Sold into Marriage

Chapter 13: Air Shield

Chapter 13: Air Shield
Copyright 2021 by John Wells. All Rights Reserved.

During breakfast on Friday, I skimmed the lesson Debbie downloaded while I slept, taking notes and had her download the next. Once done eating Eggs Benedict, I headed outside and shifted to an eagle. While testing shifting to animals all day, I still get lessons downloaded and take notes. I postpone the tests for times I can concentrate fully on them.

Using my wings, I climbed slowly. Landing, I had Debbie find takeoff videos to play for me. As I focused on the details, I saw things I could do differently, so I retried it. This time I reached above the trees much quicker, so I automated it and landed. I still was not happy with the landing, so would work on it later.

Next, I watched cruise videos. I knew eagles used up drafts to go up as it saved energy. They also avoided flapping their wings where possible, even when they lost height. After a few videos, I put into practice what I learned. I took off and slipped into a natural updraft over the head of the trail to the river. It was big enough to allow circling, so I climbed within it. I sensed another over at the other end of the trail at the river, so I crossed to it and regained my height. Finding a third over a rock outcropping towards the road from the waterfall, I shifted into a circle, using the three to maintain my flight. I automated everything I learned about cruising. I adding hunting for an updraft and cruising a circle of them where possible to the takeoff automation.

Having watched landing and hunting videos, I headed to the ground with a fast dive with wings closed. Near the last possible moment, I spread my wings to stop similar to eagles hunting fish or rodents and skimmed a little just off the ground before coming to a complete stop by trying too steep a climb, losing my lift and stopping my forward momentum. I automated that also in two parts: the hunt piece followed by the takeoff automation for hunting or the hunt piece followed by a complete stop for landing. While I would never catch something, near misses would look natural and avoid closer inspection.

Now to test it. Debbie kept track of my flying while giving me all the tests on the lessons downloaded so far. I started the flying with a thought and answered questions until done. Then, waited for the current circle to complete before thinking about landing. According to Debbie, I quickly take off to catch the updraft to reach maximum height, cruise the circle four times, and land. I did not even think about the flight at all, just the takeoff and land thoughts, so I concluded my eagle simulation was successful.

I have Debbie download the next lesson as I do another test flight. What I try is takeoff, fly to the river, pretend to catch a fish, return to the updraft, and landing after returning to the yard. I definitely could have grabbed a fish as I glided over one and touch it with my closed claw so that test gets performed perfectly.

I take a break to take notes on the last lesson and its test. After which, I switch to a bear and watch videos of their movements. I started with walking on my back legs. The balance was different, but not too hard. Walking on all four next. I had to re-watch videos a few times before I got that right. My running was laughable, except the tripping hurt too much. Eventually, I figured it out and automated it all. As best as I can tell from Debbie’s videos, both appeared normal for being a bear.

Climbing a tree was okay. Coming down was another matter. Being unable to see my hands or feet made it harder to have them do what I wanted and impossible to figure out what works. I knew from videos what bears actually did, but could not seem to make it happen.

My grip did not hold and falling was the result. Most of the time I used air to prevent injury. Otherwise, I repaired my cuts and bruises. Knowing I could repair the damage in seconds allowed me to not worry about getting them. However, hitting my head could still be fatal. I automated a safety transport myself into the river to avoid that which got used once. I followed it by leaving the water behind as I transported back to the tree,