The Syndi-Jean Journal: Year Two

By b.c.k. kwan

One year ago, Syndicessca Jeannie entered the Facility looking for a fresh start, trying to escape a varied past that wouldnt let go.
As she struggles with her education, she has to also confront the scrutiny of several members of the Facilitys mysterious board. With the arrival of a young potentially powerful psychic who harbors a dark secret, Syndi-Jean finds herself at odds with the Facilitys overall intentions for the telepaths. In a confluence of events, she finds herself facing several personal challenges, pushing the limits of her own abilities, mental and physical. None would be more dangerous than confronting the darkness within herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Aug 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482832730

b.c.k. kwan

Bernard CK Kwan left the corporate world to pursue his dreams of making it as a writer. One book preceded this, and another is in progress. He continues to write for various cartoon series. Work is being done on his own original scripts while developing his own animated series. It continues to be a struggle, but a satisfying one.

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Copyright © 2015 by b.c.k. kwan.

Cover design by bck kwan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

CONTENTS

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

Dedicated to those who gave it a shot

and enjoyed the first round.

Many thanks.

For my parents, who gave life, love, words and pictures.

-b

Preamble

When Syndicessca Jeannie came to the Facility, she had an agreement to keep her mother informed of her activities. What started as simple reports home slowly became a journal of sorts. There were certain guidelines imposed and an editor was assigned to scrutinize her reports before posting them to an online blog. While it served the primary purpose of keeping Syndi-Jean’s mother informed, this was done as a way to slowly make the world aware of the Facility's existence and its activities. Most of the board members disagreed with this method, preferring the anonymity the Facility had, but what's done is done albeit the exposure turned out to be minimal.

Throughout her first year, Syndi-Jean dealt more with fitting in, and redeveloping her psychic abilities. Through some trial and error, this ultimately led to the creation of a Learning Network where a small number of our trainees would be linked via telepathy into what might be considered a hive mind. Each of the participants would learn something different, but the network would allow all to learn the same thing. By the end of the year, she and her telepathy partner had trained another pair of psychics to run the network as well. While that may have been her primary focus, there were other classes she attended and she managed to find her place within the Facility. There were ups and downs, as would be the norm of any life. She made many friends and a few rivals, perhaps one that might be considered an adversary.

Towards the end of the year, she had to intervene in a situation that proved dangerous to her. A later encounter with one of the participants of that situation left her emotionally and mentally drained. She was allowed to return home to recuperate.

When she first joined the Facility, several board members regarded Syndi-Jean as a damaged personality. She had been through more in her young life than most would have experienced in fifty years. Even her origins were questioned, especially with regard to her biological father. There had been, and is, darkness in her life and it was my hope that the Facility would give her a bright new path to follow. It remains to be seen if that is to be.

Control was a major concern and Syndi-Jean proved to be a volatile factor within the Facility. Her influences and actions led the Facility and its trainees into situations that were considered unprecedented in the years before. Even when she felt she was doing what came naturally to her, limits were pushed and boundaries were tested. The impact and consequences of these actions came down on her during her second year here. Keeping her safe from certain board members became an increasingly difficult task.

In compiling her journal for this, other reports needed to be included. There were events that kept her from reporting home and thus, some of those gaps needed to be filled. Her second year was no less easier than her first year, as you are about to find out…

— Remington C_.

JANUARY

Jan 9

New year and new journal.

Maybe I should do a little recapping? I don’t know how this works, closing one journal and starting another, particularly one in which a whole lot of people are reading. It’s been a partially private journal and mostly public one so far, although I don’t really know how public. I know most of the others around the Facility are the ones reading it, but beyond that – I don’t know.

So, maybe a little recap.

I first heard about the Facility about a year and a half ago from Remington. He then became my recruiter and later my counsellor when I officially started at the Facility. He originally pitched it to my mom and I just happened to be there. There was little interest at first and he was told not to try recruiting me or my brother, Rick. I turned that one around when I went to him, asking for help and offering to join the Facility to guarantee that he would come through when I needed him to. That’s when he told me that my mom did not want me to be recruited, but he would help out anyway. He gave me the lowdown on the Facility and what the potential was.

In the end, it was my choice and told him that I was interested. He reminded me of all the other things that were in the way, like my mom and Mikey. I had conditions, though, and it was most likely that my mom would have her own conditions, if she didn’t lock me away first. Ultimately, she relented with a boatload of conditions, one of which was some kind of constant update; hence this public journal of a sort. When I started this last year, it was written as reports home addressed directly to my mom. It was only much later in the year that I stopped doing that, and just wrote the entries as if it was a normal journal.

Over the year, I’ve been on a roller-coaster and it ended with me needing a bit of a break. Remington was extremely helpful in that department. When he first told me about the Facility, he said that the work schedule would be very heavy and while there was some free time, there wasn’t really any kind of scheduled holidays. Actual breaks, like the ones I’ve had, aren’t common. Somehow, he’s managed quite a few breaks for me. So, for the past week, I’ve been back at home being chaperoned by my suite-mate and confidante, Becca.

I don’t really know if she’s actually had any kind of break and taking a whole week on the outside with me might have been a bit much, especially having to hang around in Penang. She’s been there before, but this time it was about just over a week.

Yep, I was supposed to have a week at home, but Remington turned up about six days in and gave me a couple of extra days for a couple of extra activities. I’ll get to that in a while.

I have to mention there are some things I’m not allowed to articulate clearly although some of those secrets are out. For example, one of the reasons why I am training at the Facility is that I have certain abilities. One is commonly referred to as telekinesis – the ability to move objects with the mind. For most of the first half of the year, I referred to the class as ‘transportation’ training, because we were practising ‘transporting’ objects with our minds. That’s just one example. Another would be telepathy, which I referred to as ‘networking’. I do have other abilities, but I’ll get around to those as they come up. And there are some things I still can’t mention.

The night I arrived home, I got together with Mikey first and then my mom, followed by my brother, Rick, and his friend, Karen. Karen’s moved into Rick’s room, making her room available for Becca. I had conditioned Becca so that she was tired enough to get to bed just after we arrived; time difference taken into consideration. I spent most of the night catching up with my mom and then got about an hour’s sleep. Mikey spent the night in my bed and I spent most of the time watching him sleep.

Lian came by around ten in the morning. Becca was up much earlier, taking a chance on my mom’s coffee and talking to Karen. Mikey was up by about eight and after I was done with his breakfast, I got my bags packed. By about half past ten, Becca, Lian, Mikey and I were ready to hike out to the campsite up a nearby hill. We got to the campsite about half past noon and cracked out the sandwiches for lunch; I had lots of time after I woke up. I was glad that my campsite was still there, because there’s some land development going on not too far away at a lower level on the hillside.

Penang is an island and there are hills in the central area. Up the road about twenty minutes by foot from the house is one of these hills and about three quarters way up was where I made my campsite. A few years back, I cleared some ground, moved some rocks, diverted a tiny river and created a pool. I’ve been camping out here ever since, even taking a dip or a micro swim every now and then. The way the pool was created made sure that the water constantly flowed from the little river, through a natural filter of rocks and sand and some other stuff before collecting in a little duct that would allow the water to accumulate and flow at a slightly higher pressure into the pool. This gave me a little well for some water to use. A tiny drainage gap near the base allowed the water in the pool to keep flowing so that it wasn’t entirely stagnant. As long as the little river remained fresh, the pool water remained relatively clean. Still have to boil the water to drink it, tho. The last time I was there was just over a year, about a week before I moved into the Facility.

I had to set up a little pen first so that Mikey wouldn’t just wander off, and then the three of us got to clearing up the one year’s worth of overgrowth around the campsite. We had a little area for the fireplace, tents were pitched around it, grass and shrubs were cleared; most of which became fodder for the fire later. By about half past six when the sun was behind the hill, we were in the pool, cooling off. Becca could almost stand in the pool at the deep end. I’ve never really measured the depth, but with Becca there, I’m guessing it’s about six feet deep because she’s a little over six feet. Lengthwise, it’s not too long but enough to do a couple of strokes and wide enough for the three of us and Mikey, with room to spare.

We spent most of the evening just chatting. I caught up with Lian while she grilled Becca for all sorts of extra information on me being at the Facility. She knew my journal wasn’t entirely forthcoming with every detail, and she was aware that I wasn’t allowed to spill on everything, hence asking Becca for the extra details. Since it’s not going any further than the three of us in the middle of nowhere, Becca didn’t seem to mind sharing, right down to every date I had over the past year.

Dinner was fire roasted hot-dogs with some salads, same as always, every time Lian joins me for camping. She often brings a couple of packs of hot-dogs, lettuce in a bag and several packs of buns. Becca found it interesting enough that we cooked our own food, particularly over an open fire. At Lian’s pressing, Becca said that food was usually processed and sanitized before being cooked in something similar to a microwave oven, at least, where she came from. Food has been very interesting for her over the past couple of years, saying there was a long period of adjustment that kept Ms. Phillips busy. It wasn’t just her; most of the F.E.P. (Foreign Exchange Participants, and I’ll get around to explaining that again some other time) had the same problem.

Becca also commented on the experience of sleeping outdoors, never having truly done that before. The bonus was the fireworks show we could see from our vantage point. It was the turn of the year after all. It was far away, but visible and colourful enough. In all, it was a perfect moment; camping out with my two best friends, and Mikey, with fireworks in the sky. Even Becca noted that I seemed to be at peace.

Maybe I do need these breaks every once in a while, but it could be just me. I have all sorts of issues, medical and mental, that the pressure of living and studying and doing all sorts of things at the Facility isn’t entirely good for me without these breaks. Maybe I’m just not the type who can handle that kind of constant stress without getting away once in a while.

But I made the choice and it was my choice.

Right now, I know it’s the right choice.

Becca was so worn out after camping that she needed an extra day of rest. We got home sometime before lunch and we ordered a couple of large pizzas delivered for all to share. Lian’s mom picked her up after lunch, Becca had a shower and ended up on the couch with Mikey and me. Weather was hot and it was going to get hotter through the month, but there were a couple of rainy nights at least.

Mom did pretty much the same thing as Lian and lightly grilled Becca about anything and everything about my life at the Facility. I think she wasn’t as open with my mom as she was with Lian, but I filled in with my share. I was just happy to hang with Mikey and catch up on a bunch of anime DVDs.

The food exploration for Becca continued over the next couple of days as I caught up with some of my other friends over all sorts of meals. It was mostly a lot of local food from the Ikan Panggang (local spicy grilled fish) to Satay (local kebabs) to Nasi Lemak, which literally translates to Oil-Fatty Rice, or more commonly, coconut milk rice. It’s basically flavoured rice that’s cooked with coconut milk, ginger and pandan leaves, and served with a kind of flavoured chilli anchovies, which Becca avoided. One whiff of the chilli and her eyes watered. It wasn’t so bad with the grilled fish or the spicy peanut sauce that was served with the Satay. She enjoyed the food, just not the very hot and spicy stuff. Most of the other local food was okay, even so far as to make a note of bringing samples back to the Facility, for the chefs to try duplicating.

All of my friends were fascinated by her and they just thought she was from somewhere in Europe, based on how she looked and her height. I never explained about her being an F.E.P. and she got along easily with my friends. Most of them were still in between schools having finished upper six and moving out to other colleges or universities. It was a good time to catch up with them because once that big split happens and everyone moves off to wherever they’re pursuing their higher education, it gets harder to meet up. So, for most, this was pretty much a last chance for me to meet with them.

I also did take a couple of dream-walks, one of which took most of a day. Mom had something to take care of which left us to our own devices for a couple of days. It was no biggie; she’s done it quite often and we’re quite capable of taking care of ourselves. It’s just that it happened during that extended dream-walk, so that left Becca and Karen watching over Mikey for most of a morning. Again, a new experience for Becca, but Karen’s experienced in taking care of Mikey. At least school hadn’t started by then, so it wasn’t that big a concern on her time. I didn’t do any dream-walks after school started because I didn’t want to leave Becca on her own if mom got called away again.

Mom was gracious enough to drive us around a little. I can’t drive. I can fly a virtual plane, but I haven’t learnt to drive a car as yet. So, aside from walking to the hawker stalls for the occasional dinner, getting anywhere else required either waiting for mom or waiting for one of my other friends when we were going out to meet the others. If I’m going to be at the Facility for the long term, driving anywhere doesn’t seem likely, so learning to drive isn’t quite a priority.

Towards the end of my one week, Remington turned up with Ehrmer, Walker, and Sophie, along with some equipment in tow. Becca’s boyfriend, Steven, was also with them, much to Becca’s delight. Walker and Sophie had problems adjusting to the heat, and I tried to assure them it wasn’t as hot as it seemed. It had rained the night before and it was a little cooler by about a degree, which is insignificant to them coming from a very controlled environment. Ehrmer had some personal environmental controls for his specialised prosthetic suit, so that kept him cool.

Remington filled me in as to why everyone came along. The diving suit, which Ehrmer and Walker have been working on, was due for a field test, so that was the extra equipment they brought along. Ehrmer had it ready a lot earlier than he told me before. Lots of beaches around the other side of the island where we could have some privacy, or we could hire a boat to head out someplace even quieter. I knew this was going to be a private little test of ours anyway, as was the little thing with Sophie.

Let me recap on this a little. Ehrmer is an F.E.P. who requires a prosthetic suit to move around and he specialises in designing and making body suits for all kinds of uses and environments as well as replacement prosthetics. These body suits have ranged from new spacesuit designs for outer-space use to environmental suits for exploration, to this diving suit done in collaboration with Walker, another F.E.P. who’s something of an advanced engineer himself. Between the two of them, they designed and built the suit that would allow the user to derive breathable air from the water. The machinery for the mechanised gills doing that work is in this little pack on the back of the suit, which is about a foot in diameter and just four inches in width. That one is new. The original concept was to have a similar gizmo in the shape of a gas mask around the mouth as a back-up. Instead, the suit has ‘air pockets’ that would store the extra air extracted from the water.

So my break at home had a couple of days extension, but those days became something of a working holiday. At least I was done with catching up with all of my friends and some of my cousins who are around Penang, like Fawn and Jenna.

We found a nice secluded beach after hiring a boat from a hotel along Batu Ferringhi. Remington footed the bill on that, and it had to be a large boat to carry everyone who came along. There was Remington, of course, since he was in charge of watching over us; Walker, Ehrmer, Sophie, Rick and Karen; Lian and Fawn came along; as well as mom, Becca, Steven, Mikey and me. Remington even managed to rope in Charlie (our personal family doctor) to help out in medical areas in case anything went wrong. Suffice to say, mom was a little worried about me doing the test run on the suit, despite having done one before. She reminded me that the previous test was done in a pool, not the sea without life-guards. I had to assure her that Walker wasn’t going to let anything happen to me.

I know she’s had some water issues years back, having almost drowned at one point, or so I was told. I thought she’s gotten over it already; it looked like it flared up a little there.

The suit was a little snug. The face area had been redesigned and felt a little odd. Walker and Ehrmer gave me instructions for putting it on by myself. This was important as it’s meant to be user friendly and not require any assistance putting it on. It was surprisingly easy enough that less than ten minutes and I was in the water.

The suit was quite flexible, so moving around on deck in it was not unlike moving around in a tight jumper. Walker went over the side first and then I got into the water. He had an ear-piece keyed to the mic in my face-plate, in case of emergencies. A second receiver was on board so that they could hear and record my comments. Walker also had an encased water-proofed video camera that would send a feed back to the boat.

What we had was not going to reach anywhere near the current SCUBA dive depth, but deeper than what we had at the pool for sure. I stayed just under the surface first to make sure the mechanised gills and breathing mask were working properly. Once I was comfortable enough with the breathing system and not consciously poking my head above the water surface to take a breath, I started heading a little deeper, keeping everyone informed with a commentary. I also had to get a thumbs-up from Walker to make sure he was ready to follow me deeper. All he had was an air tank and goggles, so he couldn’t respond verbally. I didn’t have a depth meter with me and I think, at best, I paused at maybe thirty feet down.

The suit was working as I was told it should. I also commented on getting a little light headed, probably from the extra oxygen. I activated one of the other air pockets as instructed by Ehrmer to add what I thought to be nitrogen to the mix, and felt a little better after that. I gave a thumbs-up to Walker, who was still with me. He motioned for me to follow him and we just moved around a little, just to see how the suit held up with extra activity. I also noted that I didn’t really feel the pressure of being at that depth. I then followed him a little deeper to the sea floor, probably somewhere between sixty to seventy feet.

We spent something like ten minutes down there before slowly making our way back to the surface. At no point did I actually feel the water’s pressure on me, but I did take it easy to try avoiding any kind of pressure problems. Walker was with me every step of the way and he somehow managed the whole thing with just his air-tank and goggles. I know there are deep divers who also do what he was doing.

By the time we broke the surface, it had been over an hour and everything was still working as expected with the suit. Walker handed the camera and the air-tank to Lian, who joined us in the water and started filming as Walker and I did an aqua-acrobatic routine. I was following his every move which had me underwater for extended periods instead of breaking the surface for breaths every once in a while like I do in the pool. That took another twenty minutes or so.

In all, the suit worked for slightly over ninety minutes. I was getting a little light headed again by the time I took the suit off. One thing though, everything I wrote was on an assumption of how I figured the way the suit was supposed to work. So, when Charlie looked me over and asked a whole bunch of questions, he explained he was looking for signs of oxygen toxicity effects. That was because I told him exactly what I wrote, that the suit extracted oxygen from the water for me to breathe. Walker only corrected me later on that one, saying that he never once said that I was going to be breathing pure oxygen, but I would have breathable air composed mostly of oxygen. He didn’t really say what was in the air pocket I tapped either, I only assumed it was nitrogen.

The oxygen levels were higher for sure, but because the suit maintained the pressure – however that works – it didn’t become as dangerous as with normal SCUBA equipment. Also, because of the aqua-acrobatics and the extra swimming I did following him around, my body was using oxygen and it was being replenished at an almost equal rate. After the aqua-acrobatics, I was feeling a little light-headed because I was breathing a little hard. The key thing was that in its own way, the suit basically maintained a singular pressure system on the inside different from the outside, which was why I didn’t feel any pressure at the depth I was at. The more Walker and Ehrmer explained it, the more it went over my head. Charlie did ask a few questions about it and seemed to understand the physics, but it was really too much for me to comprehend.

One very important factor which Ehrmer stressed was that the suit had to be taken off at the same pressure level at which it was put on to maintain a balance. He also assured me that there was nothing toxic in anything I was breathing. He probably noticed I was starting to panic a bit when Walker mentioned that it wasn’t entirely pure oxygen that I was breathing. I had to go on faith on that one. Walker and Ehrmer are both F.E.P. and I really hoped they were sure about what kind of air was actually toxic to someone like me. In any case, Charlie wants me to get a full check-up from Ms. Phillips. I’m still scheduled to see her tomorrow; I was just putting it off a little.

Once I was done with the suit and back in my normal swimsuit, it was Sophie’s turn. Sophie shares a particular talent with me - telekinesis. Over the last few months, she’s been practising on levitating herself and then moving while in mid-air, in effect – flying; something I have been doing for some years now. We really wanted to let loose with some outdoor practice instead of just moving across the length of our pool. With all the practice she’s had, Sophie was confident enough although being outdoors and in the open rattled her nerves a little. As for me, I haven’t had a chance to cut loose in more than a year. There was no telling if anyone was going to see us out there, but I didn’t particularly care at that time. So, the little game I set up for Sophie was basically, follow the leader, where she would attempt to keep up with me. I was fair, starting off slow and easy with moves I knew she was capable of.

Ehrmer was a little surprised, having never seen me do that before, as was Steven. Everybody else acted like it was a normal thing for two girls to be flying about above the water. I headed towards the beach first, which was quite a distance away, and she followed until we landed on the sand. I checked with her if that little distance was too much of a stretch; if she needed a break. When she was ready, we continued our little game, moving all over the water, slowly picking up speed as I moved along. In all, I think we were out there for about half an hour before she finally relented and said that she needed to stop. Of course, she had to give in at the worse possible moment; we were quite a ways from the beach and the boat.

I managed to get her to hold on to me without having to drop into the water and I sped towards the boat. She was amazed at the speed I put into the stunt, cresting a wake behind us that made it look like a power-boat was going by. Can’t imagine what the others on the boat must have thought, if they saw us – and this spray of water behind us – approaching fast. I admit, it was a stunt that took a bit out of me, but I really wanted to get back to the boat as quickly as I could manage since I wasn’t sure if I could hold her and myself in the air for as long as we needed. If I was by myself, I was fine and I could have gone much longer if I wanted to, but I had to concentrate on her as well. And once our concentration gets split like that, it takes that little bit out of us.

Anyway, it also gave Sophie an idea of the level she could reach, if she had experimented as much as I had. I don’t know about the others, but she admitted that when she first discovered her ability, it was always about moving something about, never trying it out on herself until she met me. I told her that when I learnt to move things about, the second thing I tried was to fly because it was something I always wanted to do. I probably did a lot of it in my dreams as well, and I’m not referring to flying about in my own dream-world.

We headed back in time for dinner and by the next day, I was heading back to the Facility. I had a great time with Mikey and he is growing so fast. I don’t rightly know what to think about Rick and Karen being surrogate caretakers, but Karen seems to be getting into it – as long as she’s not pressuring Rick into it. I’ve brought back a bunch of photos and stuck them on the wall at my desk in my room. Plus, I’ve still got the little looping animated hologram display next to my bed. Next chance I get, I’m updating that.

I want to note that there is a gap in my entry so far, because I’ve intentionally left out one thing. That’s all I’ll say about it, but this is just to remind me of that one thing, for me to keep it in mind.

Right, very long entry, and I’m actually a little tired. It’s almost four in the morning and I’ve got a meeting with Ms. Phillips in a few hours before classes. Gonna try to catch some sleep for now.

Jan 11

Ms. Phillips passed me with flying colours, and I’m pretty sure the battery of tests she put me through came from a list provided by Charlie. The questions she had were definitely designed to accommodate my unusual ‘system’, something only Charlie had a working knowledge of. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with Ms. Phillips learning that much more about me. It took me another day to verify that Charlie got the results from Ms. Phillips. That came through Remington.

Catching up with classes after having been gone for a week was pretty tough in some areas. Mr. Hardy had prepared some notes for me to peruse on my computer console. He knows I don’t sleep much, so I have time enough to play catch-up in that area. Meanwhile, the engineering courses weren’t as accommodating and it’s a little harder there, i.e. no notes; so my weekends are going to be quite busy catching up on that.

On top of those are the projects to see to. There’s my computer with the vocal A.I. interface and holographic projector; I was in the midst of building the framework for a coolant system when I left. Then there’s the virtual spaceship I was designing to overlay the flight simulator, utilising aspects from my Theoretical Physics and engineering courses, as well as incorporating anything that passes my fancy.

Despite having been with the same classes for the year, I’m still sticking with them for now, neither adding nor opting out. There are a few other courses I could poke into, but I don’t think I’m quite ready yet. If missing out a week has got me a little stalled like this, keeping pace is really going to take something out of me. Besides, my coming to study, learn, live and work at this Facility wasn’t based on my academic qualifications; it was for my other talents. The academic stuff is just the bonus for me. At least, I can do this at my own pace, not that I really want to lag behind and keep sticking it out with the newbies every six months or every year. Also, Remington is keeping checks on my progress, so I have to have some.

Then there’s catching up with everyone else. I had time to inform them that I wasn’t going to be around for about a week and that Becca was going to be the one watching out for me. Getting them all caught up with our little escapade from the Facility took more time than I expected. The way they were asking questions for every little detail really made me think about when the last time any of them got out.

Carol was naturally inquisitive about all aspects of my life, and being away for a week has not satiated her curiosity in the least. Maybe it did, but my return just sparked it up again. I shared as much as I could and gave her a few little tidbits, but there was really nothing in the way of what she would consider a juicy rumour. Well, she did take that whole swimming and camping thing out of context. At least Helen managed to keep her in check with a sense of reality. Helen wasn’t too curious, only asking more about the experiment with the dive suit than anything else. I know her interests are geared more towards design and architecture.

Jenny, Keiko and Keitaro just sat around and listened to our tales, and were bored fairly quickly. I mean, aside from the last couple of days, all I did was catch up with friends and hang around with Mikey. Even catching up with my anime DVDs was considered extremely outdated by the siblings who get theirs directly from home; they don’t need subtitles, so they don’t need to wait for that.

The only person I haven’t caught up with at this point is Callie, although Jenny said Callie has been working hard in class. The three of them; Jenny, Callie and Toni (Callie’s networking partner); have been working together to improve their networking skills and they can now easily sustain a normal network of ten people for over two hours. All that in the span of a week is something to be impressed about because it took Jenny and me about a month to reach that. Then again, we really had to pave the way with a lot of trial and error, making sure we weren’t going to fry people’s brains in the process. Or worse, mess with their memories in bad ways.

With all that over the last couple of days, I think I’m all caught up with everyone else here, with maybe just one or two odd ends.

I also had my usual Friday dinner with Sophie, and she asked about improving her skills to match what I did back in Penang. She admitted to pushing herself to keep up with me, even at that minor pace that I had set. That she managed to keep up at all was pretty good and I told her so. I wasn’t really expecting her to. I admitted I didn’t have anything to teach her in the way her talent worked.

For me, In my mind, the whole flying thing is simply that I wanted to fly. I just imagined myself being able to fly, and I do that. I didn’t quite go into the whole thing if my telekinetic abilities actually played into it, but I always figured it did.

On her side, she said, I imagine this energy field around me that lifts me off the ground, but I always have the idea that I need to push against something to be able to move.

Most of the others in our TK class do the same thing from what I could gather, but the small bunch of us were unique in our own way. There’s no real guideline for any of us to follow in how to use, or learn to use, or even properly develop our talents. We don’t know if it is an energy within us, if there is a limit to it or if it’s really a power of the mind. Come to think of it, they’ve never really done any kind of measurement on us in class.

Something to consider later.

We mostly talked about what I did in terms of internal visualisation and what she did in her own way, mostly comparing notes and trying to understand how our talents work. It was close to midnight when we finally gave out – she yawned and decided to call it a night. I’m going to turn in for now as well.

Jan 13

What a weekend it has been. For both the morning and afternoon sessions, I stuck it out with the engineering classes, catching up as much as I could. John actually offered to help, saying he could provide notes for me. I turned him down, of course. I suspect there are going to be strings attached to that offer. It might be another ploy of his to try to get me to have a dinner or a date with him. It’s been months now and I wouldn’t put it past him to quit trying to hook up with me.

I could assume that he’s really not that bad, and I could give him the chance, but there’s just something about him that’s still putting my nerves on edge whenever he’s around. Maybe it’s like women’s intuition or some kind of instinct for danger acting up. Granted there have been times when he seems almost normal and he does behave so, particularly over the last few months working with Jenny and me on the network. It’s just that every time I’m alone with him, there’s this vibe that rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway, enough about him.

I spent my weekends in the engineering classes; I culled some notes from a few of the other trainees and managed to wrangle some out of the tutors themselves. I spent this evening going over those notes with Ehrmer, who’s about the best mechanical engineer I know. He managed to simplify the theories for me, but even then, some were still a little beyond my grasp. I mean, it shouldn’t be, but some of the theories are just that one niggling step beyond a normal threshold of basic physics. Considering that a part of my life itself is a little abnormal, it’s a bit strange that my sense of comprehension can’t stretch a little beyond the norm and just accept all these ‘out-there’ theories.

Spending as much time as I did with catching up, I’ve had to neglect some other projects of mine. Ehrmer understands that since I was asking him about my work in class, I wouldn't be working on my computer's coolant frame anytime soon. Still, he said anytime I wanted to use the furnace, I was welcome to it. I just had to make sure he's in the lab for the sake of safety. I’ve been hanging out in my work-room a bit while going over my notes, just for seclusion and quiet. I could have hung out in my room as well, but I just felt a little more comfortable in my work-room amidst the junked computers.

Also, while I haven’t been working on my spaceship nor have I had any new flying lessons in the flight simulator with my instructor, I have been practising with the simulator for some down time. After that, I hit the pool to unwind, around two or three in the morning. I haven’t really slept in the last couple of days also. I tried though, and maybe I did get a few minutes here and there, but I’ve been pretty restless. My mind is a little too noisy and busy to settle. There’s this feeling of being a little ‘glazed’ right now, but I have been pretty focused throughout the day. Maybe it’s just the stress of these last couple of days, the extra work.

Anyway, I’m going to cut this short and head to the pool. It’s almost ten, so Walker should still be there. I can get some laps in, maybe a little aqua-acrobatics and then just float about for a while. That should be enough to at least knock me out for the night and get a few hours of sleep in. Last resort is to pull off a dream-walk, but tomorrow’s Monday and it’s officially time for me to get back into the groove with the classes and training.

Jan 15

The half week or so since coming back was mostly focused on catching up, with due attention to the weaker subjects. It was a tough few days there getting back to my previous timetable. While I was supposed to be gone a week, the last couple of days were classified as 'field test sessions'. For the wet-suit field test, I got the acknowledgment filed with Theoretical Physics as well as Mechanical Engineering. The little bit with Sophie got acknowledged in the TK (Telekinetic) training as well as a commendation for personally training her.

There's actually quite a bit to get to, and this might take a while. First of all, I took in a Sociology class and, well, there have been some changes. Roko and Fred, two F.E.P. I got to know over the previous year have gone home. Two new F.E.P. have taken their place, but I haven't had a real chance to get to know them as yet.

The curious one was this kid, a boy named Ethan. He'd been there for just under a couple of weeks now, and he's supposed to be in with the TP/TK groups like me. The curious thing is that he's not partnered up with anyone, the way I’m paired up with Becca or Callie paired with Jo. This kid was alone. His counsellor, or rather his 'handler' was the one who escorted him to the room and waited in the back until the class was over. And this kid – this boy – is younger than I am.

I didn't get to meet him; I had to learn about him from the others in class like Walker and Carol. I definitely have at least two courses with him, but I didn't even see him in either class as yet. Then again, there are ways around that because Callie does manage to attend her training and somehow miss me at the same time. The courses are staggered in such a way that there are several sessions in a week.

I am really curious because there is something odd about this boy. There's a demeanour about him that didn't seem right. Maybe it was just some instinct in me that got triggered, or maybe it’s just the way he is. Still… curious.

There’s one other thing on my mind over the last couple of days. It has to do with what we do here at the Facility; the numerous projects past, present and future – at least the ones that I am aware of. Like the work at the colony, that thing with Tomas, the compound being built at Serenity, working with the F.E.P.’s and the other outside organisations; the international effort that's being put into some of these projects. Topping it off with the TK and TP training for us particular individuals with such talents. There’s something there, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Then there’s the fact that Roko and Fred had gone home, and there are two other F.E.P. in their place. Also, there are two others from here, part of the exchange program, who returned from wherever Roko and Fred were from; just like a real exchange program. In all, there were nine new people that I noticed. Aside from Ethan, whom I'm curious to meet, I don't really know if I'll be working with any of the others as yet.

This is a sensitive subject because it has to do with the nature of our F.E.P.’s around here. I was curious about how the exchange program worked and how the participants got around to the exchange itself. I could have gone to Becca or Walker or even Ehrmer, but instead, I went to Remington. I asked him about all that and he said he needed to get clearance to discuss this with me. It wasn't just that, I wanted an agreement that I could at least write about it because I've been dancing around this for a year now. If he didn't talk to me, I could always get to the others and write about it anyway, which could lead to a black-out on my updates. That could, undesirably, bring my mom into play.

And that's something I know he would rather avoid. I know I’ve been pushing the edge a little in my last few entries, and I'm going to keep pushing it.

I'm supposed to meet with Remington tomorrow to address my questions, but he hasn't said anything as yet. It doesn’t mean I can’t write about it either. For now, I'm keeping mum and we'll see what happens after tomorrow.

As for everything else, I figure I should give a pass writing about the classes and the others unless something relevant comes up.

Well, dinner should be settled by now, so I'm off for a swim now. It could be interesting tomorrow.

Jan 17

This is going to take a while and it'll be a bit long, so bear with me, okay…?

I've been giving some thought on how to go about this since my meeting with Remington. He has assured me that for this one entry, he'll get the 'authorities' to lighten up for once. One entry to share what I can about the F.E.P.’s and a few other things. So, here goes…

First of all, you have to understand that there is a basic universal design to all of us. While we have arms, fish have flippers and birds have wings, other mammals have two fore legs, they come in a pair. It’s kinda fixed that way… arms, legs, eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth; the way a face is structured as well. Sure most of us have our eyes facing front, but a rat would have it a little more to the side. Most birds and fishes, and even reptiles, have their eyes on the side, but not all of them. Owls appear to have their eyes facing forward unlike most birds. Snakes have their eyes a little more towards the front than most reptiles.

On top of that, all of us adapt or evolve to different environments. Experiments in weightlessness show that our bodies will change in accordance to our surroundings. A person born in someplace like the Moon is likely to grow much taller in ten years than a person born and raised on Earth for ten years. There would also be a massive difference in muscle mass in that a person born on the moon, a Lunarian, I guess he’d be called, would find it very difficult to adapt to the heavier gravity of Earth, just like we would never be able to manage being on the surface (if they have a surface) of Jupiter or Saturn; planets much, much larger than our own. Between the Moon and the Earth, it might take a Lunarian weeks or months of muscle training before even considering setting foot on Earth, and even then, we don't know what may or may not happen to the internal organs.

(Just go with the flow here. I'm easing you in.)

That's just a hypothetical scenario since we don't really have people living on the Moon as yet, so no one's actually been born there. We, as people, are quite a hardy breed and we're adaptable. I've been almost all over the world. Living in a place like New York, we tend to have a wardrobe that changes according to the seasons, and sometimes, that can happen more than once a day. Living in Penang, it took a while to adapt to the constant heat and humidity, but adapt I did. My wardrobe got a lot simpler too. It wasn't just me making a conscious attempt to adapt, there's a biological adjustment as well that happens almost automatically. I got so used to the heat that I forgot the cold completely, and coming back to the Facility, and living here, took a bit of an adjustment as well.

You can also see this kind of environmental adjustment in animals around the world as well, like the New York cockroach is a much tougher bugger than the weenies in Penang.

Okay – bad example – but you get the idea. A tiger in Malaysia is different from the one in Africa or India. People in Asia are different from people in the west. There are animals in Australia and New Zealand that can't be found anywhere else in the world, not even South Africa or South America, which could share the same climate. In our world alone, there are so many varieties of life that the same is applicable elsewhere.

And it is.

The constant belief is that if it happened on our world where life flourished on one singular planet within a system, it can happen elsewhere within a similar system. Our problem is that we can't physically reach another system with our current level of technology. It doesn't quite mean that other technologies can't come to us. After all, they've done it before.

(and here we go)

When I write about our 'foreign exchange participants' or 'F.E.P.' like Becca, Walker or Ehrmer, they're not 'foreign' like they're from another country, otherwise, I'd be considered an F.E.P. being here at the Facility coming from Penang. They are from other planets. You can call them aliens or extra-terrestrials or non-terrestrials or space beings. I call them my friends.

Like I said, there is a basic universal design, so they aren't entirely otherworldly in appearance. Becca's over six feet tall, so probably coming from a planet not as big as ours, and her appearance is a little odd, but not so very alien unlike Ehrmer. He needs the prosthetic exoskeleton to get around and pretty much fit in. He did tell me that it took a while for him to adjust the suit, and adjust to the suit. Walker on the other hand has a sleek figure with a slightly longer than normal torso; I swim often with him, so it's not like I don't notice. His skin is a little odd, not quite like ours, but there's a kind of sheen to it, like a very fine layer of silken hair there. His eyes are unlike ours (probably enabling him to see very clearly underwater) and his chest is rather broad, probably for an expanded lung capacity. I've mentioned before that his people pretty much live in or around water.

That's just them, and there are others around that I can't write about here because I didn't get around asking them if it was okay. After my meeting with Remington I talked to Becca, Walker and Ehrmer, and they gave their blessings to let me write about it here. I won't go too much into that anyway. It doesn't matter how they look or what they are beyond that they are my friends. So there.

Most of my meeting with Remington had to deal more with what we do here at the Facility and why is it that we are working to extend space travel when the F.E.P. manage to hop around on their own. After all, we are sharing technologies and ideas and such. It was just that in the one week (or so) that I was gone, Roko and Fred went home and their exchange counterparts came back without any kind of news that some spaceship had entered our atmosphere — because it didn't.

While it would be expeditious and cool to just take their technology and reverse engineer it, and they did offer, it's proven to be a lot better for us to find our way with their help instead, Remington said. "Otherwise, it'll be like copying someone's answers in a physics exam without understanding how the theory works. If you don't know how the theory works, you can't replicate it properly nor improve on it because you wouldn't know what you're improving on.

It was a kind of test we had to get through, making the choice of taking the quick and easy way, or the opportunity to trade in information. Either way, we were getting out into space. It was probably just better we did it on our own steam than to have it simply handed to us.

He went on about the possibility that some ancient civilisations took the former choice. Either it was the Mayans, the Aztecs or the Egyptians who made a deal to have the technology to build and build without understanding, so much so that when the aliens left, so did the extensive knowledge. Unable to properly replicate all the theories they had learnt, they weren't able to sustain their empires.

It's just speculation because we really don't know why their empires fell. Maybe they just did what they were told, took the gifts and that was it. Maybe they didn't know how to sustain it and went back to their old ways. Or maybe they learnt so much that they were actually able to build a spacecraft and left with their masters, he said.

The choice that was made (and he didn't say who made the choice, or how the Facility came about, or how he became involved; something for another time I guess) resulted in the exchange program. They share their technologies and theories as applicable to our world – maths is far more universal than it seems, the writing and symbols may differ from world to world, but the concept of numbers is there. We share information about our world, our technologies – it may seem woeful in the way of an exchange – and our culture. Music and entertainment are quite universal too, it turns out. More so for music.

So, we progress at our own pace. It's one of those reasons why Tomas is out there in space on his own, in a ship heading for the deeper regions of our solar system. It’s a test to see how far we've come, and how well we can cope being all alone out there. I hope he's doing well. It's been a long while since I heard from him. There's also my own spaceship design project, but now, I don't think I'm alone in that.

As for their transport getting here, their ships don't really come down to the planet. Different worlds have different methods of transportation; some faster than others, some more advanced than others. Remington talked about the whole 'faster-than-light' travel methods without really touching on the sci-fi staples of warp drive or hyper-speed or even wormhole technologies. They were traveling way faster though, if they're crossing galaxies and celestial systems. Basically, they all rendezvous at the space station and do the transfers there, and then shuttle down in something safer that won't be mistakenly shot down by some military. Maybe it’s also why UFO sightings have dropped with the advent of cheap video cameras, camera phones and the Internet. They don't 'drop by' on Earth; they rendezvous in space. It's convenient.

The Facility has to accommodate the F.E.P. for all their needs, be it a kind of specialised environmental control in their personal room or food. Every effort is also made on the other side to host one of us in the exchange program. The basic thing is that the exchange is made within worlds that can best accommodate the other – so we get the ones that look more like us, it seems. There are worlds that we can't go to and their residents can't survive here, but there is open communication between them and us as well. There's no 'universal translator', so learning a language is key. I could probably visit Becca's home since I can speak her language, more or less. She keeps saying I have a strange accent, but no more than she has when she's speaking basic English.

So, why can't the rest of the world know?

For the most part, they don't want to believe despite saying that they do. And then, when it doesn't match their idea of what aliens should be like, they just dismiss it out of hand. So, smaller steps, like integration via the Facility and the exchange program. Did anyone back home actually think that Becca might have been an actual alien being from another world? I only introduced her as a friend and never said anything else. I know they were taken in by her height and her looks, but I don't know if they made the assumption. Besides, if they did make the assumption, who are they going to tell that will actually believe them?

Maybe Remington's right in that regard. Even when I started this, I don't know how many of you out there reading this are going to believe anything I write here. Maybe that's why they're letting me go with this, just this once. Anyone who spouts about UFOs and Aliens is treated like a nut case anyway.

Just to be clear, and to give credit where credit's due, the whole thing about 'universal design' came from my talk with Becca. She brought it up when I commented on how my friends were taken by her appearance and I made the link between her height and the likelihood that her home-world was smaller than Earth – and I was right. She rubbed it in that she was considered of average height back home. I consider myself shorter than normal being about five foot four, maybe five five.

Ehrmer also went on about universal design, he more likely used the phrase, but Becca mentioned it first. Ehrmer was a little more attuned to the similarities between the various species, locally and beyond terrestrial, and he was more detailed in his explanations. He even provided me some images of creatures from his home and while they may look odd, you could see similarities between the animals of his