An explosion somewhere in the building catapulted him out of his reverie. He leaped to his feet and ran out of his room, looking for someone to ask what was going on. Finally, he remembered Arnold and activated him.
“Arnold? What’s going on?”
“Scanning…”
Jaime waited, doing a bit of scanning of his own down the corridors. There was no one, but he could hear voices, just out of sight.
“Zorica Killa Warwick,” Arnold said.
“What?!? What’s wrong with her?” Jaime felt his heart leap in his chest.
“She attempted a spell. It went wrong.”
“Where is she? Is she alright?” he growled at his AI.
“She is in the magic lab. Vital signs active but no sign of consciousness.”
“Take me there right now, Arnold!” Jaime said, already hurrying down the hall. Arnold impassively directed him when to turn left or right, and soon he joined the small crowd gathered just outside the lab door.
“Move! Excuse me,” he said, shoving people out of the way. A vice-like grip on his arm had him turning to see Epone staring at him with angry accusing eyes.
“Sorry. But I need to get in there,” he said, instead of spitting angrily at her.
“You can’t. Not until the imps are banished,” Epone said.
For the first time, Jaime peered into the room to see Zorica standing still in a circle of fire, eyes milked over, no discernible expression on her face even as black imps danced around her.
“What…happened?” Jaime whispered in awe.
“It was meant to be a small summoning spell. For one imp. Something…or someone amplified her magic. And now she’s lost in the maze and the imps have her,” Epone said, eyes narrowed at him.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I wasn’t even here.”
“You’re the only differentiating factor since the last time she performed this magic. Nothing else has changed.”
“Maybe she did it wrong.”
Epone snorted, “Stits don’t get things wrong.”
Jaime opened his mouth to say that Zorica was only half-Stits but then closed it again. That wasn’t the hill he was going to die on. “How do we save her?” he asked instead.
“We don’t. The mad scientist does.”
“The mad scientist? The one swallowed by a robot?”
“We do not use that derogatory term here,” Epone admonished.
Confusion flashed across Jaime’s mind, wondering which word Epone could possibly mean. She was the one who said ‘mad scientist’ after all, Jaime was just repeating after her.
Seeing his confusion, Epone elaborated. “AX is more than a bunch of wires and metal that make up a robot. He is artificially intelligent life.”
“Sorry,” Jaime said grimacing inwardly. There weren’t many such sophisticated AIs on the streets of the favela where he grew up. He wasn’t quite up to date with the politically correct terms for robots.
“So where is AX?” he asked, even as he asked Arnold to track him down.
“Negotiating terms with Mathias.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Well, obviously the scientist would ideally like his freedom while AX would ideally want him under their thumb forever. They need to find a way to work together in a way that everyone gets something.”
“Seriously? Zorica is in trouble! Is this the time for Mathias to hold the ro- I mean AX hostage?”
“It’s the perfect time for Mathias,” Epone pointed out, looking unfazed.
“If these imps get out, we’re all in trouble.”
“They cannot get out of the lab. I have cast a key of Solomon to hold them in.”
“So just Zorica is in trouble?”
Epone hesitated, glancing at Jaime from the corner of her third eye.
“What?” Jaime asked feeling curiously jittery watching Zorica surrounded by imps, alone, defenseless and out of reach. It hit him that he might have to get used to this – seeing one of his team in danger and unable to help…
“If what I suspect is true, Uzochi could probably reach her if you boost him,” Epone said.
“Reach her?”
“Yes!” Epone said, impatiently, “Reach her mind, in the maze. Guide her out.”
“Oh. Okay, let’s do it then.”
“But if I am wrong, Uzochi may be lost in the maze too.”
“Oh,” Jaime said again, thinking furiously. He couldn’t just sit here doing nothing but it would be reckless to go in on a maybe.
“We should do a small test then, see what happens.”
Epone visibly brightened. “You would be willing to try?”
“Of course,” Jaime said, surprised at the twinge of hurt he felt to see that Epone was surprised that he would want to help.
“Okay, let me fetch him.”
With that, Epone blinked out, and was back in a moment, a disgruntled looking Uzochi in tow. Epone was already talking a mile a minute and it seemed that Uzochi understood what was required but wasn’t really on board with experimenting.
“Look what happened to Zorica. Why risk somebody else?”
Jaime stepped forward. “Because she’s your teammate and we do not leave each other behind.”
Uzochi snorted, turning green with amusement. “Since when?”
“Since now. Are we going to do this or what?”
Uzochi stared at Jaime as if he was seeing the squadron leader for the first time. “Okay then,” he said, “let’s do this.”
Jaime turned to Epone. “What do I do?”
“Focus your energy on Uzochi. As much as you can spare.”
Jaime nodded, closed his eyes and pictured a red ball of fire aiming in Uzochi direction.
“Asha!” Uzochi exclaimed, and Jaime opened his eyes to find him clutching his upper arm.
“What happened?” he asked, anxiously.
“It burns,” Uzochi said. He didn’t look hurt though, more dumbstruck.
“What…what were you trying to do?”
“Raise my core temperature by a joule,” he said.
“And what actually happened…?”
Uzochi removed his hand from his arm and Jaime got a look at the circle of burning red hot that seemed to pulse with a life of its own.”
“Ack!” he cried. “I did that?”
“I did that. You amplified it,” Uzochi said, still sounding bemused.
“Oh…apologies?”
Uzochi waved him away with the same hand that was an open festering wound. “No need for that. It will heal presently. Now, let us get Zorica out of the maze.”
“What do I need to do?”
“Exactly what you did just now, aim that energy at me.”
Jaime closed his eyes and so did Uzochi. He aimed the fireball at the seer again, flinching as he did so. He didn’t want to hurt anyone in his crew but it looked like that was all he was doing. Zorica’s scream made him open his eyes.
“Belcalis Cephus Almanzar!” she cried, and suddenly there was a burst of black, sooty smoke and all the imps vanished. Zorica was shaking in the middle of the lab and Jaime hastened to catch her in his arms, leading her gently to a seat.
“Are you okay?”
“That…I…” she stuttered, staring around her in bewilderment, “What happened?”
“You had a little accident with your spellwork,” Jaime said, trying unsuccessfully to stem the flush suffusing his cheeks.
“Really? How?”
“Er, I may have had something to do with that. I’m sorry.”
Zorica stared at him with wide curious eyes. “What did you do?”
“Apparently, I enhanced your magic.”
“You can do that?”
“Looks like it.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So how do you know it was you?”
“Epone told me.”
Zorica snorted. “Take everything that one says with a grain of salt.”
“Yeah well…we did a small experiment on Uzochi before he called to you and brought you out of the maze. It’s definitely me.”
Zorica nodded. “Interesting…”
“Yeah?” Jaime heaved a sigh, releasing the breath he’d been holding. If Zorica was okay with it, then he was good.
“Yes. Definitely. This is good news.”
“It is?”
“Yes. If you can amplify our magic, it makes our chances of coming home from missions much higher.”
Jaime straightened up from where he’d been hunched over Zorica. He spoke to the room at large. Uzochi was present as was Epone and Jordan. AX and She-who-must-not-be-named were not.
“Speaking of missions, it’s time we discussed our next one. Uzochi and Zorica, please visit the medlab for evaluation. After which, we will all gather in the conference room in one standard hour.”
There were a couple of groans of protest – from Uzochi and Zorica insisting they were fine – and then everyone scattered. Jaime took a fortifying breath and made his way to the conference room. He wondered if he should file a report about his newly discovered ability to the Federation. He put it out of his mind for the moment. There were bigger fish to fry, namely getting his team into and out of Mars and retrieving the blink. If they all survived that, he would think about filing a report.
Chapter Five: Mission Impossible
His team was just as devastated as he had been to learn that a blink had been stolen.
“So what’s the plan?” AX asked, throwing up a blue screen of algorithms and probabilities.
Jaime turned to Jordan. “I understand from the general that you might know some back doors into Mars,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
Jordan sighed. “Those doors are secret and well guarded.”
“Can you get us through?”
“Not without help.”
Jaime leaned forward. “From your Family?”
“There are some…contacts on Mars I can get in touch with. It might mess up the supply lines for the Brotherhood. Might just make it so they set up a direct hit on me.”
“What if we let it be known what the Martians stole? In their hands, the blink is dangerous to everyone. I bet the planet winking out of existence might be more detrimental to their business than the loss of one supply line.”
Jordan shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Good. You have permission to get word to your people that the Martians have a weapon of mass destruction. But only after we secure passage.”
Jordan nodded, lips pursed as if willing words to stay in his mouth. Jaime hastened to move on to something else so that Jordan didn’t have a chance to talk. He would corner him after the meeting and find out what it was he’d been dying not to say. The safety of his crew might depend on it.
“Uzochi, we’re going to need some predictions. Can you do that?”
Uzochi held up his hand, where the burn was now just a sooty black mark. “I believe so.” He smiled, watching Jaime as if he was a new treat Uzochi could not wait to consume.
“Good,” Jaime said. “We need to expedite that as fast as possible. Jordan, get in touch with your guy. The rest of you, I would like proposals as to how this can be done with maximum efficiency and minimal body count.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Zorica said with a mock salute and a smile.
Jaime shook his head at her. “Okay then, I’ll be in the war room if anyone needs me,” he said, trying his best not to blush. He walked out, headed to the war room where all the maps and files were kept; a history of every mission ever planned from this base, detailed maps of different planets and ways to get there, holograms of past commanders who he could ask for input and advice. He had a long day ahead of him, trying to come up with a game plan going forward.
He threw up a holographic spreadsheet, dividing it into two tables.
“Arnold, fill in team A…,” he said, thinking about which three needed to go where. “Let’s see how Zorica, Uzochi, and AX work together. Then for team B, we’ll have Jordan, Epone and She-who-must-not-be-named. Does anyone care if I just call her Ash?”
“The Drueerd would care,” Arnold said.
“Well, the Drueerd are not here, so we’re calling her Ash.”
“Yes sir,” Arnold said and put up the names in the spreadsheet.
“Okay, now we need to do some drills so we can see how well we work together right? As a team.”
“And by ‘we’ you mean the team?” Arnold asked, sounding bored.
“Of course. Could you run some sims Arnold, so I can study how they interact?”
“Affirmative sir,” Arnold said and began to run through scenarios as Jaime suggested them: infiltration, acquisition, escape. They went through as many variations as they could so that Jaime could narrow down the most workable ones. Tomorrow, they would do it all again with the team, for real.
A knock on the door startled him and he turned, wondering who it could be.
“Commander?”
That was Zorica’s voice. Jaime’s back straightened and he smoothed down his uniform. “Come in!” he called.
The door opened and Zorica peered in, a smile on her face. “Hi. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Yeah sure, come in.”
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all. Come and have a seat.”
Zorica seemingly glided into the room, sitting down next to Jaime.
“I just wanted to know about the…uh, plan. Do we have one?”
“I’m doing sims now. Do you have anything you’d like to contribute?”
“When I was in…the maze…” She hesitated, her silver eyes dimming to almost transparent. Jaime couldn’t resist reaching out to her, tentatively squeezing her knee.
“When I was in the maze, I…saw things.”
“What things?” Jaime asked and then regretted interrupting. She was already finding it difficult to communicate as it was, “Sorry, continue.”
Zorica sighed. “I’ve been in the maze before. It’s kind of par for the course to lose one’s way you know? Especially when you are an apprentice.”
Jaime nodded his understanding.
“Normally, when you’re lost in the maze, it’s like a long dark tunnel filled with sounds. You can’t see the imps but you can hear them….calling to you, wanting to lead you down into the pit…there’s wailing and screaming but you can’t see who’s doing it.”
“Sounds like fun,” Jaime murmured.
Zorica huffed a laugh. “Yeah, not so much.”
“So what was different this time?”
“Well…this time it was like the tunnel was lit, with the souls of the damned. I could see them in the walls. They were the ones wailing and screaming and their pain was powering the imps who were prancing around, laughing, beckoning me.”
“How could you see them this time and not before?”
Zorica squinted her eyes. “Epone has a theory about that.”
“You mean the fact that I somehow amplified your magic?”
“Not just amplified but solidified, strengthened. I feel it.”
Jaime stared at her. “Even now you say? It wasn’t just temporary?”
“No. I can feel it coursing through me. It’s powering down now, but I definitely feel stronger, like I have more control. I thought about summoning another imp or putting a curse on someone but I can’t risk the maze again so soon and there’s no one within a distance that I can curse.”
“We could probably requisition a prisoner from the Federation-”
“No. I will not experiment on slaves.”
“They’re not slaves, they’re-”
“They are forced to do things against their will, so they are slaves. I can relate.”
“That would make you being here slavery too. Is that how you feel.”
Zorica sh
rugged. “At least I chose this.”
Jaime nodded for lack of anything better to do. He couldn’t really relate but he could see what she was saying. If Jaime decided to requisition a prisoner for experimentation, the prisoner would not be able to decline.
“Okay so, is there no spell you can do that would not permanently damage a person? Something reversible?”
Zorica laughed. “Sure there are reversible spells. That’s just not my area. Infernal magic tends to deal with dark magic. Aims to maim the body and the spirit. You can’t just erase that.”
“Well then, we shall make plans with the assumption that there has been no change in the status quo while exercising appropriate caution while performing any magic.”
Zorica signified her assent with a nod. “Yes. And once we get to the outer atmosphere of Mars, we can test Epone’s theory by doing a summoning spell for the imps. We’ll need them for successful penetration. I know that the Brotherhood has a witchdoctor who controls their supply.”
“That’s a bit of information I did not have.”
“Probably because the Federation is unaware.”
“So are you able to use the imps in the same way, to penetrate the Martian wards?”
“Indeed I can. At least I think so. I have never tried. “
“Does Jordan know how the imps are used?”
“We haven’t discussed it.”
“Well I will modify the sims accordingly and we can find out tomorrow.”
“Great,” Zorica said standing up, “I will go now.”
“You have a good night,” Jaime said, standing up too.
Zorica smiled at him, tilting her head to the side to consider him. “You like me, don’t you?”
“W-what?”
“You. Like. Me,” Zorica said again.
Jaime just stared at her with his mouth open, making her chuckle.
“Good night Jaime Pravin Hall,” she said as she glided out of the room. Jaime watched her leave, not even sure what had just happened.
‘Did you hear what he can do? What he did to the demon worshipper?’
Mage Marine Misfits: Book 01 Page 4
