Metamorphosis, Aer-ki Jyr [best classic literature .txt] 📗

him access his instincts better, and as he flowed through the movements his mind wandered a bit, with many tangents popping up, such as modifications to the Excalibur’s engines that he had been working on in perpetuity, border tweaks along the Hadarak front, microbiology lessons he’d been digging into deeper as he searched for a hidden link to adaptation in the structure of his own body…and many more things. They would pop into his mind and out, and after a while he almost forgot he was moving as his mental programs handled most of it with only a little input needed from his conscious mind.

And once again he slipped into it, with his view of the world shifting into multiple layers. Reality was still there, visible, audible, and tactile, but over top of it was an aery film that he could touch if he wanted to make his body burn again, but if he simply observed it didn’t do much to him. He didn’t see it with his eyes, but rather as another Pefbar, yet his ability was limited by range and focus. There was so much information he couldn’t process it all, so he had to be choosy, and again he focused on his immediate area while occasionally pressing his vision further out in a cone to see beyond the 6-7 meter spherical range he had.

So that’s it, he thought as an epiphany hit him. His normal vision couldn’t zoom, but his psionics could, particular Pefbar when he thrust the field all in one direction to get greater range. I’ve been training for it in another fashion, and it upgraded my actual sight. Fascinating.

Paul tried to not get excited, for every time he pressed too hard or got emotional this second layer would slip from him. Instead he simply touched the biosensor on his wrist with his opposite hand as he continued to dance, placing a time marker on the recorded readings so he didn’t have to mentally do it. He needed to keep his mind on track and get as much experience with this…whatever it was…as he could, so every second was valuable.

This was the 9th time he’d been able to do this in the previous days, and each time it seemed to get easier. As if he was soaking up whatever it was and starting to become part of it, or at least adapt to it. It felt like a cool breeze after a hard and exhausting workout, and sadly that’s the best description he could come up with. Paul had opened up a new sense, so there was no context to work with. He couldn’t explain to Cal-com what was going on, and even telepathic transmission didn’t work because his friend didn’t have the same sense, and thus the mental programs Paul was developing to handle it weren’t there to receive the information.

It was the same situation the Archons had been in when they’d unlocked Pefbar. Seeing in all directions at the same time was something their brains couldn’t handle until they developed new software to operate on. That came with the unlocked psionic, but try and pull a memory from someone with Pefbar and shove it in someone who didn’t have it and you’d quickly find that the memory would twist into something it wasn’t, or it wouldn’t take at all. There had to be some way for the receiver to process the sensory data, and if they didn’t have anything close then there was no context and no possibility of communication.

Paul did what he could to try and make Cal-com understand, but this was too radical for him to comprehend and he knew it, so the Voku didn’t press for information. Instead he tried to help Paul talk it through and analyze it for his sake, and he’d been helpful, but experiencing it was far better than discussing it, with the Archon losing himself in the dance that now had an extra element to it, knowing that Cal-com was on guard should any threats arise while he was distracted.

Little flakes of light would pass by every now and then, like motes of dust in the air as a ray of sunshine illuminated them, but these were moving on some type of currents, and if Paul wanted to burn a little he could latch hold of those currents and let them physically carry him along, or he could disrupt them and move them about like putting his hand in a stream or pond. There was movement everywhere, yet there was nothing. It was like a bright openness that could hold much, but currently held little.

And the more Paul stayed within it, the more his body changed. He could feel things sliding into place inside him, though the Regenerator couldn’t detect most of it. Paul thought it was probably more to do with his Core than his body, but his body would then take on aspects of his Core, possibly through his Essence in some way, but he hadn’t figured that out yet. In truth there was a lot he hadn’t figured out, but he now knew how to gain access to this second layer, even if it did take a few dozen minutes of prep work to get the right mojo in order for it to manifest.

He lingered in it for as long as he could, then it started to feel strained and he let it go rather than trying to forcibly hold onto it. The second layer disappeared and he was left dancing in the sand as something inside him popped…in a good way.

Paul felt a wave of fatigue hit him, and he knew it was time for his body to update again, so he spun to a stop and walked over to the shade under the trees where he laid down and closed his eyes, remembering to hit his biomonitor to mark the end of the timestamp, though it continued to record and