Aberrant: The Middle Children of History - Here am I sittiing in a Tin Can [FIN]

[Rorx]

Mid-November had seen Darren resolving to make the best use he could, for himself at least, of his powers after enjoying the surf session with Mech. Being a scifi fan and being endowed with the ability to Teleport this naturally leant him towards the objective of getting into space.

It was a song on the radio while Daffydd was around one day that triggered the initial conversation about it.

"... here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the earth..."

"Hey Dave what do you think I'd need to learn to get into space?"

"I don't know. How applicable is what you got now, and anyway what would you do up there?"

"Well, the best thing I suppose is the Teleport. If I've got some good info on where I'm going I can already make most places on the planet in a jump or two, so I can easily reach low orbit. Anyway that's only a couple of hundred miles up and I can do thousands without needing to think about it. Since I went surfing with Mech I've also managed to extend the enhanced hearing I had into enhanced vision as well."

"You've got better at turning that fibre suit stuff of yours into different styles as well. What about flying? You're going to need that once you're up there, otherwise you'll Teleport up and be unable to move anywhere while you're up there."

"Yeah, I've been trying to work on it, but its difficult to try to get that done at work or around here. I suppose I need to find an out of the way place somewhere that I can go to practice stuff and try to work out variations. You know like trying to turn my telekinesis into a flight power."

"There are some small island off Anglesey that might do you, but I'm not sure if people might hear or see what you are doig, a lot of them are quite close in. How about up around Scotland, there's some small uninhabited ones up that way."

"Ok, I'll see what I can find out. You wanna come look with me when I find some likely candidates?"

"Nah, I'm fine here. To be honest I still get a bit freaked out when you give me a lift to somewhere I don't know, so I'll take a rain check on that."

[Rorx]

A few days later found Darren sitting on the summit of a small island off the coast of Scotland far enough away from everyone that no-one was likely to see or be bothered by whatever he did there. To start with he simply used it as a location to practise his teleportation, but later on he started in on his telekinesis. More specifically he wanted to know how he could adapt his telekinesis into a form of flight, and to narrow the focus on it to create a decent form of attack with it.

[Rorx]

This all took him months of course.

The flight was fun once he got it working but before that was a number of weeks of frustation. First at nothing happening at all, then once he started getting somewhere it had a tendency to fade away at the most inappropriate times, or to suddenly throw him a hundred yards off the course he was trying to follow in a random direction. During this time he became very aware of the landscape and indeed seascape of the island and it's surroundings, it also provided additional proof to himself that he was immune to the cold and able to survive for long periods underwater without needing to breathe.

The refinement of his telekinesis into a more focussed attack was easier, but still took a few weeks of concentrated effort to focus down the original TK punch he had been able to manage into a more damaging, more concentrated attack. It reminded him a little of the ball/bolt attacks of some of the characters in arcade fighting games.

Finally in early Febuary he felt that he had mastered his new abilities enough for them to be stable and reliable, and he took one last flight around the island, not knowing when he was likely to return to it. Then he teleported home and put the kettle on. Switching the computer on he left the two devices to get up to speed while he pottered about the kitchen, getting his mug ready and looking in the cupboards for something to put on for dinner. Soon he returned to the computer, mug of coffee in hand, and went online to look up the Nova space society - Daedelus.

A few hours later he had read everything he could find of use on the web about the orgainisation, it's operations and major people involved in it. He had also looked up the orbits and locations of a number of derelicts in Earth orbit and key places on the moon.

[Rorx]

By then it was late at night, so assuming that they didn't keep a 24hr office open, he dropped them an e-mail requesting a visit to be tested for suitability for space. He shut his system down and tried to get some sleep, but was too excited at the prospect of finally getting into space. Darren had considered just going for it, you know get some info off the NASA site and just dropping in on the International station. However, he had heard about some of the shit that had dropped on a couple of other Novas that had tried similar stunts and didn't want to draw that kind of heat. No going slower and getting checked out through a semi-official, semi-respected body was the way to go. He could go visit out of the way locations on his own once he had a rep for doing the right thing.

It was no good, he didn't really need much, if any, sleep at the best of times and he just couldn't settle with the prospect of a boyhood dream becoming a reality. So, throwing a dressing gown on he made his way back to the computer and began trawling the astronomy sites for nearby bodies that might be of interest without being a problem with the authorities. Hmm, the very small extra moons that earth had could be worth a visit, if he had the range. That was another problem, he knew he could easily reach anywhere on Earth, but until he got out into space he wouldn't really be able to gauge what the limits of his Teleport range really were.

There were a number of Earth-crossing asteroids coming up soon as well, but he wondered how safe it would be to visit those. After all, you wouldn't want your presence to alter their orbit enough that they would actually hit this time, or indeed anytime soon. It was one of the complications of going to places in space, and why he acknowledged the need for it to be at least monitored, if not controlled.

He was still there with the dawn, although it did prompt him to get a fresh mug of coffee. As the time came around to 8am he finished catching up on news around the world and went to do his morning ablutions and get dressed. Before his eruption he would have been leaving for work about now, but with his recent training regime he had gotten used to leaving his car at work a lot of the time and just 'porting around. He had heard of Novas who could create Warps that could be used like a teleport to move others and materials and was thinking of that as another project to try to learn. With his teleport as a basis he thought he might be able to do it. Then he might be able to bring his car home quicker, or take it with him when he went abroad, and that didn't include any of the useful applications it might have when you got out into space. 0845 came around, and after checking his email and shutting his sytem down, he 'ported off to work.

[Rorx]

During his coffee break that morning Darren called the Society again and got through to their reception. After explaining that he wanted to be tested for suitablility for space. They agreed that they could do that, but would require a waiver to be signed and a fee. Darren's immediate responce was to arrange a date for the testing to start and to sort out the paperwork.

A week later he 'ported down to London and started the tests. Most of them were simply to check on his powers and that he could safely work in space. These included tests of hot and cold survival, and both high and extremely low pressure. Having passed all those with little trouble they finally got down to discussions of what sort of places he should 'port to and what places he should avoid. Largely the avoid was a lot longer list than places he could go in Near Earth space. The last item was the one he had been looking forward to the most, a joint 'port to an old satellite that Daedelus had bought so that they could be sure of somewhere to do training runs to.

Darren was suitably awed by his first view of Earth in space with his naked eyes, and spent a good half an hour just watching the planet turning in space. After a quick return to the offices with Darren supplying the 'port, to make sure he had at least that much range, they went further out in stages to other old satellites or chunks of space debris. In each case Darren was asked to provide the 'port home to the office so that his range was gradually established. In the end they had some difficulty finding points to use as targets, but eventually it was found to be in excess of 1AU, and probably more if he set his mind to it.

Darren was very pleased and surprised with the results, it gave him a wide variety of places he could visit, including the inner planets of Mercury and Venus if they were on the right side of the Sun, part of the asteroid belt could be in range, and finally Mars would be in range for part of the year as well.

For his first solo space venture Darren did some research for a few days, consulted with the society and finally 'ported out to what was once consider as a second moon for the earth, J00223, until it was found to be an old Saturn V booster section that hadn't burnt up. Sitting inside the cylinder, even though it is open to space at both ends brought home to Darren that he was now a part of that heritage of people pushing themselves for the sake of space exploration.