Hinn Ch. 54-56

"Dammit, Kat, why'd you have to tempt fate?" Harry laughed.

Grinning at the byplay, Ray asked, "Any questions?"

Not getting any, Ray nodded and stepped up to the door. Deciding to try to use the first technique Dhakira had shared with him, Ray set it up along with a shield just above the surface of his clothes. One more deep breath, and in he went.

The door closed silently behind him, and Ray was looking right at a Jann's back. Her hair was stark white, her skin matte black, and she was carrying a carved wooden staff. Walking forward as quietly as he could, Ray walked up behind her. She didn't react until his arms locked around her head and neck, holding her in a triangle choke. She flailed for a second as Ray leaned back, her feet kicking as she was lifted off the ground. She quickly regained control of herself. One end of her staff tucked in next to her head before she thrust it back at Ray's face violently.

Ray gave up on being nice as he saw the patterned wood coming in fast. Shoving her head off his left shoulder to his right, he dodged the strike before he clamped down, shattering her neck and flattening her throat against her spine.

Dropping the dying Jann, he looked around quickly, not seeing anyone. Checking the radar-like technique, Ray didn't sense anything moving other than the gentle breeze stirring in the leaves. Following the scenario, he quietly walked upstream, listening, watching and scanning.

A dense copse of wood crowded up against the stream, forcing him to decide - walk in the water or skirt around. Hopping lightly over the six-foot wide stream, Ray circled the far side of the obstruction. As he carefully moved around it, he heard quiet voices.

Moving slower, Ray saw a pair of Jann. One was sitting on the bank, his feet and left hand dangling in the water, the other leaning against a waist-high boulder half in the stream. The Jann leaning on the stone's body faced towards Ray, but his head was turned to the side, looking at his conversational partner. The seated one had his back to Ray.

Giving up on subtlety, Ray lunged forward as quickly as he could. The leaning Jann's head snapped around, picking up on the motion, but Ray was moving fast enough he closed the distance before his target could do anything more. A palm strike to the target's chest crushed his ribs and organs, making a wet and messy noise.

The remaining Jann twisted further at the strange sound, catching sight of Ray. He caught a deep breath as Ray closed in and managed to deflect Ray's first punch, giving him enough time to shout something short and sharp in a language Ray didn't recognize. The rest of Ray's combo got through, ending that Jann's simulated life.

With stealth gone, Ray sprinted upstream. As he approached another small copse, he generated a kinetic blast to make a Ray-sized gap by shredding and launching the small trees ahead of himself. He entered the passage he'd made before the last of the slivers fully exited the far side of the small copse. A couple steps later, he saw two bodies in mid-air, both liberally perforated with shards of wood. Another few sprinting steps and he started to exit the shrubby trees only to reflexively dodge a thick club swinging at him.

Recovering his balance from the sudden dodge, Ray turned to see two more Jann facing him. The nearer of the two moved closer to bring his club to bear as the second seemingly whispered to her carved wooden staff. Stepping up to meet the club wielder, Ray snagged both the weapon and arm as it came down. Redirecting the force and adding the momentum of his body, Ray spun before hurling the club-wielding Jann at its compatriot. There was a meaty thunk as the two collided. Unfortunately the far Jann had finished whatever she had been doing, as Ray saw jawhar bearing the Jann's power snap into place.

Drawing samum into his hands, Ray attacked the jawhar before it could generate whatever effect the Jann had intended. The qalb al-qamar in the Jann's jawhar withered away wherever Ray's samum came into contact with it, but one part of the technique completed, creating a strong explosion. Seeing it form out of reach, Ray locked his shield in place and rode the blast out. After the shockwave passed, Ray was standing on the inside of his shield over a four-foot deep blast crater.

Kicking off as he unlocked his shield, Ray jumped across the crater, landing on the mounded rim of soil at the edge of the hole. As his weight came down on the fresh-turned dirt, Ray sank in halfway up his calves. Jumping again, Ray moved rapidly upstream as the flowing water rushed in to fill the crater behind him.

Ray's scanning technique poked at him, indicating there were three blobs showing in the technique that weren't showing visibly. Those three probably-Jann were quickly moving downstream. One seemed to be moving along the surface of the water and another moved on either bank. Continuing on his path, Ray realized he'd pass between two, within arm's reach of the one on this bank. Not slowing, he increased the technique's resolution by increasing its rate of scanning. He briefly got a mental image showing all three Jann and the weapons they carried before the scan stopped being effective.

Having half expected that, Ray kicked off the third technique he'd gotten from Dhakira, watching the changes to the world even as it changed from his watching. He noticed the four cones of greatest change, the sight lines of the three Jann and himself. The Jann were clearly all focused on him.

Thinking back, he realized the Jann on this bank had had a staff-sized object in its hands. Plotting the reach of the staff, he continued at the same rapid pace until he was just beyond the Jann's staff's reach. Unsure how the Jann might attack, Ray followed Tauriz' earlier recommendation and simply destroyed everything within a yard of the point of the Jann's perceptions.

Tugged to one side and then the other from the implosions, Ray pushed on past the gory stains that was all that was left of the Jann, finally seeing the exit door. Driving for it at speed, Ray crashed through it, tumbling back into the clearing where the rest of his people waited.

Standing carefully, Ray dusted himself off. Turning to the group, he said, "And that's Jann. Nasty, nasty people."

Kendis looked thoughtful, the rest of the Skepsi troopers were grim, and Amber seemed somewhat fearful. "Ray," she said, "I don't think we can do much about something like that."

"Respectfully, I disagree, but I will admit there's a couple things I haven't explained yet. One, both Tauriz and I can localize Jann, either hiding behind things like the second bunch I encountered, or pushing out invisibility like the last three I handled - we might be able to work out something you can use as well, Amber. Two, Jann are not durable enough to ignore flechettes, lightning, or high explosives. Finally, I intend to link the nine of us mentally, allowing us to share information at the speed of thought. Would that help even the field a bit more?"

The Skepsi troops exchanged looks while Amber looked thoughtful. Gathering a visual consensus of his team, Kendis said, "That might work, but it will take quite a bit to get used to."

"Well, luckily we have at least a couple days' subjective time in here if we need it. On top of that, we won't tire, get hungry, or have to deal with other biological needs while we're in this part of the training. We'll fatigue like normal when we're in the equivalent of a shoot house, but it'll fade away once you return here."

Ray set up a mental link, effectively a radio channel that they didn't have to speak to use. "Quick check. Please reply with your name." Everyone sent their name, mostly all at the same time. To everyone but Ray and Tauriz' surprise, they were able to understand each. "One of the major advantages of this form of communication - it's awful hard to screw up using it. Our minds are used to having lots of thoughts at the same time, even if our ears can get confused. So we don't need to worry about stepping on each other. In fact," and here Ray sent the sensation of shrugging, "we can even add nonverbal communication to the link. If you really want to get crazy, we can even share senses." Ray looked around at all the faces, sharing the image as he did.

"OK, for now I strongly suggest everyone practice using this form of communication only. We'll mix it with verbal and visual cues later, but for now everyone should send everything - body language, pointing, whatever - via this link. Agreed?" Everyone agreed, again at the same time, and again everyone understood.

"Great! I'd like to do a group run next. Kendis, how would your team normally approach an unknown but dangerous scenario?"

"We'd move by pairs. We'd have arcs of coverage assigned, typically covering a third of the terrain each. One pair would lead, aiming forward and back, one covering either side. Another pair would cover backwards and to the first side, the last pair covering the second side and to the rear. This gives you two guns covering any vector. We've practiced rotating to have four guns facing any incoming vector if we get into an open-field confrontation. We also drill falling back to smaller numbers for coverage if we take casualties."

"Assume I've got no training in such things - how's that work?"

"Let's show 'em, team. Open field, maneuver to contact, north."

The six troopers set up in a rough circle with pairs standing close side by side with a larger gap between each pair. They locked rounds into the chambers, turned off the safeties, and brought their weapons to their shoulders. The guns were pointed down, fingers resting on the trigger guard. Once everyone was in place, Kendis slapped his rifle's forestock with his left hand. Everyone started walking in the same direction, only the lead pair facing even vaguely forward. After a few steps, Kendis slapped his forestock again, causing the team to freeze in place. Without turning around, Kendis stretched back and gently kicked Harry who was facing to the rear as part of the left side pair. Harry said 'contact' quietly. Harry's partner Kat quickly aimed where Harry was. The two troopers to either side of the pair aimed off to either side of Harry and Kat's aim point, and the last two aimed roughly opposite Harry's direction, split to either side.

Kendis said, "Done," letting the troopers relax as they put the safeties back on their rifles. "That's a quick overview, Ray. Make sense?"

"Yes, and I don't think that's something the three of us will be able to quickly master. How would you handle someone new to the team?"

"Well, we'd generally not take someone into the field until they mastered this. If we had to work with a specialist we haven't trained with, we'd generally keep them in the middle literally hanging onto one of the front pair until we get to where we'd need their expertise."

"So, if you don't mind, the three of us will step into the middle. We'll have Amber hang onto one of your front pair's belt, and Tauriz and I will follow each of the other pairs. Now, we need to practice moving, and everyone needs to practice only communicating by the link. No 'contact', no slapping the stock, just via the link, OK?"

"We can try. I'd suggest we keep weapons on safe for a bit, however, until everyone's doing reasonably well with it."

"Makes sense to me. Even if getting shot isn't permanent here, I don't want any more pain than we have to have."

After some hours of stumbling progress moving as a group, Kendis called a break. "How's everyone feeling?"

"Fine," "No problems," "We're getting there," and similar sentiments were shared.

"Interesting. By my clock, we've just done eight hours of drill. Usually people start dropping out after two."

"Well, two things," Ray replied. "First off, we're all used to physical effort. Secondly, only about thirty minutes have gone by in the real world, where we're all just sitting down comfortably. We've got about another 24 hours from our point of view, unless you think we need more?"

"I do," said Kendis. "I think that would probably be good, actually. How long can you stretch it?"

"Hrmm, looks like I can get us about a week of continuous training time without any major risks, just some discomfort."

"Let's do that, then."

"OK, everyone. Hold on tight, this will feel weird, but there's little real danger."

Reaching into the active technique's guts, Ray found the portion that affected the passing of time. Following the instructions he'd found within Hinn, he slowly and smoothly increased the flow of samum that portion received. Things stretched in a novel way, feeling quite uncomfortable. The closest Ray could describe the sensation was how he might imagine his soul dragging out of his body might have feel. Once the flow stabilized at the new level, he shuddered as he looked around at the rest of the team.

Amber was on her hands and knees, violently vomiting as Tauriz held her hair clear of the mess. A gentle wash of healing - or, more precisely, using samum to destroy her nausea - left her panting. John showed some blood dripping from his ears, making Ray quickly wish that any damage caused by his actions adjusting the time displacement would be healed and those damaged by it would be clean, refreshed, and without further discomfort from that action.

People's pain ceased while blood, vomit and other messy byproducts of the uniquely disturbing sensations went missing. "I guess that's why they warned against adjusting the time stream," Ray said.

The team trained hard, with minimal breaks mostly just to discuss what had just gone wrong. Movement, contact, getting ambushed, setting an ambush, indications & warnings, communicating over the joint mind-space, getting used to shared senses, getting used to novel senses, coordinating attacks, and mixing melee, firearm and technique attacks. We tried open areas, buildings, heavy woods, and other terrain. We went up against humans, Jann, Jinn, Jann with genie, Jinn with genie, even Hinn a couple times. After some tremendous initial losses, we ended up being able to get through most without serious injury. The fights against Hinn didn't go so well, so now we had a clear goal to aim for.

"Alright, anything else we should try?" I asked. Silly me.

Getting out of and into helicopters, both on the ground and in the air. Hinn can really LEAP when they want, and techniques to lift people are pretty easy it turns out. Teleportation to get into the area, to get into combat, to get out of combat, and to move while in combat. Setting up gates at gun muzzles to direct fire into areas out of direct line of sight. Bunches and bunches of techniques, emulating everything they could desire from chemical weapons to flashbangs to high explosives. Then we added more options - elemental effects. Disintegration. Harry helped a lot here, talking about how to weaken structures and collapse pieces, all of it, or none of it. Environmental effects. How to call in fire, and how to meet the need - John's area of expertise.

We worked out a vocabulary to describe effects available from techniques, so both Harry and John's areas were covered. We didn't get into how we would fulfill those effects, that was too much for them to pick up, but we were comfortable we'd be able to understand the team's needs.

Finally, everyone was willing to call it done. We'd spent over five days' subjective time actively training together, and we were as ready as we could get for tomorrow night. Following directions again, everyone settled into what looked like the basement and felt like the chairs they'd brought down. I closed down the training field, and we were back in the cellar for real.

Chapter 56

Once we settled down and got back on our feet, everyone was yawning. A wash of healing magic helped a little, but everyone was fried. The degree of concentration had taken its toll, even as the field had supported us, and it was time to be done.

Tauriz called the elevator, which opened with Erin in it. "Everything OK?" she asked, and Tauriz assured her that everything was fine, we were all just tired. "Alright. Betty has an update for you, Tauriz, and Emily's waiting for a call back from you, Ray."

"Oops, I guess we should have planned that better," Ray replied, embarrassed.

Betty had found a pair of helicopters that were now en route to the Lake Placid airport they were going to use. Combined, they'd be able to haul the team, but she hadn't been able to find one large enough for the whole team. Tauriz reassured her that that was more than adequate before asking if they were NDA'd. Betty hadn't gotten them to sign NDAs yet but started to work the issue.

Piling into the conference room, Ray, Tauriz, Ousha, Annya, Jennifer, Amber and Tomaz called Emily back. "Sorry about that, Emily, we got busy," Ray told her.

"It's OK, life gets that way. We're good here. Updike will be joining me as we return, you'll have the three of us. I'm not going to be able to join in full time right away, but we'll get there pretty quickly, assuming you're OK with that?"

"Do you think there should be enough work for the three of you?" asked Tauriz.

"Oh, yes! Especially if things go the way Ray projected," Emily replied.

"Works for me," Ray said. "Same price?"

"Same price," Emily agreed.

"OK, if you think that it'll work out, I'm willing to give it a shot, and frankly I'll feel better with additional support on hand."

"Great! The two of us will be there late tomorrow."

"Look forward to seeing you back here. We'll work out housing, hadn't planned on the three of you, but that's a good problem to have. Annya'll reach out to you soon with some more info," Ray said.

"Thanks! We'll see you then!"

Hanging up, Ray asked, "Mac? Anything more to add?"

"They wanna scoop yer techniques, an' figger out how to use 'em."

"Can't say it's not something we want, too," Ray mused. "I suspect it'll work out fine. Annya, please let her know privately we won't be here when she arrives, and you'll update her once she's on site. Don't talk about the trip up north until she's actually here, though."

"Can do, Ray."

"What else do we need to do before people crash? Tomaz, I hope Kendis' team gets some downtime, they worked their butts off."

"They're on prep for the trip tomorrow, and I think most of them are crashing out."

"I'd suggest a meal before sleep, but whatever they want. Speaking of meals, did we ever figure out hiring staff?"

The three leads looked back and forth, but no one answered. "Guess that answers that. Jennifer, is that something you'd feel comfortable doing? It also seems we're likely to need to expand, and while this place is great, we probably could do with more room. Can you investigate what it'd take to buy one of the adjacent lots? We'd clearly have to have something built, but better to start early than late."

"We can handle both, Ray," Jennifer said. "El had already started looking into the neighbors, actually."

"Great! Thanks, Jennifer, appreciate it. So, since I derailed the conversation, let me ask again - what else do we need to do before 10 tomorrow?"

"Tauriz'd mentioned some special tear gas grenades, Ray?" asked Tomaz.

Bouncing back through Hinn, Ray realized her point. "Oh! That's a great idea. Sure, we can do that!" A little more research found that allyl isothiocyanate, the nasty ingredient in horseradish, could easily be concentrated, but that both heat and exposure to air rapidly degraded it. Using pressurized nitrogen gas, Ray was easily able to create a 'grenade' that would last for a couple weeks on the shelf and would spread the pain over a few meters before drifting with the breeze.

"You folks mostly throw grenades, right? No grenade launchers or the like?"