March 26th​

The label scarring on the building still read Menards, I noticed as I got out of Mike's truck. There were a handful of other vehicles in the parking lot, mostly a spill over from the strip mall next door. But a few were parked up near the storefront with his truck.

"Huh. He actually did it then. Leased the entire building for you guys?" Mike shook his head as he got out as well. "I know you were talking about those CT machines, but you could put a dozen of those in the old grocery section and still have most of the store left over. What does Danny plan on doing with all of that space?"

"Training and testing areas. More than just medical scans of people." I said as we walked up to the building. "Danny's interested to find out if the strength increases are percentage based and work the same for everyone. But I'm already up to almost eight-fifty on deadlift, so the school equipment is already getting outclassed."

I boggled at that for a moment. I'd looked up records and that blew away world records for women. And I was a gymnast twig compared to those videos.

"Brent probably has lists of things DARPA wants to see done too." I added.

The sliding glass doors had a sign taped up onto it.

Dantian Seekers

Hours by Appointment Only

(573) 555-7328

However, the doors slid open without issue. Inside all the lights were on, thankfully, so it didn't feel like a horror movie. However, the empty registers and aisles were weird enough.

"Danny?" I yelled, my voice echoing as we walked in.

"We're up here." Danny voiced called from above us and I looked up, seeing what looked like a hallway on a second floor. It might have had a glass wall at one point, but it was empty and open otherwise. "Stairs are off to the right."

Mike noticed it first, motioning to the staircase tucked partially against the wall.

The view over the top of all the aisles was interesting and really showed the area the building had. It was eerie to see the place from a higher vantage, completely quiet and empty though.

One of the offices was actually a conference room where we found Danny and several others.

"Glad you made it." Danny grinned at me. "Welcome to the new offices."

Spread out over a couple of folding tables were several huge sheets of paper with printing and hand drawings already on them.

Ash was sitting at one edge with several pencils nearby while Brent was sitting in a chair, laptop balanced in his lap.

"Thanks." I smiled and looked over those here. "Where's Karen and Melissa?"

"Looking over the back storage area. It's been empty here long enough they're checking to make sure there are no break-ins or homeless." Brent answered.

Mike looked over the tables. "So what's all this then?"

"General fill in the blank for what you guys want this place to be." Ash answered. "The open floorplan when you get rid of all the aisles is almost 150,000 square feet."

Mike and I both looked, interested. "So what's already in here then?"

"The back half is split between a medical area that Brent's playing with the design on his own, and the other side is a gym on steroids, because we've been using the hell out of the school stuff."

Mike looked back out the conference room to overlook the store. "How many people do you expect to be using this gym at once?" He questioned. "Because you're marking out something probably a hundred people could easily use at once."

"Probably not that many." Danny answered. "But I thought we might need more area for additional weights and such. I was also going to leave a section open for more general exercise and practice too."

Mike nodded. "It's more expensive, but they do make smart gear that you can ramp up weight on without adding additional size to it. We've got one at the station, it's a pulley system with tensioners. It goes up to around a thousand pounds."

"Can it go higher?" I asked him. "If each breakthrough just adds more impossible strength, a thousand pounds might not be anyone's max eventually."

"Not ours, but there's probably better ones out there."

"Go ahead and base it on that then." Brent said distractedly while still working on his laptop. "You can afford it."

"We're still going to need a receptionist area." Danny traced out a small spot up front. "I know I made the sign says hours by appointment only, but we're still going to have people coming in."

Ash shrugged and penciled in the tiny cutout. "Anything bigger?"

"A dozen quiet room type areas?" I offered and immediately got weird looks. "Seriously. Breakthrough rooms, meditation rooms, whatever you want to call them. Somewhere you can not ruin your carpet with goop." I waved at the section that had medical written on it. "We borrowed a hospital room in between runs of the CAT scans. Might as well have areas on hand here. And make them comfortable."

"We're not zoned for living areas, just so you know. So, no pretending this is your dorm or a hotel or something." Danny cautioned.

"I'm not expecting to move into one of them." I told him. "I just know if we're going to be tracking and testing people lighting the dantians and making breakthroughs, we need somewhere for people to do it."

"Danny." Brent interrupted. "Did any of the larger screens or even a TV get left behind? Or did you bring one in already, possibly?"

"I don't think so, no. What's up?" Danny looked worried.

"Nicole's paper was published by DARPA two days ago. It was sent out in normal channels and even pushed to a few other sites that we know of that are high usage for people looking into this power." Brent was looking at something on his laptop as he spoke. "Yesterday, there was a massive spike of inquiries to DARPA over her paper. By today, enough people lit their dantian with your method that you've hit the news."

That started a mad scramble of everyone to pull out their own tablet or other internet source. I pulled up a news site of my own to see DARPA research paper unlocks secret of dantian! as the mainline article. God, it sounded a tabloid or Onion headline.

I clicked through with Mike reading over my shoulder. Firen method, Dantian Seekers, block breakthroughs, tested by news members to work. were just a few highlights. God, my name was plastered all over it too.

I looked up to see everyone reading on their own or looking between Brent and me. "Nevermind, are we sure I can't move in and hide here?"

"Still no, but damn." Danny shook his head. "We definitely need to get this place together even quicker now. Alright, anything else we specifically need right now in here?" He looked over to Brent.

Brent shook his head. "Anything to give you more authority or validity isn't something you can get in the next few days. That comes with time and more credentials. DARPA recognizes the Seekers as experts in this field, but that will only suffice for so long until you have more proof on your own." He looked around at the handful of us here. "The only thing I can really think of right now, is if more of you were into multiple breakthroughs. Danny, how far are you along with healing yourself?"

"Probably a day or two. I haven't hit anything big, but I'm still getting little bumps instead of finding that block to clean out." He admitted.

"I think you need to finish that then." Brent nodded. "Nicole, you?"

"I'm at the third one." I could self-assess the extra energy I'd been cycling in my dantian, and it was about as full as it could be. "It's been less than two weeks since I hit it, but I may have the energy to get through."

"You're the one blazing this trail." Brent said. "If you think it's safe there."

"So, what. The rest of us should try to clear the first block already too?" Mike asked. "This is a little crazy that you all made national news, but isn't this a little quick?"

"The research released points to clearing the blocks. The people running the Seekers should have all gone through the minimum they're releasing. Perhaps be on the leading edge of the research and be further." Brent explained.

"It's called bleeding edge. And for a reason." Ash commented.

"Let's not argue. How about we at least try to get this place roughly set up like we're looking at? We use the aisles for walls right now and maybe hit a furniture store for a decent desk to throw up front." I interrupted. "It can't be that hard to shove everything around, right?"

It turned out, that shelving was light enough for anyone to pick up, but due to the bulk and not wanting to destroy it two people were necessary to maneuver it around. It took several hours but we had a rough buildout in aisles of the different areas.

There's a lot of empty space in roughly 40,000 square foot chunks.

~~~

I sat in Mike's truck in the dorm parking lot afterwards, just being quiet for a moment, and looking at the building. And the news van parked nearby.

"You OK to go in?" Mike looked vaguely uneasy at the van as well.

Neither of us could see a news crew, but that only made me worry more that they were already in the common area just waiting on me to show up.

"You're welcome to crash over in my apartment?" Mike offered.

I gave serious thought to that but shook my head. "Hopefully I can at least foist them off on the Seeker hall here, or get them to go downtown. I don't want to just walk in there and get asked a bunch of questions." I sighed, leaned over, and gave Mike a kiss. "Walk me in though?"

He laughed but cut the engine. "I'm sure you could beat up anything I can protect you from, but sure. What's the thing you always see in shows? 'No comment' and just keep moving? How do you think they'll recognize you anyways?"

"Someone on campus will have told them." I answered as I got out of the truck.

Thoughts of paparazzi and shouted questions in my mind, we walked into the dorm as I half expected cameras or something crazy. So when I got a few looks for who came in, and only an older guy getting up from a table and immediately heading towards us, I was surprised. Thankfully in a good way. Of course, most of the rest of the room had apparently been watching him and now were focused on us.

He had thinning brown hair and glasses, but was dressed sharply and carried a small satchel of his own with Fox2 emblazoned on it. "Ms. Nicole Firen?"

I nodded.

"I'm Gary Bisley from Fox2 St. Louis. Do you have time for some questions or an interview?" He asked with an easy tone, offering what looked like an employee badge with Fox2

I looked around. "You know, I was half expecting cameramen and shouted questions and all sorts of stuff."

He rolled his eyes but smiled. "No, this isn't a press conference or Hollywood. I do have a cameraman if you're willing to do an actual interview, but he's actually grabbing an early dinner at the school's dining hall."

I paused and Mike bumped me a little. "We just spent the better part of today basically setting up the Dantian Seeker's new office area. They've got a phone number you can call to speak with their lead." Mike told him.

He nodded to me. "That's fine, I can leave the general overview of the interview questions I was sent with, and I'll contact your boss. Can I get just a few questions answered now though? I promise, no more than three."

"Yeah, I don't promise to have any good answers for you though." I cautioned him. "We're only a little bit ahead of what that paper already has in it."

"That's fine." He pulled a small handheld from his satchel. "I'll get your email here in a moment to send the interview outline to, but questions I can get an answer on first. Alright, first one. According to your paper and the video, you're at three 'breakthroughs.' Do you know or have a projection on how many more there might be afterwards?"

"Honestly, my best guess is five more, just based on the rings left around my dantian. How you go from here to the alien in five more breakthroughs though, I don't know."

He nodded. "Are you aware of any fatalities associated with someone creating a dantian through your method?"

"Wait, what?" I asked. "What do you mean fatalities? People dying? No. We had a group of thirty people create a dantian and while some people are having to fix their dantian before they can get through breakthroughs, no. And I know that was documented."

"Mmhmm. Final question then. Do you think DARPA should have released a barely tested procedure that according to your own work has only been studied for less than two weeks to the populace at large, which is highly dangerous, likely self-harming, and has had zero testing done for side effects?"