Mind Game (GhostWalkers, #2)(40)

“Bending gravity?” She would never cease to amaze him.

Dahlia nodded, her face brightening. “Not exactly bending it, more like shielding it or modifying it. Basically, I have to gather a tremendous amount of energy in one place, which for me isn’t all that difficult, and then I turn myself into a kind of energy superconductor.”

He nodded. “I’ve noticed, but that doesn’t explain how.”

“I began playing with energy when I was child. I build a strong magnetic field around me, and as the energy builds up, it causes the nuclei of the atoms, in whatever part of my body I choose, to spin very fast. If I manage to align the nuclei with each other and get them spinning fast enough, then I can create a gravity field and aim it so it counteracts the earth’s gravity field.”

“And then what happens?”

She grinned at him. “Every woman’s dream. I lose weight and can utilize the field to play in. I can run up walls and do all sorts of things. I’m not actually running up the wall, you know. I’m moving my feet to give the illusion, but I’m actually floating. Like an astronaut. It isn’t the same thing I use out in the field when I’m working. This requires a tremendous amount of concentration actually. Going onto the ceiling is extremely difficult because I have to be upside down and use the top of my head as the superconductor. Which is why I take a few falls now and then. To make it look as if I’m running up the walls I have to make minute adjustments in the gravity field strength of various parts of my skin.” She waved her hands to dismiss the subject. “It keeps me mentally balanced to try new things. It’s just fun.”

He smiled at her. She had no idea how special she really was. She was more embarrassed to be caught running up the walls and falling from ceilings than she was to be naked in a towel in front of him. Because she found it fun. The knowledge burst over him like the rays of the sun. She was embarrassed to be caught playing.

“It’s amazing, Dahlia. You must have put in a tremendous amount of study time on antigravity fields and how they work. What made you decide to try?”

“When I was little, I didn’t know what I was doing, but energy gathered around me, rather than dispersing as it normally would seek to do, so I played with it. I prefer to keep my mind and body active, and since I’m all about energy, I do my best to learn as much as I can about both. There are a few physicists who are working on superconductors, and I think they’ll discover very soon that controlling gravity is possible on a much larger scale than they first thought.” She frowned and rubbed her chin. “Though they’ll first have to figure out how to create organic, room-temperature superconductors. And they’ll have to realize that they can direct the effect several different ways, not just upward.”

Nicolas shook his head. “You’re using various parts of your own body as a superconductor?”

“Well, yes. If I used the entire surface of my skin, the front would cancel out the back. If I’m lying on the floor and I turn the skin of my entire backside into a superconductor, then the antigrav field generated by it will levitate my entire body. If I move my feet, I look as if I’m walking up the wall. That’s fairly basic though and not much fun.” She sent him a quick grin. “Hanging upside down is a lot tougher because I have to just use the top of my head to generate a much stronger antigravitational field capable of floating my entire body from that one spot.”

“Which is why you fall.”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“Lily will be so thrilled to hear you talk about this. She was going on about how you do what you do when we were watching the tapes of you in training, but I’m not certain any of us understood a single word she said. She mentioned the gravity field and superconductor. She noticed a wire above you moving as you ran across a cable and that tipped her off.”

Dahlia felt a surge of anticipation, of excitement. “Everything above me is going to be caught in the antigrav field as well. You were too busy looking at me, but there were pens floating in the air as well as my amethyst spheres.”

“Lily will want you to show her how to do it,” he warned.

She shrugged, trying to look casual, but her eyes were bright, giving away her pleasure at the thought of showing Lily. “I have so many theories I’ve developed trying things out. I’d love to discuss them with her. I’ve spent a great deal of time reading the latest discoveries and seeing if my work matched closely with anyone else’s. I’d love a chance to talk with her.”

“She’ll love the chance to talk to you.” He could see how much it meant to her that she and Lily had something in common. “Speaking of which, what were you going to tell me before I distracted you with all the superconductor questions? Or was that you, hopping from one subject to another? I can never keep up.”

She knew he was teasing. His tone was nearly the same, but she felt the little flutter of butterfly wings brushing against her stomach, something that seemed to happen when he was bantering with her. “What I wanted to tell you, before you so rudely brought sex into the conversation, is, I don’t know that this is all about me. The killings. Why did they shoot Jesse right there? In the leg that way?”

“They thought he would tell them where you were.”

She shook her head. “If they were Jesse’s people, they’d know I never tell Jesse anything. He has no idea where I am at any given time, nor can he contact me. It’s always worked that way. Jesse could tell them the target, but not much else.”