Descend- Seeing Stars by Sean Oswald (the ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Or did it. Well maybe not that skill but some of his other skills did seem to have the potential for helping him develop a greater sense of understanding.

      Phase Burst was a movement skill, but it altered the state he was in and required him to move through the universe at a different frequency. Maybe by combining some of his Awareness skills with other skills he might gain more knowledge.

      “Jay, are you okay?”

      He heard the question in Huong’s voice with a note of concern and realized suddenly that everyone was staring at him. He had been locked in his own little world of observation without being aware of the passage of time. “I’m sorry, I was just scanning the room.”

      “I’ve seen you scan stuff before. It only takes a second. What’s wrong?” Huong asked.

      This time he could tell that her voice was sent to him telepathically. At least that would keep some of the girls from overhearing, but he was fairly sure that she had looped at least Mia, Ava, and Jessie in on it.

      He still paused before answering, “It’s too much to talk about now. I have some new ideas, but it is going to require testing. Can you be patient with me?”

      Jessie’s voice answered, “That is part of what it means to be married to Jay.”

      Mia added, “Don’t worry we’ve got your back, but better for you not to act all disoriented and weird in front of the others. It is important that they all trust you.”

      “Master knows best and they can all just suck it if they don’t like it,” Ava said telepathically.

      Jay could feel the rush of emotion in their connection and before she even had a chance he said, “No play on words there, Huong.”

      “Ah, you’re no fun.”

      “That isn’t what you were saying earlier, Mistress,” Ava said.

      Jay felt a certain smugness from meek Ava and surprisingly Huong didn’t push to try and make her joke any further.

      Out loud Jay said, “Okay. I know there was a bit of delay there, but I needed to make sure I had a sense of the room as completely as possible. Now, I’m going to create a field for this room and if all goes as planned it will only affect those inside. Keep an eye out for any problems, Alexis, please.”

      He activated his temporal manipulation power. The skill level in that was growing. It was already at 199 but that was a far cry from what he hoped to get it to be. He almost felt like a child finger painting rather than the precision artist working with fine tools as he wanted to be. Still the tempus fugit field popped into existence with him and the others on the outside and only Huong’s team inside it. Immediately he lost sight of them.

      He scanned the time distortion and the implant in his head sent him a notification that he had achieved 2,928:1, which was exactly the rate he had been aiming for. It turned the thirty minutes the bubble would be active for into sixty-one days. That would give them two full months. He knew they had plenty of food and water for that time, cots to sleep on and it would give them the chance to perfect their technique.

      From there Jay went around and set up each room. Most of them with shorter spans. He could have of course created greater distortions, but he had come to believe lesser distortions caused less harm to those affected by them. It would require more testing, for the sake of science, as Huong always said, but for now he was going to go with that model.

      Even now as he looked into the various tempus fugit fields that he had created; he could perceive some movement. It was like the figures were flashing by at remarkably high rates of speed. But especially in the ones that were two weeks or less for their thirty minutes allotted, he was able to see them moving clearly.

      He paused for a moment to look at his handiwork. Now the research would continue on, and he was confident in his ability to create tempus fugit fields with him on the outside. Now he needed to go and find out if Trina had been successful in gathering up the others. It was time to try a reverse time distortion field.

Chapter 3- Red

      When Jay arrived at the area of the ship set aside for the survivors of Cluster 2, or those who had been following Li Wei, he found the area to be as close to a prison as anywhere. All the hallways and lifts which went in and out of this section of the ship had been sealed, shut down, or were under guard. Jay realized quickly that the two guards stationed on the one remaining hallway were Kayla and Abby, from Trina’s original team.

      It made sense that his newest wife would trust those she had been with the longest. It was even logical that she had kept this group locked up in a way that the other groups had not been. Their leader had after all attacked and tried to kill a member of Team Jay.

He could appreciate her cold logic even if it was a bit harsher than he would have liked. Though he really didn’t have anyone but himself to blame. He had turned over most of the security issues to Trina and he would be a poor leader if he second guessed her on everything after giving her authority.

      “Heya,” he said as he approached the two guards. Abby smiled and waved, while Kayla looked on with a certain type of adoration. It wasn’t love or lust, not that they hadn’t been intimate. The