Today, I want to talk about a power that doesn’t get a whole lot of visibility in the Distant Horizon series (yet), but has been seen in The Glitch Saga:
Laser eyes.
Laser eyes is what it sounds like… the ability to shoot lasers from your eyes. That being said… what kind of lasers is still in question.
At this point in the currently-published stories, they are mostly highly focused, high-powered beams of damaging light. There are still plenty of related possibilities which have yet to be explored.
And, while it’s the name of a pre-Camaraderie group (the LEU, or Laser Elementals United), this has yet to referenced in any of the currently published stories. They were a band of misfits who were open to all power users… though they didn’t tend to get along well with the Super Bureau (the superheroes of the superheroes vs villains era).
Once I eventually get a chance to revise Little One, we’ll see more about the LEU.
As for the dangers of laser eyes, Tim is all too familiar with them, as evidenced in a scene from Spirits of a Glitch:
The elevator dings and rumbles open to the final floor. I bolt for the hangar. I created a temporary lock on the life support systems in the area, but the heater hums too softly to be running at anything other than minimum capacity.
Another hack, and I skirt through the next two doors.
A red beam of light flashes beside me. My heart jumps to the back of my mouth. Heat scorches the wall. Multiple eyes form along the Manticore’s hull, pulsing with crimson energy. I duck behind the command console near the doors and plug my tablet into the mainframe port.
The Legion Spore (and the Manticore) use laser eyes as their primary weapon against other ships (except when dealing with a glitch). Hence why the Camaraderie is so intent on having power users with laser eyes among those who would make the merge into the monstrous contraption.
Still, little is known about how the power actually works. As mentioned in Distant Horizon:
“We should’ve brought Tim along,” Lance whispered. “He could’ve set them straight.”
I sighed. “I don’t think he knows any more than they do. Besides, we can’t go back in time—it’s not scientifically possible.”
“Superpowers aren’t scientifically possible, either,” Lance said.
I glowered in his general direction. “Powers do have a logical explanation. At least, some do. Some are weird. Like laser eyes. How can a person shoot lasers from their eyes? Wouldn’t that burn out their retinas?”
“You tell me. You’re the one reading Pops’ dissertation.”
Granted, it has been a couple decades since Pops wrote his dissertation, so more may be known than what the rebels have access to.
Regardless of its oddity (some powers, such as reality bending, laser eyes, and phase-through, do seem to bend the laws of physics), the Camaraderie of Evil likes to make use of the ability.
In fact, when Isaac and I first put together a list of powers for use in this universe, we created four categories: Mental, Reality Shift, Physical, and Elemental. Though we’ve changed the categories somewhat since we started writing this series, we’ve kept several of the powers that fell into the reality shift section.
Among those powers are fourthwalling (later split into reality bending and insight… with “fourthwallers” being related to a specific cult), flying, shapeshifting, phase-through, laser eyes, portal creation, power steal, luck/probability manipulation, alchemy, and invisibility.
Fractured Skies delves a bit deeper into the insight power, alchemy, and briefly touches on probability manipulation. And Initiated goes full scale into reality bending. But, given time, you’ll eventually see all of them. We hope you stick around to see how it all plays out. 🙂
Here’s an example of laser eyes being used in a battle during Fractured Skies.
Lily pointed to a black helicopter coming in low. A vested, shadowy figure raised a rifle to its shoulder while another stood nearby, eyes glowing a faint red. “Heads down!” She and Quin dropped to their knees behind the boxes. Mom shrieked, covering her head with her arms while Dad threw himself over her. Inese ducked, but a blast of red light smacked her in the chest, sending her sprawling.
“Inese!” I crawled after her, but Quin grabbed my foot and yanked me back. A bullet ricocheted off the concrete where I would’ve been.
“Special Forces agents work together,” Quin said simply. “So should we.”
Eventually we’ll see even more cases of laser eyes in use. 👁️
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Neither Jenna, nor Tim, are much a fan of laser eyes…
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Happy reading and writing!
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 