Scene 14 - October 15th

Exterior City, Continuous

Quinn Kaufman

I had to think about it. I had promised Dad that I would be careful, but I would be with Canaveral, who was a hero and could surely keep me safe, right? “I’m still learning my powers,” I reminded him.

“I’m sure I can give you some suggestions,” he promised. “Can you give me a few more details? ESP and TK, you said? What’s the ESP like?”

I nodded. “I can sense the positions of everything in a pretty wide radius around me, and it’s more precise the closer it is to me. I can also spread any of my senses over the same radius, but the senses I’m not spreading get drained to almost nothing.”

The hero scratched his chin. “Alright. Stick to your default mode for now, assuming that doesn’t mess with your other senses.” I shook my head, and he continued. “What about the TK? You said it was only sort of telekinesis? What do you mean by that - can you affect yourself?”

“If only I could not affect myself,” I complained, and quickly explained to him how the TK pulled at me when I used it.

“Interesting,” Canaveral commented. “I certainly understand your choice of name.” He scratched again, deep in thought. “What’s the largest thing you tried to move?”

“A car. Almost knocked me flat on my ass,” I confessed, a little embarrassed by how limited I was.

“Hmm. Come over here, Newton,” he said, and led me to the building he had jumped off of. “Alright, I want you to put your hands on this wall. Now... try pulling the building towards you.”

I saw what he meant immediately, and took a step forward. I pulled, and felt everything shift as the force of my TK quickly outweighed gravity’s hold on me. A moment later, I was standing on the wall, my head now level with Canaveral’s - albeit at a 90 degree angle from him. I grinned at the hero, although I knew he couldn’t see it.

He grinned back, “Clever kid, aren’t you?” he complimented. “That’s what I was leading to, yeah. Most telekinetics can’t affect themselves - some can’t even affect things that would move them - but your version can actually boost your mobility.” He paused briefly, then asked, “are you negating gravity entirely, or...?”

I shook my head. “I still feel it pulling that way, a little,” I told him, gesturing to the ground, “but my TK is strong enough to outweigh it.” I paused, then added, “and I think I instinctively pulled at a slight angle, not head-on, so that’s helping to cancel it out. Definitely not negated though.”

He nodded. “That’ll be useful for you. Come down a moment?”

I stepped off. “Another idea for me?”

“Exactly. This is mobility too - try pushing on the ground, see if you can get a boost to your own jumps.”

“There’s a problem with that,” I pointed out. “Coming down safely. I feel like that would take more practice than launching into the air.”

The hero shrugged. “Just keep another soft push to slow you down when you’re falling. I’ll be right here to catch you if you need.”

I couldn’t argue with that - he was right that training next to a hero was pretty safe.

I was right that landing would take practice, though.