Magic Mirror

It begins with a mysterious disappearance....it will end with a world on the edge of destruction. Twenty years ago, Derrick Sayler made a fantastic breakthrough, then vanished off the face of the earth. When Michael Rook, an environmental engineer with a deadly secret, finds a car belonging to the missing genius in a remote Oregon lake, the question of Sayler's fate appears to be answered. But Rook's discovery uncovers something far more immediate...and infinitely more dangerous. Willoughby Bane, Sayler's former partner, is poised to unveil Magic Mirror, a magnetic-levitation space launch facility in the Canadian wilderness, but he cannot escape his obsession with his long-lost partner. Rook's search for the unbelievable truth will put him on a collision course with Bane and Magic Mirror.

Praise for Sean Ellis

Magic Mirror quickly builds up steam into an action packed thrill ride full of mystery, adventure, and a touch of the paranormal. Sean Ellis has written a story that will keep you reading until the wee hours. – Rick Nichols, author of Survivor's Affair and The Affairs of Men

Sean Ellis’ Magic Mirror successfully blends the action-adventure of Clive Cussler with the paranormal flair of Dean Koontz—a unique and exciting combination that serves this high octane mystery well. – Rick Chesler, author of Wired Kingdom and kiDNApped

Sean Ellis writes action scenes that rival those of Clive Cussler and James Rollins. – James Reasoner, author of Dust Devils and Texas Wind

Some books are just plain unbridled fun, others are edge of the seat gripping entertainment, some make you think, a few open your eyes, Sean Ellis is a magician, doing it all with a deftness that pulls you in and draws you along from page one breathlessly to the end of the book, offering mysteries galore, bad guys with the blackest hearts and a good old fashioned hero to kick their evil arses. – Steven Savile, author of the international bestseller, Silver

Sean Ellis delivers another high-octane romp, exploring mythical lost civilizations and alternative histories, with the unrelenting pace of your favorite summer blockbuster. – Stel Pavlou, bestselling author of Decipher

Sean Ellis never fails to deliver and his latest thriller has everything I look for in a book: monsters, guns, sex appeal and a touch of the supernatural. Mayhem and action abound in this page-turning adventure. – Jeremy Robinson, author of Instinct and Threshold

Sean Ellis delivers another relentless page-turner. You won’t be able to put it down. – David Wood, author of Quest and Cibola

Books by Sean Ellis:

The Mira Raiden Adventures

Ascendant

Descendant

The Nick Kismet adventures

The Shroud of Heaven

Into the Black

The Devil You Know

Fortune Favors

The Adventures of Dodge Dalton

In the Shadow of Falcon’s Wings

At the Outpost of Fate

On the High Road to Oblivion

Against the Fall of Eternal Night

Secret Agent X

The Sea Wraiths

Masterpiece of Vengeance

The Scar

Other Works

Magic Mirror

Camp Zero

With David Wood

Hell Ship

Oracle

Changeling

Destiny

With Jeremy Robinson

Callsign: King (Brainstorm Trilogy)

Herculean

Prime

Savage

Cannibal

Empire

Flood Rising

With Steven Savile

Wargod

MAGIC MIRROR. Copyright 2007, 2016 by Sean Ellis

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American copyright conventions.

Published by Adrenaline Press

www.adrenaline.press

Adrenaline is an imprint of Gryphonwood Press

www.gryphonwoodpress.com

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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Al names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover by J. Kent Holloway

This novel is dedicated to the memories of:

––––––––

Michael J. Smith

Dick Scobee

Ronald McNair

Ellison Onizuka

Christa McAuliffe

Gregory Jarvis

Judith Resnik.

The crew of Challenger STS-51-L, who perished on January 28, 1986.

And to all the many other astronauts and cosmonauts who have given their lives in pursuit of the dream to reach the final frontier.

Prologue: Beyond the Looking Glass

California, January 26, 1986

The act of walking was comfortable now, but opening the car door and sliding behind the wheel seemed wholly foreign, like something known only T through instinctual memory. Derrick Sayler stared at the perfect symmetry of the steering wheel and wondered if it would collapse upon contact.

How strange. Ten minutes ago, I would not have questioned the solidity of a single object. Now, I wonder whether anything is real enough to sustain my touch.

The car remained solid and unchanged.

I’m learning to swim, he thought. At first, I was flailing in the water, disrupting anything I came into contact with. Now, my strokes are more directed....

Still not focusing, Derrick. You’re in the car for a reason.

He slid the key into the ignition. The car rumbled to life, exactly as it should have. He pumped the accelerator once, revving the engine to reduce the automatic choke, then slipped the car into reverse. The motions of driving were coming back to him. The interplay of hand, eye, and foot once again seemed as natural to him as reshaping the cosmos. He backed out of his parking slot and shifted the automatic transmission to drive. In his center rear-view mirror, he saw the black van pull out behind him, but did not watch it long enough for any sort of impression to be made.

He drove by instinct, abandoning conscious thought and letting random forces guide him whenever a choice of turns was presented. He was vaguely aware that he was traveling through familiar territory—Is this the way home?

Am I going to tell Dara what I’ve learned?— but the auras of plant life alongside the road, spotted with the shadow zones cast by suburban housing starts, showed him a new experience. Soon, he was no longer certain that he was still on terra firma, much less on course for home. The radiant life energy rendered the world as an alien landscape, Alice’s wonderland, awaiting a curious explorer’s pleasure.

He was so caught up in the ethereal experience that he almost failed to perceive the abrupt jolt that shuddered through the car. His physical being, however, was thrown forward and his grip on the steering wheel momentarily failed. The crisis was enough to pull his consciousness back into himself.

What happened?

His eyes found the mirror, the frame now completely filled with the front end of a large black vehicle. Did he just hit me? It didn’t feel like much. Just a little rear ender....

Only the car was moving at nearly sixty miles per hour. In order for the other vehicle to have hit him, it would have to have been going much faster.

That meant the collision was...intentional?

He reached out with his newfound awareness, caressing the painted curves and angles of the Volvo with his mind’s eye. He perceived that the car had sustained only cosmetic damage; the trunk cover had crumpled, though the latch remained intact, and the taillights on the left side had been smashed.

The black car—no, it’s a truck or van. I don’t recognize it—s urged forward again, punching into the rear of the Volvo. The tires squealed in protest as they were forced at an unnatural angle across the pavement. Sayler fought to keep the car traveling in the same direction as the road, but the van was in control now, pushing the smaller sedan toward the edge of the highway.

Yanked back into the physical universe, Sayler grasped that his only defense lay in outrunning the van. Depressing the accelerator to the floor, he felt the engine’s roar reverberate through the frame and heard the tires shriek as they spun ineffectually against the pavement. The two vehicles were locked together, with the Volvo caught on the van’s bumper. He wrestled the steering wheel from side to side, desperately trying to break the hold, and was rewarded with a degree of control. The Volvo undulated in front of the other vehicle like the head of a snake. It was enough to tear the van’s bumper loose from its mounting.

The Volvo shot ahead, leaving the damaged bumper to crash onto the pavement in its wake. The van made no attempt to swerve around its amputated member, instead noisily running over it as though it weren’t there at all. The unknown driver accelerated forward again, intent on resuming the duel.

He’s trying to kill me, Sayler realized, an unsettling sensation creeping across his abdomen. He felt his hold on the new discovery slipping; the imperatives of physical survival now overriding his unique mental perspective.

No. Mustn’t let go of this.

Like a tightrope walker fighting a gale force wind, Sayler reached deep to find the balance between adrenaline and etherea. His new awareness had to remain as much a part of him as his five senses, ever present and in harmony with his material body. More than that, he had to integrate the constant flow of information from this new source into his consciousness; just as his ears and eyes were always receiving, his new perception would also be providing essential information at all times.

But the van was still coming.

He was far enough ahead of the pursuing vehicle to glimpse the outline of the driver, but squeezed into the tiny mirror glass, there was no way to make out detail.

Did he even know the person that was trying to kill him? Or was this a random incident; an enraged driver, angered at being cut off during a lane change perhaps?

Then his inner eye saw something that he did recognize. Without looking, without seeing, he perceived in its full radiance the aura of the driver chasing him.

No, he groaned aloud. His foot slipped from the accelerator, his extremities numbed by the revelation. Not you. Why?

Earlier

Although he had seen it before—several times, too many to count—he could not look away.

At the center, a barely discernible shape, lofting skyward on a flaming column of biblical proportions; a thick pillar of dark gray smoke pushing the almost insignificant object into the heavens. The entire tableau seemed to tremble with expectation, shuddering with the release of energies manifest in fumes and fire and thunder. The center wavered and the focal point was almost lost from view, as if the camera eye that followed its trajectory could not match its breakneck speed. Then, like a terrifying orgasm at the moment of death, the fiery trunk blossomed into an expanding cloud of darkness.

From the midst of the eruption two tendrils of smoke curled away in different directions, spiraling out from the heart of the ruin along chaotic fractals. The dark cloud remained at the center, but it was evident that solid matter—flaming debris—was raining down like heavy pollen from the opened flower of devastation.

Derrick Sayler had viewed this series of images repeatedly for nearly three hours now, and every time the inevitable climax arrived, it seemed like a physical blow to his gut.

Like thousands of other Americans, who were now glued to the drama unfolding on their television screens, Sayler had not been watching the live broadcast when the event actually occurred. Instead he had received a message, originating with a phone call from a spouse at home to someone in the building and passed down from person to person until it reached him, a mere seven minutes after the explosion that had shocked the world. Sayler had pushed into the crowded lunchroom in a state of disbelief; his eyes drawn to the blossom of smoke and fire as it was replayed, not for the first time, by the local NBC affiliate KRON. After the third or fourth viewing, the enormity of the disaster finally settled in, leaving him with a sense of utter despair.

There would be no miraculous rescue, no deus ex machina to save the day, no waking from the nightmare. The Challenger, the second of America’s spaceborne fleet of reusable orbiters, had disintegrated shortly after launching from pad 39-B at Cape Canaveral, Florida, killing the seven astronauts aboard.

As the day wore on, Sayler managed to locate a spare nineteen-inch Zenith television, with a bent wire coat hanger where the antenna should have been. He moved it into his office, setting it on the battered side table and fiddled with the VHF channel selector until the reception cleared. After that, his eyes seldom wavered from the endlessly repeating vision of disaster.

The grief, the helpless rage he experienced, might have seemed out of proportion to a casual observer. He had not known any of the ill-fated astronauts—had not even known their names until this morning—nor did he have any direct connection with America’s space agency. Nevertheless, the disaster struck him to his core, resonating at a soulful level with him, because he was one of a very small and rapidly diminishing group of persons who believed that the destiny of mankind lay somewhere out in what a popular television program had once deemed the final frontier. Nearly two decades after setting foot on the surface of Earth’s only moon, arguably the greatest triumph of modern man, that once brightly burning vision had become a guttering candle flame. The space program seemed more like a parcel delivery service than a method of colonizing the solar system. Many misinformed Americans believed that NASA was gobbling up their tax dollars with nothing to show in the way of results. The Challenger disaster, only the second fatal accident in America’s history of space travel, felt like a portent of doom not only for Sayler’s dream, but perhaps also his livelihood.

In all likelihood, the space shuttle tragedy would prove to be yet another nail in the economic coffin that was the current American recession. Though forecasters had long believed in the growing boon of high-technology industry, much of it centering in Silicon Valley where Sayler himself worked, the realization of that dream had proved more elusive. Investors remained cautious, unwilling to forsake the traditional consumer industries, such as tobacco and soft drinks, for the wild promises of wet-behind-the-ears college graduates.

Computers, like spaceships, seemed mostly to be only the stuff of science fiction.

Sayler was only peripherally involved in the struggling technological revolution. After earning a master’s degree in astrophysics at Stanford University, he and his college roommate, Willoughby Bane, had bet the farm on a long shot, investing their respective life’s savings and whatever remained from their student loans in a different kind of business venture: a think tank.

Research and development firm, Bane would have argued and with good reason. The two young physicists had gathered fellow-minded geniuses from fields as diverse as pharmacology and sociology.

They would not limit themselves to hustling for a thin sliver of the computer industry, but rather would try to leap ahead, developing concepts and products that were presently the stuff of science fiction.

Sayler viewed their quest as the ultimate maze puzzle, and like any maze, the easiest solution was to start at the finishing point and work backwards. In so doing, they would be able to make quantum leaps in technology, while their contemporaries scrabbled to nothing more glorious than increase the baud transfer rate of their microprocessors.

Their bet had paid handsome dividends, though not quite the way they had anticipated. Bane, an engineering genius whose true knack was, of all things, salesmanship, had brokered a deal with the Defense Department that amounted to a foot in the door of the Lockheed skunkworks. In much the same fashion as Sayler and Bane, Lockheed had in the 1960s created a division dedicated to engineering something—in this case, a spy plane capable of traveling at five times the speed of sound—which could not be built with contemporary technology. The result had been the SR-71 Blackbird, invented on paper long before the components and materials to construct it were developed. Because much of Sayler’s work focused on unconventional propulsion systems, Lockheed—still a pioneering force in futuristic technologies—had tried desperately to snatch him up, even as he was finishing his postgraduate thesis. Bane’s wheeling and dealing meant that they could continue to work on the cutting edge, but would be beholden to none, keeping the credit and more importantly, the patents for any discoveries in their own control.

Although no breakthroughs had yet materialized, Bane claimed that he was close to developing a fusion reactor that might safely replace nuclear fission reactors aboard US submarines and warships.

For his part, Sayler had done extensive computer modeling of an ion engine that could conceivably make interplanetary travel as commonplace as the shuttle missions. Yet, for all their success, Sayler couldn’t escape the feeling that he was expending his efforts in the wrong direction. Watching the external fuel tank fitted to the Challenger transform into a hydrogen bomb only reinforced his growing disillusionment.

He leaned back in his chair, propping his feet on an open drawer.

On the television screen, the news anchors were interviewing a NASA spokesman about what might have been done differently—looking for stop-gap measures to solve a problem that, for the crew of Challenger at least, was beyond repair. The conversation quickly quashed his interest. It was exactly the sort of knee-jerk reactive thinking that had kept America—humanity really—in a technological Stone Age. No real progress could be made because each new generation of engineers and scientists started with the basic assumption that the status quo was a good foundation. Instead of reaching for the stars, they were content to simply raise the platform on which they stood by fractional increments. Sayler knew there had to be a better answer.

A damned shame, muttered a voice. It was Willoughby Bane.

Sayler had not even noticed his partner entering the office.

Yeah, he muttered, unwilling to bare his emotions to his friend.

Though they had been close for many years, Sayler knew that he and the other man were very different on a fundamental level. Their respective areas of expertise were at the root of the problem, but lately he and Bane had been disagreeing on a lot more than scientific method.

Listen, continued Bane, unaware of his partner’s reticence. I don’t want to seem like a ghoul, but there’s an opportunity here. This could be a pivotal moment.

Excuse me?

Bane leaned on the corner of Sayler’s desk. You know what they say: If the horse throws you, you’ve got to get back on right away. NASA has to do that too.

Will, seven people are dead. Billions of dollars just went up in smoke. This isn’t a scraped knee.

You’re damn right it isn’t. Something went very wrong. But that’s what I mean. America needs to get back into space to prove that it can recover from something like this.

I have a feeling that this is going to make a lot of people say just the opposite. That we don’t belong up there, and that we should let unmanned satellites take all the risk.

Bullshit.

I didn’t say that’s how I feel. But face the facts, Will. Most Americans think the government is throwing their money away with the space program. And you know as well as I that the shuttle program is a glorified delivery service.

Hear me out, okay? Bane’s hands had become animated, underscoring his intensity with emphatic unsynchronized gestures. I totally agree with you. The space program needs a shot in the arm, now more than ever. That’s what I’m talking about. We are in the perfect place to do something about this.

Sayler steepled his fingers together, staring over the tips at his partner. I’m listening.

You’ve been watching, right? Something made that external tank blow. Hell, you put that much hydrogen in one place, you’re asking for trouble.

Rocketry by definition is the art of exploding a bomb in a controlled fashion.

Exactly. And you know what else? It hasn’t changed. Our method of launching a payload into space has not significantly changed since Germany started lobbing V-2 rockets at London. Hell, it hasn’t changed since the Chinese invented fireworks. Sure the fuels are different, but like you said, it’s all controlled explosives.

And you have a better idea?

Bane’s smile slipped a notch. Not exactly. I mean not yet. All I’m saying is that whoever can come up with an alternative to these dangerous rocket engines will be in a very enviable position. I don’t think anyone is really working this angle, do you?

Sayler inclined his head. What Bane’s passionate argument lacked in eloquence, it made up for in unassailable logic. "No, you’re right.

We’re still using medieval methods to storm the heavens. There has got to be a better way."

What about mag-lev? The quickness of his solution indicated that it was not merely a spur of the moment idea; all that had gone before was merely part of the sales pitch. Hitachi is working on super conductors that could theoretically get their bullet train up to about 300 miles per hour.

Sayler considered the suggestion. In the periphery of his vision, he witnessed a replay of the Challenger’s final flight. Three hundred miles might be the upper limit for mag-lev. Any more and you’re looking at field degradation from the heat of friction. To say nothing of the profligate power expenditure.

Bane jerked a thumb at the screen. That’s profligacy. Do you know how much total energy is exhausted with those shuttle launches? It’s outrageous.

You’re preaching to the converted, Will. But I don’t think mag-lev is the answer. Rocketry is like using a sledgehammer to open the door to space. What you propose simply trades the hammer for—I don’t know—a big axe, maybe. What I’m suggesting is that we look for a key to unlock that door. Finesse instead of brute strength.

Bane’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. You’re already working on something aren’t you?

Huh? No. I mean, there’s the ion engine, but that can’t be used in the Earth’s atmosphere.

If you have something, you really shouldn’t keep it from me.

Bane’s tone was suddenly accusatory, but he said nothing more.

Instead, he spun on his heel and stalked from the room, slamming the door dramatically as he exited.

Sayler sighed, his breath escaping like the hiss of pressure from a relief valve, an appropriate simile for the tension level of the room, even with Bane’s departure. His partner’s unexpected allegations were only the latest manifestation of the growing sense of...he could only describe it as wrongness. Though there was nothing that he could pinpoint as the source of his trouble, no concrete problem that could be addressed and resolved, he nevertheless had the growing sensation that something dreadful was lurking just around the corner.

Perhaps it was just part of his own knee-jerk reaction to the shuttle tragedy but the dark tentacles of his paranoia seemed to have insinuated into every facet of his life. His long friendship with Bane seemed to have encountered a rough patch, and Dara—well, he couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong with his marriage, but sometimes he felt he knew strangers better than the woman whose bed he shared. It hadn’t always been like that. Once upon a time, they had known a love reserved for fairy tales. Now he could not look at her without wondering who she really was.

He closed his eyes, blocking out the horrible image of the exploding spacecraft, but found the blankness filled instead with the roiling clouds of his uncertain place in the cosmos. He needed to do something—anything—to break out of the paralyzing ennui.

When he opened his eyes again, he averted them from the television screen, trying instead to focus on work. Most of what he did was accomplished on the computer, an Apple Macintosh that took up most of his desk. Sayler, however, did his best work with a more traditional—some would say obsolete—method of computation and data storage: paper and ink.

What desk space was not taken up by the cumbersome computer terminal, with its satellite keyboard and mouse, was completely covered by loose sheets of paper featuring notes, calculations, or sketches of pictures he would probably never paint. For a moment, he thought perhaps he had alighted on the solution; maybe he never should have stopped painting. Yet, even as he formed the thought, he knew that it was not the answer.

Suddenly, a bright object flashed at the far corner of the desk before sliding off onto the floor. Curious, he went around to see what it had been. He smiled for the first time that day when he saw his own reflection, upside down, distorted and shrunken to comic proportions, in the bowl of a stainless steel tablespoon.

He picked up the spoon and walked back to his chair, sinking slowly into the cushion. He remembered when Bane had first noticed the spoon a few weeks earlier; he had accused his partner of using it for cocaine. Sayler actually had only a vague idea of how flatware could be utilized for narcotics paraphernalia; the closest he ever strayed to the dark side was the occasional joint passed around at a party. He disliked even that, feeling that it interfered with his creative process rather than enhancing it as so many claimed. The truth about the spoon, however, had seemed even more embarrassing when he had tried to think of how to explain it to his partner, so instead he had simply mumbled something about having brought it from home to eat soup.

He continued to contemplate his reflection in the spoon, flipping it over to examine the convex aspect as well. As he looked, he absently rubbed his thumb up and down the stem, applying light pressure. In his mind’s eye, he tried to see the spoon becoming pliable, soft, and malleable like modeling clay.

No, he thought. It has to be deeper than that.

He tried to visualize the molecules of metal, atoms of iron bonded with chromium, lethargic and rigid, locked together by an invisible force... the spoon ceasing to be a solid thing, becoming instead a collection of grainy particles, growing less cohesive beneath his fingers... the molecular bonds softening at his touch, the atoms moving and sliding as if held together only by rubber bands. With the power of his will alone, he would alter the structure of the elements, defying nature itself... No, make that finding a loophole in the laws of physics.

He opened his eyes, confident that he would see the spoon turned literally into putty in his hands.

Nothing. Just a spoon, reflecting an upside-down lunatic. No surprise really.

He had first attempted spoon bending in college after reading numerous articles on the subject and even buying a book by self-proclaimed mentalist Yuri Geller, whose advertised promise to teach the secret of manipulating metals had launched him to tabloid fame.

He might have been able to dismiss the whole thing as a hoax, until at a party one night he had seen it done—no tricks, no sleight of hand.

He chuckled, wondering if that had been one of the parties where they had passed the pipe around.

Something warm brushed against the back of his fingers, disturbing the momentary reminiscence. The sensation startled him, and he opened his hand reflexively, letting the spoon drop.

Though he knew it was cliché, Sayler rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

The stainless utensil was bent at the middle of the stem into a perfect U-shape.

With trembling fingers he tried to pick it up, but the metal squirmed through his fingers like a wet lasagna noodle. He fumbled the spoon again, dropping it onto his computer keyboard. The metal clicked solidly on the plastic letters, the spoon seemingly restored to firmness even though it was now twisted like a pretzel.

Oh, God.Sayler could barely contain his disbelief, repeating the words that were almost meaningless for him, an unrepentant agnostic.

He probed the bowl of the spoon, expecting at any moment for the hallucination to evaporate, but instead felt the smooth metal dimpling beneath the gentle pressure, curling over as if it were simply aluminum foil. That was when he saw the aura.

At first he thought it was a reflection from the cathode ray tube of his computer monitor; a colorless shimmering where his fingers made contact with the spoon. But when he snatched his hand back, the light followed, clinging to the whorls of his fingerprints like ephemeral cobwebs. He stared in amazement at his hand, feeling the tingle of energy in the nerves of his hand; a warm sensation spreading up both arms and suffusing his body.

Oh, God.

I’ve done it, he thought. I’ve crossed the threshold.

Even as he struggled to comprehend the means by which he had accomplished these impossible acts, the deeper implications began to resonate deep within his psyche.

I’ve found the key.

Suddenly he didn’t know what to do. The answer had come to him, not through any intentional act or measurable process, but in a moment of distraction. Would he be able to duplicate it or teach it to others? More importantly, was there a limit to what he could accomplish?

Forgetting the spoon he rose unsteadily to his feet. Endorphins were coursing through his veins like a euphoric, skewing his perception of time, even as his magnificent new abilities seemed to alter reality. He suddenly felt as if he no longer belonged in the material world.

No. Must keep focused. This is what we’ve been looking for. I have to tell someone.

Yet, he found he could not bring himself to call his partner into the room. Bane would not... could not appreciate what a breakthrough had been made.

What he had discovered could not be reverse-engineered, patented, mass produced with slick packaging and sold as retail. There were already dozens of books telling exactly how to do what he now had accomplished, yet for some reason the veil was pulled over the eyes of most. Perhaps they, like Bane, secretly did not want to believe that the power—ultimate power—lay within their own bodies and minds.

I need to get out of here. The thought was an irresistible impulse. Once away from the sterile, manufactured symmetry of the office, he would be able to think more clearly. He reached into his trouser pocket, feeling the jumble of keys on a ring. Something about the shaped and cut pieces of brass felt strange however, and when he held them up for inspection he saw that one of the keys—the spare key to Dara’s Civic—had curled around his finger like a piece of melting wax.

Dear God. He threw the keys down suddenly afraid of what he had become.

No. I have to control this. If I can’t control it...If I can’t bend this power to my will the way I bent that key, then what really have I accomplished?

He stared at his fingertips, willing the aura to ebb without completely fading away. With each passing second, he felt his attunement to the phenomenon growing, while his tenuous connection to reality—to the uneasy relationships of office politics, to his strained marriage, even to the enormous tragedy that had befallen the Challenger astronauts—slipped away. Those things somehow didn’t really make much of a dent in the cosmic balance, not when held up to the light of his unexpected transformation.

He stooped to retrieve the keys, confident that this time they would retain their solidity; they did. Yet as he held them in his palm, it occurred to him that he was very nearly past the need for an automobile.

Whoa. Slow down, champ. Let’s learn to crawl before we try to fly.

He returned, with a tremendous effort of will power, to the purpose at hand: escaping the sterile bosom of the office complex. He could feel the shadows—worse he could feel the artificial light sources pulsating out of harmony with the universe, sucking at the aura of energy around his body.

Yet, at the same time, that aura was so bright, so unmistakable, that there would be no way to hide what he had become from the others.

Getting out would mean running a gauntlet past Bane and the rest of the staff. He shuddered to think of the possibilities Bane might envision for his discovery.

No...mustn’t let that hinder me. I can’t be the first to have made this breakthrough, yet still it remains a secret. Perhaps....

No way to know unless I try.

He opened the door, mindful of not squeezing the metal doorknob like an overripe peach, and took a cautious step past the threshold. He froze in place, stunned by what he was seeing.

The room seemed to be on fire with dancing human auras. None were as bright as his. Some were wavering flickers, rising like steam off the bodies of their wearers and evaporating quickly in the harsh light of their drudging existence. A few