Potenkiah, the deathgiver

Chapter 5.1

Bridget stopped the flow of energy and held onto a nearby table. She had the feeling that the room around her was spinning. Small white lights danced before her eyes. Her arms and legs shook, and her palm had bled again, like scarlet sweat.

When William Obrien had informed her that every third day she had to attend this cellar in the basement, where the doctors Laverne Nance and Chase Bauer would study her abilities, she never imagined she would be putting her body through such strain.

‘I do not agree with what they will do to you,’ Christian Obrien had said as farewell, and she had assumed, but not asked, that the old man feared she would be turned into some kind of experimental bird. Was she?

The place looked more like a gym than a laboratory, although it did have an observation room next to it, full of monitors, and it reminded her of an air traffic central. She chose to refer to it as the Hall.

The first day she had gone down looking for it, she got lost.

“What the…?”

When she had touched the identification panels to open a door, she had entered some kind of vault. There were no doctors inside, but two empty stands; the third held a square made from white material, and had letters carved on its surface. She was invaded by suspicion and unease. She ran. It was the first time that running into William gave her relief.

“This way. You could not see the entrance because it is hidden behind a hologram. The doctors are waiting for you.”

The old man closed the vault and led the way without further explanation.

At first, the sessions focused on helping her control her telekinetic abilities to avoid other episodes like the one that almost revealed her identity in the throne room.

Nance, her GP, proposed the hypothesis that the energy, product of metabolic activity, simply did not have enough room for storage and circled free through her nervous system. He believed the current caused magnetic fields and the telekinesis was just “diamagnetic levitation in unstable equilibrium”, which was why the diamagnetic object shifted position.

In other words, he applied one of the principles of antigravitational technology used in all of their transportation:

An object of mass M, volume V and magnetic susceptibility 𝛘 which is in a region of space where there is a magnetic induction field B (r).

 

If the size of the object is small against the spatial variations of B,  we can write for the magnetic moment induced on the object:

m(r)=VM(r')dv'=VH(r')dv'VB(r')𝞵0dv'B(r)V𝞵0

If we increase the magnetic field from zero to its final value, the energy of magnetization can be calculated by integrating the equation:

dE=-dmBV0dB(r)B(r) E=-𝛘V2𝞵𝞵0B2(r)

To this we must add the potential gravitational energy:

E=Mgz-𝛘V20B2(r)

For the object to float in equilibrium, the vertical force must be nil:

F2=-𝛁zE=-Mg+V0z(B2)=0Vz(B2)=0g

 

However, the hypothesis was discarded. The current was continuous, which meant that Bridget’s presence alone should magnetize the surrounding objects and affect electronic devices, a phenomenon that did not happen.

But telekinesis was not an act of fate and concentration either. Following several trial cycles, the doctors persisted in their search for an explanation; the important part, stopping it from happening suddenly due to anger or fear, was already managed by Bridget.

Then they directed the objective of the study to a subject that was more… electrifying. Even if Nance’s theory was not applicable to telekinesis, it worked as basis to discover that her hands released more than just sparks.

“Your Highness, may I take a hematogenous sample?” Nance had asked that day. “A drop will do.”

Bridget put her finger on the needle. The moment the doctor pricked her, she was blinded by a bright white light. She heard the sound of furniture toppling over.

“Shit!” cried Bauer, as he rushed to the end of the Hall, where Nance had crashed after being thrown by an electric arch. “Are you alright, colleague?”

Nance had a burn mark on his chest and an array of bruises.

“I believe we may have found something important,” he mumbled, before passing out.

Bridget got so scared that she swore she would never do anything like it again… beyond those four walls. She was curious to know what else she could do.

That had been the accident that uncovered her ability to produce electric arches from her hands. Energy did not flow freely through her body the way the doctor had theorized; there was an additional circulatory system in her body, her own high voltage wiring.

Generating a map of that special system was just one of the technical issues that they had to overcome, along with other security measures. They tailored filters for the medical scanner, acquired power transformers with higher capacity, protected the measuring equipment against ionization in the air around them, installed batteries to store energy…

And since that day everything had changed. In order to discover her limits, Bridget had agreed to every request made by the scientists; the long days left her exhausted, and that afternoon had been, without a doubt, the worst.

Bridget sat on the padding that covered the floor and waited for her heart to return to a slower rhythm. That was it, she could not go any further. Doctor Nance, from his spot in the observation room, realized it too without being told. He had never seen her so tired. He signaled Bauer to turn off the equipment; they would retire earlier than usual, check her vitals and send her to rest.

Watching her thin, bony hands, Bridget realized that spending so many cycles using up her energy without proper caloric intake was damaging her health in yet another way. She always finished her sessions a bit weak and with a terrible hunger she could not satisfy; should she take a second serving, Annie would berate her. Or worse, she could start suspecting she was being deceived.

“Is being the only one with translucent feathers not enough? Do you also want to be the first fat Eloahn?” she had said once. “If you eat that, you’ll never be able to take off. If at least you were going out for a run, instead of perching on a couch for two hours during your private lessons… is it really that hard to understand that two plus two is four?”

‘Private math classes’ was the absurd lie she had to make up so her friends would not insist on tagging along…

Nance stepped up to her, checked her pulse, temperature and blood pressure.

“How do you feel?”

“A little tired.”

Perhaps it was time to raise her hand and request a vitamin supplement, before the weight loss became obvious; even her sportswear, which was elastic and once hugged her body, was now loose fitting.

“Dizziness, headache or anything you would like to point out?”

“No,” she lied.

Sometimes they were so scrupulous, that even the slightest sign of discomfort meant uncomfortable tests and bedrest. That might have been the reason why she learned to keep quiet about minor issues and allowed the problem to grow.

“Are you sure?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Get some rest and eat well,” he recommended anyway.

“I promise.”

Except she did not say when. She had overdue work. Lately, William was merciless about homework. Essays and research were his favorite means of torture, right behind surprise oral exams, of course.