Chp 8 – Working out the kinks

Chapter 8: Working out the kinks

Tyler Riddle

Tuesday after school

In his room

It was pretty hard to fess up to Gwen about Sunday night with Nia. She was surprised, more so about me not knowing how Nia felt towards me than what actually happened. She then proceeded to criticize my intelligence. I was not completely dumb, so I made the right call to not say anything and take it like a man. But honestly, how was I supposed to know. Sure there were a lot of girls that I met through the years that just drifted off, but I assumed that it was because I didn't hang out with their friend groups. I hung out with Peter and a couple of other needs and that was pretty much it. Nia smelling me when we hugged? I assumed that was because she just felt comforted by me, not that she felt a compulsive need for my scent.

Gwen decided to jump right into acting like we've been a couple for years. She's overly affectionate with me. We haven't missed, but she takes every chance to hang on me and feel me up. It's really grating on my senses. I enjoy it, but my body is enjoying it a little too much. Walking around with a barely hidden boner is not something you want in high school. Boxer briefs truly are an ingenious invention.

My first day at school with fully enhanced senses was more of a physical hell than the social hell it usually is. I was genuinely getting afraid to walk in the hallways between bells. The smell of thousands of sweaty teenagers penetrated my nostrils like I was a girl who just met a tentacle monster in the woods. And the yapping. When will teenagers ever stop talking. Never mind how all of their voices echoed along the walls, a girl's scream almost had me coughing blood.

Peter and Gwen were more than a little worried when they noticed me visually shuddering. I managed to reach for my nostril and ear plugs in my pocket. Peter and Gwen helped me put them in, but even though they had only concern on their faces, I knew they would want answers. I just told them that I would tell them later. If I tell them now, they'll ask me to stop. I don't want to ruin our relationship by willfully ignoring their advice when they just want to help.

I've resolved myself to use high school as my training ground. If I can survive having enhanced senses in high school, then I doubt I'll have too much difficulty as an enhanced being before I can figure out optimal training methods for myself. My actual powers can be practiced at home until I find a better place. The old boxing ring Matt's dad fought in can be a good place to train movement and fighting skills, but I wouldn't want to cause unecsasary damage to it.

Gwen did tell me about how Nia tried to resolve things between me and Gwen. I was more than a little surprised since I knew she would prevent me and Gwen from being together if she could. In celebration of her effort to make amends, I've decided to give her a hug to promote some more growth out of her and hopefully stop her from crying herself to sleep again.

I find Nia in the living room, watching some sappy romance movie that she no doubt wishes was me and her.

"Hey Nia, can you pause it for a sec?" I call out to her.

"H...Hey Tyler, what's up?" She stutters.

"Gwen said that you seemed like you were trying to patch me and Gwen's relationship. I mean it wasn't necessary, but you at least tried, and I wanted to let you know that I appreciate that. So ,you have just earned yourself a hug?"

"Really!? Can I have it now? Can I earn more hugs?" She looked a lot like a puppy now.

"You can have your hug whenever you want. And you can maybe earn more hugs if you try to improve your character."

Nia basically just dives into me, giving me a hug with her hands-on my lower back. I returned the hug and we stayed like that for a little while. Only when she started reaching her hands down to my ass did I push her away. I could see that she was panting and looking dazed, so she probably wasn't entirely conscious of it.

"Calm yourself Nia. Or you can forget about earning more hugs" my threat seemed to cause her to perk up.

"..."

"Why don't you head to bed. No crying." She's made some difficult decisions today while she wasn't in the best of moods. She's probably very tired.

"Okay...night brother."

"Night Nia."

I still have my training with Matt. We try to start our sessions at 9 pm, so that gives me just under 2 hours to test the limits of my powers

=÷=

Tyler Riddle

2 hours later

Old boxing ring

The testing of my powers gave me some important insights on how I can use and improve them. I can activate my powers from any part of my body, not just my hands. I can also use my powers without touching my target, but the speed is far, far slower. It was like watching paint dry. But the most important discovery I made is that my powers can grow with use. Not just my ability to wield them, the actual speed of my powers increased as I used them more and more. The amount of energy I have doesn't seem to affect how fast my powers take place since I tested them when I was both full and hungry.

I was wondering about how I could make a sort of suit to protect myself when I remembered one of the strongest materials known to man, graphene. Its flat shape and numerous other characteristics makes it incredibly great at conducting heat, electricity, and displacing kinetic energy. Kinda like vibranium except it's not metal, it's less strong, and a great conductor of energy. I don't have the energy reserves to be making titanium armor plates just yet, but I can create a couple of layers of carbon, one of the lightest materials in the universe. It's really common too. The graphite in pencils is just a different form of graphene. I cleverly layered more than a few layers underneath my skin, but it didn't take too long. Only a few layers, all an atom thin, can block bullets when they are layered properly. It doesn't absorb kinetic energy like vibranium though, it merely displaces it over an area, so bruising and possible organ damage is a problem, but it's better than getting swiss cheesed. I'll also have to solve the conduction problems, but I don't think I'll be getting attacked by flamethrowers or lightning any time soon.

"Tyler!" Matt yells at me to get my attention.

"Huh?"

"With all that hearing, you'd think it would make you a better listener. Are you ready to start learning echolocation so you don't get jumped by your sister again?"

"That's not why, but yeah."

"Okay good, now close your eyes and put your nose plugs in, we're going to just work with one sense right now."

"Okay, now calm your mind and focus. We'll start with a crutch, clicking your tongue. You can try a different noise you make, like the wind of your shoots, or even sounds from your environment, but you can't always predict them, especially when those sounds are moving or changing with terrain. So when you click your tongue, you'll hear a sound I. Your ears. Listen for that sound again but at slightly less volumes. You might hear it several seconds later. That just means whatever your clicking bounced off of is just far away?"

"What about telling the materials of objects like you did with my clothing?"

"You have to compare the volume of the return signal with how long it took to come back. It can be more than a little subjective at times, but that's advanced stuff. Now back to echolocation. The truly difficult part of the process is creating a mental map with all the different return signals and their directions."

"Okay I got it."

"Huh? You mean you understand and now you are trying to make a mental map?"

"No, I created the mental map already. It is a little difficult to maintain in conversation though and it feels like there is a lot of static noise. How do I do other things?"

"Well..um..you can see behind objects to certain extents. Anything too far away often won't give you back anything meaningful, so you don't have to worry about those things too much. The static noise you hear are sounds rebounding off of multiple objects before they reach your ears. You can try tracing those sounds back to where they came from. Combine that with your original mental map and you can see behind objects to an extent."

"Ok, so it's basically vector tracing like competitive pool. I think I got it, yeah. It feels a little weird because of all the rebounding going on, but I can cancel out a lot of the sounds and keep almost every detail the same."

"Are you sure you need help with this?"

"I trained in making mental maps that simulate physics when I was kid. I always wanted to be just like Nichola Tesla and it helps a lot when you want to design something but are too broke to make prototypes. I've never needed a super complex one like this, so I'm struggling to keep focused while conversing. Simulating only a couple of advanced scientific processes only takes time, while handling several hundred vectors is reaching the limit of the human mind."

"Well do you have any other questions?"

"What about some of the more advanced abilities like weather sense and the more tactile abilities like how fast you learn to move and manipulate your body? Oh and smell!"

"Most of those chalk up to experience really if you want to detect earthquakes or strom's, then you'll feel rumbling or a peculiar static charge in the air and you might feel a little disoriented. It's not always accurate though. You have an enhanced feeling of balance and that gives you a better understanding of your mistakes when you want to move your body. Feeling every muscle in your body allows you to target specific muscles after you start perfecting a technique. And even though you glossed over smell, it really isn't helpful unless you've encountered a smell before or if you need to do some tracking. My perfect memory helps a lot with all of that, but you've been slacking and you haven't improved your brain yet."

"So are we done with this tutoring thing?"

"Only until you finish changing your brain. You said it would take a full day, so skip school for a day. You won't miss anything. Once you're done with that, we can start sparring. Your moves that one night were awful and I need a sparring partner to practice with."

"Okay, thanks for the lesson Matt. I'm going to hit the hay. Today kicked my butt."

"Night Kid, I'm going to stay out and do some scouting."

"No drug dens, and don't wake up Nia when you come back."

"You're still protective of her?"

"Always."