S.M.A.R.T. (The Subject of Mind Altering Research and Testing)

Chapter Thirteen

Michael walked into the courtyard and felt a heavy chill creep down his spine. He looked around to figure out what had caused it. It was the ceiling. The glass ceiling was opened up. It had pulled back and he could feel the wind blowing around. The trees were frosted, and the water in the ponds had a thin layer of ice over top of them. Michael was yet again amazed at the amount of work that must have gone into this building. He wondered who built it, and what they were told it was for, or if they were even alive. Whoever they were, what they built was a wonder to look at.

Winter was starting to set in, Michael could tell, though it was always cold there. He longed for a cold drink on a hot day. He was sick of having to warm up all the time. The people behind the glass looked warm in their room of surveillance, and Michael was in his sweater, shivering.

He didn't want to waste any time today, so he went straight over to the desk, where the bottle was waiting for him as usual, and he swallowed the pill. The feeling was becoming so familiar now, that it didn't seem to rise in him the same way. He was in control of the feeling now, instead of overwhelmed. He would discover new things, each time he took it, and could tell himself to focus out the things he already knew until he needed them.

The feeling set in, and the shivering stopped. His body compensated for the cold, and made him feel warm again. He was amazed. He got up, and decided to take a walk around the courtyard. He trailed through paths, and around trees. Snow started to gently fall, and he watched each of the flakes, studying their detail. He could feel a soft wind blowing against him, as the flakes melted on his face. He calculated how fast it was going past him. 3.5 mph. He continued down the path.

He stopped at one of the frosted springs. He put his hands down into the frigid waters, breaking the ice with a touch of his fingertips, and scooped out a handful. He sipped it. It tasted clean. He could taste the richness, and the oxygen inside it. It was so natural, so pure. He remembered the tang of the water back home, and he could almost the foul zest of the chlorine. He took another sip with his hands, and continued down the stoney path, past a large Cedar, that shot high into the sky. The trees looked liberated, freed from the glass ceiling. Michael looked up as high as he could to the top of the tree, and put his hands over his eyes to try to focus.

Michael's fingertips went cold from the water, and the wind blowing against his wet hands. He calculated the speed of it again. 3.6 mph. He decided to go further. He remembered reading about the butterfly effect, where a tiny butterfly flaps it's wings on one side of the world, and the ripple generates into a fierce storm on the other. He waved his hand in the wind, and his brain took off like a thousand gunshots, clicking and popping and sorting numbers. Because he did that, he knew there would be a storm in years to come, in China. He twisted. His body moved the wind again, and the storm in China wasn't possible anymore. He needed more.

Michael kept walking until he circled around the path on one quarter of the room and came back to the clearing, and the desk in the middle. The General was there, in a thick, long jacket, waiting.

"How is it working today?" He asked.

Michael didn't want to tell him anything, but he knew they would know from his walk that he felt something, at least. He didn't want to raise any more suspicions, so he admitted small bits of what he had thought.

"It's working. Maybe it's the cold, or maybe it's just the day, or the batch, but, I could tell the wind speed, just by feeling it with my fingers." Michael told him, and the General looked pleased.

Michael dipped his fingers into the glass of water that was always on the desk, and shoved it into the air. His mind popped and calculated again, but this time, he noticed something new. There was a strong gust, that he could feel through a long chain of vibrations and reverberations of the wind speeds colliding together and pushing back to him. That is too strong to change, it's coming. He needed to know where. His mind worked in overdrive. It's going to be a tornado. His brain dug deeper, trying to locate it, and find the distant. It was far away, thousands of miles, and it was in the United States, he knew. It's back in Wyoming, not Casper, thank god, but it's going to hit, and it's going to happen tomorrow.