of metal being thrown across the room as well as the smell of ozone in the air. Looking at my hand all I could feel was a slight tingling that slowly faded away.

I was still in that position looking at my fingers wondering what had just happened when I heard the door open again only this time I recognized the voice I heard before as Steve's who could see me now that I was not laying unconscious on the floor. We were both startled to see each other and unfortunately he came to his senses first shouting that he had found me in the shop. That of course brought more footsteps that I recognized as Brodie and my sisters heading toward the shop. Myself I retreated behind the combine to keep people from asking what I was doing with burnt shorts. Telling Steve about my problem he managed to keep Brodie, my sisters, along with Faith out of the shop long enough for me to make it to the back stairs up to my apartment. Of course that was only temporary as all five of them made it to my apartment moments later. With everyone in my apartment I of course had to give an excuse for being down in the shop but not answering when they were called out. Not having a chance to prepare an excuse I did my best saying that the power had gone out in my apartment and I went down to reset the breaker only to trip over the stool and knock myself silly. That excuse of course brought Brodie over who stated after his inspection that I looked okay and that I must be very lucky which I agreed with him. After that my sisters and Faith also tried looking at where I had claimed to have bumped my head again finding nothing out of the ordinary.

The only one that did not accept my explanation was of course Steve who I knew would never believe that excuse after all of our sparing. He simply sat back and waited for everyone else to leave. Once they did he grinned at me, asking, "Do you expect me to believe that tale? That after what you have told me and the sparring we have done that you simply slipped and fell, knocking yourself out?"

Giving him my own grin, I answered, "Well, I did fall."

He laughed, asking, "And?" When I did not answer that time he continued, "I take it by the twisted stool I saw in the corner that something has changed? Something that you wanted to talk to me about but either you did not know how to explain it or something stopped you."

"Would you believe I was planning on asking your opinion when I got to the studio today." I responded. It was then that a thought intruded and I asked, "Which gives me my own question, why are you here?"

Steve answered, "I guess it all started this morning when you did not show up for chores and Brodie started looking around for you. Since he could not find you here he figured that you might have come over to the studio. When I told him that you had not shown up he became concerned. I asked if there was anything I could do and he asked if I would back track your route to the farm while he continued his search there. So that is what I did ending up here helping search for you. So now that we are alone and have some time do you want to tell me what it was that you were doing laying down in the shop with the back side of your shorts burned?" The last was said with a laugh.

Taking a seat at my favorite wall socket I felt the now familiar flow of power into and through my back as I thought about how I was going to tell Steve what I had discovered about myself. What I ended up telling him was how I could now manage taking in electricity and use it to super charge not only myself which is normal for me but I had managed to refine what I had been able to do for him. When he asked for a further demonstration I gave him a boost like before but instead of the thirty minute duration I shortened it to a minute duration. The next time I increased the duration to five minutes then finally ten minutes. I went on to expand on the theory even farther as I mentioned my latest experiment with the 220v socket down stairs. He asked what had happened to the stool that was now a twisted piece of burnt metal. I found myself stumped as to how it happened in the first place.

When he asked if there was any more for today I thought about what I did when I reached for the stool. Looking for something I might work with I settled on the stand alone coat rack, focusing I repeated what I did earlier and was rewarded with the same result of a flash of light, the crack of an electrical discharge and the smell of ozone in the air. The coat rack went flying down the stairwell it was next too. When Steve brought it back up the metal hooks for coats were still glowing red with two of them twisted from having been partially melted. The wood at the top was also charred where the metal was bolted through the wood.

Taking a final look at what I had done to the coat rack he returned it to the top of the stairs, saying, "Just for the record what you could do before in the studio was impressive." Pointing to the coat rack, Steve added, "This is downright frightening. How long have you been able to do this?"

"Oh I just discovered this just before you found me in the shop. I was reaching for the stool that you saw when electricty shot out of my hand knocking the stool across the floor."

"Why the sudden increase in ability?" Steve asked

"That was one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about yesterday but I never got the chance. I was going to wait until I saw you today but I got bored last night and decided that I did not want to wait until tomorrow to see if I could use a different voltage."

To this Steve looked puzzled then asked, "What would make you think you could use 220v current unless you were maybe already using 110v current? Is that where the things you have shown me have come from?"

I wanted to trust him and after a pause for a moment I answered, "Yes," then explained about the points that I had glossed over or simply omitted before.

When I was done with my explanation, he asked, "So your saying that you could do most of what you have told me about before being electrocuted. Now though after being turned into Sparky, your abilities have gotten stronger along with new abilities? Are there anymore things that you can do now?"

All I could offer to his last question was a shrug. My thoughts were off thinking about what I could do being able to throw electricity. It was when Steve said that we needed to test what I could do that I focused back on him, asking, "Say what?"

Excitedly, he responded, "We need to test to see what you can do. We have a good idea what you could do before any of this started, we also have a decent idea what you could do before your latest experiment. We should see how your abilities have changed before we go any farther."

"What do you mean before I go any farther?" I asked.

Pointing at the wall socket I was sitting in front of then pointing downstairs he offered, "You started with the basic idea of your alter ego prompting you to sit in front of that wall socket. You did so and things began to change for you. For the last month you have been practicing with the power you had available and until Tuesday you were happy with what you could do. But when you came across the next step up you took it with only a minimum of thought and now you have new abilities. How long will it be before you take the next step with one of the big power transmission lines."

Thinking about how I woke up just a short time ago on the floor with no idea how I got there made me laugh. When I laughed Steve looked at me funny, Taking a moment I explained to him how I woke up lying on the floor with the stool I had taken a seat on the night before was now a twisted pile from what it was only a couple short hours ago. Then of course there was the memory loss it was almost like I was recovering from being drunk, only I did not have the hangover to go along with the memory loss.

Steve was not laughing with me, instead he was frowning at me. We discussed the situation for another half hour before he suggested that we go and get some food then head over to the studio where we could talk and test what I could do without anyone becoming too nosy. Seeing no reason why I should decline that is what we did. Although first was a stop for sandwiches at a local shop then once those were finished we went back to his studio.

Discussing what we wanted to test we decided on starting on what we already knew about my abilities and go forward from there. The first ability we checked was my eyesight and while my right eye was normal the vision in my left eye was different enough that I could literally read articles from the news paper at over two hundred yards. From that we tested my healing and I was now healing without any thought from myself. Testing my hand speed Steve did not think that there was any change and when we took our positions on the mat he was correct until I hit him one time and we both were sure I had missed. When we tried the same move again nothing happened and we noted that and continued. We continued to spar for another few minutes before he called a break. Asking if I could enhance him so we could try again I did so and it was while we were sparring that I managed to hit him again without touching him. When he got to his feet again we took a break and he came up with the idea that we might videotape our sparring to see what was happening.

Since I wanted to figure out what was happening I agreed. After a minute he came out of his office with a very nice video recorder and stand and set them up in the corner. Taking our spots on the mat I managed to hit him two more times. We took a break after the second hit literally knocked him down hard enough to require him to take a break to catch his breath. Upon reviewing the tape it took us several replays before we were able to identify where the change happened. Looking at the still image it was strange to see something that shimmered around me hand just before I struck him. Discussing what we were seeing on the camera we took to calling the discharge a force bolt although I still could not throw it farther away than my hands. Our only guess was that the force bolt I hit Steve with was linked to the telekinesis I had shown before, why it showing up occasionally and not continually when we fought. I was also stronger than before but I still lacked control, I could pick up heavy items but manipulating them was still beyond my control. By the time that Steve called an end to the a day there was one last discovery to be made and that was that I had not taken a break all afternoon to recharge. Sure I was feeling a bit rundown but it was nowhere near the exhaustion I had suffered from before.

That night at the table I had to explain to my mother what had happened that morning with me falling asleep in the shop. Luckily for me she did not push the issue and in the end I made my escape to my place. Taking my familiar place in front of the socket I cracked open the books I brought home and did the assignments from the various syllabuses.

Tuesday morning after Labor day I was back in school only now I was lifting more than I ever could before, yet I was pumping the reps out like I was the first couple of days. Being that I weighed in at little more than a buck thirty. I was now lifting more than two hundred pounds and I knew that I could do more but the stares I was getting from not only my lifting partners but the players from the other stations made me cautious.

If I was getting strange looks from the others in the weight room it was nothing compared to what I got in Calculus when I turned in all the assignments that were given to be done over the summer along with the chapter questions from the first five chapters. Taking my seat in Language arts I managed to stay somewhat anonymous as a freshman since the only thing the teacher assigned the class managed to finish the previous week. Physics was a repeat of Calculus with many of the same students in there. When I turned in those five chapters just as I had the stares were quite obvious as the teacher just looked at the work I turned in. Finally was PE and there I was just another freshman who was once again shown the door along with the rest of the riffraff. Only now I was not the last one selected and I was teamed up with the guys I shot around with my first day. The difference between that and this was that Bert our big center was even worse trying to handle the ball with pressure on him. That turned out to be different when he was moving around without the ball as he was large enough to set some big screen which during our down times I found out that was his favorite activity along with getting in the middle and going for rebounds. When I played to his strengths we made a good combination as my defender was easy to scrape off when Bert was there. Even when his defender made a move to guard me he was usually late enough that I would draw a foul. By the time class was over there was not one but two coaches watching the courts outside.