The researcher waves a hand. "That's fine. We've got dozens of the lower weights."

He turns it into a blob and then a lumpy crooked bar.

"Hmm. Alright. I'd like you to go down the row and see how high a weight you can lift with your power."

The weights range from 1-10lb, then by tens until 100, then by hundreds until 1000, then one ton, then by tons until 20. The ton weights are inscribed with strange runes.

"Well, I still need to lift it not with my power..."

He gives it a try. He is surprised by his own strength, because he can manage to get the 500 pound weight off the ground, though he's not in any sense picking it up with his hands, just touching it then straddling it and straightening his legs.

He lets the weight down gently, and then looks thoughtful.

"500 pounds, then... TK-4A, unless you can form a telekinetic shell... is something wrong?"

"It's not a limit on my power that I can feel, I just can't lift that much. But I noticed something putting it down."

He steps over to the thousand-pound weight that he didn't budge, straddles it, and — lifts it without moving a muscle, by only an inch off the ground. Then puts it down again.

"I noticed when I first got my power that moving stuff without moving myself only sort of worked sometimes and not for anything heavier than a bit of paper. But it seems like I took some energy out of putting the other one down gently that I could use to pick this one up."

"Fascinating," Dr. Duncan says. "Some sort of- internal reservoir? Can you try doing that repeatedly, to build up a charge, and see how far you can take it?"

He tries. It seems to keep working, allowing him to lift the big one further. On the other hand, lifting weights is tiring and also boring.

Dr. Duncan notices this. "Hmm- stop for a moment. Can you actually feel energy being added to your reservoir?"

"I think so, but the feeling is mixed up with everything else."

"Alright. Don't go anywhere."

He goes into his office for a minute and fiddles with a control panel. A robotic arm descends from the ceiling and picks up the 500-pound weight. "Try to take the weight from the arm using your ability," he says over a speaker. "Sort of a tug-of-war thing."

Ooookay.

He stands facing the weight side-on and spreads his feet out and pulls.

The robot arm pulls as well. It also pulls away, moving backwards slowly but surely.

"That's adding energy. I could do more of this if I had something to brace on."

A chest-high wall rises seamlessly from the floor.

He stands with his back flat against the wall and pulls harder.

The robot arm gets about a thousand pounds of opposing force.

"I feel like I could pull harder but I think if I slip it'd hurt me!"

"Well, don't do that. It looks like we're at about a thousand pounds, that's enough for anyone to be getting on with. How long do you think you can maintain this level of pull?"

"It's not tiring at all. I'm not doing anything other than paying attention to it. It's just that if I try to change it while it was stronger it might crush me on the inside, or that's what it feels like. I have to distribute the pull evenly over my body."

"Alright. I'd like you to keep it up for a minute and then see how much you can lift."

He can do that.

When they return to the line of weights he can now lift the thousand-pound weight up as far as he likes, limited by the geometric constraint of heeding to be standing above it. The smaller ones that he's confident in handling, he can raise up to the ceiling with a bit of care.

"And the one-ton?" Dr. Duncan prompts.

Identically awkward.

"Hmm. Alright, so we're still at TK-4A exertion of force no matter how much energy you have available. I'd like to conduct a few tests on what kinds of energy you can draw from." He pulls out a lighter and flicks it on. "I don't particularly expect this to work, but try to claim this."

He tries.

He can get the frame of the lighter, and the fuel, and the wick, but the flame slips out of his mental grasp.

"Alright."

Next he ducks into his office and emerges carrying a sculpture consisting of a waterwheel turned by a sourceless waterfall, which spills into a base-bowl the water level of which doesn't change. "It runs on a tiny portal," he explains. "Try drawing from the motion of the wheel."