12 Well Within the Laws of Physics

"Hold on, before we move on, can you untie me first, please? The rope is kinda hurting my wrists," I say.

"Oh come on," Maeve says with a dismissive wave, "A piece of rope is hurting you? We were locked up in cages, you know?

"Yeah, but I also can't shoot lightning out of my fingers."

"Whatever. If you can be defeated by a bit of rope, I guess there's no need to worry about you." Maeve stands up from the couch and walks toward me.

"Hey, don't talk like I'm useless. I was the one that freed you," I say.

"And now I am the one that freed you. We even?" Maeve says as she unties the rope behind me.

"Wait, no, you were the one that tied me up in the first place, ugh, whatever." I gave up trying to argue, seeing it won't take us anywhere anyway.

At least I got the prickly rope off. I rotate my cuffs around to get used to the much-missed freedom and push myself off the ground. My butt has gone numb, so have my legs, and my feet, and really just every part of my body.

I can't stay in an uncomfortable position for long, not after I splurged my allowance of several months on a Herman Miller.

"So, what were you saying?" I ask and sit back down on the couch. I am sure that the leather would have felt great after being on the hardwood floor for so long had my butt been able to feel anything.

"Right." Maeve turns to Luna. "Luna, show… sorry, what's your name? We never asked."

"Arthur, Arthur Pearce."

"Right, show Mr. Pearce here your trick."

"Arthur is fine. Why suddenly so formal?" I ask, "Weren't you just calling me a little kid a few minutes ago?

"Well, even little kids deserve respect. Anyway, show Arthur your trick, Luna," Maeve says to her friend still sitting at the bar counter.

"Um, okay." Luna swallows the remaining cookies in her mouth and raises her hand up to me, well, not to me exactly, but a little bit to my right, which is a little reassuring. I don't want to be in the line of fire again if Luna also turns out to be able to shoot lightning or something.

Presumably to her command, Luna's eyes flash bright yellow, and… she's gone, just vanished into thin air. No effects or anything. It's as if she was a photoshopped layer being removed from the scene. The situation would be laughably ridiculous had it not been happening right in front of my eyes.

"What… where did she go?" I ask Maeve, and she bobs her chin up toward my side.

I look over, and on the part of the couch beside me sits Luna, who less than a second ago was across the room.

…huh?

Speechless. That's all I can describe my reaction. My brain has just sort of shut down.

"In simple terms," Maeve begins to explain, "I am able to manipulate electricity, and Luna is able to manipulate… well, the fabric of physical space. She can shorten, extend, twist, reverse, or do whatever to the distance between any two points visible in her line of sight. That gives her the ability to essentially teleport and create teleportation portals. Handy, isn't it? Especially when one needs to be able to travel across a province on merely a hearty breakfast."

"Y-Yeah," I say, staring at Luna in disbelief. She seems a little embarrassed about it, avoiding her eyes and coiling up her own hair. Yeah, just go on and respond to defying Euclidean geometry the same way one would respond to being complimented.

"Wait, but that still doesn't explain how you managed the find me." I turn back to Maeve.

"Christ, why are you hung up on that?" Maeve asks.

"My life depends on anonymity, Maeve," I say, "If you were able to find me, that means others will eventually, too. I need to know how you did it so I can prevent it from happening again."

Maeve tilts her head slightly. "Eh, there's no need for that."

"Why?" I ask.

"You see, I am not only capable of shooting sparks out of my fingers." Maeve holds her palm up, and a ball of light is conjured out of the air hovering above her hand. "I can also manipulate electromagnetic forces, fields, and radiation as well as detect them. At the place where we were held, live reporting of the breach at Kimmons Corp was playing on a TV. I traced the broadcast signal from the TV to the station, then from the station to the reporter. From there, I sensed that there were several connections from the devices in the building that were linked to a specific satellite, which got its source from this exact spot."

What… What the hell is she going on about? She located my satellite wi-fi signal going into Kimmons Corp's mainframe? As a hacker, I only need to worry about my online presence. I never paid the slightest attention to my broadcasting signal, as I obviously never imagined that could somehow be used against me.

This is something else.

"But how did you know to come to this exact floor and apartment?" I ask.

"I can remember a distinct signal, a little bit like how a dog can remember a distinct smell. I sensed the same signal as the one in Kimmons Corp coming from the other side of your door," Maeve says and distinguishes the ball of light in her hand.

"Holy…"

I guess she's right in that I don't need to worry about anyone else finding me this way.

"Impressed?" Maeve asks.

"Impressed? Someone playing a difficult piano piece makes me impressed. You two have literally broken the laws of physics. This is… on a whole other level."

"Nope, no we haven't broken any laws," Maeve says, "Everything we can do is well within the laws of the physics, just not possible with our current technology. That's what the scientists told us, anyway."

Luna nods faintly to her friend's statement.

I… guess?

"So… now that you've found me, what do you want to do?" I ask.

Maeve shrugs. "I don't know. We didn't really think about what to do after we escaped. I just know the both of us don't want to go back to that clinic. It was so boring there. What do people normally do?"

"That depends on age. How old are you two?" I ask.

"I'm seventeen, and Luna's sixteen," Maeve says.

As I expected.

"Then… school? Probably?" I say.

"S-School…?" I hear Luna mumble.

For some reason, her eyes have lit up. Well, not as in light is coming out of her eyes, but as in she is intrigued. I get how that can confusing given that their eyes can quite literally light up.

"You want to go to school?" I ask.

Luna nods with a shade of flushed cheeks.

"Would that be possible?" Maeve asks, also interested in the proposal.

"What? Just going to school?" I say.

"Well, not just that, but simply living an actual normal life. Luna and I have been… you know, hidden away from society all our lives. It'd be great for us to experience what life is like as normal girls," Maeve says.

Ah… I see. It's a little like the Truman Show, isn't it? Knowing that your own life has been different, one would of course want to know what it's like living like a normal person. However mundane it is to us, it would be greatly novel and interesting to them.

"It's possible, not difficult, actually," I say, "Any official documents and identifications I can get QUALIA to forge for you, but… where are you going to live?"

"Here?" Maeve says without hesitation as if it's a simple answer sitting in front of my nose.

"What?"

"What? What's wrong with us living here?" Maeve asks.