Unity by Carl Stubblefield (epub read online books TXT) 📕

through when he smelled a pungent smell. At first, he thought it was coming from the portal, but as he deselected any of the choices from the directory, the smell persisted, becoming more pronounced. Something was burning. He could see no smoke but began to cough. It became so persistent that he exited the cube.

When reality had snapped back into place, he was shocked at what he saw. Through the milky opaque walls of the tent, he saw flames on every side.

They were somehow in the middle of a huge fire.

Chapter Eighteen

Die in a Fire

Gus began to panic as the air became more difficult to breathe. Somehow, BoJack lay there still sleeping, mouth agape. Gus shook him violently and he blinked to life.

“Whass goin’ on?” he asked dreamily.

“We’re on fire! It’s all around us!” He spun back and forth, looking at the orange and yellows flickering just outside.

BoJack yawned, unmoved by the news. He tapped Gus on the shoulder. “Calm down. It’ll be okay. I’m interested to see what you think we should do though. How would you handle this? What are the challenges, and what should be done?”

“Can we do this later?” Gus asked impatiently.

“No, this is perfect.”

“How are you so calm?!”

BoJack scrubbed his face with a hand as he stood and fixed Gus with a stern look. “I’m calm because I know myself and what I’m about. You want experience. This is how you get experience. I could have you show me your abilities and what would be the best to do in this situation to quickly resolve everything. But you have to train yourself to think. I know with the few abilities you have, it may be difficult to think out of the box, but you have to get used to stretching yourself. If you want XP, you’re not going to get it staying in your comfort zones. The greatest gains lie just outside of what’s familiar, tried, and tested.”

“But the fire…” The words died on his lips as he saw BoJack stand there unflappable, arms serenely folded, awaiting Gus’ assessment. “Okay. It doesn’t seem hot in here, even though the flames look right outside. And it’s fairly smoky, but nothing like it should be in the center of a forest fire, so why is that?”

BoJack nodded encouragingly and Gus continued.

“So is the ether acting kind of like a heat sink, somehow? That’s why it isn’t hotter?”

“Good job. Unlike other materials, ether has never been infused to failure. It has a yet undetermined upper limit for energy absorption. That’s why we usually use it as a container for different types of energy, because there are at least five phases that we know of as more energy is pumped into ether itself.”

Gus looked nervously as the oranges became brighter, crinkling his nose at the permeating smoke. “Should we…?”

“I guess the term ‘infusion’ is a misnomer, because we are not really putting the energy into the ether itself, but inside of a shaped compartment of ether,” BoJack continued, as if he didn’t sense Gus’ distress. “And no… we shouldn’t. Don’t let yourself get into the habit of relying on your powers instead of your brain, Gus. Think it through as if the fire weren’t there. Compartmentalize.”

Gus coughed on the smoke as he took a deep breath to relax. He mentioned containers, is that some sort of hint?

“You remember how easily you broke my basket weave earlier? Why didn’t it just resist your efforts to tear it? If ether absorbs energy, wouldn’t it resist your efforts to stretch it?”

“Because ether has no will. It can be manipulated by some people and even though you created it, I also can manipulate ether and was able to affect it. If I had tried to light a fire or use a laser to cut through it, that would be a different matter. Does that make sense?”

“Ehh, sort of,” Gus said, wobbling his hand palm down.

“I don’t understand it all either. Just that our Nth allow us to interact with this stuff we call ether based on our intentions with enough consistency to produce reliable effects. Depending on how well it is crafted, it has extreme durability. Look at our tent. I’m sure your perception stat is above ten?”

“Of course.”

“Good, then you have some form of an Identify skill. I’m not sure what yours is called—they’re all over the map name-wise—but it lets you get information from the environment, translating Nth passive scans into data you can use.”

That must be Wreckognize for me, Gus thought.

“Have you used that skill for any type of problem solving?”

Gus squinted one eye. “Like how?”

“Scan the environment. Everything. And really look. What are your problems right now that you need to solve? Hold that need in your mind as you scan and look for what catches your attention.”

Gus activated Wreckognize and slowly looked at the inside of the tent. He expected to see a leak by the entrance of the tent, but his scan showed the sides were sealed. He looked closer at the flaps that made the doors. If they’re sealed, why is it getting smoky?

Gus just stared at the doors, trying to understand what was happening and, like a small focusing of a camera lens, he intuitively knew a tiny bit more about the walls of the tent. The effect was strange, because they weren’t blurry to start out with, but the resolution was more vivid. Maybe a better description would be he upgraded to a televid with more resolution.

Whatever had happened, he could see that the tent had some properties of a permeable membrane. It was letting oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. As the oxygen concentration was used up, it tipped the balance, allowing a slight bit of contamination to pass through in an attempt to increase the amount of oxygen inside the tent.

“Huh,” Gus murmured with the realization.

“I know that look. What have you got?”

“I just saw how the tent lets oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. And I think I know