Flash Cards

 

Routine, Dyna found, helped handle stress more than anything else in her life these days. Dyna woke up every morning at the same time, headed to exercise or training with Ruby and Emerald for the first half of the day—with the occasional guest appearance by Walter or Hematite—followed by experiments or study in both classical college courses or psionics in the afternoons. She tried to eat dinner with Mel, Matt, and November every evening, though their own responsibilities with Phrenomorphics occasionally interfered with that. Finally, she wound down her day by trying to affect things a bit more intentionally than usual. Usually in the form of more gadgets, but occasionally she simply preoccupied her time trying to change the color of a piece of paper.

It didn’t always work. In fact, oddly enough, it was easier to create a gadget than to change the color of a piece of paper.

Holding a red poster card in front of her face, Dyna glared. It felt like it should be easy to make the paper blue. After all, she had turned a complex piece of engineering from a coil gun into a lightning gun—one which had defied a few laws of physics according to a report Emerald had showed her. Flipping a few dyes from red to blue couldn’t possibly compare. After simply staring didn’t work, she had taken to reading. First, about dyes and how paper was made, hoping that knowing might help her change it. When that didn’t seem to work, Dyna had delved into books about light, colors, and how the various cones and rods in the eye were sensitive to specific wavelengths of light, which the brain then interpreted into the visualization of color.

The Carroll Institute, in dealing heavily with matters of the mind, had an entire library filled with such reading material. Dyna wouldn’t suggest to anyone that she had gone and read herself into being an expert on the subject by any stretch of the word, but she had spent the last two weeks figuring out how this specific part of the mind worked.

And it was all for naught. The red card, two weeks later, was still red.

Which was why, today, Dyna was trying something different.

“You want me to what?”

“Schrödinger’s box—”

“Cat,” Mel corrected.

“Yes, but I don’t want to kill a cat on accident, so we’re only using the box today,” Dyna said patting the old shoe box that sat on the table between them.

She didn’t often spend time in her old dormitory room these days. Her quarters down in Psychodynamics were far less personable than the homely dormitory, but it had two distinct advantages. First, it was underground. A bit depressing with no natural lighting or windows, but at least she didn’t have to worry about one of those tulpa snipers taking her out while she was walking around. Second, it was closer to everything else in her routine. The training areas, the scientists, they were all down below. Except, of course, for Mel, who continued to reside topside.

Which was why Dyna was here now, enjoying a glass of hot chocolate while explaining her latest experiment to Mel.

Technically, Walter said she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about her ability, not even Doctor Cross, but…

She needed help and Mel’s unique ability made her a bit more interesting as a helper.

“Pick one of the red or blue cards, slide them into the box when I’m not looking. Make sure I can’t see the one you didn’t pick. To further complicate matters, use your ability. Not the fog machine, I don’t want extra cards pulled from nowhere for this experiment, just your natural ability. But not every time—we’ll do this experiment a few times so mix it up a bit. Get it?”

“I suppose. Still not sure why we’re doing this.”

“Later,” Dyna said, twisting in her chair to face away from Mel. “Alright. Go ahead.”

Dyna heard a sigh but did not look until Mel said, “Ready, I guess.”

With that, Dyna turned back to the shoe box. The lid wasn’t pressed down as firmly as it had been, indicating that it had been opened while Dyna had her back turned. That meant a card was inside. Now, she just had to figure out what color it was.

At first, Dyna looked up to Mel, watching the woman’s face for any hint as to what she might have put into the box. But, as Mel stared back with a blank expression, Dyna remembered…

That wasn’t quite accurate. Figuring out what color it was would have been the job of any regular psychic. Dyna needed to decide what color it was. It sounded similar, but that key difference might have been what stopped her from ever successfully completing the standard psychic tests offered by the Carroll Institute. Either that or her own subconscious dictating that she would fail did her in. That, in retrospect, might have been what Id had been insinuating back during their first encounter.

Still, Dyna found herself frowning at the shoe box. While she knew what to do, she still wasn’t quite sure how to accomplish it. It had been just a bit under a year since Doctor Cross dragged her down to Psychodynamics to have her pick out an artifact. Just over a year since she had enrolled at the Carroll Institute. And yet, she had never once felt any kind of feedback from using her ability. Not once. From talking with Walter, Emerald, and November, she even knew when a few of those occasions had been. None had been intentional.

Making gadgets had been far more intentional, however she still hadn’t felt any kind of feedback upon making them.

Would she feel feedback now?

Well, that was what this test was for, she supposed.

“Red,” Dyna said. Opening the box, she pulled out a red card. “What color did you put in?”

“Red.”

“Did you use your power?”

“Nope.”

“Okay. Again,” Dyna said, sliding the card over to Mel before turning her back.

“Ready,” Mel said after a long moment.

Looking back to the shoe box, Dyna decided not to over think it this time. “Blue.” Opening the box, Dyna pulled out a blue card.

“Wrong. Red card that you think looks blue,” Mel said.

“It is blue,” Dyna said, forcing as much conviction into her tone as she could manage.

“Nope. It’s…” Mel trailed off, staring at the card. After a brief moment, her eyes widened. Looking down to her lap, she lifted up a red card. “That’s… I put in the red card…”

“You aren’t using your power?”

“I’m not now,” Mel said, confused frown on her face as she looked between the card in Dyna’s hand and the card in her hand.

“Again,” Dyna said once more, sliding the blue card across the table as she turned her back on Mel.

This time, it took a long few minutes for Mel to say anything. Dyna kept her back turned the whole time, wondering what Mel was up to. There wasn’t much sound of rustling, meaning Mel wasn’t trying to subvert the experiment. Maybe she just wanted to be doubly sure which card she was placing into the box.

Eventually, she said, “Ready.”

Dyna turned back and reached for the box right away. Like last time, she didn’t want to think too hard about it. But she did think a little. Just a tiny bit. An odd thought came to her as her fingers brushed against the box.

“Green,” Dyna said.

“That isn’t even one of the…”

Mel trailed off as Dyna opened the box and withdrew a green card. Dyna flashed her a grin.

“What.”

“Green,” Dyna said again, flipping the card over to show both sides were the same. “You aren’t using your power, right?”

“No… How did a green card get in? I put in a red card.” Looking down at her lap, Mel lifted up both a red and a green card, glaring at both. Her glare shifted, moving over the top edge of the cards to meet with Dyna’s eyes. “Alright. What’s going on? Another gadget of yours?”

“Nope. Just good old fashioned psychic ability.” Holding the green card in her hands, Dyna stared at it. “I wonder if I was over thinking everything. All that studying I did on eyes and light and paper and dyes…” Placing the green card back in the box and closing the lid, Dyna said, “Purple.”

Reopening it, however, she frowned.

A green card sat in the shoe box, taunting her with its very existence.

“Why didn’t it work that time?” Mel asked.

Dyna shrugged. “I have a few theories,” she said, closing the box again. “Black.”

The card was still green when she opened it.

“One more try, just to check something,” Dyna said, sliding the green card across the table to Mel.

As soon as she turned away, Dyna heard the rustling of cards. Maybe Mel was shuffling them so that even she didn’t know what card she was putting in. If she was only putting in one card. And what a thought that was. After a few moments, though not as long as the previous test, Mel cleared her throat.

“Alright.”

Dyna opened the box immediately, not even calling out what she thought might be inside. The longer she had to think about it and consider the possibilities, the fewer possibilities there would be.

Mel gaped, staring at the completely full box of cards. Every one was a different color. The seven colors of the rainbow. Every color between. Even some colors that Dyna wasn’t sure were actually real colors. Some of the scientists around here would probably love to get their hands on those octarine cards for analysis, but Dyna was far more focused on the mere existence of the mass of cards.

“Alright. I think I know what is happening.”

“That makes one of us,” Mel said, looking at the three cards in her hand. “I didn’t put any inside.”

“First, let me explain this much: My power is kind of like yours with the fog machine. As far as I can tell, anyway. A bit of a different scale, in that I seem to be able to affect large changes, if what Walter tells me is true. I think it has one drastic downside compared to yours, however,” Dyna said with a mild frown.

“Oh?”

“I can’t seem to affect things when I know they’re already one way. Hence, the Schrödinger’s box.” Dyna pulled out a blue card and stared at it. “I see this is a blue card. Thus I can’t make it something else. It is a blue card, therefore, it is a blue card.” Tossing the blue card aside, Dyna buried her hand into the box of cards and closed her eyes. “This,” she said, pulling a card up with her eyes still closed, “is a red card.”

Dyna opened her eyes to find a red card pinched between her fingers.

“Now, a question for you,” Dyna said. “Was this a red card before I said it was a red card?”

Mel nodded slowly, making Dyna frown.

“Now we’re faced with the truly mind boggling question of whether this card was always red, or if my subconscious knew that I was going to say red before I revealed it, thus making it red.” Dyna closed her eyes, pulled out another card at random, and hesitated. Green? Black? Puce? Royal blue? “Daisy yellow,” she said.

“It was always a yellow card,” Mel said, but paused with a frown on her face. “I think. Maybe.”

“Walter says I can’t affect other people’s minds, so if you remember it being yellow, it probably always was yellow.”

“That’s one less thing to worry about, I suppose.”

Dyna shrugged, smiling. “I’m sure there are a million tests we could do with this. Lay them out in a pattern you know but I don’t, toss them up into the air and guess how they’ll land, a bunch of the standard psychic tests reworked for this particular way of using my power, basically. Maybe we’ll get to those eventually, but there is just one thing I don’t get,” she said, frowning once more.

“One thing?”

“Lots of things, really, but the biggest one is that it seems like I need a Schrödinger’s box to get my power to work, except that isn’t true. I make gadgets mostly intentionally. In addition, while in the noosphere, I made a standard disruptor gun into a far more powerful variant capable of harming the mountain man. So I can make some things happen on purpose. It’s like I can’t do them purposely on purpose, however.”

“Practice more?”

“Indeed,” Dyna said, standing. “Thanks for your help. I’m going to head back down to Psychodynamics for a while. Probably spend the night down there too.”

“I would question how much you work—and those scientists, haven’t they heard of a work-life balance?”

“The Carroll institute hires passionate people. For a lot of them, their research is their life.”

“But,” Mel continued as if she hadn’t heard. “I already turned your room into a bit of a storage room so probably best if you don’t try to spend the night there.”

Dyna blinked twice, taking a moment to register what she was hearing. “You what?”

“I make things,” Mel said, taking out her fog machine as she spoke. Flicking it on, she reached into the fog and pulled out a steaming mug of coffee. “But the things I make don’t just vanish into nothingness. I need somewhere to put them and you don’t use your room anymore.”

Dyna’s eyes flicked down to the cup of coffee, then back up to Mel. “Do you just magic up a fresh cup of coffee every time? Never reusing the cups?”

“Maybe,” Mel mumbled into her mug.

“And everything else you need too, I imagine.” Dyna’s glare fell as she thought to herself. “I wonder what the room would have looked like if I walked in before you told me that.”

“You think it would have been how you left it?”

“Maybe… Tell you what. Clean it up over the next week—or don’t—and I’ll check it. We’ll see what it looks like then.”

“Uh huh,” Mel said, rolling her eyes.

It wasn’t a very good experiment. Dyna knew Mel. She wasn’t about to clean it up. Dyna, expecting that, figured it would be difficult to make it clean because she already expected it to be a pile of junk.

Except…

Dyna’s gaze shifted down to the pile of cards in the shoe box. That many cards should have been impossible. It should have been impossible for there to have been a green card. The experiment wasn’t a true Schrödinger’s box, where there would only be two valid outcomes. Her power could affect it to a greater extent than was logical. Something she already knew from the various confirmed or suspected incidents Walter had mentioned where her power affected something.

Glancing down the hall to her door, Dyna considered opening it right now. In the end, she decided against it. Next week, she would try.

Crossing the campus and reaching Psychodynamics, she headed through the wood and brass-covered corridors, eying each red camera light as she moved.

There were a lot more experiments to do before she felt ready to purposefully try anything big.