Can practice Installs

One of the first things I learned about my power was that it relied — to some unknowable degree — on my own strength. In those early days, when I first learned I even hadpowers, I could only install a single Hero on any given day, and even then, I could only hold it for maybe five minutes before the strain got to me. It was like trying to stay on the back of a bucking bull in full rage; every second became harder and harder, until my fingers finally gave out and I had to let go.

After that first week, though, I started running in the mornings and every other afternoon, filled with a drive to improve myself and make up for my limitations, and that was when I found out that it seemed to make a difference. There was no way to know how much it helped — I’d been practicing every day, too, so when the strain started to lessen and I could add one more Install, then another, then another, as the weeks progressed, the improvement was way too exponential to match the more linear improvements in my physical fitness.

Maybe (and this one was my personal favorite theory) the more often I Installed and the longer I held it for, the more my body was taking on the characteristics of the Heroes I called upon. On the other hand, the more likely possibility was just that my body was getting more used to the strain, like working out some metaphysical muscle of some kind. It wasn’t my power that was improving, it was how much of it I could safely handle before I did serious damage to something inside me.