[FN]Manny crouched next to his new motorcycle, well new to him, and undid the final bolt holding the engine in place. Reaching into the frame, he cradled it in both arms, clasped his hands together on the far side, and then with a sharp grunt lifted it out and free of the frame. 

"Proper lifting technique." He thought to himself as he stood, back straight as he could keep it then turned and started toward the work bench. As he stepped forward, he immediately felt something underfoot, stumbling as he lost balance. Manny pitched forward as the weight of the rusted old engine dragged him down to a knee and, as luck would have it, directly onto a wee little thing of a stone. Well you wouldn't think that something so little could cause so much pain. Agony lanced through his knee and he grunted, choking down a scream as his other leg took weight until he could shift position and scoot the now hobbled knee off of the stone.

"Right on the bone." He thought and exhaled slowly.

He hadn't dropped the engine though and that was something. Little victories. 

"Peanut Butter..." he muttered as a low whine sounded behind him. "You couldn't have picked a better spot to lay your carcass, could you?" Manny asked accusingly.

He gathered himself for a moment and then heaved his body and the engine up, staggering and stumbling forward. His knee throbbed where the stone had attacked him but he made it to the workbench free of further incidents and settled the engine into the cradle he'd made. Turning, Manny saw the old brown lab sniffing out a new and even more in the way place to lay himself down. 

"Not there!" He grumbled. "You're literally right in my way." Manny pointed toward the corner where a dish and bed were arranged and, with a look that he took to be annoyance bordering on insubordination, if he knew his dog at all, Peanut Butter sauntered over to fluff his bed to the perfect consistency and lay himself down.

"See, that's not so bad now is it?". 

Snort. 

Manny turned back to the half disassembled motorcycle, sat on his rolling shop chair and began to inspect the frame of the bike. It wasn't in terrible condition, or at least there wasn't anything he couldn't fix. It was terribly rusted for certain. One of the frame tubes was bent slightly and there were two cracked welds. He looked up and turned his head.

"Don't look at me like that." Peanut whined as they stared at each other. "Fine.", he groaned out in a long, exasperated breath, rolled his chair over to a wall and opened the box of milk bones that were balanced ever so precariously on top of the pile of Christmas decorations. 

He really needed to clean the garage he thought absently. There were parts of various projects including a metal sculpture that had been sitting idle for six months, a half built tv stand, and a snowblower crammed into a corner that he was apparently using as some sort of garden tool collector. Oil bottles, paint cans and various tools covered every surface. The smell of the place was of those things. Dust and oil and dirt and paint. That's what he liked best about being out here. The smell reminded him of weekends spent tinkering away in this same garage with his father. 

Dad...

His mind was wandering again. Manny straightened and tossed the milk-bone to peanut butter who caught it easily.

Walking back to his motorcycle as the dog munched happily, he inspected the welds. One was obviously cracked but the others looked to be alright. He lay his finger on a point just before the start of the crack and focused his mind then pulled toward himself in a waving motion. When he pulled his hand away the crack was gone and the metal looked good as new; no rust remained in the metal and it now bore a wave pattern as if his finger had smeared warm butter around. 

"So much easier than welding." He muttered to himself under his breath. 

Manny had figured out this little trick six months previous when he'd still been a Materials Engineering student at MIT. That seemed to be how most of the new aspects were found; someone goofing off and making something happen. 

It had only been two years since the Surge and people were still afraid of what they could now do. He couldn't blame them he supposed. Just this morning there had been a news story about a fellow who had incinerated his hand trying to warm a cup of coffee. Nothing but none and a few charred scraps of meat left. Grisly. He shivered a bit at that thought.

Speaking if which... he rolled his chair over to his work bench and grabbed his coffee and empty. Crap. He reached under the bench and pulled out a flat of water, took one and pushed the rest back. He fixated on it and felt it grow cool in his hand. Manny took a long drink, replaced the cap and rolled back to the bike. 

That process wasn't difficult. It just required a good amount of practice and focus. Manny himself had ended up with a chunk of metal fused into his skin. Or a chunk of finger fused to some metal; however you wanted to look at it. The first time he'd pushed metal he had quite literally dipped his finger into cold steel. That had required a trip to the hospital and resulted in a rather unsightly scar and some missing nail on the tip of his left index finger. The memory made the missing bit tingle and itch so he scratched at it. 

An old diesel Volvo trundled on past, belching blue smoke and disturbing the two ornery magpies who made it a point of pride to rouse him from sleep every morning. They had been arguing over what appeared to be half a hot dog laying in the street and soon settled on back to their altercation once the car had passed, blue smoke haze trailing along after it. Above and off on the distance, a sizeable thunderhead was forming, black clouds billing up up and out.

 Mrs. Norris lived two houses down and had been driving that car for at least thirty years; well before he'd been born. He remembered his father working on the car for her when Manny had been a child and had offered regularly to perform the same services. But Mrs. Norris was particular about things, and one of those things was her car. His father was the only person he knew of who she had ever allowed to work on that rusted heap. He wasn't even sure how it kept running. Did she ever change the oil? 

Manny shook his head. Distraction. He turned back to the task at hand.

He rolled his chair around the stripped down bike, inspecting welds and dents and dings among other imperfections. A wash of his thumb over bit of roughness would smooth the place where a rock had impacted. Another slow swipe and a long scratch disappeared. Pitting and rust were vanished quickly. An hour later Manny stood back and stared at the bike frame. Looking from different angles, crouching and leaning. Not a flaw anywhere. 

He grabbed another milk bone and walked over to Peanut Butter. 

"What do you think old man? Pretty slick, right?" The chocolate lab cocked his head at the words and then began to nuzzle at Manny's closed hand. 

"No no no." He chuckled and pulled the hand away. 

"Admire my work and then snacks." Peanut Butter looked up pleadingly and Manny noticed how grey the fur around his muzzle was becoming. He opened his hand and Peanut Butter almost slurped up his hand getting at the treat. 

"Glutton." 

Manny turned back and looked at the bike. The plan was to copper plate the frame and so his next task was... 

"Hello?" 

He moved his head in a side to side motion that bore a passing resemblance to a sky rat, more commonly known as a pigeon. Manny found the spot again and slid close, being careful to keep his head in just the right spot to see the imperfection in the metal. He placed his thumb and focused then swiped down and across. Perfect. 

When he'd first been perfecting the technique he had damaged more than he'd fixed, sometimes pushing his whole thumb through a plate of steel or simply dissolving it into a drooping mess. And of course there was the incident that had left his thumb mildly disfigured. Now though, with only a few months of practice he could turn out something that even the best of welders could only dream of accomplishing. Strong welds requiring no heat, no gas, emitted no dangerous fumes and that would not crack where he had welded them together, like they had been forged as one single piece. He could even fuse different metals together in ways that traditional welding couldn't. He'd done just that that, sending a test piece off NASA a month ago. 

There had been an opening for a materials engineer. His dream job since he had been ten years old. Specifically working on the space shuttles, although he would settle for most anything. And so he'd sent a hard copy resume along with a sample sheet of titanium, magnesium and aluminum that he had joined all together. He glanced at his phone involuntarily, which had become a habit, waiting for an email or call. It never did.

Maybe it got lost? Or maybe I just wasn't what they were looking for? 

That was the most likely case. NASA doesn't hire idiot college dropouts.

I shouldn't have sent it in. I fix motorcycles, not shuttles. Dummy.

Manny looked the bike over once more, not really seeing it as his mind wandered. A glance at his phone and a sigh.

He took the phone and pocketed it as he called out. "Come on Peanut Butter. I think we're done for today." 

He flipped the switch to turn off the fan and ceiling lights as Peanut stepped through the side door and wandered through the open gate to the yard to do his business while Manny gave the garage one last glance to make sure everything was in it's place. Something tickled the back of his mind but nothing seemed to be out of place.   

To the best of his knowledge, nobody else had figured it out.

One more world changing technique brought to you by the Surge in the last two years.