Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

different, I would put this
together as a basis for a new science fiction book.”
    Hearing that, I almost choked on my sandwich.
Leave it to Mark to turn the impossible into the mundane.

Chapter 6

    Mark: Theory and Practice

    I studied the apple intensely as it rotated
slowly in the air, a foot away from my nose. If I concentrated, I
could feel that ‘magnetic field’ sort of disturbance that I had
discerned before. I was sure that the field was the key to all of
this, even though I was no closer to knowing how .
    I glanced over at Linda and saw her staring
at the empty soda can floating in front of her, a look of boredom
on her face. I was always the one to approach a subject with logic,
research, and testing. She was more of the mindset ‘do it now and
let someone else figure out the details later.’ The opposing
mindsets sometimes caused a bit of friction between us while
working on a project, but in the end usually provided a better
result.
    “I agreed to start slow with you on this,”
she began, “but I didn’t think that you meant baby steps. What’s
the point of this anyway?”
    “I’m trying to figure out where the power to
do the work is coming from. The limits and dangers change depending
if it’s from inside us, from around us, or from somewhere in the
firmament.”
    “Alright, Einstein, but hurry up. I already
know that I can safely lift myself at one hundred twenty five
pounds, so the limit of an empty soda can for a test is a bit
silly.”
    I frowned at her impatience, but slowly
nodded my acquiescence. “Ok, let’s try a few different things, but
through all of them, keep that can aloft as our baseline. See if
you can lift me a few inches off of my chair. I’m one sixty five,
so that’ll be more than you’ve tried before, but should be ok.” I
had barely finished talking before I found myself slowly rising off
of my seat. It felt far weirder to float while under someone else’s
power than on my own. “Ok, how do you feel? Any strain, pain, or
anything else that feels wrong?”
    “Nope,” she replied. “All systems green, so
to speak.”
    “Ok, put me down and try to lift yourself up
with your chair. That should be approximately the same weight, but
without any distance. Force needed should change with both mass and
distance.”
    “It feels about the same, but maybe a hair
easier,” she answered after completing her task.
    I tried the two tests myself and found them
fairly close to the same. I thought about it for a moment and then
said “Let’s head outside where we have a bit more room. I want to
test the distance thing a little more.”
    “Ok,” she agreed in a hurry.
    We moved outside and set ourselves up about
twenty paces apart. “Try now,” I said, doing the same myself. We
both rose sporadically, as the feeling of rising from someone
else’s control felt very distracting. Distraction aside, it did
feel a touch harder with more distance. We had the mental lever, I
thought whimsically; maybe we need a mental fulcrum.
    “Ok, put me down and let’s try another twenty
paces.” Once in the new positions we did it again, and this time I
definitely felt that it took more power to do the job. “Once more,
from opposite sides of the yard this time,” I called out. Her lot
was about one hundred yards long, and as we reached our positions
and began the test, I found that I definitely had to strain in
order to lift her up. I lowered her back to the ground and looked
around the yard. I saw the ashtray on the patio table and figured
that it would do for a comparison test. Yes, that was definitely
easier to lift at a distance.
    We were making a good start on gathering
data, but I had to admit to myself that the combination of
researcher and test subject rarely worked out well. There would
always be things missed due to being in the middle of it all. Maybe
we could trust my old lab partner Carl. I had just come back from a
trip where I helped him calibrate his new lab, and he owed