Sorry – went away for a week and forgot to post last week.

“So, how did you come up with the idea of grounding the shields?” She asked finally.

Andrew shrugged and trotted at the same story he told everyone else.

“The magical shields are essentially no different to the padded protection we used in football training. They couldn’t stop the big, tough tacklers any more than the ungrounded shields could stop the rifle bullets. All they did was protect you somewhat from being knocked over. I tried to think up a way of making them less likely to be knocked over and came up with the idea of digging the shields into the ground. They have a very narrow profile, like a slice spell, so they can be worked into the ground quite deeply fairly easily, even through concrete or tar, although I did suggest to the Corporal that people being trained to dig their shields in should be warned about not doing it in built-up areas.” He grinned at the captain at this point, and she found herself smiling back at him involuntarily.

“I see. Or at least, I don’t see. I’m afraid I find the link between the two rather vague. Is that really where you got the idea?” It was just a stab in the dark because the story sounded too trite even though it was probably the truth, but she saw the slight flinch and smiled. “It was a good story to tell Corporal Sanchez, but it wasn’t the truth, was it?”

She leaned forward and stared at him. Damn! Andrew thought. Should he stick to his story or tell the truth?

“What other techniques do you know?” She asked after a moment.

Andrew thought quickly. He hadn’t realized they didn’t know about grounding shields, and there were probably other techniques, as she called them, that they didn’t know, but the problem was he didn’t know what they didn’t know. He smiled as he wondered if that even made sense.

“You think it’s funny?”

“Ah, no, sir. I was just thinking about techniques and the fact that I don’t really know what the others don’t know that I do know. Does that make sense, sir?” He could feel himself blushing for sounding so stupid.

She studied him balefully as if he was trying to pull her leg. He knew he was looking nervous as the silence dragged on while she just sat and stared at him. Finally, she leaned back in her chair.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, sir. I might be able to do magic, or techniques I guess we’re calling them now, but I’m not psychic, sir. I know what I know, but I don’t know what you don’t know.”

“And how do you know so much, soldier?”

Okay, time to tell the truth. She’d get really annoyed if he kept pulling interesting techniques out of his arse. Besides, he still thought she was cute.

“I have a journal my grandmother left me, sir.”

“A journal your grandmother left you. And it contains mentalist techniques?”

“Yes, sir. Although in a lot of cases, she just mentions the spell, she calls them spells, sir, without any explanation of what she’s talking about or how to achieve the effect. I’ve managed to guess some, but many of the journal references are just too unclear to determine exactly how she was doing what she said she was doing.”