I failed to initiate the sleep thing, so as a result found myself doing this instead... 
My insomnia is your gain, apparently!
Keeping her energy sense ready, Hermione watched the world go past, making notes occasionally on where she spotted anomalies in the H-field. As her sensitivity had grown she'd begun noticing more and more eddies and currents in the field, aside from the knots and distortions caused by objects and living things. They were very subtle, but they were definitely there, and moving at high speed as they were doing down the motorway made them more apparent than when one was sitting still. She was trying to work out whether the eddies were
caused by something, or just happened, being intrinsic to the field itself. So far her research was inconclusive but she was leaning towards the idea that these tiny variations were probably the end result of it interacting with something else.
Based on what she'd seen in Oxford around the MRI machine, she suspected it might well be the Earth's magnetic field. The anomalies were far smaller than she'd seen that time, almost imperceptible in fact, but having become aware of them as a result of the previous trip, she'd started noticing them much more clearly even if she had to work at it.
It was more and more evident that the H-field really did permeate everything, and probably had an influence on, and was in turn influenced
by, everything as well. The girl had been reading a lot about physics in recent months as a result of her interest in semiconductor-specific aspects of that same area of science, and was beginning to think that she might have managed to detect something that was tied into the four fundamental forces of nature, like gravity or the strong nuclear force. Possibly it was even another fundamental force itself, one not known to the literature. It seemed a little implausible, but she didn't currently have any other explanation.
But the H-field seemed to be everywhere, and at essentially the same level, despite minute variations. Even as high up as she could currently sense, it was the same. Once more she wondered what she'd find if she went up in a plane. By now she had a strong suspicion it would be the same thing again no matter how high you went, or for that matter how far you went into space.
Picking up the well-thumbed copy of
A Brief History of Time, which belonged to her father and she'd read several times cover to cover, she leafed through it, reading various sections and mulling over how Professor Hawking's work might relate to her own. She didn't know nearly enough about physics to do more than come up with what seemed like vaguely plausible guesses, she knew that all too well, but she
did have quite a lot of practical experience with manipulating the H-field even if she didn't yet know what it
was. With any luck, the professor would be able to work out how her discoveries linked to his own work, and come up with an explanation. She was looking forward to finding out.
And getting this book signed if at all possible, although she knew that with his medical problems the poor man might well not be able to do that. Hermione was terribly sorry for Professor Hawking, who she admired greatly, at least partially for carrying on despite all the horrible things that had happened to him. It was inspiring to her, and fitted with her own feelings of not letting the fact that something was hard stop you doing it anyway.
Looking to the side as she sensed one of the HOP-like devices, she flipped to the right section in her notebook and quickly scanned the entries, nodding to herself when she found the matching description of the signature of the thing in the notation she'd invented for describing such observations. Making another note after a look at the map next to her, she worked out the bearing to the device as they drove down the M4, and got a rough triangulation. So far she'd seen three new ones, and seen
again half a dozen she was already familiar with. Presumably that meant that the people who carried them lived in these areas, or at least left their tools there sometimes.
She was quite curious who they were, and how they'd worked out how to do what they were doing. Hermione had a feeling, although no way to back it up other than deduction, that the devices were the result of a lot of empirical experimentation rather than theoretical knowledge. She couldn't explain quite why she felt that way even to herself, but the sheer complexity of the things, with all the bits that didn't seem to do anything useful, if not actually wasting energy wholesale, didn't strike her as what an engineer would deliberately design.
It was entirely possible she was wrong, of course, she admitted that to herself, and there was a perfectly valid reason for all the cruft, but for the life of her she couldn't see what that would be. In her view anyone setting out to design a swiss army HOP would want to make it as efficient as possible if only because it would be less work to manufacture.
She would certainly do that, and indeed
had done that with the HOPs she'd so far designed. Why deliberately make something work less well? Or use more energy than it needed to do the job it was designed to do?
But these things, and all the field manipulations she'd observed, seemed to be remarkably wasteful of energy. It was entirely feasible to produce the same result with far less power input if you thought it through a little, as she'd proven with her SEP field HOP. Fair enough, it wasn't
quite doing the same thing the one at the Charing Cross anomaly was, but it was producing much the same
effect. If anything it was better at the task than that one was, as far as she could see, and it was barely detectable even at close range even with the energy sense, rather than blazing like a small sun for miles.
Hermione was almost certain she could duplicate the functionality of most of what she'd watched happen last night with some effort and thought, assuming that she could work out what they were actually
doing. Aside from the teleportation trick, which she was
very interested in and had seen enough of to get a pretty good idea of how it worked, the others had only happened once and therefore she was still a little unsure of their end purpose. One was obvious, it was a really low powered nearly-telekinesis HOP effect, with so little efficiency it probably wouldn't lift more than a couple of hundred pounds at best. The others were so far more mysterious, and she'd probably have to see them a few times to be able to work her way through all the extraneous fiddly bits to get at the core operation.
It was something she'd keep an eye out for, but it wasn't currently a major project.
But one thing was certain; those people almost definitely didn't even realize the H-field
existed, never mind were using it. Their tools and not-HOPs
interacted with it, but as far as she could tell, almost as a byproduct of whatever it was that they were actually doing. As she'd thought quite early on, they were using a higher
'layer' for want of better terminology. Something that insulated them from the raw H-field and allowed them to use it without really using it. Not the way psionics did, which was directly controlling it at the most fundamental level.
The whole thing was fascinating, really. At some point, when she had some free time, she really was going to have to sit down and sort out precisely what was going on, but right now she was rather busy with her own work.
Noticing another HOPish tool, she checked her notes to confirm it was a new one, added it to the list, and once more did a triangulation exercise on it by taking several bearings as they drove. This one seemed to be somewhere in Uxbridge as far as she could tell. She noted that as well, then resumed reading some of Professor Hawking's work while keeping alert for any other H-field oddities.
Just as they came off the M25 at junction 16 and joined the M40, she spotted yet another one of the tools, accompanied by something else that was definitely related to the devices, as it was of a very similar construction. However it was also much simpler and although it was as usual being highly inefficient it was nowhere near as noisy as the HOP-like tools tended to be. Pulling the map onto her lap she estimated a range and bearing for the person carrying both devices, then kept watching so she could get an approximate location. After a few seconds she frowned slightly.
Checking very carefully, she finally realized that her initial thought was correct; the tool, the other device, and by extension the person carrying both, were not at ground level. If she could believe her own senses they were in fact quite a distance above the surface…
"Flying?" she murmured to herself in some surprise. "In a plane?" Leaning over to look out the window in the right direction, she carefully scanned the sky in the direction the energy emissions were coming from, but saw no signs of any aircraft. There were a couple visible further off to the right and behind, and more to the left and much higher, which were coming from or going to Heathrow airport she knew, as it was only about seven or eight miles behind them on the other side of the M25. But this particular source definitely wasn't associated with any airliner, and she was fairly certain she'd be able to see a light aircraft at this distance which was no more than a couple of miles.
Doing some quick mental math with estimated angles as she sighted along her arm, she came to the conclusion that whatever it was seemed to be roughly a thousand feet up, and moving fairly quickly although not as fast as they were. It was more or less paralleling the motorway she thought. After another thirty seconds it changed course, swinging around to nearly due north and descending, going out of her range a little later just under three and a half miles away and still quite high up.
'
That was odd,' she thought with interest, tapping her pen on the map as she thought. '
If I assume it was one of the hidden people, which the presence of the tool implies, that means the other device was some sort of flying machine? A small one too or I'd have been able to see them. There was no sign of an SEP as far as I could tell, although there were some other odd effects going on. I wonder what they did?'
She ran over her observations in her mind a few times, trying to winkle out any further information. The second device hadn't been doing the same telekinesis operation that she'd watched the older woman do the other night, but on closer examination there were some similarities between both phenomena. Hermione was moderately certain that this new event was an example of some sort of system specifically set up for flight, rather than general purpose lifting of an object, which would tend to suggest some of the other bits she could identify were probably meant to be safety features and the like. Similar to her own design of velocity-triggered personal shielding, although as always appeared to be the case with these people, done in the most over-complex and energy-wasteful manner imaginable.
Eventually she shook her head, made some more notes, and put that to one side to examine later. The fact that the mysterious people had some form of personal flight system wasn't entirely surprising as it was almost the first idea
she'd had once she got telekinesis working. Flight was after all a common dream. And yet again something she was going to have to get back to working on when she had a free moment.
She
did wonder why they bothered if they had functional teleportation, though. It seemed to her than if you could blink from one location to another, actually covering that distance the hard way even if that was by air wasn't all that efficient. Possibly they did it for fun? Or not everyone was any good at teleporting?
The girl shrugged a little. She'd probably work it out sooner or later but for now it was just another interesting observation.
Looking out the window, she worked out where they were from the road signs, then checked her map again. Peering past her father's shoulder she made a note of the speed, a steady seventy miles per hour. In another ten minutes they'd go past the junction with the A401, near High Wycombe, which was the location of that final pseudoHOP before they all petered out, and a few miles past that was where on their last visit the odd background interference started. Or at least became noticeable to her.
Unfolding the ordnance survey map to the right place, she refolded the excess bits after a brief struggle, then got her pencil and a ruler out of the bag next to her on the seat. Then she waited patiently, listening to her parents talking and the background music from the radio filling the car, her eyes shut and her energy sense pushed to the limit. The pseudoHOP passed off to the side shortly afterwards, still in exactly the same place as far as she could tell. Getting ready, she paid extreme attention to her surroundings.
Sure enough, almost exactly where she'd expected, she quite suddenly noticed a distinct but incredibly subtle change to the background H-field. It was in a sense like a change in
texture rather than a change in
intensity, she decided after some thought. Opening her eyes she turned the map slightly to align the printed road with the real one, did her best to work out which direction exhibited the most variation to the field, and noted this at her estimated position for their current location. Drawing a line through that point in the correct direction, she nodded to herself.
Watching the odometer past her father's shoulder, she did the same thing a mile later, and a mile after that. As she'd been hoping, the lines she drew on the map all pointed in slightly different directions, following the curve of the M40 to converge in a roughly similar area some considerable distance south. Her triangulation method was at best somewhat vague due at least in part to the extremely faint change in the background H-field, but the trend was clear. Each new reading and bearing tightened the grouping where they all crossed, and by the time they'd entered Oxford itself she had a map with several dozen lines on, ultimately outlining a quite small area of the countryside
As her father parked the car, she folded the map correctly, putting it into her bag along with her notebook and other things. Hermione wasn't sure what precisely was
causing the H-field change, but she now had a fairly decent idea of where whatever was doing it lived. And that hopefully meant she could learn more about the whole peculiar situation, because it was very interesting to her.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Hello, all of you," Jerry said with a smile, shaking Michael Granger's outstretched hand. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. I hope you had an easy journey?"
"It wasn't bad, the traffic was light and the weather is good," the other man responded cheerfully. "And there's no way Hermione would let us miss a chance to meet Professor Hawking, after all."
The girl, beside him, nodded vigorously, causing her mother to laugh and Jerry to grin. "I can understand that, I have to admit. I'm quite keen on it myself, even though I understand almost nothing of astrophysics. The man is a giant in his field and certainly one of the best known scientists in the world."
"I'm very much looking forward to it," Hermione admitted with a smile of her own. "I hope he will work with you on all this."
"We certainly need someone of his stature to lend support to the project, I suspect," Jerry agreed as they headed for the lift to the Parapsychology department. "As Christine has said, this whole situation requires far more cross-discipline knowledge than we currently have. We'll undoubtedly be able to get it in time, but with his name attached we could get it much faster. And it's entirely possible the man himself will be able to see something none of us do even now." He pressed the call button then turned to look at the small family. "We've arranged quite the team already, as it happens. The meetings we had with the administration were… complex."
Michael chuckled at his rueful tone, his wife looking somewhat amused, and Hermione nodding thoughtfully. "I can well imagine," the other man commented. "Hopefully you didn't get
too much in the way of disbelief."
"Oh, I got all the disbelief you care to imagine," Jerry laughed. "Most of which disappeared quite fast once we showed them the data and video recordings. By the time we'd had the last meeting, I think almost everyone was willing to at least consider the idea that we're right." He waved them into the lift as the door opened, then got in as well, hitting the button for the lab's floor. "Seeing it with their own eyes will convince the last of the hold-outs, I have no doubt." He checked his watch. "Professor Hawking and his people will be here in about half an hour. Would you like some refreshments while we wait?"
"A coffee would be lovely," Helen Granger said.
"That can be arranged." He nodded. Looking at the computer under Michael's arm, and the bag out of which some cables were sticking in Hermione's hands, he added, "I see you brought your computer. Good idea, I forgot to ask you to do that, and it will probably be a useful demonstration on top of everything else."
The girl smiled. "I managed to make my holographic keyboard work so I brought that along too," she said excitedly. "It's ever so much fun in my opinion, although perhaps Doctor Younan will be able to think of some improvements to it. This is only a prototype after all. But I've learned a lot in the process of making it so I'm pleased that it was worth the effort. And I've made quite good progress on designing logic circuits using HOP techniques, which leads directly to the implication that it should be feasible to…"
Her mother put a hand on her shoulder, causing Hermione to stop chattering and look up at the older woman. Smiling, Helen advised, "Talk more slowly and breathe every now and then, Hermione." The girl looked mildly embarrassed but nodded. "And save it for Doctor Younan. Poor Doctor Langham looks overwhelmed. Not everyone is an electronics engineer."
Jerry shook his head in amusement. When the girl got going she
really got going, it seemed. Such enthusiasm was fun to see in someone so young, never mind someone so brilliant. But it was certainly a touch overwhelming.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Langham," Hermione said quietly. "I didn't mean to get carried away."
"That's alright, Hermione, I don't mind, although I confess you are talking about things I don't know nearly as much as Farouk does. Or for that matter you do." The lift pinged and stopped, the doors sliding open a moment later. He stepped out and waited for them to do likewise before leading them to the lab, waving them into the main room. "Have a seat, I'll get some coffee, and perhaps some apple juice for you, Hermione?"
"Thank you, that would be very nice," the girl smiled.
Leaving them to it for a moment, he went into the small break room and busied himself preparing a tray of refreshments. A sound behind him a moment or two later made him look over his shoulder to see Farouk and Will coming through the main entrance to the department. Both men spotted him and walked over. "The Grangers arrived a couple of minutes ago," he said as he dug in the small fridge for some milk, putting the bottle on the counter and going back in for the apple juice. "Hermione apparently made another impossible electronic widget and wants you to look at it and tell her where she went wrong," he added with a grin at Farouk.
His friend sighed, smiling a little. "That girl is…" he said, shaking his head.
"Yes, indeed, she very much is," Jerry agreed wryly. "Here, hold this, will you?" He handed Farouk one of the trays, and picked up the other one, both men following as he went back to the conference room and lab. Inside, they found that Michael Granger had put the BBC Master computer he'd been carrying on the bench and Hermione was busily connecting up the cables and other bits and pieces. "Here we go."
Shortly everyone was in possession of a drink, Will and Jerry sitting at the table while Farouk examined the new addition to the girl's computer with interest. She'd removed the lid and was explaining the innards in technical terms Jerry could hardly follow, seeming very happy with what she'd built. The three scientists stared in shock when she finally turned the computer on, as a glowing immaterial keyboard popped into existence under the holographic screen they'd seen the last time.
"Good grief," Farouk muttered, gaping slightly, before tentatively reaching out and gently poking a key. He watched the result, prodding a few more with less caution, then bringing up his other hand and typing on the glowing keyboard. "That is
remarkable, Hermione. Very well done indeed. I'm beyond impressed. Again."
She beamed at him. "Thank you, Doctor Younan," she replied politely but clearly very pleased. "I have a number of thoughts on improvements but for a prototype this seems to be quite effective."
"The tactile feedback is surprisingly good," he commented, still playing with the thing. "How did you manage to do that?"
She began explaining, pulling a large notebook out of her bag and opening it to a series of pages of circuit diagrams, which he examined with interest. As they got lost in the details which no one else could follow, Jerry looked at her parents, who were watching with amused tolerance. Helen's eye caught his and she shook her head slightly, smiling a little. "She likes having someone to talk to who can understand what she's talking
about," the woman whispered, leaning closer. "Michael and I do our best, and with her H-field discoveries we are certainly learning a lot, but I have to admit I know very little about electronics beyond how to turn the television on."
Jerry laughed quietly. "I know the feeling," he replied softly. "She certainly seems to be enjoying herself now though."
"Oh, she is, immensely so," Helen nodded. "It's so nice to see her in her element. Her school life is… not ideal, although certainly not as bad as it could be. But she has real trouble connecting with most children her own age for fairly obvious reasons. Having someone she can talk to who can keep up, outside the family, is making her very happy. For that alone I'm grateful for this opportunity."
Michael, who was half-listening while keeping an eye on his daughter, nodded as well.
"I'm the one who should say I'm grateful for this opportunity if anyone does," Jerry commented in a low voice. "Meeting you three is the best thing that's ever happened to me. If it makes Hermione happy as well, I think we can say it's all well worth the effort."
He checked his watch, then nodded to himself. "I'm going to call Christine, she's going to bring Hawking's party up when they arrive shortly, and I want to make sure everything is on schedule. I'll be back soon." Getting up, he left the room, waving briefly to Peter Young who had just come in with some of the other researchers. He headed for his office and the phone, wanting to make sure everything went off without a hitch.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Watching his daughter happily explain her work to the electronics engineer who was listening carefully, Michael smiled to himself. The last couple of years had done very well by her, and them too. She seemed so contented most of the time now, even as she was in many ways working harder than
he was. Most of it was mental work, true, but he knew full well how much effort that took and how good at it she was. He was very proud of her, as was Helen, and expected her to leave a mark on the world much larger than he'd ever imagined possible.
A sensation at the back of his mind told him that the elevator was rising to their floor, and inside it he could sense a number of people. Still finding the entire ability to detect things in that manner incredible, as well as a lot of fun, he glanced at his wife to see her looking in the direction the sensation was coming from. She also had picked up on it. Meeting his eyes she smiled a little then went back to watching their daughter, who undoubtedly had been able to sense the approaching party from halfway across the city if she'd bothered.
He was rather awed at her own enhanced senses, and the level of multitasking she could bring to bear on it. In his own opinion he strongly suspected that the remarkable plasticity of the brain children possessed was working very much in her favor as far as this new skill went. It seemed plausible to him that the earlier you learned how to do it, the faster you'd learn and the greater your skill would ultimately be. That certainly was the case with a lot of other things, such as languages. On the other hand she might just have a gift for it.
Right now there was no way to know, if nothing else than because they only had a sample size of four. Nor did they have any real way to quantify the ability past a fairly simplistic level. Hopefully Jerry's research would ultimately be able to nail down something that would improve on such matters.
The elevator stopped and the door opened while he was pondering the subject, and he felt the people inside exit. One in the middle of the group was accompanied by faint electrical sensations, which undoubtedly meant it was Professor Hawking in his custom made wheelchair. Hermione stopped mid-word with Professor Younan and turned to face the door, making him look mildly puzzled as he followed her gaze. As she did so, the projected keyboard and display vanished. Moments later Jerry swung the door open and stepped inside, then held it for the rest of those on the other side to enter. First was Doctor Blakely, and behind her was a middling height man with receding dark hair and sharp eyes which flicked around the room, assessing everyone present in moments. Behind
him was a wheelchair-bound man who was immediately recognizable to anyone who had any interest in scientific matters of the last few years.
Professor Hawking's chair hummed faintly as it came through the door, the man confined to it, his head lolling slightly to one side with his face mildly distorted due to his condition, but behind glasses his eyes bright and clear, controlling the thing with twitches of one hand. Following was a blonde woman in her mid thirties, who was watching carefully and looked like she was ready to step in instantly if anything went amiss. Michael wondered if she was a personal health worker for the professor.
Finally two younger people came in, Jerry closing the door behind them. Both were in their mid twenties, a tall young man with auburn hair down around his ears and a shorter one with close cropped black hair and a short beard.
"Welcome to the current home of the Oxford Department of Psionics, everyone," Jerry announced as he walked past the guests and waved grandly at the room. "Such as it is. We have new premises but they're not set up properly yet, so we're still here for now."
"Psionics?" the red-head snorted, although rather quietly. His colleague nudged him and he fell silent, although he looked somewhat put out by both the term and the nudge.
"Even so," Jerry smiled, not at all worried. Michael hid a grin as he was pretty sure that these people would be somewhat more accepting of the word really quite soon. "An entirely new research field that promises to bring about some fundamental changes to scientific research in years to come." The two younger arrivals exchanged glances, the dark haired one rolling his eyes causing his companion to shrug. "That aside, introductions are in order. You've met Doctor Blakely already, so over there by the computer on the bench is Doctor Farouk Younan, a very good friend and colleague and our electronics expert. Sitting at the table are Doctors Helen and Michael Granger, and on the other side is Doctor Will Ipsley, our biologist." He walked over and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder, making her glance up at him, then go back to examining the new people with great interest.
"And this is Hermione Granger. No doctorate yet, but I doubt that will take long." Jerry grinned, and Hermione giggled. When he removed his hand she went over and sat beside Michael and Helen to listen.
"In the other direction, you all undoubtedly recognize Professor Stephen Hawking," he went on, looking at the people who'd originally been present. "Standing behind him is his assistant Janice Rutgers, and next to him is Doctor Sam Thurgood, a particle physicist of some renown. The two young men at the rear are Richard Jeffries, and Martin Catteral, Ph.D. students in Astrophysics and Mathematics respectively." He indicated the red-head and the brunet man as he spoke, both of them nodding to him. Doctor Thurgood was staring at Hermione with a somewhat puzzled expression, but a moment later he shrugged and looked back to Jerry.
Professor Hawking's eyes moved from one of them to the next, lingering on Hermione longer than the others, and a faint smile was visible for a moment. His hand twitched a little and a synthesized voice that was instantly recognizable, produced by the computer under the chair, said, "It is nice to meet you all. I am intrigued to know why you wished to meet me." The american-accented voice was somewhat robotic but even so managed to get across a certain amount of good humor.
"We have a limited amount of time available today, and we had to reschedule a number of things, so I hope this is going to be worth it," Doctor Thurgood stated, turning to Jerry and giving him a rather challenging look.
Jerry managed to keep his face utterly relaxed somehow, as he replied, "I believe you will find it worthwhile, Doctor," in a mild voice. Farouk stifled a snicker, and Michael grinned to himself.
"What
is psionics?" Richard asked, somewhat forcefully. "The sign on the door said this was the Parapsychology department, and as far as I know that's not actually a
hard science."
"It's not a science at all," Martin commented from beside him rather more quietly. He was wearing a very dubious expression.
"The only time I've heard that term is in science fiction," his friend went on, shaking his head. "Why would you want the world's most preeminent physics theorist here? I don't understand it."
"I must confess to wondering the same thing," Doctor Thurgood put in, nodding.
"I am curious," Professor Hawking said through his computer after a few seconds work.
Jerry looked around at them all, then moved to the middle of the room and half-sat on the edge of the table, his hands clasped around a raise knee. "I have worked in the field of Parapsychology since I got my doctorate, quite a few years ago now, and I've seen some very odd things during that period," he began. "I'll agree that the subject is one that is very… contentious… often for good reasons, as there are a lot of misapprehensions and misunderstandings about what it actually is. However, I can assure you that it
is a worthwhile field of study, if a very frustrating one at times." He smiled a little, glancing at Farouk, who shook his head ruefully.
"We've found over the years an annoying tendency for our experimental evidence to be mostly unrepeatable, which I suspect is down largely to the extremely small effects we're measuring. It seems to be very prone to situational parameters, many of which we still don't understand, so while the results we get are certainly statistically valid, and show a real effect, it never managed to get to the level where we could prove it beyond doubt." He shrugged a little, as the newcomers exchanged glances. Professor Hawking was watching him closely. "I personally have been certain for years that what we were seeing were genuine anomalies, but up until recently we simply couldn't convince anyone else of that. We
did get enough evidence past random noise to manage to convince the university to continue funding us, but it was occasionally touch and go, I'll admit."
"You say '
up until recently,'" Doctor Thurgood stated, looking closely at him. "That implies something changed."
Jerry chuckled. "You could well put it like that, although it's a gross understatement. Yes, something changed. Out of nowhere, a remarkably brilliant individual managed to notice something unusual, put a vast amount of effort into researching what she noticed, and essentially invent wholesale an entirely groundbreaking new field of study. To my enormous joy I was invited to participate in characterizing her discovery, which allowed us to prove that she had indeed found something completely unprecedented and unknown to science. She is the one who termed it '
Psionics' and to be honest the term fits very well,"
"Psionics like the science fiction concept? Telekinesis, teleportation, mind reading, that sort of rubbish?" Richard queried, a half-formed and rather disbelieving grin on his face.
"Essentially, exactly that, yes, although to date we've only shown telekinesis to be possible. I can't rule out the other ideas," Jerry replied, nodding and looking somewhat amused.
"Impossible."
"I assure you it is very possible."
"Prove it." Richard folded his arms.
"All right." Jerry glanced at Michael, who looked to the side and floated a screwdriver off the bench next to the computer towards Farouk, who casually took it out of the air and spun it in his fingers with aplomb.
The entire room was so completely silent the deep drone of the ventilation fans in the roof space was the only sound.
After some seconds had ticked past, Doctor Thurgood, whose eyes had widened as much as those of the rest of the group, said rather hoarsely, "You prepared that ahead of time, I assume? I'm not sure how you pulled it off, but it's an impressive trick."
"It's not a trick," Jerry told him with a small smile. "Farouk?" The engineer handed the screwdriver to the other man, who accepted it gingerly then examined it very closely. Both the Ph.D students came over and stared at it too.
"Magnets?" Martin suggested. "Or a thin fishing line or something? Stage magic can be really hard to spot if you don't know how it's done." He peered at the screwdriver handle. "I can't see any signs of a line. Maybe it came off when Doctor Younan held it?"
Farouk held up both hands and shook his head, smirking a bit.
Michael noticed that Professor Hawking was staring in an evaluating manner at Farouk, then his eyes moved to him. The gaze was intent. His hand moved, then a couple of seconds later the distinctive voice said, "Repeat the experiment please."
"What would you like to happen?" Jerry asked with a glance at Michael.
Hawking's eyes shifted to his assistant, who nodded and pulled a pen out of her pocket. She held it on her open palm. "This," the professor said.
Michael obligingly made it float out of her hand and orbit the chair, which made everyone gape again. Janice leaned away from it as it passed her, looking very confused, and Doctor Thurgood and the two students simply stared at it with disbelieving expressions. In the chair, Professor Hawking was watching it pass him with the weirdest expression Michael had seen in some time, even with the ALS taken into consideration. Under that was visibly a growing excitement.
After a few incredulous seconds, Richard put his hand out and waved it over the pen as it passed, then under it. "Jesus Christ," he mumbled. "How the… I mean… WHAT?"
"Telekinesis. Repeatable, on demand, telekinesis. The moving of a macroscopic object via the action of the mind," Jerry commented quietly. "And yes, I know what you're feeling, because that was my reaction too the first time. But it is one hundred percent, completely and absolutely, real."
"We've got hours of video recordings, data from every sensory system we could come up with, biological and medical reports, you name it," Farouk added. "And we'll be collecting more data until we determine how it works, however long that takes. The implications are… more than profound."
"This is impossible," Doctor Thurgood exclaimed faintly, as his eyes tracked the pen. "Where does the energy come from? How is it working against gravity?"
"According to the discoverer of the phenomena, it utilizes something she terms the H-Field, which appears to be an omnipresent energy of a type unknown to science," Farouk replied with a look at Jerry. "It appears that this energy can be directed by a human mind in ways that can produce effects like the one you're looking at. And a lot of other ones too."
"She wrote a very comprehensive thesis on the entire subject, and as far as we can so far determine all her hypotheses hold up perfectly. We certainly have no alternative explanation at present." Jerry shrugged again. "You may now see why we feel that a theoretical physicist or two would help us. And to be frank we need someone sufficiently open-minded to new concepts and genuinely brilliant to study the experimental data if we're going to have any chance of properly understanding how all this fits into existing scientific understanding."
Doctor Thurgood reached out and grabbed the pen, which Michael stopped moving. His hand shaking a little, he ran his fingers over it, then handed it back to Janice who accepted it like it was liable to suddenly bite her. "This is… utterly impossible," he murmured, watching her put it away after looking suspiciously at it. "But… I saw it. We all saw it. The screwdriver… yes, you could have pulled a fast one there, but I can't think how you could have managed the same trick with that pen. So…"
He looked at Professor Hawking, who met his eyes. The man in the chair operated his computer for a little while, then the machine voice said, "You said that
she discovered this. Who is she? You?" His gaze fell on Helen, who smiled gently at him.
"No, Professor, it wasn't me," she replied. Reaching out she stroked Hermione's hair. "My daughter is the genius in the family."
Hermione went a little pink, and Michael chuckled. All the visitors fixed their eyes on the girl, who looked back in a slightly embarrassed manner and waved. "Hello," she said.
"
You discovered this…
this?" Doctor Thurgood asked in a disbelieving voice. Hermione nodded. "How
old are you?"
"Ten," she replied. "But I discovered it when I was eight, the first time. It took me nearly two years to correctly derive what I believe to be the beginnings of a theoretical basis for psionics, although I did manage to work out a number of practical applications even before that point. I'm sure there are a lot of things I've missed but it's a work in progress." She smiled at him as he stared.
"Good lord," he finally managed. "You have an extensive vocabulary for one so young.
Eight? My god…."
"Terming it the H-field was somewhat presumptuous, I admit,"Hermione added, flushing slightly, "But I needed to call it
something in my book, after all."
"Your book?" Martin managed. She smiled widely at him. Jerry picked up his copy of the work, which Michael noticed with amusement was getting a little dog-eared, and showed it to them.
"Her book," he said dryly. Both students looked at it, then each other.
Professor Hawking made a small sound, which caused Janice to look at him. His hand twitched towards the book, and she nodded, taking it when Jerry held it out. Holding it where the professor could see it, his assistant turned pages every time he slightly moved his hand, while everyone waited and watched. About twenty pages passed before he worked on the computer for a little while.
"Please cancel our appointments for today," his voice said. "Something more important has come up."
Janice nodded her understanding. She handed Hermione's book to Doctor Thurgood who started reading it with a somewhat bewildered expression, while the two students craned their necks to do the same over his shoulders. Both of them looked completely poleaxed, and occasionally glanced at Hermione as if they were having severe trouble with more or less everything.
Professor Hawking manipulated the control of his chair, and moved it closer to the table and Hermione. "I am delighted to meet you, young lady," his computer said, and somehow it managed to make the voice sound like he meant it.
Hermione smiled widely. "I am honored to meet you too, Professor. I do hope that you can help us understand psionics and how it ties into the rest of science. I'm quite good at it but you know ever so much more about… well, everything… than I do."
One corner of his mouth lifted in an impish grin. "We shall both learn from each other then," the synthetic voice said, making her giggle.
"I certainly hope so," she replied. "Oh, would you like to see the results of my experimentation into interfacing electronics and the H-Field? Electronic engineering is one of my favorite fields of study, you know, and it was enormous help in understanding the practical application of psionics. H-Field operations map remarkably well into electronic terms, after all." She hopped to her feet even as she spoke and on the far side of the room the BBC Master emitted the familiar two-tone beep as it started up. Everyone looked over to see, after a few seconds, the holographic display and keyboard spring into life out of nowhere.
Martin made a small sound deep in his throat and Richard's mouth dropped open. Hermione happily walked over and prodded insubstantial keys. "This is only a crude prototype so far, unfortunately, but Doctor Younan is going to help me make a proper PCB for both the display and the keyboard. It's mostly a demonstration of the principle, but I'm rather pleased with it so far. I have a lot of ideas for improvements."
Reaching out, Doctor Thurgood waved his hand through the display rather hesitantly, before gingerly feeling the keyboard, and looked quite shocked that he actually
could feel it. "How on
earth…?" he managed to say, the book forgotten in his hand.
"This is an example of a number of H-Field Operators, or HOPs, as I termed them, which are producing the visual and tactile effects, while the electronics in these two boxes are interfacing them to the computer," Hermione explained cheerfully. "As a proof of concept it works rather well. I'm still thinking about the best method to use a suitable HOP array to implement a full processing system, although as simple logic gates are straightforward, it should be eminently feasible and have some quite interesting applications."
She turned to look at Professor Hawking who was staring at the computer with an odd look in his eyes. Studying his wheelchair, she mused out loud, "It did strike me that we might be able to improve your own system, Professor, using similar techniques. I'd need to research it some more though."
After a moment, his hand moved. "I believe that would be of interest to me," the computer finally said.
Hermione grinned.
So did he.
Jerry looked between them, glanced at Michael and Helen, then Farouk, and laughed a little. "Yes, I think this could end up being very interesting indeed," he commented.
Christine, who had been leaning on the wall the entire time watching and listening silently, snorted, making him look at her and grin. "That's the biggest understatement yet," she remarked, shaking her head.
Professor Hawking moved his chair right up to the table. His computer said, "I would like to learn more about your work," as he looked at Hermione, who smiled brilliantly and came back to sit down. Still with an overall air of disbelief, the rest of the visitors did the same, as did everyone else. When they were all around the table, the professor said, "How did you come to discover this phenomena?"
Hermione took a breath, thought for a moment, then started talking. It took quite a while but her audience was intent and concentrating the entire time. When she finally ran down, the questions started.
There were a
lot of questions…
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
When they were finally starting the drive home, Hermione was feeling tired but very pleased. Professor Hawking had asked some highly interesting questions and made some intelligent suggestions as to valid avenues of further research. He'd also stated that he was very happy to join the project and help attempt to pin down the true nature of the H-Field and how it worked. Doctor Thurgood, and the two Ph.D. students, who at first had been so skeptical, seemed to have had their attitudes go through one hundred and eighty degrees and were all now fully invested in the work as well. Doctor Thurgood had read most of her book during his visit and had seemed reluctant to stop. She'd promised to get him a copy too, as well as one for Professor Hawking.
She'd even managed to get the professor's mark, which wasn't really a signature but was more than good enough in her opinion, on her father's copy of
his book, which had made her very happy.
Hermione wondered if she should have mentioned that she could teach someone telekinesis. So far, it hadn't come up in conversation, and like her SEP experiments and a number of other things such as how much it was actually possible to lift with telekinetic operations, she was saving it for a suitable moment. She didn't want to drop too many new ideas on the poor scientists all at once since they seemed to get very excited when they learned something new. Which was entirely understandable, after all, it was only natural. But she had two years worth of discoveries and while most of it was in her book, it seemed that none of them had quite understood all the ramifications of HOPs yet.
When they came back for the extended research session she could reveal more of what was possible, in a controlled manner that would prevent anyone getting
too excited, she decided. After all, while right now she was fairly sure it was plausible that anyone could learn the technique, she only had a sample size of three, and they were all related to her. She didn't
think it was going to be limited to her relations, because that seemed rather unlikely for several reasons, but she didn't
know either. That was something that was going to need further research and some suitable volunteers.
She suspected there would be no shortage of
those.
But anyway, that was for later. Right now… "Daddy? Can we go back this way?" She held a folded map out as he pulled out of the parking space. Her father looked at it, then her mother.
"That's a longer drive, Hermione. Why do you want to go
south from here?"
"There's something very odd about the background H-Field in Oxford and as far as I can tell it's stronger in that direction," she explained. "So I want to do some more triangulation and work out where whatever is causing it is coming from." Pointing with her free hand at the map, she added, "We could go down the A34 to the M4, then go home that way, couldn't we? It shouldn't take all
that much longer."
"Well… I suppose so. If you really want, but don't complain tomorrow about how tired you are." He smiled at her in the rear view mirror, then looked at the clock on the dashboard. "It's nearly nine now, that will add… perhaps forty minutes? So we'll be home by about midnight. Rather late, but not too bad." Flicking the indicator on he turned right at the bottom of the road rather than left. Soon they were heading towards the A34, and Hermione was sitting with the map on her legs, her eyes closed, feeling out how the H-Field differed from at home and trying to work out why.
She was quite pleased that her triangulation calculations narrowed down the area whatever seemed to be at the heart of the mystery to a region only a couple of miles across, by the time they reached the M4. That should give her a fighting chance of locating the source once she could get to the library and do some more research, she felt as she put the map to one side and closed her eyes. This time because the day had rather caught up with her and she was tired.
Soon she was fast asleep, and once more her father carried her up to bed when they got home, a tolerant smile on his lips.
"He'll calm down in a few minutes."
