Delicious gains, at that!I failed to initiate the sleep thing, so as a result found myself doing this instead...
My insomnia is your gain, apparently!
Looking forward to more wordz, good sir!
Hermione learns a thing
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
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Looking forward to more wordz, good sir!
I'm fairly certain that the magical community is totally in the dark about all of this.
-Two clerks decided that they didn't care for all the work that accidental magic in muggle-borns was making for them and they turned down the sensitivity of their detector. (Which they do not understand how it works, so maybe they messed it up even more than they think...)
-There is a field around Oxford that is shielding the area from most magical detection anyway.
-The scientists have not published anything so no one else is talking about it. (I'm sure some clerk is tasked with reading the newspaper, probably in Arthur's department.)
I imagine the first time the Ministry hears about it will be with a world-wide news announcement... Televised live... The cat, having been let out of the bag shall turn around and vaporize it with a flamethrower.
-Two clerks decided that they didn't care for all the work that accidental magic in muggle-borns was making for them and they turned down the sensitivity of their detector. (Which they do not understand how it works, so maybe they messed it up even more than they think...)
-There is a field around Oxford that is shielding the area from most magical detection anyway.
-The scientists have not published anything so no one else is talking about it. (I'm sure some clerk is tasked with reading the newspaper, probably in Arthur's department.)
I imagine the first time the Ministry hears about it will be with a world-wide news announcement... Televised live... The cat, having been let out of the bag shall turn around and vaporize it with a flamethrower.
- Location
- Neptune
Nope. The first time the Ministry hears about it is when the first generation of Psions, having learned to harness the H-Field in nursery and primary school, get their Hogwarts letters.
going down?
missing period
missing space
If I recall, it's not that it's 'accidental magic', it's that the H-field manipulation doesn't read right. Something like a really low level background radiation. That they know has happened before, hence why the decision to change the sensitivity. If there's something in the detector to help find it, they have no idea. So the best they figure is to just sort of ignore the thing that is messing with their capacity to do their job, and silently write off areas.
I presume that they had already reported the loss of the Oxford area, that they had to tweak the detector to ignore. (Which was probably the result of beginning of messing with psionics, even if it wasn't consistent pre-Hermione figuring it out. Just enough regular attempts that mess with it. Along with 'almost but not quite' attempts. Stuff that couldn't be noticed, but still messed with the H-field.)
Though that doesn't mean that it got much notice. I could see the existence of such a report resulting in some action takin g against those who ignored it, in a sort of 'we would have had warning about potential breaches in the statute of secrecy and this whole shift if you didn't ignore this!' Along with a 'entire area that was unsupervised against potential statute of secrecy breaches'.
Something that does come to mind in that before publishing anything of note, there might well be a little advert for 'instances of impossibilities/oddities', for the researchers trying to grab easy advancements. Either for Hermione to examine and reverse engineer, or someone else developing something while Hermione focuses elsewhere.
While the Dursley's probably wouldn't go for it, even for money since they know it's magic. And Harry knowing about it being something he can do is something they'd avoid. However, there still would be other sources for a potential pre-Hogwarts letter meeting. Such as the 'turn the wig blue' incident (I think it was a wig, and not the substitute teacher's hair, though I could be wrong).
Does bring the idea of Hagrid 'delivering' the letter while they're trying to figure out what is causing all the owls to home in on Harry. Along with the other weird stuff on the delivery, since not all of the letters were all delivered in the "he didn't answer by owl, that clearly means the letters aren't reaching him, not that he does not know how to respond". Or the 'deluge of letters is distracting from actually sending anything out'. Or combination of factors.
...actually has something where the statute of secrecy being broken because of the letter deluge? With Harry being on television while letters just flooded at him?
12. Hermione learns a thing XI - Discovering yet more things
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Surprise chapter to the face! Ha HA!
As she walked out of the school, Hermione ducked slightly and the paper airplane that had been thrown at her by one of her classmates, a boy she really didn't much care for as he was both rather dim and far too prone to show this off with acts of random annoyance, flew past her head. "Oi, swotty Granger!" the boy shouted, making her sigh under her breath a little.
Rather unluckily, as he was guffawing to his friends, the paper plane careened off a wall, flew across the courtyard, and buried itself in the ear of the chemistry teacher, who shouted in surprise. Hermione hid a smirk as the woman yanked the offending article from her ear, stared at it, then looked around with a furious expression. Her gaze passed over Hermione and landed squarely on the still giggling Mark Hamilton, whose friends all stepped back in impressive synchronism, leaving him alone in the entrance to the school.
Miss Jenner stalked across the schoolyard and stopped directly in front of the ten year old boy who now was wearing the face of someone who had just realized that actions had consequences. Holding out the plane, she asked dangerously sweetly, "Would you care to explain this, please, Mark?"
"Err…"
"Quite. We have had words about throwing things around many times in the past, but it would appear that you still seem unable to understand why this is unacceptable. Perhaps I should ask your parents to help me explain it one more time."
"I didn't do it!" he yipped, color ebbing from his face as the entire gathering of students, and several parents who'd come to collect their offspring, watched. "That's not mine."
"Really?" she asked, frowning a little. She unfolded the slightly crumpled paper and looked at it, then turned it around to show him. "Would you then be able to explain why this appears to be the chemistry test your class took this morning? I see it has your name on it at the top here." He paled further. Turning it back, she studied it. "I recall you got a C. Possibly a D would be a more accurate mark, thinking about it." She pulled a red pen from her pocket and scribbled on the paper, then handed it to him. Leaning closer, she said with some menace, "You will not throw things at people in this school, young man, do you understand? Or do I need to speak to your parents?"
"Yes, Miss," he replied morosely, glaring at the revised grade. "No, Miss."
"Excellent. You may leave."
"Thank you, Miss," he mumbled, walking past her dragging his feet somewhat sadly. Several of his fellow students were giggling at the look on his face. Hermione felt quite gratified with the end result of a quick telekinetic push, which seemed to have worked out rather well.
Not for Mark of course, but that was life.
And the best bit was that she'd barely had to correct the path of the plane, which had nearly done all the work for her. In a good mood Hermione headed to the gate, where she could see her father's car parked on the other side of the street. Opening the door she slid into the back seat, then put her belt on. "Thank you for picking me up, Daddy," she said. He looked back at her and smiled.
"It's my pleasure, Hermione. I was in the area and it looks like rain, so I thought it would be a good idea. I know it's not much of a walk but who wants to do that in the wet?"
She giggled as he winked at her, then started the car. "I have to pop into town on the way home. Did you want to stop at Maplin? We can spare a little while there if you'd like."
"Oh, brilliant, I need some more resistors, and two or three more pieces of perfboard," she replied with a smile. "Thank you."
He waited for the coach that took students who lived further away to pass, then pulled out into the street. As they headed towards the town center, father and daughter chatted amiably about their days, Hermione admitting how she'd slightly helped a paper plane cause a bully some problems. Her father laughed so hard that he had to slow down for a little while. "That's certainly a neat way to deal with the problem, I have to admit, but your poor teacher didn't deserve a paper plane in the ear."
"I made sure it didn't hit too hard," she told him. "I like Miss Jenner. She's a very good teacher. And Mark is always being a nuisance. He never seems to listen when they try to stop him." The girl sighed a little, as her father glanced up at the mirror and her reflection. "Why are so many children so… so… annoying? Why can't people just leave other people alone?"
"I'm afraid you'll find that this isn't uncommon at all ages, dear," he replied after a couple of seconds thought. "There are far too many bullies in all walks of life. All you can really do is try to avoid them when possible and bear up under it when not."
"I could do more than that," she muttered. "See how he'd like being pushed into a muddy puddle…"
"Violence is seldom the answer, Hermione." Her father chuckled as she sighed again.
"I know, but sometimes… I could make it look like an accident."
"Please don't go around arranging accidents for people you don't like, dear, that won't end well," he advised, still looking amused. "Even if it would be easy."
"Oh, all right, Daddy. I suppose you have a point." She met his eyes in the mirror again and grinned, her normally good mood reasserting itself now she was well away from the trials and tribulations cause by going to school and dealing with the likes of Mark Hamilton and his cronies. After all, she could now do the important work without school distracting her…
"Wonderful. The Dark Side you must avoid, only trouble that way lies," he said in a deep voice, which made her burst out laughing.
"You are silly sometimes, Daddy," she giggled.
"I try," he smiled. "Right, here we are. Let's go to Maplin first, then I need to pop into Sainsbury's to get some bread and a few other things." He parked the car and turned it off, both of them getting out. Once he'd locked it, they walked the short distance to the electronics shop and entered, her father holding the door for her then following her in.
"Hermione, how nice to see you again," Nigel said from behind the counter when he spotted her. She waved to him and smiled. "We've got some new components in over in the semiconductor section, you might want to have a look."
"Thank you," she called back, immediately heading that way. Her father moved to look at the various electronics and computing magazines. Both of them spent a happy half hour poking around, and by the time they left Hermione was carrying a plastic bag with a number of useful things in it. After another half hour in the supermarket, they were on the way home, with Hermione leafing through a booklet she'd found on making PCBs at home. It seemed a rather messy process involving several chemicals, but she thought it might be possible to find a way around that with a little work.
Half way home she sensed another of the HOPlike tools moving towards them, and a little later watched with interest as a rather dilapidated old Morris Minor drove past with a very scruffy looking man at the wheel. He kept going in the other direction until he was out of range. She idly wondered who he was and where he was going, but after noting down his tool's signature in her notebook, she went back to the latest issue of Electronics Today she was reading. By now she had a fair few signatures collected, which showed her that there were a moderate number of these mysterious people around the place, but not a really large quantity. In her neighborhood there didn't seem to be any, aside from that older woman having visited a couple of weeks ago.
She'd had an occasional urge to investigate the house the woman had gone into, but couldn't think of a good reason to do that other than curiosity, which seemed somewhat impulsive and possibly a bit rude, so she'd shelved it in favor of more important work. Sooner or later she'd get enough data to work out what was going on, she was quite certain of that, and if these people seemed to want to remain hidden, it wasn't really her business to interfere.
Even if they did advertise their presence with the H-Field equivalent of a great big glowing sign that said 'LOOK AT ME!,' and even if she was curious and puzzled about them and their works. Although it did amuse her that they were hiding behind things that seemed to almost have been designed to attract attention. That alone convinced her that they really didn't know about the H-Field or use it properly.
It was a bit confusing, overall, but not something terribly important at the moment.
Just after they got back the heavens opened and the day became extremely wet, meaning that she was stuck inside for now. That wasn't a problem as she had a lot of things to do, so she had a drink of water then went up to her room, putting her lab coat on because that way it was more scientific when she sat and thought. Mr Boots almost immediately appeared outside her window, absolutely saturated to the point it gave the impression he'd swum there, and meowed piteously until she relented and let him in. "You are a very silly cat," she told him sternly. "It's not nice weather to walk around in. You should have stayed at home." He looked at her with his head on one side, mrrped, and hopped off the windowsill onto her desk. Before he touched it she grabbed him telekinetically and floated him off to the side.
"Don't leave muddy footprints all over my desk, please," she instructed the cat. "We've discussed this before."
Mr Boots just looked at her, causing her to sigh fondly. "Cats," she grumbled, although with no heat to her words. After a moment, she quickly worked out a combination of a couple of existing HOPs and produced a faintly orange glowing circular platform that hung in the air next to her desk, emitting a pleasant warmth. Prodding it with a finger she nodded in satisfaction, as the layered force fields gave just enough resilience to feel a little like soft rubber over wood. She plonked the cat down on the platform. "There you go. Dry off there, and not on my desk or my bed."
He looked down, then walked in a circle, meowed agreement seemingly pleased with her work, and collapsed onto his side before starting to lick himself dry. Which was a trick Hermione was still rather impressed about. Cats had many mysteries, even Mr Boots…
Satisfied that she'd taken care of that problem, she sat down and documented what she'd done for future reference, then pulled open one drawer, removing a stack of notebooks, several sheets of loose paper, and a ruler. Another drawer gave up a number of maps, and from her bedside table she retrieved a couple of books she'd taken out of the library. Soon she had everything spread out on the desk and was deeply involved in trying to accurately locate the epicenter of the mysterious Oxford Anomaly, then work out what might be at that location which could cause it.
When, several hours later, she'd finally got all her measurements properly crosschecked and verified, she stared at the map and all the lines on it. "How interesting," she murmured, tapping the end of her pencil on one particular location. "I wonder what exactly is here that could cause the effect? And how it's managing it."
She circled the Rutherford Appleton laboratory site then sat gazing at the map and thinking hard.
By the time her mother called her down for dinner she was no closer to working out exactly what was happening, but she was almost certain where it was happening. And she decided that when they next went to Oxford, she'd talk to the scientists and see if they could shed light on the mystery. Yet another thing for the list.
The list was quite long and getting more so by the day. Apparently research did that.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Helen glanced up as Hermione, who had been lying on a chair in the living room reading one of Michael's latest science fiction books, suddenly looked up. Her daughter peered towards the window, a quizzical expression on her face, then closed her eyes.
"Is something wrong, sweetie?" she asked, mildly concerned.
"No, Mummy, I just felt that woman teleport back to the house I told you about, remember? I'm trying to work out how she's doing that…." The girl's voice trailed off into silence as she frowned slightly. Helen looked at Michael, who'd walked back into the room just as Hermione's eyes had closed holding a tray with three cups and a pot of tea on it. He put the tray on the coffee table, examined Hermione, returned Helen's look, and shook his head.
Pouring out three cups of tea, he handed one to his wife, took one for himself, and sat next to her. Both of them watched as their daughter concentrated. Helen tried sensing what Hermione was, and could just feel something at the extreme edge of her own range, which was nowhere near what the young girl could currently do although it was steadily if slowly growing with practice. Eventually the very faint distortion in the H-Field vanished with a burst of silent noise, and Hermione opened her eyes again. She looked thoughtful.
"Did you learn anything interesting?" Michael asked. He pointed at the remaining cup. "Your tea, by the way."
"Thank you Daddy," she said absently, the milk jug rising to pour a little into the cup, then a floating spoon stirring it, before the cup lifted off and flew over to Hermione who picked it out of the air without looking at it. She lifted it to her mouth and sipped, still frowning thoughtfully. Helen smiled to herself. The girl was so adept at this sort of thing she almost did it without thinking at times.
She herself was becoming rather good at the small-scale telekinesis and had found it helped a lot with all manner of day to day chores, sometimes in surprising ways.
"I think I see what she did," Hermione finally said, looking up at them with a slightly worried expression. "But something about it seems… a bit dangerous. Perhaps I'm missing something. I really need to see it from much closer."
"Dangerous in what way, dear?" Michael asked curiously. Hermione made a little gesture with her empty hand, showing uncertainty.
"It's hard to explain without using maths, but… I think they're making something like a wormhole, but they're using a lot of power very inefficiently from what I can tell. It radiates like no one's business even though it doesn't appear to be very large. I suppose it works, that seems undeniable, but the way it works suggests that if it fails the results would be… very unpleasant."
She sipped more tea with a disquieted expression as Helen and Michael exchanged glances. "Unpleasant how?" he asked. "Bad sunburn unpleasant or cross the streams unpleasant?"
Hermione giggled. "Worse than the first one and probably not as bad as the second one. I think that worst case you'd probably just die horribly. Although…" She tapped her finger on the cup she was holding, thinking. "I suppose if something went very wrong indeed you might find that anyone nearby had a lot of trouble."
"That does sound rather dangerous, I agree," Helen said after a moment, somewhat appalled.
"But clearly it can't be very likely or they wouldn't use it, surely?" her husband suggested. "There must be some sort of safeguard."
Their daughter shook her head, not disagreeing but appearing confused. "Perhaps? It would make sense, I agree, but at least from here it looks rather hazardous. I suppose you're probably right, Daddy. In any case, it does give me some more ideas about how to replicate the result using the H-Field, but I certainly won't replicate the method. It's much too inefficient aside from anything else." She frowned. "I still find it strange that they don't seem to realize how much energy they're wasting with their methods."
"Your engineering senses are offended," he chuckled, making her grin.
"Something like that," she agreed.
The phone ringing made all three of them look over at it. Michael levitated the handset to him, making Helen laugh and Hermione look pleased, then answered it. "Oh, hello, Mum. We're fine, thanks. Just sitting talking and drinking tea."
Hermione waved frantically, pointing at herself then the phone. "Hermione says hello too, by the way," he added, smiling. Their daughter smiled back. "Tomorrow? Certainly, we'd love to see you, it's been weeks now. Of course. We could go out for a meal tomorrow evening, if you'd like. I'm told that the new Italian restaurant in town is excellent, and I know you love Italian food."
Hermione's eyes lit up. She also loved Italian food.
"All right, we'll look forward to it. Around three is fine. I'll be at the practice until four, but Helen will be home, and Hermione will get back just after that. See you then. Bye." He prodded the call end button, collapsed the aerial, and floated the phone back into the cradle. "That was Mum," he said entirely unnecessarily.
"Really?" Helen asked with a neutral expression. "I wasn't certain."
Hermione started giggling as Michael poked his wife in the ribs. "Sarcasm ill suits you, Helen."
"That's a shame, I'm rather good at it," she replied with a smile. He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders.
"Yes, you are. It's one of the many things I love about you. Even if it ill suits you." He looked at the teapot which poured him some more tea, then floated back to the tray, shaking his head a little. "I never thought I'd be able to do that, but it's certainly useful," he commented before taking a sip. "In any case," he continued after he lowered the cup, "She's going to visit a friend of hers tomorrow morning and since that's only about a mile away, she thought she'd stop in."
"It's always nice to see your mother," Helen told him.
"I want to see how well she's coming along with psionics," Hermione put in with enthusiasm. "She said it was going well when I spoke to her last on the phone but that was nearly three weeks ago."
"I'm sure she's been practicing the exercises you set her, dear," he chuckled. "You're a very good teacher."
"I enjoyed it," the girl smiled.
Going back to her book, she resumed reading, curling up in the chair in a position that no one over the age of twelve would think comfortable. Helen watched her for a moment, looked at Michael who was doing the same, then both of them picked up their own books. The room fell silent except for the ticking of the clock on the mantlepiece and the sound of turning pages, a very familiar scene in the Granger household.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"That's wonderful, Granny," Hermione exclaimed as she and her mother watched her grandmother knit a scarf without holding the needle. The elder woman was clearly concentrating quite hard, but even so she appeared fairly relaxed. "You're really coming along well."
"Thank you, Hermione," she replied with a soft smile. "I've been rather enjoying the practice of an evening. I doubt I'll ever be anywhere nearly as good as you are, or even Michael and Helen, but I do seem to be steadily improving."
"It comes slowly but surely," her mother said, nodding. "I've improved a lot, but I have a very long way to go. I suspect Hermione is naturally gifted in this way as she is in so many others."
Hermione blushed a little and looked down. Her mother stroked her back. "I'm impressed that you've managed something quite so coordinated," she added to the older woman.
"It was something of a task to begin with," Hermione's grandmother replied ruefully. "You wouldn't believe how many balls of yarn I turned into a complete tangled mess. It was worse than if that cat that hangs around here had got into my knitting supplies." Hermione giggled at the mental picture this evoked, getting a smile from the woman. "But I stuck at it and as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. They just don't have a saying for how much work you need to put in on that practice."
"I think it will get easier the more you do it," Hermione suggested, watching with her energy sense to see as the needles moved and clicked against each other. Her grandmother's range might not be as big as her parent's was, but her control was really coming along nicely.
"Hopefully so. But even if it doesn't, I'm enjoying being able to do this thanks to you, dear Hermione."
About to reply, Hermione noticed her father's familiar H-Field signature enter her range. "Daddy's on the way back, he'll be here in about four minutes or so," she said instead.
"Better put the kettle on then," her mother smiled, standing and walking into the kitchen. By the time the front door opened she'd come back with the tea, handing one to her husband after he took his coat off and hung it up.
"Thank you, Helen," he said, accepting it gratefully. "Good timing."
"Thank Hermione for the early warning," she commented. He peeked into the living room and grinned at his daughter, who waved back with a smile.
"Good work, Hermione," he called. "Hi, Mum. I'll be back in a minute, I just need to put this in the study." He lifted the briefcase he was holding, then vanished. Shortly he came back and sat down with a sigh of relief. "Nasty root canal this morning. The patient turned out to be rather resistant to the anesthetic, which was something of a strain on both of us. It took about twice the usual amount to get him appropriately numbed and he wasn't all that amused by it, poor chap."
Hermione winced a little, imagining the result. Unfortunately she had a very good imagination and the images that sprang to mind were more vivid than she really enjoyed.
"Mrs Imber canceled at the last moment too, by the way. She had a family emergency and rearranged the appointment for next Wednesday, so you get the joy of dealing with her this time." He smiled as his wife sighed heavily. "Look on the bright side, she's so enamored about constantly talking about Jesus that she hardly notices the dental cleaning."
"Just what I needed, a muffled lecture on why I should repent some imagined sin while trying to remove plaque," Hermione's mother grumbled. "That woman is… annoying."
"Yes, she is. And I don't have to listen to it now." He grinned widely, then winced as she bonked him on the head with a pillow. "Other than that, nothing unusual going on at the moment. Oh, yes, I got finally managed to contact Doctor Simmons, he's happy to run the practice while we're away at the end of the month. He just got back from a holiday in Spain, that's why I couldn't reach him."
"Oh, wonderful. That makes things much easier. I was starting to get a little worried what we'd do, but John is an excellent dentist, so the practice will be in good hands." She looked pleased.
"Quite. Everyone else likes him too, so that's that sorted. I raised the question about our holiday in August too, and he's not opposed to the idea, but it depends slightly on a wedding he's supposed to be attending. The bride keeps moving the date for some reason and he's not sure yet when they'll settle on something firm. In the worst case we can contact the agency, if if comes to that, but I'd prefer him."
"So would I. I suppose we'll have to wait and see." The woman shrugged slightly, then finished her tea off. "Have a look at what Nancy has been practicing with."
Hermione's grandmother had put her knitting down, but as he looked over at her, it floated into the air and the needles resumed their work, making him stare with a raised eyebrow then nod appreciatively. "That's very impressive, Mum."
"I thought so, and so did Hermione," his mother replied contentedly. Hermione nodded agreement.
"It's a really good exercise for keeping lots of things going at once," she said. Remembering one of her side projects, which she'd been intermittently working on for a few weeks, she sat up and looked at her father. "I came up with another HOP design that might be useful."
"Oh?" He gave her an intrigued look. "Useful in what way?"
"Well, you recall how when we did the water heater we talked about generating power?"
"I do, yes. You thought turning a generator into a perpetual motion machine was a nice idea."
She giggled. "Not really perpetual motion, but yes, that was it. I've been thinking about it every now and then since then and a little while ago something I read in Elektor sparked a better idea. There was an article on switch mode power supplies which was brilliant, and it made me think about making a HOP array that directly produced alternating current electrical output. That took a while to determine all the relevant aspects properly but I finished the theory last night after dinner."
He stared at her, then looked at her mother and his. Returning his attention to Hermione, he asked, "You mean you worked out how to make two hundred and forty volt mains out of nowhere?"
"More or less, yes. It's more flexible than that, I should be able to create any frequency and voltage you might want, but that's the idea. In the end it's really just a variant of the light source, but at a drastically lower frequency. There are a lot of subtle differences of course but they're not important at the moment." She was rather pleased with herself. "It's not hard to convert it to DC as well, if I need to, since I can make a HOP act as a diode. I worked that out quite a while ago. In theory I can directly produce DC from the H-Field but I haven't quite finished the work on that idea."
He was silent for a few seconds. Eventually he asked, "How much power can you produce?"
"How much do you want?" She grinned at the look on his face. "Honestly, Daddy, the amount of energy bound up in the H-Field is so astronomically huge we could power the entire world from it forever and make no difference at all as far as I can work out."
He shook his head in wonder. "That alone has earned you your allowance this week. And probably solved some of the worse problems of the world, sooner or later."
She put on a rather satisfied expression, overdoing it on purpose. "I like to think I make a difference sometimes."
Laughing, as did her mother and grandmother, he replied, "You've made more than just a difference, dear. All right, can we see this latest invention of yours?"
"Certainly." Sitting up, she moved the book that had been on her knee to the side, then concentrated. Everyone else watched with the energy sense, as she started creating one of the most complex HOP arrays she'd done so far. It was simpler than the ones needed for the keyboard and display, but only a little. "All right… This is the power output stage, I'll make it have a normal three pin socket for now…" she murmured, deftly weaving the H-Field into a nested series of knots with the ease of an awful lot of practice. "The mechanical support is easy, that's a shaped force field. Then we add this part, which handles the H-Field to electrical conversion, and this part which limits the frequency to fifty hertz, while this part sets two hundred and forty volts for the electrical side. And we put a conductive field here, here, and here, connecting to the output terminals like this, add a physical control to turn it on and off…" She tied off the last of the HOP structures and smiled as a four inch cube made of a glittering crystal-like force field appeared in front of her in mid air.
"There. Done. I think. Assuming it works…" Taking it in her hand she turned it over, inspecting the result of her efforts closely and making completely certain that everything she'd designed was correct and accounted for. Finding no errors, she looked up to see her parents and grandmother watching her with strange expressions. "What?"
"Sometimes I really notice how unusual all this is," her mother finally said, smiling ruefully. "A lot of the time we've become so used to it we don't see how strange our life has become, but then you do something like that and…" She shook her head in wonder.
Hermione laughed. "I know, I get the same feeling sometimes. It's wonderful, isn't it? Hold on, I need to get my multimeter and check this is working. I'll be right back." Putting the latest HOP construct on the table, she darted out of the living room and up the stairs to her bedroom, retrieved the meter from her drawer, sighed faintly at the sound of a mew from outside the window, let Mr Boots in and firmly told him to sit on his cat-platform, which he completely ignored in favor of jumping onto her bed, sighed again, shook her head, and ran back downstairs.
"Let's see," she said as she unwound the leads and set the meter to the 1000 volt AC range. Negligently dropping it in mid air where it stayed, she turned her construct over until the three familiar rectangular holes of a standard BS 1363 mains socket were uppermost. Inserting the leads into the live and neutral holes, she touched the small green circle next to them, which changed immediately to red. At the same time the meter display showed 240v.
"It works!" she squealed in glee. "Look, it works! I made electricity!"
"Home made electricity, fresh from the H-Field and direct to your living room," her father intoned, making her mother sigh and his mother snort with laughter. "Well done, Hermione."
"It will need to be properly earthed, of course, to be safe, but it should work," she said, pulling the meter leads out and looking around as beside her the leads wrapped around the device, which turned itself off and landed next to the power construct. Getting up off her knees she walked across the room and unplugged the lamp that was on the sideboard, then brought it back and plugged it into the force field construction. The lamp happily lit up when she operated the switch. "That seems functional."
Her grandmother clapped her hands approvingly. "Very good work, Hermione."
"Thanks, Granny," the girl smiled. She turned to her father. "This is a proof of concept, but it certainly shows the idea is sound. We could connect the fusebox to something like this and disconnect the mains easily enough."
"I don't want you electrocuting yourselves," her mother commented with mild worry.
Hermione put her hands on her hips and gave her an admonishing look, which made the older woman's lips twitch. "Mummy, I'm not an idiot. I know how to wire up a mains system, I read a book on it. Several books, actually, including the relevant electrical regulations. And I can do it without actually touching anything, of course."
Getting up, her mother came over and hugged her. "I know you're not an idiot, sweetie. You're as far from being an idiot as Mr Boots is from running the government. But I don't want any accidents to happen, you understand?"
The girl nodded. She did understand, but she was also sure she was entirely capable of doing the required work safely. And her father, who was studying the power cube with a thoughtful look, could help. She said as much.
"Later, dear." Her father looked at the clock, then added, "We need to get ready for the restaurant right now."
"Oh, yes, you're right!" Hermione exclaimed as she checked the time, not having quite realized what it was. "We can't miss good Italian food."
"No, we most certainly can't," her grandmother agreed. They shared a look of those who like such things. "You'd better go and change your clothes, Hermione." Peering at the construct, she added a moment later, "If you can make that work without burning the house down I wouldn't mind one for my own house."
Laughing, Hermione nodded, then rushed off to have a quick shower and change, feeling rather pleased with the results of her latest idea.
And the food was indeed excellent, which rounded the day off nicely in her opinion.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Let's see what we have here," Michael remarked as he opened the box of parts from the electrical supplier. "You check the manifest, I'll check the items." He handed his daughter a sheet of yellow printer paper, which she took and examined.
"All right," she replied, quickly reading through it, then turning back to the first line.
"One consumer unit," she read out loud. He pulled out the largest of the boxes inside the main one and looked at the label.
"One consumer unit, check."
"Six thirty-two amp circuit breakers."
"Um… hang on… Ah. Yes. Check."
"Four six amp circuit breakers."
"Found them. Check."
"Fifty feet of twin and earth cable."
"That's this one, so check."
"Cable clips for the above."
"Check."
"One one hundred amp double pole switch."
"Got it. Check."
"Six feet of meter tails."
"That's remarkably thick cable. Check."
"One sixty-three amp RCD."
"I think this is… Yes. Check."
"And lastly two sixteen amp circuit breakers."
"Only thing left, so check."
"That's everything on the list, Daddy." She put the paper down and the pen she'd been using on it back in her pocket. Both of them looked at the various items on the workbench in the garage, then turned as one to look at the fusebox on the wall between it and the kitchen.
"So all we have to do is turn the power off, disconnect all the cables from that, reconnect them to this with the correct circuit breakers, plug them into that thing, and turn it on?" He waved at the new construct she'd made earlier that day, a somewhat different version of the first one, which was wider and flatter and appeared to be made of polished metal. It had screw holes on flanges on the side to attach it to the wall, along with a place for a pair of heavy duty cables to connect on the top, with another similar socket at the bottom for the earth connection. Hermione had spent a day reading about industrial electrical installations and designed this one to be more useful for their purposes.
Hermione nodded agreement. "Exactly. We leave the meter and all the electricity board's equipment alone, since we're not allowed to touch it, but we're perfectly at liberty to modify everything from the meter onwards since it's ours." Giving the fusebox a look of distaste, she went on, "And replacing that is probably for the best since it's ancient. Modern circuit breakers in a proper box is much safer, according to the regulations."
"Well, it sounds simple enough. The wires look long enough to reach if we put the box right here, next to the other one." He examined the gray wires coming out of the ceiling and into the back of the fusebox, privately admitting it was something of a rat's nest. The house dated back to the fifties and electrical standards had changed quite a bit since then, and on top of that a fair amount had been added to or removed from the wiring over the years. Making it neater and safer was probably well worth the effort, even leaving aside free power. "We'll need some wall plugs, screws, the screwdriver and the drill, and…"
He stopped as Hermione looked at him, then put her finger on one of the screws holding the wooden top of the workbench to the structure. Smiling a little mischievously, she lifted her finger, and the screw came with it, rotating with a slight squeak. "Tools?" she asked. "For what we're doing, we don't need tools."
Laughing, he shook his head. "It will take me a long time to really get to grips with this. All right, point made. All we need is screws and the wall plugs, which should be in the box by your knee." She drove the screw back into the bench, then squatted down and retrieved the box he indicated. Opening it she looked inside.
"Yes, this is the screws and other things," she reported.
"Good. To work. If you would be so good as to provide some light?" He nodded as she smiled and created a glowing sphere that lit the entire garage brightly. "We're turning the power off now, Helen," he called.
"Fine, I'll go and sit in the garden and read until you've finished," his wife called back. Walking over to the fusebox he flipped the main switch, the ceiling lights going out and the sound of the freezer in the kitchen abruptly stopping.
It took the pair of them only about twenty minutes to assemble all the breakers into the consumer unit, having read the instructions carefully, then connect up the bus bar and put the protective cover back on. Once that was done, Michael measured the box, then the wall, and marked up where they needed holes. Hermione drilled them with the power of her mind, small cylinders of breeze block sliding out of the wall without fuss, and he pushed the wall plugs into the holes. Holding the consumer unit in the right place, he watched as four screws flew in formation into the holes in the back and rotated rapidly, fastening the box to the wall in seconds. Wiggling it to be sure, he nodded in satisfaction. "Part one complete."
"We should label all the wires before we take them off so we can be sure where everything goes," she suggested. As it was a sensible idea, he dug around for some masking tape, taking the pen she handed him. Writing out labels and putting them on the cables took another half hour most of which was down to him pulling all the fuses out, turning the power back on, and reinserting them one at a time as Hermione ran around the house making sure which sockets and lights actually came to life. When they'd finally done that, they had two wires that didn't seem to do anything at all, even though they'd been connected and powered.
Holding one he looked at it. "I wonder what this does do?" he muttered.
She shrugged. "I'm not sure, but we can trace it later. Let's finish connecting everything else first."
She made neat holes in the top of the consumer unit while he fed wires through them and inserted the ends into the various breakers, earth, and neutral connections. Each wire was checked by both of them, and Hermione also used her multimeter to ensure nothing was amiss. When the unit was fully wired up, and she'd finished writing the names of all the circuits on the little stickers that went on the cover under the breakers, they turned to the power unit.
"I think we just mount this under that," she said, pointing at the consumer unit. "We can run the live and neutral directly up the wall into the switch, then connect the earth from the power supply to the house earth and to the original mains earth."
"Here?" he queried, holding the device she'd made against the wall.
"That looks good, yes, Daddy," the girl replied. He marked the screw locations with the pen she handed him, then put the thing on the bench while she produced some more holes. Shortly her construct was firmly screwed to the wall, looking like it belonged there. It didn't take long to connect the last of the wiring. Hermione very carefully measured several things with her meter, twice, turned the unit on by touching a green circle on the face of it which immediately glowed red, measured again, and finally nodded. "As far as I can see it's working perfectly. Earth is correct, the neutral isn't floating, and there's two hundred and forty volts at fifty hertz on the live."
Michael refitted the cover to the consumer unit, screwed it in place, and flicked all the breakers on one after another. Putting his finger on the main switch he looked at his daughter. "You're sure this will work?" he asked with a smile.
"Yes, Daddy, I'm sure it will work," she said with a long suffering tone.
"Really sure?"
"Just flip the switch and we'll both find out," she sighed, although she was clearly trying not to laugh.
He did. It was a complete anticlimax. All that happened was that the fluorescent light on the ceiling plinked into life, and the sound of the fridge and freezer motors starting up came to them through the open kitchen door. "Well. That seems to work. Good job, youngling."
"It was my pleasure, parental unit," she replied with a giggle.
Stepping back the pair admired the neat result of quite a lot of work. "The electricity people are going to be rather confused, I expect," he said after a moment. She looked at him, then smiled, before both of them went back into the house, turning the light out on the way.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
As the car passed the M25 going down the M3, Hermione looked around, casting her mental faculties as widely as possible. Two of the HOPlike tools she'd detected before came and went, one static and one moving at a walking pace. She picked up nearly a dozen more as they drove around the A406 North Circular to North London, three in a cluster, the rest in pairs or individually. She carefully noted down their details each time in her steadily growing collection of data on the subject. The Charing Cross Anomaly was easily detectable even at this distance, if faintly, when they were on the A406, but it was far enough away that it faded in and out as they drove.
Once her father had dropped off the dental air compressor at the supplier's service location in Tottenham, which only took about ten minutes, they headed back down the A10 towards the center of London, stopping again in a trading estate a mile further in. This time Hermione accompanied her father inside the dental supply company, looking around with interest at all the equipment and other odds and ends. He spent twenty minutes chatting to the salesman, who apparently knew him quite well, signed a couple of forms, and shook hands. The young man helped him carry a couple of boxes full of syringes, dental moulding material, and quite a few other things out to the car, where Hermione held the boot lid open while they put everything away. When it was packed, the man wished them a good day and went back inside his business.
Hermione and her father got into the car, and he started it. "That's the business done. Now for the fun part," he stated with a smile, making her look pleased. "Bookshop ho, I think."
"That sounds lovely, Daddy. I hope there's some new books out. I've finished that last series, which was very good."
"I'd like to read it if you don't mind."
"Of course you can." He drove out of the estate and got back onto the A1 and soon they were making their way towards the heart of London. As it was fairly early on Saturday the traffic was still light, but light traffic in London was a matter of opinion and as a result they weren't moving all that fast. She occupied herself by looking for other anomalies, spotting several more of the tools over the course of the journey.
When they'd gone about five miles or so down the A10, and the Charing Cross Anomaly was becoming quite apparent, Hermione suddenly looked up from her notebook, having detected something else off to the east. It felt similar to the Charing Cross SEP, but it was considerably smaller, and quite a bit closer. She could also, when she focused on it, now she knew it was there, detect a surprisingly large number of the pseudoHOP tools very close to, or in fact inside, the boundaries of whatever it was.
Thinking hard, she brought to mind her memorized map of London, and mentally triangulated on the location of this new oddity, taking several readings as they proceeded slowly along the road. After about ten minutes, she was fairly sure that whatever is was, it was just over three miles away now, somewhere in Canning Town or very close to there. "Daddy?" she said, causing him to glance over his shoulder. "Can we take a small detour? Please?"
"What have you found this time?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, looking back again, before returning his attention to the road.
"I have no idea, but there are a lot of those people there, and it's trying to hide too. Not as hard as Charing Cross is, but it feels smaller, so perhaps they couldn't make it work as well. It's that way." She pointed to the right. "About two and a half miles away now."
"Can you get us there?"
She nodded. "Yes, if we turn right onto Commercial Street at the next junction, we'll be going in the right direction."
He thought, looked at the time, shrugged, and nodded. "All right. But if we want to have a good look around the bookshop, we can't too much time. This won't take hours, I hope?"
"I'm not sure but probably not," she replied, smiling. "Thank you."
"My pleasure, dear. Right here?"
"Yes." He indicated as they reached the box junction, waited for it to become clear, and turned. She relayed instructions as they drove, guiding him towards the thing she could sense with only two minor issues, once when they found a set of roadworks and had to backtrack, and another time when a road was closed due to a huge lorry delivering something. Both times she managed to get them back on track quite rapidly. After about fifteen minutes she pointed. "It's down that road, about a hundred yards away."
"I can feel it too now," he said, frowning. "I wonder what on earth that is?"
"I don't know either. Let's see if we can find out."
"Discreetly, I suggest," her father commented as he turned down the street she'd picked out. "We still don't know who these people are, after all."
"I'm not planning on bursting in and demanding answers, you realize," she giggled. "I just want to have a quick look to see if I can work it out from the car. I'm curious."
"I have to admit I am as well." They drove slowly down the road, Hermione leaning forward between the seats at the limit of her belt, until they rounded a curve and she pointed.
"There. It's coming from that."
"The abandoned store?"
"Yes." He nodded, driving past the place, which looked like it had been empty for decades. A sign in the window claimed it was being refurbished but by all appearances that might have been there for thirty years. There was certainly enough dust on the single mannequin in the window for that length of time. As they passed, Hermione studied it with her eyes and her energy sense. The former said it was an empty store, the latter said it had one of those bizarre SEPs around it trying to convince people it really was an empty store, which told her it was anything but. Aside from that, she could also sense at least a couple of hundred of the tools inside, some stationary and the rest moving around. As she watched, one vanished and two more appeared, one of those clearly via the same teleportation operation she'd seen before, and one through a different mechanism which looked even less safe.
"How peculiar," she commented under her breath, turning her head to inspect the building. Her father drove another thirty yards, then went down a small side road which had some free parking spaces. He parked the car just inside the end, so they could look back and across the street to the building.
"I can tell there are quite a few of those tool things in there," he commented as he took his seatbelt off and turned around, Hermione having done the same thing.
"I'm counting," she muttered. "One hundred and ninety, ninety one, ninety two… no, that one just teleported as well… ninety two…" Arriving at a reasonably accurate count, she finally announced, "Two hundred and thirteen of them. Two hundred and twelve now. And lots and lots of other sort of HOPs as well, most of them ones I haven't seen before."
She could feel several of the tools were in use and quickly pulled out a notebook, frantically scribbling down the details of what she was sensing. It took her nearly half an hour before she put the pen down, flexing her aching hand. "They keep coming and going too quickly, but I got a lot of the ones that are mostly static, and I think I've managed to make notes on the majority of the operations they're using the most. Whoever they are and whatever it is they're doing." Flipping through the substantial number of notes she'd taken, she examined the results, shaking her head a little. She had almost no idea what the bulk of it did, aside from being consistent with all the other things she'd seen the tool-users do. Which meant it was certain that the tools were indeed somehow programmable and general purpose, and that the inefficiency and energy wastage seemed to be a theme.
It was also the largest collection of the tool users she'd so far seen, far outweighing all the rest of them she'd so far found put together. And, rather interestingly, four of them were ones she'd seen before. She could even put a face to two of them, that being the pink haired girl and sandy haired man from the last trip to London.
What it meant, she didn't know yet, but it suggested that there were more of these people than she'd realized, but not a vast number if the same ones kept popping up like that.
"Have you seen enough?" her father asked.
She nodded, still reading her notes. He started the car. "Yes, I think so. I can't learn any more right now, I'll have to think about all this for a while. It's very interesting. I can almost make sense of…" The girl's voice faded away as she pondered the commonality of everything she'd learned so far and tried to deduce what tied everything together into a coherent whole, aside from an apparently flagrant disregard for minimum resource use.
By the time she came out of her near-trancelike musing, they had driven back into central London and were nearing their last destination.
"Back with me?" her father asked with amusement in his voice. "You were certainly thinking hard. I asked you a question half a dozen times and you didn't seem to hear."
"Sorry, Daddy, I was trying to work out what all this is about," she said, embarrassed. He laughed a little.
"Don't worry, I found my way back without my little ambulatory map to guide me." He glanced at the clock in the dash as she smiled. "We'll be there in about ten minutes, assuming traffic stays like this, and we'll have around four hours before we have to leave if we want to beat the rush hour. Which I do, of course."
"That should be ample," she replied.
He eyed her in the mirror. "You actually believe that four hours in a good bookshop is enough?"
"Well…"
Both of them grinned at each other.
"It'll have to do for now," he added, turning down the street that led to a multistory car park. Minutes later they were walking into the best bookshop Hermione knew, which put her in a very good mood.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"This is starting to look very good, Jerry," Christine commented as she walked over to him and looked around, nodding approvingly. He turned and smiled happily.
"Isn't it just? We've got most of the labs set up, the EM proof room is nearly finished, Farouk has installed almost all the instrumentation, everything from the old lab has been moved over as well… I'd say another three days and we'll be up and running."
"The Grangers are coming down on the twenty sixth, correct?"
"Correct. So we have just over a week to finish everything and calibrate all the instrumentation. Plenty of time. I hope." He shrugged at his friend. "Everyone is working their arses off to get this ready. And Professor Hawking has made time to come here for a day on the twenty seventh. Hopefully he's come up with some other ideas for tests we can try, since we've run out of ideas. We're checking absolutely everything anyone can think of."
"I'll be interested to see what he's managed to do so far."
"His last message said he had some thoughts about possible mechanisms behind the phenomena, although they were highly speculative at the moment. Which doesn't surprise me in the least considering we're entering entirely new arenas of knowledge."
"Trust me, Jerry, you have no idea just how far from conventionally understood knowledge those people have taken us without even trying," she assured him with a shake of her head. "Like I said, this is going to change everything one way or another. Even if we don't manage to understand it in the near term, just the practical applications of the effects Hermione discovered will make or break entire industries. Especially if they can be reliably replicated in bulk. That display alone…"
"Farouk is over the moon about both her display and her keyboard," he chuckled. "He so very much wants one of his own. Apparently they've corresponded several times and she sent him the final schematics for the electronic parts last week, so he's producing some printed circuit boards for her so she can make several more of the devices. He seems to be enjoying himself."
Both of them moved out of the way as one of the lab techs came past pushing a trolley filled with recording equipment, giving them a nod as he passed. "And how are you handling it?" she queried, looking closely at him.
Jerry sighed a little. "In all honesty… For the first couple of weeks I was in a state of shock. I think we all were. But now… I'm both excited about the ramifications, and slightly terrified of the ramifications. You're right. This is going to change almost everything I can think of in ways I can't even conceive right now, and this team is at the heart of it." He looked at her, then around the room, which was bustling with people moving in and out of the various rooms. "It's a very big and very sudden alteration of circumstances I still haven't quite got to grips with."
"You're not alone in that, I can guarantee it," she chuckled.
"Oh, I know, but most of the others haven't spend their entire careers looking for something they were starting to fear would never consent to being measured properly," he replied with a small smile. "Then it walked in the door and started making pens float around the room."
"You did have the strangest expression I've ever seen on your face at that point," she snickered.
"As, I recall, did you," he riposted, making her nod agreement.
"Ah well. All we can do is keep going and see where it leads us in the end," she said after a little longer. With a glance at her watch, she added, "I have to go, I've got an experiment running, but you're up for beers tonight as usual?"
"I will definitely need a beer or two by the end of the day," Jerry sighed. She laughed, slapped him on the back, and left, while he went to help Peter move a workbench.
While this wasn't what he'd expected from that call from a dentist, and life had become remarkably complicated since then, on the whole he wouldn't change any of it, he thought as he lifted with his legs, not his back.
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So, roughly, in one year when McGonagall shows up at Hermione's house with her Hogwarts letter...
"Welcome to the Magical World!'"
"Oh, is that what you call it? We call it Psionics and I've been studying it for 3 years now with the scientists at Cambridge. We published almost 6 months ago and have received world wide acclaim."
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I can't wait for that meeting.
That will be interesting, and if the author is good at one thing, it's confusing groups of fictional people.
he is good, and even exceptional at more things, but that one he is especially exceptional at.
Okibruez
(Verified Mid-Boss)
- Location
- Dreams
Oh dear. Even knowing the context of it, that phrasing is always a bit ominous.
epiccuttlefish
Epic Cuttlefish
- Location
- Earth. Probably.
It seems to me that a house suddenly not drawing any power from the power grid is something that the power company would notice, and they might report it to the government as a whole, which means the Ministry of Magic might notice...
St. Mungos right?
Charing Cross is platform 9.75, and she's found the Diagon Alley entrance so there's just the ministry left to find.
With the natural interaction of the HoP field between Magic users and the Field itself.
They naturally have Multi Century lifespans people who were alive when Washington Crossed the Delaware river are still kicking around annoying their younger relatives.
As a Relevant example, Minerva McGonagall is over a century in age but if you go by the book description of her appearance.
Is a woman in her early 40's.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
No, it could just use a couple of commas. '...and moving at high speed, as they were doing, down the motorway'. Or even, "and moving at high speed down the motorway, as they were doing,"
No, Platform 9 3/4 is at Kings Cross. Charing Cross Road is where the Leaky Cauldron is, and thus the entrance to Diagon Alley.
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There's a scene in one of the Whatley Academy stories where Fey casts a spell that essentially calls the target's karmic debt due immediately. Not exactly something you could do easily with HOPs, but inflicting someone with immediate and perfectly proportionate consequences for their actions is a lovely image.
Surely this is something that won't be relevant at all in the future.
(As an aside, is this something that could be reasonably inferred as to what it is by age of the house/presumed installation? Or is it going to be some sort of walled off section of the basement that's still connected to the power? Or some other weird situation where it was powering something they had no idea was there.)
Cave_Canem
Giant Transforming Robot
Surely this is something that won't be relevant at all in the future.
(As an aside, is this something that could be reasonably inferred as to what it is by age of the house/presumed installation? Or is it going to be some sort of walled off section of the basement that's still connected to the power? Or some other weird situation where it was powering something they had no idea was there.)
It can depend, but I know our house has one switch that we have no idea what it does.
It's connected up and has a little red neon indicator on it that lights when turned on, but it doesn't seem to *do* anything.
We thought at first it was the immersion heater for the hot water tank, but that switch is in the airing cupboard and unaffected by the first one.
Tldr: Wiring in British houses is Wack, yo.
- Location
- Right behind you *Stabbing Time*
WoW, that's another update again..?
Thank you for it! Hopefully you don't burn yourself out just to give us wonderful Stories.
Thank you for it! Hopefully you don't burn yourself out just to give us wonderful Stories.
TheOmnimercurial
Dragon Bard
- Location
- UK
Hermione constantly being shocked by the wasted energy is kind of surprising, is she not familiar with how built in obsolescence is a thing that has been pervasive since the late 70's and early 80's?
Products designed to fail or wear out is far from optimal engineering after all.
Products designed to fail or wear out is far from optimal engineering after all.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
And the older it is the wacker it is too
I've been there. Many times.
At a former place of employment we discovered one day that one of the circuits in our building ran through a breaker in an adjacent building. Both electric bills were being paid by the same party, so there wasn't any fraud going on, but there was a lot of confusion.
- Location
- Bosnia
I'm on a phone so only a short one.
Mr. Boots, agent of CATS despised the rain, but he was professional enough (despite what some other CATS claimed) to do his job right. It was just his luck to be in the right place to investigate the Grangers, turning his cushy half retirement all Topsy Turvy.
He tried to ignore the rain as he snuck to his targets room. A well practiced pitiful meow easily convinced the subject of his surveillance to open the window and let him in. She even demonstrated several mind techniques right in front of him. This assignment was turning to be both very easy and very hard.
It was easy to get all the information on the new mind powers, the Grangers really had no idea about opsec. But even with all that, none of the CATS managed to replicate any of the skills shown... but he was sure he was close!
And then, they'll show those dogs who's the top cat around! And take over the human government too, but that's the secondary goal, barely a side effect.
He tried to listen on the Grangers from upstairs, but even his well known hearing had problems with it. He could hear some words though..
...know... idiot... Mr. Boots is... running the government...
His blood froze in his veins! They were onto him! And onto the plan!! How? The only good thing is, they don't seem to know he heard them. He would have to pretend everything is fine, and then get back to the CATS HQ as fast as possible! They had to abandon the plan! Scrap it! That was the only way!
But at least he might learn to float one of these days too... if he survives.
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