Jessica stops and gets a dozen half-full tall coffees, which I fill completely with my milk, and a little cinnamon. Craft(Food) has a lot of applications. This should be delicious.

I'm not going to drink it, though.

I carry them, and Jessica takes me through the station, and she personally hands each one out, making sure they take a sip… and every single one of them quickly downs it all after that first sip. I wonder how much of my milk is actually needed for the effect? Jessica just had a few mouthfuls, James had half a bucket, and both had the same apparent final result: Level one the next morning… although James seems to have had a much better grasp on things. I need a bigger sample size.

Kind of like what we're doing. Nevermind.

James raises his eyebrow at seeing us handing out coffees. "Giving the unis a boost already?"

"Yes. Always good to give the folks who work hard for the safety of others a suitable reward, right? Any objections?" Jessica winks, not that James needs it.

He shakes his head, "Not really. I just didn't expect it to be so soon." He turns to me, "Ready to demo for the uni's?"

"Yes, seems fun, just give me a minute to make some harnesses."

I go into the ladies room, and make five harnesses with Clothier's Closet (Noble outfits can be basically anything). I put one on, and carry the rest.

I bring them out, and James takes me to the chief. He's a very busy, stressed out man. He doesn't even glance at me initially, and goes back to his paperwork, until I fly up and look down at him.

That makes him actually look at me, and he speaks up, "Four fantastic…" he shakes his head, "OK, yeah, that might be useful. How much?"

I hedge, "We can discuss that after you've heard from your men on how useful personal flight actually is for a patrol. I'll get four of your men set up for eight hours - the charge won't last longer than that - and accompany them, because it’s my equipment. You can get their word on how good my product is, and then we can talk turkey. I won't charge for the demo."

That gives him pause, "You must be really confident in your product if that's your pitch. That or it's stupidly expensive. "

"Personal flight sells itself. If you can't afford to buy, we can work out a rental agreement. And no charge for eight hours for four guys. What have you got to lose?"

"My men, if these things break while they're ten stories up."

Fair. Not going to happen, but a fair response. "I can assure you that - as long as they land before the eight hour charge runs out - these things won't fail like that."

"Hmm… James, you said you played with her toys yesterday?" James nods, and the chief continues, "Then fine. Run the demo. James, round up the uniforms who are just starting their shift. See who wants to play with the professional's toybox, and pick four to keep her satisfied."

Could that be any more … you know what? I'm ignoring that phrasing, "Thank you for…" I trail off, as James is already tugging me out of the office and the chief has already moved on to other matters. That GUY. Ugh.

Wait… I'd probably be thinking along similar lines if I saw me. Come to think of it, I did. More than once. Huh.

James has me wait in the lobby for a bit, and brings four of the uniformed police officers to me. Younger guys, all four of them. They all clearly work out, but to varying degrees. None of them are scrawny: They range from a little above average to a little below muscle beach. The shortest towers over me at about five feet. Yeah, it doesn't take much. The tallest is about six foot. They're all in standard issue blue police uniforms with their badges on.  I hand each a harness.

"Thank you for participating in the demo. What are each of your names?"

They introduce themselves as Officers Franklin, Silver, Thatcher, and Miler. I greet each in turn.

"So the product is personal flight. The idea is that it'll help with patrolling, as people don't generally look up, crooks included." I fly up a few feet to demonstrate it works, and so I can look them in the eyes more readily. Their jaws drop, and I continue, "Please put on your harnesses. I'll need to activate the flight functions."

They rush to comply. For each one, I cast both Conditional Favor and Fly, telling them, "Promise me you'll land and have me turn this off within the next nine hours. It's scheduled as an eight hour demo, so that gives and a little leeway on time."

One asks, "We're all right here; why did you repeat the warning each time?"

Observant of him, I choose to be deliberately vague, simply answering, "It's a requirement," without adding 'of the spell that turns it back off after the deadline' which would be the complete truth.

I follow up with some coaching, "OK, so now that you're all 'live', this should be very simple to operate. While tight maneuvers will take practice, you should pretty much just be able to will yourself up to get off the ground. Flight-related thoughts that make it over a particular threshold can be read by your muscle movements, and the harness picks up on those," OK, that's an outright lie. But I’m really good at bluffing. "And it's active time that matters, not actual time in the air, so feel free to indulge. If you want to do loop de loops outside, spare your feet when going down the hallway, or do gratuitous balloon rescues for little kids: Go for it. But do mind the clock: You don't want to be ten stories up when it runs out."

They all experiment in the room for a bit, getting the hang of it.

"Ready to go outside?" I raise my very dainty eyebrows twice.

They rush the door in excitement. I follow - fortunately, I'm on Haste and they're not, so keeping up is easy. Outside, I give them a while to just play with it. I mean, seriously: It's flight, without an airplane or anything.

After a while, though, I do call them down to Earth: "I know this is fun as all get-out, but if you want this to be a regular part of your arsenal, you're going to need to show it helps with actual police work. How many bad guys do you think we can bag?"

Nobody ever looks up. And turns out there's a lot of crooks that will only be caught when pigs fly. And these ones have body cameras. They're going to need another district attorney to handle the case load, I think.  Well, at least until crooks get used to needing to look up.

Oh yes, and they do rescue a lost balloon for a little girl in pigtails.

After a good eight hours, we arrive back at the station and get ambushed by Channel 9 'On Time' News. The police officers' landing is caught on camera. And me with them. By Joy. Ah well, I can't change the past.

Yet. There is a spell for that, though.

The uni's all give a practiced "No comment," When Joy Jenkins (yes, that’s the news lady's name, although I think it might be a professional pseudonym) asks them anything.

I debate my answers for a bit, but decide to go with limited truth.

Joy starts, of course… but not with anything, she'll want broadcast, "She's got four? And so big? What kind of surgeon…", she shakes her head, and puts her game face on, "So who brought this modern miracle into existence?"

You're closer than you know… "Hi Joy, it's good to see you in person and not just as a distant face on a screen. I'm Chris Carlson, and I came up with those flight harnesses. What better way to use new technology than by enabling the city's finest?  Today is just a free demo so they can have a taste of what will be on offer." I focus on getting Joy on my side. After all, how things are framed and which facts are presented will do a lot to sway public opinion. There's a lot of push newscasters can do while staying well away from slander and libel. And deliberately or not, they do it a lot.

"So you're an inventor then?"

I chuckle, "Do we have to put labels on things? I can unshackle our defenders from gravity. Anyone else too, theoretically, but I have a lot of respect for the people who put their lives on the line for others, so here is where I come first."

"So you're selling personal flight then?"

"I have some paperwork to do before I can properly sell. Business license and such. But I can still demonstrate the product, even if I only have a few built to loan out. And these brave young officers made excellent use of them."

"Of course… but tell me, how do these work?"

I would honestly like to know that myself. This doesn't fit into a rational paradigm. So I put on a sarcasm face and wave my hands, "Maaagiiic!" Not that this is true since I picked up Technological Wonders. It's explicitly not magic anymore.

She blinks at me, "No, seriously."

I chuckle, "Trade secret, obviously. Can't have people copying me before I'm even in business. Which I hope to be in soon."

"So I have to ask the obvious question…"

"Who's backing the research?"

"That's a good one, and I'll take an answer, but no, more obvious than that."

I literally can't say, so he really doesn't want credit. "Currently I don't have a backer. I have a few friends who have given me a lot of help getting my life back together, and I wouldn't be standing before you today without them. But I don’t currently have any business partners, employees, contractors, or investors," in the money sense, at least.

"You're baiting me, aren't you?"

Oh yes, "Maaaybe a little.  Fine, I won't make you ask. No, I've never taken money to take off my clothes, although I did consider it when I was at a very low point. No, there was no surgeon: I did not choose this, this is simply the way I am. Proper exercise prevents back pain, but nearly no one is willing to put in the time and effort to make it work. And I make my own clothes, as it's impossible to find things in my size off the rack," also, it's faster for me to make new clothes than it is to wash the ones I have, and MUCH faster than shopping would be, but I'm not saying that. "That about cover it? Because I do need to get these guys out of the flight harnesses."

Joy whispers to herself, "I cannot believe those are real," before remembering she's on camera, "It makes me want to ask even more questions; I would love to sit down with you for a proper interview, but I understand you have work to do. This is Joy Jenkins, signing off." She looks at the camera man, and he sets down the rig.

"I really do mean it about the interview. I'd love to get your story out there."

Yeah… it's not believable. Yet. I am going to change that.

"Tell you want… I know it's really easy to slant things one direction or another. If your station presents me well, I'll call the station to set up an interview. Fair enough?"

"You’re honest, I'll give you that. It's a deal." She stretches out her hand, and we shake on it.

"See you later," I wave as I head in to take off the fly spells.

"See you," replies the reporter.