An invisible hand clamped down on my body, and I was not messily killed. I let out a sigh of relief as I felt the feedback in my hand. That same warbling sensation coursed through my palm like I had sat on it for an hour. Two forces, my projected hand and the Mandeville Limit firing out from my cells, pushed against each other and held there in tension.


    “Okay, I think I have it,” I said, smiling.


    “Check your feet,” Deadeye said quickly, pointing down at the ground beneath me.


    I looked down and saw that the ground under my feet was starting to bend and morph like it was being scooped away by a shovel. As this happened, the asphalt began to glow orange as the immense pressure of my telekinesis bore down on it.


    Frantically, I adjusted the grip on my own body. After a few seconds, I was able to push the barrier up enough that it was no longer pushing against the ground. The downside of this was, of course, that I would not be able to protect my feet with the barrier.


    “Now I have it,” I said once the ground stopped eroding before my eyes. I had dug myself nearly a foot into the ground. If the floor had been much thinner, I would have fallen into a lower floor of the parking garage. “I can’t cover my feet, though.”


    “Is that right?” Deadeye asked. He reached into a pouch and threw a ball bearing at me. The object came within a palm’s breadth of my skin, and then it disappeared in an explosive crack of motion. It flew off at such a fast speed that I couldn’t even begin to guess where it went.


    Deadeye and Thunderbolt flinched and stepped back. As far as we could tell, the ball bearing shot into the ceiling, but that was just an approximation based on sound.


    “Wow!” Thunderbolt shouted in surprise and awe. An excited smile brightened his expression. “Do you think that thing can stop a lightning bolt?”


    “Probably, but I’d rather not test my barrier out while I’m standing behind it,” I said.


    “Let’s get to testing, then,” Thunderbolt said, rubbing his hands together excitedly.


    Over the next few minutes, we tested my psychic barrier out. This brief period of experimentation granted me indispensable insights into my power. I found that my barrier was much less stable when I coated my body in it. Deadeye shot a few bullets at me while my full-body barrier was up, and they all pinged off dangerously. I was completely safe, but the other two risked the possibility of being struck with a bullet fragment.


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    With my barrier projected outward, I had Thunderbolt strike it with a bolt of lightning. He spent a few seconds charging the bolt. While he did it, the lights of the parking garage flickered, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.


    After those long seconds passed, Thunderbolt pointed a finger toward my psychic barrier, and several crackling bolts of electricity fired forward. Several of the electric prongs struck the barrier and were halted, but most of the bolts missed the barrier completely, striking the ceiling and floor of the parking garage.


    “Did the attack go through?” Thunderbolt asked, looking at me for confirmation. I guessed that, from his perspective, he couldn’t really tell.


    “My barrier stopped the bolts that hit it, but I really wouldn’t want to be on the receiving-end of that attack,” I said. If I had been standing behind the barrier, my head would have been less than two feet away from a bolt of electricity.


    “Your accuracy still sucks, Thunderbolt,” Deadeye chided.


    “Give me some slack, old-timer.” Thunderbolt fired back. “The System has been giving me the crowd control jobs ever since I started. I’ve gotten really good at suppressing hordes of Triad and Torricelli goons, but I’m not so good at fighting single-targets.”


    Thunderbolt and Deadeye kept talking about their training regimens and Thunderbolt’s need to increase his, but I was too focused on my own thoughts to listen. I wondered if I could use that writhing telekinetic barrier for offensive purposes. When I pushed the barrier against my body, it acted like a psychic buzzsaw. If I hit something while my body was like that, the object would be completely destroyed.


    I walked up to one of the punching bags and got close enough to touch it with my hand. Looking over at Deadeye and Thunderbolt, I asked, “Is it okay if I destroy this?”


    “Sure, just don’t make a habit of it,” Deadeye said.


    I pulled my arm back, clenching my fist. As my fist clenched, I willed my telekinetic hand to clamp against my arm. My fist came forward, and I struck the punching bag. Once my fist came within a palm’s length of the bag, it began to disintegrate.


    Without resistance, my hand passed through the empty space that had held a punching bag seconds before. I saw as the fabric holding the bag together unstitched and scattered across the room a moment before a torrent of sand ejected outward with great force. One half of the punching bag flew upward and grazed the ceiling while the other half crashed into the ground.


    I looked down at my bandaged fist and gingerly unclenched my hand. Despite the ripped sand and destroyed fabric around me, my hand had been completely untouched. I didn’t know when I would be able to use that technique, but it would be good to have it in my arsenal. It would be useful if I had to destroy objects with a bit more precision.


    “Well done, Macro-Kinetic,” Deadeye said.


    To Deadeye’s right, Thunderbolt turned quickly toward me. He held a phone in his hand, and he looked at it intensely. Concern grew on his face, and he looked up after a few seconds with fear and anger coloring his expression.


    “Guys,” Thunderbolt said, his tone grim. “The System just sent a notification. Yesterday afternoon, every prisoner in the Chateau broke out.”