They could spend a while on this. He takes notes and mutters about math to extrapolate the results to things they haven't tried.

It seems the shield is mostly equal strength across its whole area, except for very near to the edges where it's quite a bit weaker. Making any shield less than about a square meter in area is relatively trivial, though the mental effort builds if he tries to do it too frequently or if he tries to hold a larger shield for longer, and it seems that the shorter amount of time he aims to hold it for in one go results in a stronger shield, though there are diminishing returns past a certain point.

… And after a short while, but still after quite a lot of testing, Solidity has to go. "See you around," he says, and then departs.

"Thanks for the help."

"Hm, what now." He wanders back out to the front desk and asks if there is a computer he could use, preferably running linux.

There is, yes! Depending on what he wants it for, though, it might not have the applicable software.

Also perhaps he should contact his parents at some point, unless he was planning on leaving that for later.

"It has git, right? That and Python are all I need. And yeah - does this place get cell reception?"

"Cell reception, yeah, and the computer should have Python but I'm not sure about git? You should be able to install it, though."

"Cool. I'll call my folks while I work on it, I've got a phone. I don't think they'll have any objections, really."

"We'll contact them with more details later, and you'll probably want to work out whether you're able to stay on-site during the training period or if you need to arrange some mode of transport there – someone can probably be made available to transport you, but it'd be more convenient not to need to."

He gets to work installing analytics and various other things on that computer. And makes the phone call. 

He pops his head up looking displeased. "Is there a high school here? If not can you please convince them to arrange a ged test?"

"This is only one of the smaller bases, actually!" she says. "Your training will be at a more central one. And– convince your parents or convince some educational establishment to let you do it there? The latter I'm sure we can do fine."

"I'll take care of the first then. I'll want to discuss pay and expenses later, but that's later. Given a ged they're fine with me living on a base, and so am I."

She nods and lets him get back to the conversation.

He is actually trying to cut it short. It's... A strange feeling, them being so caring so suddenly.

And then Relay asks: Are you busy?

Unbusy enough.

Someone else turned. From your school.

"Shiiiiiiiiiii..." What happens now? Raise the alarm, high alert?

Approximately, yes. Evacuation of the local area, studying to see if we can work out what it's going to be, if it's going to be anything, and hopefully getting people to combat it. So far powers seem to be yours, forcefields, and someone with the ability to see through illusions and falsehoods, which doesn't neatly point at anything in particular.

You and whoever's job this is have way more experience predicting than me.

I want to help but if you think it's too soon, I'm too untrained and not useful in field yet...

Usually powers work well in disaster scenarios, even if you're not trained, so if you're up for it we can send you out with someone more experienced, but there's nothing for you to do yet.

My friends and family are there. I would feel like- Terrible if I didn't go, whenever it starts.

Mental equivalent of a nod. We're currently contacting people in the area, asking them to spread the news of evacuation to get people out, but it's probably quite short notice and people haven't started doing evacuation drills properly. I'll let you know more as we find it out.

I'm going to... I dont know. Hack together a piece software to warn me of incoming debris. Hook it up to an old radar gun I've got in our house's garage. Bet I can do it, maybe not fast.

If you know the interface for it and can work out a program for it quick enough, could be useful, but debris might come from a bunch of directions, which a radar gun might not help with. There might not even be debris, though there often is.

Yeah, parts on hand or I'd want... Not weather radar, but like a helicopter navigation radar. And cameras and ir sensors. And some other stuff.

He's already distracted, rigging up a cheap and dirty program on that computer.