Marcus’ expression soured. “You tossed it?”

“Hell yes I tossed it. It was junk. Into the electronics junk bin, which gets emptied on Saturdays, by the way.”

“Right. Landfill. Let’s just hope you managed to get everything. So where are the disks?”

“In the lab. I left them there so I’d remember to grab them Monday morning and drop them off with Professor Gunderman.” Kevin looked thoughtful. “Do you need them exclusively? Or can the professor have the information too?”

“Exclusively. It’s worth a hell of a lot less if Gunderman or anybody else, including you, have the information.”

Kevin nodded and shrugged. “Okay. That means I’ve got to come up with something to show the professor, then. Show him I tried at least.” Kevin manufactured a chuckle. “As least I never promised him anything.”

“Smart boy. So let’s go.” The last was said with the hint of a growl.

They went.

This still doesn’t fit. I’m still missing pieces.

Get your priorities straight, here, Kevin. Pieces missing or not isn’t going to keep you breathing once you get to the lab and Marcus finds out the disks aren’t there. He’s going to be a bit annoyed, you know?

Electricity. I wonder how the hell he did that with his fingers.

For that matter, how the hell does he manage to change shape? That’s got to take a lot of energy. Where’s it come from?

This isn’t helping.

Yes, it is.

YES, it is. He can’t be storing it. There’s not enough different ways to store the energy he’d need to make the physical changes to his body. His body would burn to a crisp. Has to come from somewhere else.

Not the air. The air didn’t get cold around him so he’s not drawing it from the air. Something else. The ether? No, the Michelson-Morley experiment proved that the ether didn’t exist. So, conjecture. Dimensions, maybe. Energy flow from a different dimension.

Gotta be tricky. The control would have to be very fine or you’d end up with organs wrong, too big, too small, not working the right way. Extremely tight control.

Gotta be a way to disrupt it.

Think Kevin. What would do that?

We’re talking field theory here.

Maybe we’re talking the same sort of action that happens in quantum effects. The collapse of a probability wave. Fields would affect that. So he has to compensate for changing fields.

How fast can he compensate?

Kevin started to smile thinly.