SIGHT
(Seducer Part 11- Chapter 42 of Senses)
With one thing and another, it was five weeks before A.J., Jim, Karen and Angie were able to meet for the first time at the new lab. Jim had taken some extra time to polish the albums he was working on and to work with Blue Shift on the shows. A.J. and Angie had built up the lab to the point where they could begin using it for experimentation, but A.J. had also been working with Blue Shift for a portion of the rehearsals and Angie would disappear for days at a time to go to San Francisco. Karen's workshop with abused girls turned out to be a phenomenal success, and she had held three others in the interim.
Unfortunately, this would be the only day to experiment for the next five weeks, as World Aid kicked off the following week and Jim and A.J. were due to fly to Moscow. It had been worked out that Jim and A.J. would fly in after the rest of the band on a private plane, so Karen, Carrie and Angie were planning to come along so that scientific data could be gone over at that time (Carrie was currently out making arrangements for the plane), but this would be the only actual experimentation day until Blue Shift's tour had completed it's part of World Aid. The rest of the week would be involved in press conferences and interviews that all of the participants of World Aid would be attending.
"This place is amazing," Jim said, staring in wonder at the converted room.
"You like it?" A.J. asked.
Jim smiled. "I do."
The room was warehouse sized, 400 feet by 100 by 25 feet, and comprised (save for a small anteroom) the entire lower floor of a two story building. In four different locations the floor had been removed and canvas had been put in its place. The walls and ceiling were also canvas in varied locations. Along one wall was a bank of computers, which were presently in the process of backing up information. In one corner was the examination table, which was a marvel in itself.
The table was surrounded by various pieces of medical equipment. Blood pressure readers, EKG readers, and a number of other types of health monitoring equipment, and even a polygraph, and Angie noted that some hospitals didn't have this advanced a setup, and pointed out that a couple of pieces were still on order. As much as this impressed Jim and Karen, this was nothing compared to the brain scan equipment.
The head of the table was surrounded by a wire and mirror lattice, made up of a total of 48 mirrors and 96 receivers. This in turn was connected to a metal arm that could rotate more than 360 degrees either clockwise or counter-clockwise, although it was not recommended that the device be rotated much further than that, so that the wiring would not be fouled up. It could also be pushed either forward or back.
"That thing is amazing," Karen said. "How does it help?"
"Amazing is a good word," Angie replied. "I gave Scott a few textbooks and technical manuals and he just went berserk. I think he's going to file a patent for this gizmo."
A.J. shook his head. "Scott doesn't give a damn about that sort of thing," he said.
"He'd better. This thing reduces the scan time to less than three minutes, on a cell-by-cell level."
The group was stunned. "Three minutes?" Jim almost shouted.
A.J. nodded and smiled. "We'll get him to file a patent," he said with a chuckle.
Angie walked over to the medical table. She continued, "Add to that gizmo the computer program he wrote to translate the information into digital information and even a picture style response. We can now do a cell-by-cell comparison and comparative studies based upon digital translation of the scanned information, as well as physically looking at the scans."
"And it only took five weeks," Karen said with a whistle. "I knew Scott was good but I had no idea he was this good. Why is he a free-lancer? Wouldn't the government snatch him up?"
"Not a chance," Jim replied. "He's one of those people that the government suspects of hacking but can never prove. Computers just happen to be the man's natural talent."
"Then why is he a road tech for rock bands?"
"Because he's my friend, and has been for longer than I can recall. Besides, have you seen how much work it is for him to do the music and technical stuff he does? Almost nothing. He does that and helped build our studios and other freelance fun projects, and he also writes interactive computer games."
"And he's a goofball in general," A.J. added, "which I certainly don't need to tell any of you. Look at it this way. Most people don't understand our musical talent. We don't understand his technical talent. I figure it's a fair trade."
Karen nodded. "I guess so," she commented. "He could certainly be a lot richer than he is."
"How do you know he's not?" A.J. countered. "Besides, he's also something of an anarchist. He hates rules."
Karen laughed. "You know, I've talked with him off and on for almost two years now, and it occurs to me that I hardly know him."
Jim nodded solemnly. "It's his way," he intoned. A.J. laughed.
"Can we get back to this?" Angie asked.
"Soitenly!" Jim said in best imitation of the baldest of the Three Stooges. "What's upstairs?"
"More rooms," A.J. said. "I had the upstairs cordoned off into a bunch of smaller rooms that I suppose could be used as studies or apartments. There's also a kitchen and restrooms up there, and even roof access in case Paul wants to fly one of his helicopters up there.
"Is the required fence up there?" Jim asked.
"Yes, it is." To Karen and Angie's puzzled looks he added, "Paul can be paranoid sometimes. He likes a 25 foot tall fence to surround his heliports in the city. His one at home is not noticeable from outside his property.
"Anyway, there's also a small replica of my rubber room up there, with canvas on all surfaces. We can do further experiments up there, in case we need to do any that require us to take higher risks."
"Not today though," Karen commented.
"No, not today," Angie said. "Today's agenda includes doing full scans of all of us, so I'll need to train all of you on the use of the gear. After that we try A.J.'s new theory regarding flight."
Jim raised an eyebrow. "New theory?" He asked.
"What would happen," A.J. began, "if Angie tried to supplant formulae while Karen controlled her? I'd like to see if Angie could be brought more into line with what we already know can be accomplished with Karen's help. If it works, we then do a brain scan under these conditions to do a comparison."
Jim considered it for a moment. "I don't know what the results will be," he said. "For once you've managed to enter a session with a new idea and leave me stumped."
"Arrogant bastard," A.J. said, smiling.
"I was planned, just as Larry was. You, on the other hand..."
"Boys, boys, boys," Karen said. "Let's start, shall we?"
"Who's first?" Jim asked.
"Actually," Angie said, "the proper question is who's fourth. We already have two scans each from Larry, Paul, and Scott."
"Okay Ms. Smartass, who's fourth?"
"Smartasses don't come in gender, and you are."
Jim laughed. "Let's do it."
Jim lay down on the table and the 'gizmo' surrounded his head. Two electrodes were connected to his arm and neck, and a blood-pressure cuff was wrapped around his arm. Readings were taken and his temperature was taken, which was at its usual 99.1° Fahrenheit. Then the scan took place. Jim felt nothing although he noticed a high-pitched whine when the gear moved from one position to another. Angie noted this and made a note in the computer to take this fact into account. After the first scan a second was performed under identical conditions, and then a third as Jim suspended himself 4 inches from the table.
The same process was repeated with A.J., and then with Karen, although for her third exam she pushed calmness into Jim, and this was noted. Then Angie was also scanned, but on the third time she pushed lust into Jim. A fourth scan of Angie was done using fear.
Once done, Angie jumped from the table and said, "I'll need some time to go over the figures here. I figure that while you're all doing your day gigs I'll go over data."
"What about your day gig?" A.J. asked.
"Do you know how busy a bar is during the day?" Angie countered. "Especially one as off the beaten path as mine is? Besides, I've already talked to Joshua, and he's found for a replacement for me so that I can come on board full time. He was going to do that anyway because I'm going to Moscow with you. By the way, do you have the money to put me on staff?"
Jim roared with laughter. "Oh man!" he said. "All right, you're on staff, but consider yourself a contractor. I don't want to have to pay taxes on you in addition to all the other taxes I pay."
Angie laughed. "An expense account will do," she said. "I can set up an apartment upstairs."
"I'll look into setting up some corporate credit cards," A.J. said. "Maybe we should all put up small apartments upstairs, so that we can do some long term work."
"I'll want to move in a piano then," Jim said.
"No problemo," A.J. replied in the closest imitation of Homer Simpson he could manage.
"Way to go man," Jim shot back in the closest imitation of Bart Simpson he could manage.
Angie shook her head. "You two are weird," she said.
"True enough," Karen added.
"Great," A.J. said, rolling his eyes. "Now we have two sarcastic females watching over us."
"And Carrie's not sarcastic?" Jim asked.
A.J. grimaced. "Okay, three. Shall we move on?"
Jim nodded and went over to one of the canvass portions of floor. He bounced twice for height and then fell onto his back. At the apex of his bounce he forced himself to be still, suspended three feet in the air. "Okay then," he said as the others walked over to him. "How shall we do this?"
"We previously established that you can fly with Karen's help," A.J. said. "We need to see if the same is possible with Angie. Therefore, I'd like to try something simple. Have Angie take over gravity, while you use the graph method to move.
"Karen, what I'd like you to do is take over Angie's emotive centers, and put the proper formula there. Angie, all you need to do is take what Karen feeds you and relay it to Jim along the patterns you use."
Karen took a deep breath. "Anything in particular you'd like me to hit you with?" she asked.
"Calmness will do," Angie replied. Karen nodded and began. "That feels nice," Angie noted.
Karen found the formula she always used with Jim for gravity, using 2.91 times 10 to the 17th power as the proper number to hit Jim with. She fed this through the equation.
"That's weird," Angie said. "It's like I can feel the number you fed me. 291 followed by... 15 zeros, right?"
A.J.'s jaw dropped. "Wait a moment!" he said. "Karen, change the number to something else. Something lower."
Karen did so and Angie said, "493,621. This is amazing! I wonder if this has anything to do with Larry's 'numerology waves'. Whether or not your idea works, we'll need to scan me while Karen does this."
"Agreed," A.J. replied. "For now, let's see if this works. Karen, give her back the right number."
Karen did so, and on Angie's acknowledgement A.J. said, "Now Angie, go ahead and push."
After a moment Jim said, "Got it. It feels right to me." He took a deep breath. "I'm letting go of my control on the formula now."
Jim tensed up expecting to fall, and let go. He stayed in the air.
"It works!" A.J. shouted. "It fucking works!"
Jim nodded and signaled that he was ready to move on. At A.J.'s cue, he placed his graph into his vision and began to move. He traced a zig-zag pattern around the room, and finally wound back up over the canvas where he started. He signaled for Angie to release him, and then fell to the canvass, looking triumphant.
"Unbefuckinglievable!" He shouted. "A.J., there's more."
"Spit it out then," A.J. replied.
"I got hit with calmness!"
Now it was Angie's turn to look startled. "You mean you got hit with Karen's output?" she asked.
"That's right. Not only does this mean you can make us fly, it also means that you can at least channel other emotional outputs."
"I'm an empath after all?"
Karen shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "Maybe at a base level you are, but if you're channeling what I do, then your ability becomes even more confused. We'd better study this too."
"I agree," A.J. said. "Jim, you up to it?"
Jim nodded. "Yes I am. We'll have to do a lot of scans of just this one experiment so that we can address each question this raises."
"Then we'd better get started, shouldn't we?"
A total of 15 scans were done on both Jim and Angie, and another 5 on Karen. It was well past nine p.m. by the time they all made it to the bar on Montana Avenue. For Angie it was her second trip, as the experiments had begun after her arrival from work.
Jim went through his usual routine of drinking a few drinks before sticking his hand up in the air and letting his darts case impact with his hand. He yelled out "Thanks, Mike!" and so did about one third of the people in the bar, as they were used to the ritual.
Jim and A.J. played a round of left-handed cricket, which Jim won, and then Karen and Angie played a game of 300, which Karen won. Jim noted that Angie's playing had improved somewhat. Then Jim and Karen played a game of drunk darts while Angie and A.J. got food for the group from behind the counter. When they returned, Jim had won the game, and Angie seemed to be in a state of shock.
"Have any of you seen this?" she asked. She was holding a copy of the latest edition of the Inquirer. On the cover was the headline 'The Many Women of Jim Christopher'. Below that in smaller type was 'jilted lover returns to join bizarre love triangle'. Accompanying the headlines were pictures of Jim and Karen, and another picture of Jim and Angie, out of focus.
Karen took the paper and read the article.
" 'As reported earlier'," she began, " 'Jim Christopher left his long time companion Karen Price for the infamous Angie 'Raven' Rameriz, but we now have to report the astounding. Ms. Price has returned to be by her lover's side, while Jim actively pursues Ms. Rameriz. Mr. Christopher has been known in the past for his excesses, but never to such a degree.'
" 'We feel that Ms. Price, a professional counselor of some repute, and Mr. Christopher along with Ms. Rameriz make a marvelous...something...but we condemn their sense of morality.'
"That's pretty much it, except for the photos. There's one of Jim with me, and another of Jim with Angie."
Jim took the paper and examined the photographs. "This isn't me," he said. "This is Larry in the picture with Angie."
A.J. sighed. "We'd better let Larry know we have a mistaken identity case going again," he said.
Jim shook his head and let the paper fall to the table the drinks were at. "They never cease to astonish me," he commented. "Partly my fault, gang. I meant to talk with Paul to deal with this situation, and it slipped my mind. I can deal with it tomorrow, if you'd like. The Blue Shift conference for World Aid is then, and I know that this piece of shit rag will send a representative. I can deal with it then."
"I don't care," Angie said. "They're never going to say good things about me, and the notoriety will die down eventually. After all, we know the truth."
"I care," Jim shot back. "I don't give a fuck what they say about me, but they've attacked the two of you, and that gets me upset. I'll deal with it then."
"I've gotten used to their lies and exaggerations," Karen said. "You're probably going to get more fan mail because of this, you know. Why bother to correct their mistakes?"
Jim nodded. "A valid point," he conceded.
"You are the poster child for the Anarchists of America,' A.J. pointed out. "I say let it slide. They're not going to believe you anyway because Angie is seen with you a lot these days."
"Another valid point." Jim picked up his drink and swallowed it down. "Taking your words into account, I'll change my mind. If nobody minds, I'll just let it go. Maybe play it up a little if the subject should arise. We can let the world think what it wants of us. Fair enough?"
"Fair enough," Angie said.
The bartender came to the group and poured another round of drinks for everyone. He winked at Angie, who replied, "Thanks, Mike."
Jim clapped his hands together. "All right," he said, "now that that's settled, who's up for a team darts match?"
Sometime later, Jim and Karen were floating above their bed, naked and soaking wet from sweat. Lately their sex had been more stimulating and rewarding than it had been before, and both of them noticed it. It bothered Jim, who showed his concern on his face.
"Twenty dollar gold piece for your thoughts," Karen asked, leaning back and letting her legs dangle on each side of Jim.
Jim chuckled. "I have to wonder something," he said. "Angie still bothers me in a way."
"How so?"
"I mean that I really did get angry today about that stupid fucking article Angie found. I mean, you're used to all this crap. You've said so yourself on more than one occasion. Why did this get to me?"
"Straight truth?" Karen said. "You're still a bit attracted to Angie, and I think you're upset by that fact."
"I..."
"Don't be. She's your type, she's smart, and she's someone you sympathize with because of her past. I've been thinking. You remember from when we did that steady state experiment I wondered why when your steady state was changed that you were attracted to her? I think it's because the attraction was already there. Even without her in your skull this would have been a test of our relationship."
"It's not love," Jim protested. "It never has been."
"I know that. It's okay, lust is a pretty healthy thing." She leaned forward and kissed Jim's chest. "It's done wonders for us lately."
Jim laughed and kissed her on the forehead. As Karen sat back up, he reached up to her breasts and massaged them. "What do I do about it?" he asked distractedly.
Karen was just as distracted. "Do you picture her when we make love?" she asked.
Jim shook his head no.
"Then do nothing. It's healthy." Karen leaned forward again. "You haven't flown like what you did earlier today for a long time."
"I know," Jim sighed. He noticed that Karen was feeding him empathically and he was becoming turned on again.
"Want to try something kinky?"
Jim raised an eyebrow in response.
Karen took on a sly look to her face. "Let's make love above the pool," she said. "Let's see if we can do this airborne from the beginning."
Jim smiled as he became more and more aroused. "Have sex and feed formulae at the same time?" He asked.
Karen simply nodded, feeding him more.
Jim laughed. "Like I have a choice, the way you're feeding me."
"I can't rape the willing, can I?" Karen asked.
"I'm willing! I'm willing! Let's float over to the window, all right?"
They floated down to the window, which Jim opened. Using hand signals, they worked through the back yard to the swimming pool. By that point they were kissing each other and Jim was inside of Karen again, thrusting hard.
It was several minutes before the lovers climaxed. After they had, Karen opened her eyes and looked around. She couldn't see the ground due the cloud cover below their bodies. She was too startled to even move.
When Jim opened his eyes he was facing up, and could only see sky. He stopped all of their motion and looked at Karen's face. Realizing that something was definitely wrong, he then looked down at the clouds.
He was briefly surprised that Karen hadn't hit him with some form of terror for at least a moment. The he realized that she hadn't been feeding him when they had climaxed. She hadn't needed to.
"How high up do you think we are?" Karen asked, finding her voice.
Jim shook his head. "I don't know," he replied. "At least a mile. Give me gravity back."
Karen did so and Jim took over control almost instantaneously. "We've got a long journey down, and we'll go nice and slow, all right?"
The descent was uneventful. When they were able to see the ground again through the clouds they noticed that they had also drifted somewhat. Instead of being over their Brentwood home, the were in fact over the ocean. From a height of 1000 feet they got their bearings and eventually found their way over the house. Only then did they descend the remaining distance. Jim set themselves down next to the swimming pool, and expelled a long breath.
"Wow", he managed to say.
Karen laughed a nervous laugh. "Wasn't this a scene from a Douglas Adams book?" she asked.
Jim nodded and smiled. "It was, sort of. Let's avoid doing this again, shall we?"
"I guess I lost control over the numbers."
"Seems so."
"I wasn't frightened though. It was more like surprise than fear. It was exhilarating."
Jim had to admit it was. "Never flew like that before," he said. "I mean, to that kind of height or distance. Not even hovering."
Karen started to shiver. "You've always said that this is dangerous," she commented. "I should have listened."
Jim put his arms around Karen. "It's okay. We've been cocky lately. Maybe this can serve as a reminder that we're human."
Karen laughed at that. "Human," she said.
Jim smiled. "Let's go inside, all right? Let's see if we can't try to get some sleep tonight."
As they walked inside the house, Jim reflected that
the word "human" could have a lot of meanings, not just to acknowledge
mistakes.