Thirteen Days: Matters of Perspective

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Telekinesis isn't the only type of power that's hard to adapt to an environment where up and down don't stay put.


"Son of a BITCH!"

The yell of frustration was very un-Scott-like. But when you had a) fallen on your head, b) used too strong an optic blast on that last drone, and thus c) were quite "dead", a little venting was justified. Grinding his teeth, he hauled himself back to his feet as the simulator stopped spinning.

"You got farther than I did that time," he said to Terry, who was ten feet ahead of him. He made himself smile, although it was too tight. The stress and lack of sleep of the last three days was really beginning to wear on him. "Helps being little and nimble, I guess."

"I also don't break quite as easily," Terry remarked mildly, releasing the grip she had on a small projection in the wall and moving back toward him. "Doesn't matter in the least if you get us killed anyway. Of course, being dead, you won't have to face my family when they come calling. What's the score?"

"Four for me. One for you." Except that winning wasn't the object here, because getting them 'killed' four times was not even slightly acceptable. Terry had only done it the once by a hair, according to the sensors.

"Five times dead. If we were Catseye, we'd have four more chances. If we were Time Lords, we'd have 8." She was underpowering a good many of her screams for fear of creating a problem. The once that she'd killed them had been the only time she'd dared something stronger, though like Scott, even that was vastly less force than she could normally produce. "Maybe we're going about this wrong."

"The problem for me is the disorientation," Scott said, leaning back against the inside wall of the simulator. "It's not hard to aim for the center of gravity. I don't usually miss. But the spinning throws me off, and I can't imagine zero-g is going to be any better."

Terry frowned, not having the same disorientation problem and trying to sort out why. Part of it was surely her mutation, vertigo was simply never a problem. But as for why the spinning was a problem, that made sense only if your point of orientation kept changing. If it didn't... "Have you...read Ender's Game?"

Scott just shook his head. "But if you have any suggestions... I just feel like the angles are mixed up," he said, and knew it didn't make any sense. "I can't see clearly where the blast is going to go."

"Does it...would it help if your point of reference wasn't moving? In the book, they play games in zero gravity. And the kid, Ender, he changes the way his team thinks about the playing field. Down isn't where you're standing. It's what's in front of you. That doesn't move, even if the walls do." Terry felt more than a little stupid suggesting a sci-fi novel's solution to a very real problem. Particularly to someone with years more experience than she had. "I don't know. It might help?"

Scott stopped to think about that. "I... don't know, but that's interesting. If down is the target..." He tilted his head, rubbing at the back of his neck. That hadn't been such a great landing, that last one. "I focus too much on how the blast gets to the target - my mutation's got some sort of spatial ability, I know that." Hank's old joke about the power of mutant geometry... "If I focus just on the target, and let the rest take care of itself, this might work better."

"Use the Force, boss." Terry quipped, checking herself over, making note of where she was already "wounded" and reminding herself that she could be a little more aggressive than she'd been so far. "Ready for another run at this one?"

"Yeah." Scott took a deep breath and straightened. "And I'll work on not killing us this time," he said dryly. "Once or twice is something you can joke about over beers. Six would be excessive."

"Does this mean you're buying me a beer after this?" Terry asked as the simulation started up again and the room began to move. She was going to have nightmares about this thing, she knew she was. The least he could do was provide buffer against that. Not that he would. Sadist. Without waiting for a response, Terry hurled herself forward, sonic waves screaming from her throat.