The Academy by Zachary Rawlins

Author:Zachary Rawlins [Rawlins, Zachary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: ROUS Industries
Published: 2011-09-04T22:00:00+00:00

Nineteen

“The quarry seems a bit different than the last time I saw it.”

“Different how?”

“Well, there’s a lot… more of it, for one thing. I mean, that whole area over there, since when is that nothing but gravel and sand?”

“Since this afternoon, roughly three-ish?”

“And then there’s the frost. It’s just like my poor couch.” Rebecca pinched her lower lip and looked at Michael disapprovingly. “Did you freeze the quarry? Why did you freeze the quarry, Michael?”

“I didn’t do it,” Michael protested. “Alex did. Or rather, that was a side effect of what Alex did.”

“Alex blew up that whole rock face?”

Rebecca pointed incredulously at the ruined slope, at a deep crater that exposed the bedrock, covered with a fine layer of gravel and chipped stone.

“No, that was me,” Michael admitted, shoulders slumped. “I showed him the Vacuum Bomb Protocol, to give him an idea of what was possible, given the right control…”

“You were showing off,” Rebecca said, staring grumpily at the quarry wall. “And then what happened?”

“He activated the Absolute Protocol that you implanted. And then he started dumping all the local energy directly out into the Ether. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What does that mean? What ‘local energy’?”

“Everything. First thermal, then radiant and electromagnetic as well.”

Michael picked up a pebble and threw it toward the quarry wall, but it came up short, diving down early toward the black water at the bottom of the quarry and colliding with the ice on the surface with a crunching sound.

“I tried to get him to stop there, but he seemed like he was in a trance or something. Next thing I know, the rock where he was staring starts to disappear into the Ether.”

Michael gestured at the frost around him, as if it had just arrived, to his shock.

“I think all the cold is only a side-effect, you know?”

“You mean he was creating a vacuum? You are kidding, right?”

“I think so,” Michael said. “I think all the time, without even realizing it, Alex creates a localized void in our world, and Etheric energy leaks through to fill it. I think that’s where all that catalytic power comes from. When he activated the protocol, he created a much larger void in the Ether, so energy went rushing out of the world to fill it.”

“You could use that, maybe,” Rebecca said slowly, lost in thought. “The cold might be easier to control than an actual energy or mass transfer. Less dangerous for Alex, probably more effective.”

“No,” Michael said, almost sadly, shaking his head.

“Why not?”

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