Rebuilding
{{#ifeq: | | {{#ifeq: Concerned Reader | |
{{#ifeq: Concerned Reader | ||
Author: Concerned Reader
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{{#ifeq: Concerned Reader | |
Author: Concerned Reader |
Author: Concerned Reader
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{{#ifeq: Concerned Reader | | Authors: ' |
Authors: Concerned Reader
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{{#ifeq: Concerned Reader | |
Authors: Concerned Reader |
Author: Concerned Reader
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}} {{#if:| — see also [[:Category:{{{category}}}|other works by this author]]}}
This is very much a work in progress, and I'm not even sure how canon it is to the PAW universe. I'm mainly writing it as a challenge to myself, and to create a character for others to use in better stories.
 | This story is a work in progress. |
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{{#if:Jigsaw green.png|}} | Pig and Whistle story universe |
Out of Joint
The darkness of my dreams slowly fades into an incessant beeping coming from above my head. As consciousness approaches, the beeping consolidates into some old electronica tune pulsing out from my phone's bluetooth speakers. I open my eyes, and am instantly startled at how dark it still is. At 9:30 in the morning, light should be streaming in through the windows.
*THUD*
My attempt to sit up was a great effort, until my head met the underside of my bed. “Uggh,” I mumble to the box springs, “What is this, the third time this year?” Squirming to escape from the claustrophobic clutches of the leg supports, I suddenly feel cloth drape itself across my forehead. Oddly, the edge of the bed is still several inches away. As my morning hindered mind processed this fact, I pulled myself the final distance out from under the bed. I roll over on my back and lie there for a while.
My phone reaches the end of the current song and proceeds to dig into my extensive library, searching for the next track to play. It decides I'm in a somber mood, and queues up Dead Cities by Future Sound of London. It's an old album to be sure, but almost relevant in this day and age. I take the change in song as a signal to get up and start my day. Pulling on the edge of the bed for support, I finally realize what was wrong. The sheets had followed me under the bed.
I bolt upright, and give the bed a once over. There, near the middle of the queen size mattress, is the problem. It looked like the sheets had been sucked partway into a small black hole. Strange. First time that's happened. I thought I could only affect myself. This could be interesting. I reach out toward the center of the swirl of sheets and place my palm on it. Concentrating, I slowly push my hand down on the mattress. First it's only the top layer compressing a bit, but then the surface seems to ripple and my hand slips through. Pushing a little farther into the mattress, it feels like my arm is encased in a thick fluid. Tapioca pudding perhaps. Either way, I'm now about up to my elbow in it.
“Now what?” I mutter. Wait, the sheets are a different density than the rest of the bed. Perhaps I can feel the change. Slowly swirling my arm back and forth, I fail to notice any change in the tactile feel of the mattress. Hold on, this bit feels different. Lets see... I move my arm left a bit. Here's the empty space between springs. I move my arm slightly upwards. This part is a lot denser, it must be metal or wood. Not something I'd want to pull out. To the upper right, now this feels better. I can only hope I've found the right thing, because I'm now up to my shoulder in mattress, which is not exactly comfortable. It doesn't help that my time is running out, as evident by how warm my arm is getting.
Now how do I grab something inside of something else? If I can match frequency or phase or whatever it is I do with it, then maybe I can separate it from the rest of the bed. The first few grasps return very little results, and my arm is approaching the unpleasantly warm threshold. My warning to start pulling out. With one last attempt, I grab at it, finally catching hold of something. “Yes!” I shout, clutching what I hope is the wad of sheets that had sunk into my bed, and slowly start retrieving my arm. It pulls out much the same way a spoon does from jello. The bed seems to stick to it for a bit, before sliding back into a solid shape.
I start to dance a little triumphant jig, which my mother takes as her queue to open my door. “Gwhaaaah!” I exclaim while attempting to cover most of my naked self with the newly recovered sheets. “Don't you knock? I would very much appreciate it!” I shout at her. The door closes with an embarrassed “Sorry!” and flurry of footsteps.
Perhaps some explanations are in order. Possibly even an introduction. My name is Allan Willson. The Willson comes from my family, the Allan part I chose for myself. It was taken from one Alan Turing, the father of most useful programing languages, and indirectly some less useful ones. My personal favorite is an esoteric language called BrainF*ck. BF is Turing Complete, but only has eight recognized commands: “,.[]+-<>”. The simple “Hello world” program looks like this:
++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>.
Which of course makes perfect sense.
As you may have guessed from the escapades with the bed, I'm a TFOR. As you may not have guessed, I'm still human. I've only been altered a bit. I'm not quite sure how it happened, or how to explain it, but I can “phase” through things. My high school educated guess is that the Torch did not interact well with my ADHD, or the ADHD medicine. I contracted Blowtorch Fever when I was about sixteen. At the time, I was taking amphetamines for ADHD. This did two strange things when TFOR set in.
- 1)Due to the amphetamines, my heart rate was about 130 bpm. The Torch decided that this must be my normal baseline, and reset it accordingly. Other factors were set to new defaults as well, leading to a final cure for my ADHD, but now my resting heart rate is 110-130 beats per minute.
- 2)My personal quantum/space/time phase is unlocked. In short, it seems that my molecules can defract around other molecules.
The effort required to make it through is based on the density of the material. Metals are the hardest, and If I spend to much time in one, the constant friction and vibration of my molecules leads to uncomfortable heating. Oh, and possible death, but I haven't tested that last part. It seems to be much like light can behave like a particle or a wave. My molecules do the same, as well as more. I can also make them vibrate, which leads to several interesting features. Creating waves is a favorite of mine, but the energy required to create them constantly is much to great to do anything really cool. There's probably more I could do with what I've got, but I don't have the time, nor the energy to figure them all out. Hence this mornings new discovery. Now I can sleep with clothes on, and not worry about leaving them behind when I decide I need to go through a wall.
With this revelation in mind, I quickly get dressed. On my way to the door, I grab my phone, which has now switched to playing more upbeat songs. As I walk down the hall, the phone detects the speakers in the living room, and auto-connects to them, leaving my room enveloped in silence. Passing into the kitchen, my phone informs the coffee maker of my presence. It proceeds to make me my personal cup of joe. Just the way I like it.
Chapter 2ish
While I grab the now brewed coffee, my mom is at the stove, whisking together what I believe to be pancake batter. A quick survey of the ingredients and boxes on the counter confirm my assumption.
“Do you want nuts in yours?” She asks, as I pull up a chair at the table.
“No thanks, plain is fine.”
“Alright,” she replies, opening the oven to remove the precooked plain pancakes kept warm by the glow of the heating element. The oven door squeaks closed as she turns and places the plate in front of me. After a quick blessing, I start eating, and she turns back to mixing the batter for the next batch. I drown out the light scraping of the whisk on the bowl, and look over the newspaper laying on the table.
I'm just about through eating when I hear a sudden “Oh” from behind me. I lower the paper and turn around. “Don't forget to take your medicine!”
“I won't” I say, grabbing the bottle of pills off of the counter. With a rattle, I set them next to my drink.
The onset of TFORs may have cured my ADHD, but it also introduced several new problems. If I don't take beta blockers, my heart rate will be anywhere from 110 at rest, to 210 when active. This may not have been too bad, but the higher my heart rate, the easier it is for me to accidentally phase through something. Thats what happened last night. I must have forgotten to take my night dosage. A quick glance at my watch informs me that I'm currently running at 115 bpm. The watch starts blinking at 130, vibrates at 150, and if I ever hit 180, its alarm can be heard over almost anything.
My mother knows about the phasing, but I'll keep the recent discovery to myself. She doesn't need to know that it just became easier for me to run away. If I ever felt so inclined. I'd thought about it a few times, what with my dad working all the time as a security guard up at the old Pantex nuclear weapons facility, and my mom temping as a secretary for the V-22 Osprey manufacturing plant; but I could wait until I finish summer school. By then I'd be off to college anyways. University of Texas is looking really good right now, what with Austin being the new tech center of the world, but I may just be slightly biased.
You may have noticed that both my parents work jobs that have ties to the military. It's not because we're excessively patriotic, though we do love our country. On my moms side, it was more of just chance. Working as a temp is like that. You fill a role for a while, then move to the next one. She'd held this job for a little more than a year. I think she may ask them to make it permanent. My dad would much rather be preaching than guarding, but the circumstances of the situation forced his hand. The facility needed more guards, and he happened to have the experience they were looking for. The church he was looking to become a part of had a slight anti-teefer bias, which he took as a sign that God didn't think that was the place for him. Pantex contacted him slightly before the church gig fell through. After some thought, he agreed to the Pantex contract for the same reason he denied the church. It seemed God wanted him there. At least the Republic is very defensive oriented. I rather doubt that he'll see more action than turning away lost hikers.
Come to think of it, I didn't hear him come home last night.
“Hey, Mom. Did Dad come home from work last night?” At the sound of my voice, my mom stops mixing the batter, and sets it aside.
“Unfortunately not. The base got word of a possible flyover sometime today. They should have clearance, but the Pantex facility is still a no fly zone. All security has been stepped up, so he'll be working most of the day. I've got to head in to work as well, so make sure you keep the house clean after I leave.”
“I will. After I get back from Calculus I'll mow the lawn as well. It's looking pretty bad out front.”
“Thanks. You're always so helpful around the house. We may need to start paying you the maid's fee.” She says with a smile.
“Sounds good to me,” I reply with a chuckle. “I've got to go. See you later tonight.”
“Don't forget the...”
“I know!” I blurt out, turning around to grab a pill out of the container. I swallow it with a quick sip of water, scoot in my chair, and then head for the main hallway. While walking through, I pull out my phone, and give it a shake to turn off the music. That accomplished, I re-seat it in my pocket and grab my bag on the way out. I open the door, hesitate a moment, then turn and say, “See ya.” As I turn back and walk out the door, kicking it closed behind me, I pull out the keys to my ancient 97 Toyota Previa.
I'd found it in a junk yard in mostly working condition. It's odd looks, coupled with the custom stereo, subwoofers, and gauges in the dash that someone had installed before the collapse made me immediately fall in love with it. The only problem was that at around sixteen mpg, it was hardly street legal. After some research, I'd found out that it was a front mid-engine, rear wheel drive, and supercharged minivan. This only increased my interest in it. After about a year of learning all the internals of the car, I successfully converted it to a hydrogen/gasoline hybrid. The hydride tanks were installed in the back, filling in the space not inhabited by the subwoofer boxes, and the main ECU had been replaced with one that supported the new fuel source, as well as the Wide Area Network.
I unlocked the car door using the physical key, as the car had no keyless entry, and started it up. My phone synced up to the stereo through the older bluetooth protocols that the ancient head unit supported, and queued up my driving playlist. Drum and bass filled the air, followed by the slight whistle of the supercharger spinning up. I backed out of the drive way, checked my mirrors, and was on my way to Amarillo College to brush up on my calculus skills.
Chapter 3: Higher Education
I'm attending summer school because not all of my credits carried over when we moved to this town just above Amarillo. I've got Calculus on Monday and Wednesday, and Government on Tuesdays. It's a bit of a pain that they didn't transfer, but I'm just glad they recognized my graduation from high school. Repeating senior year is not my idea of fun, but then again, school does introduce you to people. At the moment, my total friend count consists of people in my classes, and some kid down the block. None of them can be called close friends. I haven't had close friends since we moved from California.
California. Now there's a place I don't miss. The weather's perfect, you're about three hours from the beach, snowy mountains, or an amusement park, and being different is severely looked down on. I was different. Not just because of my teeferdom. No, I was different much before that. I was a Christian from some weird place called Texas. We had originally moved to California so that my dad could study at a seminary. I don't recall the name, it didn't apply to me. What concerned me was trying to fit in. Sure I had friends, but only two of them were good friends. The rest were just there. Background noise to my life.
Back then, I wasn't very strong. I would cry a lot. Sometimes around others, usually because of others. I had been called almost every derogatory and demeaning name available. During my junior year, of the few friends that I had, two of them turned on me. This left me with the two people who were on my side, against an evergrowing number that were against me.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always scar me.
I always enjoyed it when it was raining. With the fresh smell in the air, I'd sit alone and look to the sky. It seemed to all the world that God was crying with me.
Senior year wasn't as hard as I had thought it would be. With two offcampus periods, I had time to work a retail job. It was boring, but it brought home some cash. Physics B turned out to be easier than pre-Ap physics, and Computer Science was quickly becoming my favorite class. For once I could tell something what to do, and it would do it. Minus the occasional “NULL_POINTER” error. Things were looking up. Almost everyone has grown up by senior year, or at least grown apathetic enough to not care anymore. As graduation approached with growing speed, I was happy those four years were almost over. I had been through a lot.
It was my sophomore year that I caught the torch. That was in 2018. The medicine in the NAR had more or less caught up to Blowtorch Fever. So it was in the capable hands of the hospital that I survived my encounter. After it had run its course of about five days, I was back in school. The heightened heart rate gave them pause, but they released me anyways, figuring it was temporary. I noticed that I didn't need my ADHD medicine anymore, and stopped taking it. I didn't notice anything wrong until graduation.
As it turns out, the mixture of an energy drink, for the graduation party, and the excitement of graduating was enough to trigger my first phase shift. I must have been running at around 200 bpm, but I hadn't checked. Either way, as I walked to collect my diploma, on stage in front of everybody and their parents, I started to slowly sink into the floor. It wasn't a quick drop through the floor. No, it was a slow decent, like sinking in mud. I had taken three steps before I noticed anything. I finally looked down at the odd resistance pulling at my feet, and saw that they were a good half foot under the surface of the stage. My shoes and socks were laying several feet behind me. This revelation only raised my heart rate higher, which did nothing to quicken my decent. After passing through the wooden layer of the stage, my feet hit the metal frame. This slowed my decent considerably. By now I was trying to pull myself out of the floor with frantic motions. I lost my balance and fell face first. I braced for an impact, but it felt more like falling into a pool. Hard, but then forgiving. Either because of the impact, or because of the shock of falling through a solid floor, I soon lost consciousness. The last thing I heard was the combined reaction of everybody around me. It sounded something like, “Oh Shit!”
The following is what I heard later from my parents and the paramedics.
I learned that upon falling over, I had phased out of my clothes as well. Thankfully I was both unconscious and on my stomach by the time this happened. My decent continued, until I fell through the other side of the stage, and dropped five feet into the under-stage storage. My heart rate had fallen a bit due to the unconscious state of my mind, so I didn't start passing farther through. At the first sign of my fall, someone had called the paramedics. They pulled me out of the under-stage storage, and upon checking my pulse, gave me something to slow it down. They report that at this stage, I was running at about 183 bpm. They took me to the hospital, where I was finally diagnosed with Transformative Failure of Ontogenetic Regulation, and released three days later with a prescription for the beta blockers to control my pulse. I was pretty much out of it the whole time, waking up every few hours, only to fall asleep again. I finally awoke in my own bed, and knew something was wrong. Thankfully my parents were there to explain everything to me.
I was more of a freak than I was before. Only now I could walk through walls. Albeit at the time, only without clothes. Rather than have to live with the fame and misfortune associated with teefers, we moved back to Texas. Which brings me here on this farm road, driving fifteen miles into Amarillo to retake my classes that never transferred.
I signal a lane change, and take the exit to the Amarillo College campus. This was going to be a long day.
More to come, or something. I'll need to figure out a plot/conflict, though a man vs self might work just as well.