DLM, Bk 6, Ch 8

“I am just trying to digest what Galatea presented.” I admitted, shaking my head. Letting out a slow breath, I decided that Sophia needed to know and she hopefully would be able to harness that understanding.

“What you just did, was break the laws of physics, as we understood them before. I mean, you weigh maybe sixty kilogram but somehow, you managed to lift an object weighing a hundred kilos, without getting lifted in turn. That should not work, I mean, you know as well as I do that for every action, there is an equal, but opposite reaction.” I began rambling and Sophia nodded in agreement, though she was obviously confused.

“I did?” She asked, looking at the rope she had just climbed, “And the second part?”

“No weight on the other side. And yet, you managed to climb the rope.” I explained, getting a nod in response. She hesitated for a moment, before reaching up, as if to grab the air there. It did not work, the pulling-motion looking a little awkward, yet adorable, making me grin.

“I do not think it is that easy.” I chuckled. In turn, she simply shrugged, a grin on her own on her face.

“No, but unless I experiment a little, I won’t be able to find out how, right?” There was obvious enthusiasm on her face, the idea clearly intriguing to her. I could empathize with it, even if I had built myself the jet-booster that allowed me to fly, if only in armor, and the Plane I had built was incredibly convenient. I doubted she would be able to match their sheer mileage but that was almost a given. On the other hand, when it came to convenience, my contraptions were rather inconvenient, and very obvious.

“I do not think I can help you with that. So far, Galatea only used your power to demonstrate something with much deeper implications. I can only guess at the sheer scope of that realization and what might come of it in the future. Suffice to say, there is a lot of work to do before I have anything other than guesses with some equations describing a mix of hypothesis and experimental observation.” I admitted, focusing on the equations Galatea had shown me.

As I looked at them, I started to consider the implications and realized something. Namely, there might not be any. Certaomöy, Galatea had demonstrated a new, and very interesting, truth about Sophia but did that truly mean anything, in the grand scheme of things. That flying Powered were a thing was widely recognised, the Hermes-Powerset the one people dreamed about, so a weird coincidence in which an Atlas and Hermes set got mixed up was not out of the question. The difference was mostly in their ability to fly.

And in the dreams during emergence, those strange, inexplicable visions that guided you on the first step of your power, giving you vague ideas just what you might do. For me, that had been focused on intricate, incredibly complex, crafting and the creation of marvels I would normally deem impossible with the means I had dreamed of.

For a moment, I considered asking Sophia about hers, but decided against it. Certainly, it was an interesting question, but the consideration made me wonder, namely, where did those visions come from. Their existence was widely recognised, but due to their brief frame of occurence and the simple fact that one did not necessarily recognise them at once, direct, observational studies were limited. Nobody had been able to place a person within a high-definition medical imager and scanned what was going on. But it was an obvious clue that something was connecting Powered, on an unobserved level.

Terms like a Soul had been bandied around, as had attributions to a variety of Deities, none of which held up to scrutiny, but then, that was the major problem with Powered research, the vast differences between individual Powered that made repeated, reliable experiments so difficult. Sophia had just demonstrated that there might be a possibility to expand a powerset, that she could do something she had not considered before.

For a moment, I wondered if I could do, too, and I had to smile for a moment, as I watched Sophia try to grab the air again, as she moved back to the rope, talking with Galatea to facilitate some randomized training. If she could climb the rope without knowing if there was a counterweight, it might be the first step to internally recognise the difference, some sort of recognition of the Power used. That might be a good first step to actually use that new Power.

But it did not help on my part of the equation, leading Galatea and myself to go back to the drawing-board and the question, how could we detect and demonstrate that proposed additional dimension. Voltic came to mind, her ability to create electric discharges an obvious effect that had to come from somewhere. I had tried to gather some data by observing her in the past, but those experiments had been aborted due to outside circumstances. Finding someone with a similar powerset, any of the so-called elemental generators would do, might be a good way to gather data for the hypothesis.

“Do we know what happened to Voltic?” I idly asked Galatea, still trying to form a good set-up that we could use, while looking into potential test-subjects.

“To the best of my knowledge, she is held under house arrest in New Brunsburg.” Galatea responded to my query, adding the relevant data into our mental construct. A quick glance explained the circumstances and, to my surprise, I was responsible. At least somewhat.

A few years back, during the final stages of a Scourge-Attack on New Brunsburg, we had worked together and her lightning had caused a set of my drones to explode, causing massive destruction and essentially ending that side of combat. In the aftermath, Voltic had been investigated, her ability declared the cause of the explosion which, in turn, made her appear incredibly dangerous. Nobody wanted to have someone with the ability to cause massive explosions run wild, even if that person was considered a Heroine.

At first, the powers that be had been content to keep her on the roster of the Heroes’ Association, mostly as a mascot without giving her patrol, or combat, duties but, from what I could tell, once the Golden Eagles came in, the public relations had been taken over and she faded from public view. Galatea had looked into things a little more and found that she had been seen at their headquarters but did not seem to leave it, ever.

“Do you think they are trying to brainwash her?” I asked, a little concerned at the possibility. While I had put quite a bit of effort into hardening my armor against her ability, I had never tested it and could not really test the effects of it, not if our current assumptions about that additional dimension were true.

“I think it is likely. But at the same time, I doubt that they would be willing to risk pushing things, simply because they don’t know how her ability works. If they believe she can blow them all up if pushed too far, they would likely attempt to work slowly, the brainwashing akin to a slow poison.” Galatea reasoned and I had to agree. Nobody wanted to move someone with the potential to explode like a bomb into their special facilities, especially if those facilities were supposed to remain hidden.

“What about the Shadowbroker and Veritas?” I added, curious how those two had coped with the change in leadership. I did not doubt that the Shadowbroker would be fine, his entire skill-set was about remaining hidden and working the shadows, but I was curious nonetheless.

“Unknown.” She admitted, before elaborating, “There have been no sightings and in the databases I have been able to access, there is nothing to find, other than the information that he exists. There is even less about Veritas, I could not even say that she exists, if we had not met her.”

All in all, that was no surprise, the Shadowbroker was competent. I might have to try contacting him, but carefully. He would certainly have information, that was his whole deal, and unless I was utterly wrong about him, he would not be interested in the new regime.

Focusing on my surroundings, I realized that Sophia was climbing up to the ceiling once again, her eyes tightly closed, the movement smooth and deliberate. There was only one problem, namely, the rope she was climbing was missing.

“Looks like you figured it out.” I told her, causing her next grab up the rope that was not there to miss that which was not there, causing her to tumble to the ground, clumsily landing on her behind.

“Or maybe not.” I barely managed to stop myself from laughing, stepping over to help her up.