Tales of the First

"Speaking of costumes I think you should consider some sort of temporary costume if you are going to do this," Martin said.

"This?" Sienna asked. "You mean helping Ryan?"

Martin shook his head. "No, at least not just him. I know you, Sienna. Now the idea has been put in your head you'll decide to go looking for others even if you haven't thought of it yet."

Sienna hadn't. She'd been too focused on how to help Ryan but the moment Martin said it she knew he was right. She would have thought of the idea soon enough.

"Oh," she said. "You're probably right, but why a temporary costume."

"Something you can use to quickly conceal your identity if you come up against those men in the course of your search."

Sienna shuddered at the thought of such an encounter but it was a fair point. She swallowed back her fear and went and looked though her drawers before pulling out a black polo neck jumper and a pair of legging. "I-I'll need some sort of mask and some gloves."

"I have some gloves," Charlotte said. "I'll lend them to you tomorrow. The mask might be a bit more challenging. I suppose you could wear a balaclava."

"I'm not trying to look like a thug or a terrorist," Sienna said dryly.

"What about a halloween mask," Wendy said. "Do you still have that ghostly white one you wore last year?"

"That... that would work. And I think I do." She opened the bottom drawer of her chest of drawers and pulled out the white mask. It was a full head latex type with long white hair. "Not ideal, but it will do the job. I'll stick it all in a bag I can carry around though changing quickly might be a task."

"Thank you," Charlotte flopped back on the bed. "I still can't get used to this. How can people do what Ryan and Sienna can?"

"I don't know," Martin said. "But I'm pretty sure it's not because they are aliens."

"Hmm?" Charlotte gave him a curious look.

"Those guys with guns apparently think people like us are alien invaders," Sienna said. "That's why they are on this rampage."

"Oh!" Charlotte chewed her lip. "That's... Ryan's not an alien. Mum was there when he was born."

"I didn't think he was," Martin said. "But they do."

"I know," Charlotte said. "I hope it's not too late." She sat in silence for a few moments before looking at Lucy. "Could I see the designs for Sienna's costume please?"

Lucy laughed and pulled her designs out. "Initially I was going to try something like this." She showed Charlotte the original sketch that she had done. "But I decided that wasn't really as good as looked in the drawing when I mocked up the pattern so I decided to go with something that at least nods to fictional superheroes without making her look like an acrobat." She passed Charlotte another, better done sketch of a tailored but not skintight jumpsuit in the same black and indogo of the original design. It also had a short cape attached at the shoulders. Sienna had worried when Lucy first showed her that but apparently the cape would be attached with snap fasteners so it would come off if pulled, and she had to admit it looked cool in the drawing.

"I like the second design better," Sienna agreed. "The first looked a bit like a Star Trek uniform."

Martin arrived within half-an-hour of Wendy calling him even though she'd been very cryptic over the phone. He sat on the corner of Sienna's bed and watched Charlotte's video a couple of times. Then he sat there and frowned, chewing his lip.

"You say he can hear everyone's thoughts all the time?" he said.

Charlotte nodded. "That's what he says anyway and he could certainly hear our thoughts. He reacted quite badly when Dad wondered if the voices he was hearing were real or schizophrenia. Can you help him?"

"Possibly," he said. "If I can remember what mum told me she used to do do stop herself feeling everyone in a room. I know she used to meditate but I think she did something else as well."

"I don't think he could meditate in his current state," Charlotte said. "He can barely focus and it's getting worse."

Martin flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "He needs to be somewhere with less people. He's an introvert from what I remember so if I had to guess this is overstimulating him."

"I think hearing everyone at once would overstimulate an extravert as well," Sienna said dryly.

Martin nodded solemnly. "Yes, but likely not as badly." He watched the video again. "Poor kid. Maybe I should delay getting the dongles and have you bring him over tomorrow instead of waiting."

"I can get the dongles," Wendy said. "You try and help Ryan."

"Thanks, Wendy," he said, before squeezing Charlotte's hands. "I'm not going to swear everything will be okay when I don't know for sure but I do promise to try."

"Hey, girls!" Margaret popped her head around the doot and smiled at them. "Just wanted to check who's staying tonight."

"Not me," Wendy said. "I'll stay for dinner if that's alright but then Martin's coming to walk me home. We're still trying to stop mum letting Keith back in. He's constantly coming around and begging and she's wavering."

"Would you like me to talk to Helen?" Margaret asked. "And why don't you invite Martin to join us for dinner? I'm sure Sienna would like that."

Sienna groaned at her mother's cackhanded attempts at matchmaking then stared at Wendy as she nodded.

"That's a good idea," she said. "I'll call him and see if he's free."

"Okay," Margaret said. "Tell him I'm going to aim to have dinner ready for seven. I'm going to be doing some weeding first. Do you need anything first?"

Sienna shook her head. "No thanks, mum. Where's dad?"

"In the lounge watching the news," she said. "They still haven't caught those men and its been weeks."

"At least no one has been murdered this week," Wendy said. "Have they?"

"No," Margaret said. "Thank goodness. See you later."

After she'd gone Sienna turned and threw a pillow at Wendy. "Why did you say yes! She's trying to set me up with him you know?"

Wendy laughed. "I know, and your not interested, but it's a good idea for him to be here. That way he can talk to Charlotte instead of me acting as a go between. Less chance for confusion."

"You think a little something like not having powers would stop Wendy?" Sienna asked.

Charlotte turned and looked at Wendy curiously. "What did you do? I mean you've obviously done something to make Lu and Sienna laugh like that."

Wendy smirked. "I've been working on a suit of power armor," she said. "It's nearly done. You'll see it when you bring Ryan over."

"It's made from junk and pretty damn neat," Lucy said. "Though it needs painting. We're working together to design a jumpsuit to go underneath it that will have monitoring stuff built in."

"Power armor?" Charlotte shook her head in disbelief. "From junk? And it actually works?"

"She says it does," Sienna said. "But I haven't actually seen her using it yet."

"I'll show you next time," Wendy said. "Martin has finally got the last software glitch ironed out and I've tweaked the things I needed to, so we're ready to do some more testing." Her lips twitched. "I can't wait to show you my deadlift."

"If it's got electrics then I'm not sure using it around Ryan is a good idea at the moment," Charlotte said. "But building a power suit... only you could think this is a good idea, Wendy."

"Yes, keeping him away from it may be wise," Wendy said. "Except if electrokinetics can mess with it I want to know and it's better to find out now than later."

"Electrokinetic?" Charlotte said. "Yes, I guess that fits what Ryan can do--" She stopped as she heard the front door slam. "Sounds like you parents are back. We'd better shut up now."

Charlotte looked at her feet and nodded. "We are," she said. "I'm still a bit scared, but you're a friend. I have to trust you, and you were only trying to help Lucy when you pushed me."

"Thank you," Sienna said.

"How's your practice going?" she asked then yelped in surprise as Sienna psychokinetically lifted several stuffed toys from her dresser and sent them into orbit around Charlotte's head. "Woah, that's actually cool!" She seemed to have relaxed now she knew they would try and help Ryan. "And it doesn't get away from you at all?"

"No," Sienna said. "Not even when I witnessed that shooting." She shuddered at the memory.

"I heard about that," Charlotte said. "And I'm sure those guys are still out there. I hope someone stops them."

"I'm sure they are too." Sienna asked. "Has Wendy told you her plans?"

"No," Charlotte said. "But she's been dropping hints, and knowing Wendy's taste in movies I think it involves putting you in a ridiculous outfit and sending you out to be a superhero."

"I'm that transparent?" Wendy asked. "I thought I was being subtle."

"There's nothing ridiculous about the outfit," Lucy said simultaneously. "I don't design ridiculous things."

Charlotte snorted. "I might have known she'd rope you into it too. It's a good job she's not the one with powers or she'd already be on the streets trying to stop those men. But seriously, Sienna, I'm not sure you should be going--" She broke off as Lucy and Sienna began laughing. "What?"

"I'm not sure where we would even start with that," Sienna said. "I hope we can sort it out because constantly hearing everyone's thoughts sounds dreadful."

"It does," Wendy agreed. "Do you think you can coax him out of his room, Charlotte? We could do with getting him to the base to see if we can help."

"Plus it's a bit out of the way so hopefully it'll be quieter there for him," Lucy said.

"I was hoping Sienna would come over and talk to him," Charlotte said. "I thought maybe if she showed him her powers he'd be more willing to talk to her." She frowned. "What base?"

"It's the cellar of an old factory where Martin and Wendy build their robots," Sienna said. "I've been practising there."

"Oh," Charlotte said. "So will you come and talk to Ryan? Try and get him to let you take him there?"

"Sure," Sienna said. "Will your parents be out tomorrow?"

Charlotte nodded. "They both have work. Dad only works mornings so we'll need to go fairly early to avoid him."

"I won't stay the night after all," Wendy said. "I want to talk to Martin about this. He said his mother could sense emotions. She must have had a way to filter them and maybe he can remember something about it. See if you can get Ryan to come to the warehouse the day after tomorrow."

"I hope this works," Sienna said.

"Thank you for trying," Charlotte said. "I'm sorry I was such a berk when all this started."

"Pfft!" Sienna waved that aside. "You were scared. I don't blame you. Are we good now?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Wendy said. "Though I'm not sure how we'd test it. For now let's deal with the immediate problems. We need to figure out how to help Ryan gain control and how to stop those men finding him. Was he exposed to the mist as well?"

Charlotte nodded. "He was at the park with some friends and went all wonky and started screaming about the noise. They got him home to Aunt Louise and Uncle Terrence but a couple of hours later this stuff with the electrics started." There was a deadly flatness in Charlotte's tone when she mentioned her aunt and uncle and Sienna had never known her call them anything but 'Aunty Lou' and 'Uncle Terry' before.

"Louise and Terrance?" she asked. “Sounds like you aren't happy with them?”

Charlotte's face tightened. "They freaked. Worse than I did about you. They dumped Ryan on the streets and skipped town with their other two kids. Aunt Louise called Ryan a freak to his face and said that she hoped those men shot him. It's lucky he wasn't quite as strung out then and had the presence of mind to come to Mum and Dad."

Sienna opened her mouth then closed it again. There really wasn't anything much you could say to that.

"Well," Wendy said awkwardly after a few moments. "We need to talk to Ryan first. Hopefully if we can help him figure out how to block out the noise he'll be able to learn to control the rest of it. I'm sure it's that that's making him so volatile."

"Okay." Wendy pulled her phone out. "We'll try. Can you bluetooth me that video, please?"

Charlotte hesitated visibly. "You won't put it on Youtube will you? I don't want those men with guns finding him."

"Of course not!" Wendy said. "How can you think that! I want to show it to Martin later. He's been helping Sienna get a handle on her powers and might have some thoughts."

"Oh, yes!" Charlotte looked over at Sienna as she held her phone up to Wendy's to transfer the video. "Can you help him get control? Wendy says you're doing very well."

"I'll try," Sienna said. "But I was never that out of control?" She chewed on her lip. "If he's receiving a bunch of telepathic noise could that be why?"

"It's a reasonable hypothesis anyway," Wendy said. "He never had a temper like that before, and he's just a kid. How old is he anyway?"

"Fifteen," Charlotte said. "Though he's so short he looks about twelve, and no, he's always been the quiet and practical one."

"Can he project thoughts as well as hear them?" Lucy asked.

Charlotte shook her head. "Not as far as I can tell, but he can hear what everyone is thinking - which is creepy - and he's constantly complaining that his head hurts."

"And he can't stop," Sienna said. "I'm really glad that Martin is wrong about me being a receiving telepath." She frowned thoughtfully. "My head was hurting just before I threw that guy. It stopped as soon as I did. I wonder if there's a connection?"

A couple of hours later Sienna was sat on Sienna's bed holding her knees and not saying anything. Sienna and the others were waiting patiently for her to be ready to talk but she was just staring in to space.

"I'm glad I have a large bedroom," Sienna said dryly. "Because it would suck to try and host an impromptu slumber party if I didn't."

Wendy just snorted and sat down on the bed next to Charlotte. "Come on, Charlotte," she said. "You said you needed help but you need to tell us what's going on if we're to do that."

"I-I-" Charlotte fumbled in her bag for her telephone, thumbed through her videos and put one to play. "Watch this."

The girls crowded around her and watched the small screen. It showed her cousin Ryan, who was indeed the short, brown haired one though in the video he was anything but quiet. He was seated at the dining table at Charlotte's house and Charlotte's mother was trying to get him to eat. The sound was poor but they could make out him swearing loudly at her before tossing the plate across the room. As it hit the wall the light bulb above his head shatterred and electrical sparks flew from from every socket in the room forcing Charlotte - who was appaently the one filming - and her mother to retreat to the kitchen.

A moment later broke down sobbing before fleeing up the stairs.

"He's flying off the handle at a drop of a bat and that sort of thing happens whenever he does." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "And he can hear what everyone is thinking as well. He's refusing to eat say he can't stand the noise and wants to die. Please help."

“Sienna!” Charlotte sounded somewhere between stress and panic. “You have to help me, please! I don't know who else to ask.”

“Breathe, Char,” Sienna said soothingly. “What's wrong.”

“It's Ryan… my cousin. He's like you. Well not exactly like you… Oh! I don't now how to explain this.”

“Char, you're not making much sense but this doesn't sound like something we should talk about on the phone,” Sienna said. “Can you come over to my place this evening or would you prefer to meet somewhere more neutral.”

“N-no, we shouldn't talk on the phone, should we?” Charlotte sounded like she had finally remembered to breathe but was still on the verge of tears. “Can I stay over? I'm too scared to be at home right now.”

Sienna stared at her phone. Obviously whatever was going on with Charlotte's cousin scared her more than Sienna did at the moment. “I'm sure mum and dad won't mind,” Sienna said. “Lu's already staying over. I'll call them to check and then call you back.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said. “I'll see you later.” She hung up.

“Charlotte wants to come over and visit you?” Wendy said. “That's quite the turn around. She was still terrified of you last time we spoke.”

“I think she still is,” Sienna said. “But it seems something else is scaring her more.” She told them what Charlotte had said before adding, “she sounded panicked.”

“Ryan? Is that the ginger one?” Lucy asked. Charlotte had a lot of cousins.

“I don't think so,” Sienna said. “I think Ryan has brown hair.”

“He does,” Wendy said. “He's the short, quiet one. I wonder what she meant by 'like you'? Do you suppose he has powers too?”

"Seems quite likely," Sienna said. "I guess we'll find out this evening."

"You did," Martin said. "So now let's see what the maximum you can lift and hold today is."

"Okay!" Sienna said.

Martin weighed another twenty-five grams of nuts and bolts and added them to the pile. "Try that."

Sienna concentrated for a moment and lifted them easily. They continued in the vein and she topped out at just over her two kilogram target. She grinned in delight when he announced that she has lifted two thousand and twenty-five grams.

"I told you I could do it today!" she said.

"You did," he agreed. "Do you think you could go higher?"

Sienna considered the question and checked her watch. "I think I could," she said. "But we're out of time. I need to get home. When shall we meet again?"

"I should be able to do your first fitting in a few days," Lucy said. "And it won't be long after that that I'll have the costume ready."

"I want to get at least two more training sessions in before then," Martin said. "I'd prefer to do them daily but I need to go into town tomorrow to buy dongles, so shall we say the day after and you promise to practice if you can do it safely." He looked over at Wendy. "And we need to do some suit checks before declaring it street ready. Shall we walk Sienna and Lucy home before coming back to do those."

"Of course I'll practice," Sienna said. "Shall we go?"

As they headed up the stairs towards daylight Sienna's phone started ringing. She looked at it and blinked in surprise. "Huh, it's Charlotte." She hesitated a moment before answering. "Hi, Char!"

"And you'd know that how?" Sienna asked mildly but she took the advice and tried to relax.

"Logic," Lucy said. "Tensing up rarely helps. When I was first learning to sew I would get all stressed and tense thinking I couldn't do it. Then the thread would get all tanlgled and everything would ruck up and I'd ruin what I was working on. Not good. Once I learned to relax and do everything smoothly it all worked.

"It does make sense," Martin said. "I can see your shoulders drawing in whenever you try this."

"I suppose it does." Sienna took few more cleansing breaths. "Okay, let's try this again." She lifted up the metal bits and began psychokinetically arranging them into a flower again. Except this time whenever she began to feel she was losing control she would stop and breathe until the stressed certainty she was about to drop them faded before continuing. It took longer but she was definitely getting further.

"Looking good," Martin said. "Halfway there."

Sienna paused and took another breath. "It's slow this way, but it is easier. Why is fine control harder?"  She went back to her task.

"I'm not sure," Martin said.

"It could be because it's more mentally sapping," Wendy said. "And since this is a task you're already using your already using your brain for it makes it harder."

"Makes sense," Sienna said as she put the last few bolts in the petals down and then placed the rest in the middle to make the centre of the daisy. "I did it!"

"Okay." Sienna concentrate and imagined scooping them up and holding them at eye level. It was only a few second before the bits of metal lifted off the floor and hover in front of her.

"Good!" Martin said. "Now lets see how your fine control is coming on. Float them over to table and put them down one at a time in the shape of a flower."

Sienna chewed on he lip in concentration. This was the difficult bit. She moved them over to the table with no trouble but she had only shaped a couple of petals on her flower before the rest slipped from her grip and clattered to the table. She gave a heavy sigh. "I hate this game!" she muttered.

"Don't look so disheartened," Martin said.

"I am disheartened," she said. "I can't seem to do this."

"You're getting better," he said reassuringly. "When you first tried this you could barely get to half a petal before dropping the rest."

Which was true in so far as it went but it was still the hardest of the exercises Martin had come up with for her.

Lucy walked over and looked at the half-created flower. "Try again," she suggested. "Repition is the key to success."

"I know," Sienna said. "It's just hard." She gathered up the nuts and bolts and started dropping them into the flower pattern.

"Breathe," Lucy suggested. "You're holding your breathe and you are so tense. I bet this would work better when you are relaxed."

Sienna checked her watch as she considered the question.

"Let's leave it," she said. "We've really only got time to see how my general strength and range are coming along before I have to go home, and I really want to see if it's improved again."

"That's fair," Martin said. "Well it's fairly safe to say that your pull and push strength is okay. Since you were pulling and pushing the nerf gun against Wendy's resistance, but it's not quite as heavy as you were dragging yesterday so we'll do a measured run in a bit and start with lifting. Let me fetch the stuff." He an into the other room and returned with two large bags of nuts and bolts and a set of scales. "Remind me how much you lifted yesterday?"

Sienna rolled her eyes at that. Martin knew exactly how much she had lifted yesterday. He'd been keeping notes and graphing her improvement to encourage her. "It was just over a kilo and a half," she said.

"It was fifteen hundred and twenty-five grams exactly," he said. "So let's aim to get over sixteen hundred grams today."

"Is that all?" Sienna said. "I'd like to try and reach two kilos today."

"Ambition is good," he replied. "But be careful. We don't know your limits yet and we don't want to overstress you."

"I'll be careful," Sienna promised.

"Good." Martin opened one of the negs of nuts and bolts and poured them on to the scale until the dispay read sixteen hundred grams. He dumped them on the floor in front of her. "Try lifting them for a start."

“I know it will,” Martin said. “But I'm sure you will manage it. I have faith in you.”

“Wouldn't it be better for her to put the safety on rather than try and hold the trigger against someone trying to use it?” Lucy asked from where she was perched on the exercise bike.

“Possibly,” Martin said. “But all guns are different and she'd need to know where the safety was on the gun she was facing. I'm looking into it but teaching her that would be difficult.”

“Well the guys we're most worried about are carrying AK-47s,” Lucy said.

Martin stared at her. “Are you sure?”

Lucy just shrugged. “Pretty much. That's the consensus anyway. Don't you read Youtube comments?”

“Not if I can help it,” Martin said. “Youtube comments are a wretched hive of scum and villany.”

Lucy chuckled at that. “Yes, but sometimes you find a really good ship there, or at least pertinent information.”

“So you think the comments are correct?” Wendy asked.

“Wikipedia says it's the most popular assault rifle and it looks right.”

“You googled it?” Martin asked sharply.

“Chill, Martin,” Lucy said. “I reckon half the town probably did, so it won't have attracted attention. But no, I didn't. My mum did. She can be a bit morbid sometimes and said that she wanted to know what might kill us.”

Sienna shuddered slightly at that. “So if it is an AK-47 can you get the schematics?”

Once we're back online, yes,” Martin said. “Now do you want to attempt stopping Wendy from pulling the trigger? Or shall we leave that until tomorrow?”

"Cricket balls!" Lucy said suddenly.

"Hmm?" Martin looked over at her with a puzzled frown. “Cricket balls?”

"We should upgrade to using cricket balls, both for her normal shield and this new thing. They'll hit with more force but still won't do too much damage if the shield fails. If she can stop those we can move on to even more forceful attack in gradual increments."

"That's a good idea," Martin said. "But we'll still need to be careful and avoid lethal force because if it turns out the shield gives all at once rather than stopping most of the force of an attack that could be fatal."

"The principal is good though," Wendy said. "We'll get some cricket balls before the next session." She hefted the Nerf gun. "For now lets move on with the next part of this session."

Trying to stop Wendy firing the Nerf gun at her was more fun than Sienna had anticipated, and by the time Wendy ran out of ammunition she had managed to knock the gun muzzle away from her on most occasions and even pull the gun from Wendy's hands a couple of times before the ammunition ran out.

"That went well," she said before realising that Martin was shaking his head. "What?"

"You need to actually stop her firing," he said. "If you knock a gun aside or grab it there's too much chance of it going off and hitting someone else. The whole idea is to stop the bullets flying around. You need to try and hold the trigger against her so she can't fire."

"I see." Sienna tutted at the ceiling. "That will be harder, but I'll try."

"You want me to hit you?" Martin tilted his head at her. "I do Mixed Martial Arts you know. Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Sienna said. "It's the only way I can think of to test it. Just be careful with the force. I'd rather neither of us be hurt."

"I will be." He punched her arm. Sienna wasn't much of a judge but it certainly didn't look like a strong punch, more like a friendly punch someone might aim at a friend's shoulder. However hard it was she felt nothing.

"Ow!" Martin rubbed at his hand. "That was like hitting a rock. I'm glad I didn't hit you any harder." He eyed her speculatively. "I think this is a manifestation of your psychokinesis as well. It's some sort of a shield that is right next to your skin."

"Can I turn it off?" Sienna asked. "This could be really awkward when I need a hair cut or if I ever have to have surgery."

"We'll look into that." Martin looked down at his hand. "But carefully."

"Why didn't the balls bounce." Lucy asked. "I mean they just stopped dead."

"It made my entire arm vibrate when I punched her," Martin said. "I think this shield is somehow reflecting the kinetic energy of whatever hits it back into the object. That's why the balls were damaged."

"I'm glad you didn't hit me harder then." Sienna frowned at the bruise starting to appear on his knuckles. "It could have broken your hand."

"Or worse," he agreed. "We'll figure it out. I just wish we could figure out a way to test the upper ranges of it safely."

Another ten minutes of more controlled tennis ball throwing and they were certain that it wasn't just a fluke. Each ball they tossed at her stopped less than a millimetre from her skin before dropping to the ground. Martin picked up one of the balls. This one was only dented rather then destroyed.

“Interesting,” he said. “It looks like the damage is proportional to the force the object is thrown.”  He frowned for a moment. “But you can still touch things.” He laid the ball on the table top. “Hit it.”

Sienna looked at him for a moment then slammed her hand down on the ball hard.  “Ow!” She rubbed her hand. “What did that prove?”

“That your conscious shield only works against things moving towards you not if you are the one moving.”

“So she can't be stabbed but she can be impaled?” Lucy asked.

“Let's not test that,” Sienna said.

“No, that wouldn't be safe but there are few things I'd like to check before we carry on.” Martin flicked some water at her. It hit her skin with a splat.

“Hey!”

“Well it doesn't appear to stop liquids,” Martin said. “And since you can still hear and breathe it probably doesn't stop gases either. Pardon me.” He reached out and touched Sienna's arm briefly. “It doesn't seem to interfere with touch. This is very curious.”

“Try and hit me,” Sienna said. “Not too hard obviously but a little punch so we can see if it stops that.”

Much to Sienna's delight she managed to stop all the tennis balls before they hit her. It was only the second time that she had managed that. Once Martin called a halt she gathered up the balls with her psychokinesis and floated them to the table next to Wendy before turning back to Martin who was grinning. “That went well--” She broke off as she felt a gentle breeze ruffle her hair when there was no wind in here. A split second later there was a dull thwap as something dropped to the floor.  Sienna turned and looked down to see the deformed remains of a tennis ball lying there. It looked like it had been squashed until it gave. She looked up at Wendy who was staring at it open mouthed. “What just happened?”

“I don't know,” Wendy said. “I wanted to see if I could sneak at least one past you but… well… did it even hit you?”

“I don't think so. It might have touched my hair.” Sienna picked up the remains of the ball and examined them. “Well this is new. It got closer than the ones I stop consciously but I've never stopped one unconsciously before and stopping them doesn't destroy them.”

“I'd guess pelting you with tennis balls every day has extended your ability.” Martin said. “Do you mind if we throw a couple more and you not try to stop them so we can test this?”

“I think we'd better. I want to know what's going on,” Sienna said.