by Anne Zoelle
My third service call was a welcome distraction from thinking about the failed ritual.
“Will!” I exclaimed as he opened the door.
He looked surprised, then grinned. “I wondered what you had been sneaking off to do these past few nights. Welcome to the club.”
I beamed. And now I understood what Will had been talking about weeks ago with his shady club references. Justice magic made it so that punishments couldn't be discussed with others.
And I had figured out quickly that it was an unstated rule amongst the repeat offenders that club members chose their own punishments. One never knew when another miscreant was going to land service and be in charge of you.
I was beyond relieved that I could come clean about having community service with someone I knew. Leftover concerns about friends turning their backs on me had lingered. “Thanks.”
He motioned me in. “Come on, you can write the ticket in here. I just got off community service two weeks ago. They assigned me research to work off my offense hours.” He closed the door behind me. “Best punishment ever. I was given a tablet for two months to record my research. They cost a firstborn child to purchase otherwise, since they require origin magic. And I got to meet you and get an adventure.”
He walked over to his desk and poked a slim black device that looked to be mid-creation, and pushed it under his papers while winking at me. “Too bad the tablets are so difficult to duplicate that no one tries.”
Obviously, Will had used his time with his justice tablet well.
“I'll show you what I'm doing.” He motioned me over.
I walked forward, curious. I had never been in his room before, since we usually met in the main library. Unlike Constantine's luxe pad, Will's room space was much like mine.
Half of the room was filled with sports equipment and posters—Mike's side, obviously. The other half was filled with dangling devices and strange objects. A workbench, instead of a desk, lined Will's side of the room, with a loft bed overhead. The sword from the sketch was hanging horizontally on the wall above the bed. A mark on the floor was smoking.
“This the problem?”
“Yeah. Don't step on it.”
I scooted back. “What does it do?”
Will looked around furtively. I mimicked the action. I had thought we were alone. He pulled out a scanner and hit a button, then set it on the workbench. “New project.”
“It looks like you have quite the mad scientist setup here.”
“Thanks!” He looked at my tablet. “Do you mind activating the pause?”
I stared at him blankly.
“You tell the tablet that you are off the record.”
I looked down at my tablet, and did so.
Will glanced at his scanner, then relaxed. “That gives us five free minutes.”
“Oh. That’s nice to know. I am only on page six hundred and fifty of the manual.”
Will laughed. “Yeah, the user manuals are kind of dense. Most people don't bother getting to page thirty.”
“So what are you up to?”
“I'm working on portal pads.”
“Really?” I wanted to try one, but Marsgrove's restrictions on me would probably make me disappear into a black hole forever.
Will leaned forward and pushed his glasses up, clearly warming to the subject. “The best ones on the market only come with ten programmable destinations. I think I can increase that to fifteen. And my goal is to make them infinite. Your gophers inspired me.”
I thought of the trivets sucking the gophers inside, then popping them back out. “Er, if someone's magic goes crazy, couldn't someone get sucked in and never return?”
He waved a hand. “Sure.”
I imagined myself stuck inside the pad's rubber-looking threads...on Mars.
“I have the makings of a device to limit that though. It funnels only the correct amount of magic.”
My body automatically took me a step forward. I didn’t have enough money or nerve to order a magic controller from a catalog yet—and most of the catalog control devices had a distinct infomercial vibe—but I was beginning to grow desperate as more of my magic kept sneaking out and I kept having to redo my pyramid structure to control it. For some of the more hardcore rituals, I really needed something to funnel the exact amount of magic through the first time.
Will looked down at my feet and nervously motioned me to the side. “Until the spot stops smoking, stay at least twelve inches away.”
I decided to take a seat in a chair to the right—after checking it over thoroughly to make sure there weren't any disappearing elements on the surface. “So, this funnel device...does it work on everything magic-related?”
“It should.” He cocked his head. “Are you having control issues?”
“Er...” I suddenly felt like I was about to admit to incontinence. “Most of the time I get a grip on it, but when I want to be precise—” Like when I was working on anything Christian related “—I want to be precise.”
Will nodded. “I'm sure you'll work the problem out. Everyone eventually does. You want to try the device?”
His easy acceptance helped me relax immeasurably. “Most definitely.”
“Ok.” He fished around a drawer and pulled out a googly, tentacled thing. “It's a little...obvious right now. I haven't been concentrating on it. Hmmm...maybe I should do that.” He started fiddling with something. I recognized that look. It mirrored mine on many occasions.
“Yo, Will?”
He blinked up at me. “Yeah?”
“Er, how about I just try the funneler out as it is and see what happens? And you can concentrate on your portal technology.”
“But I can now think of ten ways to make the funneler better. Especially if I fit it to you. Do you like headbands?” He looked at my wrist. “No, a bracelet would be better. I could use separate threads in the leather band. And I could fit it around—”
“Will?”
“—the magic in your veins. The junction of the ulna and radius make a good channel to separate two magic streams and then bring them back together—”
Huh, that was interesting, and my mind started traveling down that path.
“Grab the sword! Suck out his soul!”
Christian's crazy voice snapped me back, and I noticed the heat gathering in my tablet. “Will?”
“—under the wrist guard. Because a ring might separate the magic incorrectly through the separating channels, so—”
“Will!”
“Yes?”
My tablet had started burning my fingers, and it was radiating through all my other burns in some twisted sympathetic magic. “How about we take care of your punishment first, then talk more?”
“Oh, right. Tablet starting to warm?”
“Yes.”
“Here.” He put two tongue depressors together and wrapped what looked like Saran wrap around them, zapped a bit of magic into the junction, then handed it to me.
I stared at the contraption he had made, then looked at him blankly.
“Sword, soul, suck!”
“Right, put that on top.”
I did so and the heat released from the tablet and from my other burns—a pleasant by-product of the sympathy. The junction of the sticks went red for a moment, then cooled.
“You should have”—he paused and cocked his head—“ten more minutes, I think. We best keep it at eight, though.”
“Wellingham said I'd be expelled if I tried to change the enchantments.” I looked at Will's door in dread, waiting for Peters to bust through.
“Oh! No, this doesn't change anything, it just...reroutes the focus for a bit.”
“Ok.” I wondered if I could use something like that for death. A death release? I settled more comfortably into the chair, happy that I was pain and expulsion-free for a moment.
“So, how have you been doing with service?” he asked.
“It's not terrible. A little embarrassing. And I've had...moments.”
“Some of the members of the club are notorious pranksters.”
“Yes.” I thought of being stuck to the hallway ceiling. That had been less than fun. And when I'd ended up thrown out into the bushes that one time—it had taken hours to pull the prickers out of my hair. “Since the pranksters have been turning into toads, though, the pranks have trickled to a stop.” Isaiah had shown me a handy enchantment that activated the tablet's magic automatically if someone was “attacking” me while on duty.
“The amphibian tablet is a great one. I got stuck with the flower tablet last time.” He grimaced. “Couldn't get the rose smell out of my clothes for the first two weeks. And if I left it running too long, violets would bloom underneath. One still grows from a crack in the wood of my desk every few days.”
I hid my grin behind a cough. If the violet colored tablet created flowers, I hoped that meant Peters was perpetually producing canaries. “So, how are you testing the pads?”
“I've only been working with the scientific and magical constructs. I'm still deciding what to send through first. I'd really like to send a golem of some sort.”
“You have blob matter?” Blob matter was similar to human matter and featured highly in the references to a number of darker necromancy spells on creating golems. I hadn't found a good book detailing the matter yet, though, as it was a taboo subject.
“Not yet. Making golems is restricted—the ability to make new creatures scares the pants off the politicians. Has ever since the War of the Hybrids.” He frowned. “I don't want to send a live mouse or gopher through the pad, until I have credible data. And a mechanical mouse just isn't the same.”
I had given thought to using paint on a sculpture instead of canvas, so I was semi-familiar with at least the periphery of the topics he was discussing.
“Maybe I can help you get some.”
He smiled. “That would be great, but I'll probably delay that until spring, when I get permission to travel to the Fourth Layer. Hopefully the customs embargo will be lifted by then—there is a faerie infestation hex; the faeries are revolting against the system.”
I blinked. I had seen pictures of the Fourth Layer in the library, and it was a darkly fantastic place filled with every sort of fairytale enchantment and childhood nightmare—a little like the Midlands, but spread over the entire Earth with distinct societies instead of random events. Vampires and werewolves were real there—human/animal hybrids that were created long ago. “What about catalog orders?”
He shook his head. “Blob material is not allowed through the mail system. It has a highly dark magic classification and there are tracers to prevent its transmission. Though”—he looked around, then at his scanner again—“one can procure many things through club channels.”
Certainty was growing in my mind. “Do you have a picture of it?”
He shook his head. “It's dark and reddish. You ever see The Blob?”
I nodded.
“Like that. That's where it got its street name.”
“Professor Stevens's group might have made something like that in the lab,” I said carefully.
Will raised both brows. “Stevens? She'd be more likely to send me through the portal to test it myself than to make blob matter for a student. Though, she'd definitely be capable of creating it and be permitted to use it for research purposes.”
I'd have to make a quick trip to the library after service.
“Hey!” he suddenly said. “Maybe I could use one of your paper gophers. Have you gotten the kinks worked out?”
I shook my head. “No, but we can try making them again next study period.”
“Great. I'll try those in the interim. Club channels will procure blob matter sooner or later, if I can't find it otherwise. Speaking of which, we should get on task.”
He pointed at the enforcement tablet and I removed the sticks. I could feel the tablet come to life.
Will looked directly at the tablet. “I am working on a school project doing deep research that involuntarily triggers alarms. The magic I am working on is not officially prohibited, it just tweaks the system.”
The magic from the tablet swirled, then settled. I lifted my eyebrows at Will’s explanation, and he continued speaking.
“I will try and keep this research from triggering alarms in the future. In order to repent for this offense, though, I swear to clean the transportation research facilities for two days. By my magic I so do vow.”
I looked at Will sharply and tried to empty my mind, as the tablet magic wound around and did its thing. I didn't want to jeopardize Will's punishment with my thoughts on the matter.
The magic settled and Will nodded to the clock on his wall. Later. He would tell me later. I rose from the chair, and he cheerfully stepped around the charred spot on his floor. “See you later, Ren!”
“Bye, Will.”
Cleaning the research facilities, eh? I'd just bet. Oh, they'd be clean when he was done, but it just reinforced the notion of how “punishments” were used to further magic offenders' goals.
No wonder all of the Academy floors were squeaky clean.
~*~
“I am a seeking mage! Like the ancient diviners. Do not speak to me like that!” a girl screamed shrilly.
“You haven't found anything yet,” was the snide response.
“I will.”
“If she can't find him, that means the mage is powerful,” another girl pointed out. “Possibly...rare even.”
The group exchanged looks.
“We should grab the appropriate equipment then,” one said grimly.
I kept my head down.
I had a thousand other things to do, but Will wanted blob matter, and I had a chance to get him some.
I buried my head in the index of my fifteenth library tome, then randomly flipped through. Because of the restrictions on time spent in the reading rooms, I tried to be selective about the texts I chose before entering the room. I always used the full time, though. I couldn't seem to help myself.
Even after finding the information I required, I would keep sifting through chapters, threading ever deeper into practices and studies of magic—the pulsing veins of it seemingly just out of my view. It simmered there on the edges. I felt that if I dug deeply enough, I would find the answers to everything.
This was the real danger with the reading rooms, especially to someone like me who could become forever lost. I fingered the large data disk that would save my research. It was a risk to save information on the blacker subjects I searched for, but I needed to make sure I didn't miss anything or incorrectly copy data. I'd erase the disk later.
Texts on black magic housed on the lower floors contained theoretical information, allowing students to do research projects, but nothing practical. Frustratingly, black magic texts in the Second Layer were highly regulated and watched. There was no legal way for me to obtain texts that would give me step-by-step instructions. I had to obtain my information the hard way.
I selected three cards full of competing theories and entered a room.
The grid flew up to greet me, lines formed, words flashed, and soon I was diving through threads and intersections.
“All three agree that blob matter has a shelf life of thirty-nine days, in three thirteen day stages, beginning with the day it is used for the first time. See intersecting point five hundred and thirty-two for information on preservation. Should the matter be preserved correctly without use, then a mage should be able to maintain the matter in a stable state for six months. If at the end—”
I rotated the grid with my hands and searched for seedling points in the data. I tagged a few nuggets of light to return to—places where pictorial intersections occurred, places where the magic sometimes didn't know what to do with the information. A dozen ways to make magic recognize pictures invaded my mind, and, as usual, I had to suppress the divergent paths my brain wanted to take. One project at a time, Ren.
The tiny, hard nuggets in the grid...
those were the speculative intersections. Places where the text and magic was parsed and re-encoded to show lists of things that the authors didn't explain.
I had come across my first one during a thorough search of three beginner's texts. I would have dismissed it as dust in the air, but I was used to looking for small things and creating them myself. For finding or inputting that one tiny poppy in a painting that pulled all of the rest of the scene together.
I sifted my hand through the tiny data point.
“It is illegal in all regulated layers to create or use blob matter. An infraction is subject to—”
I pushed it to the side and touched another. I had heard all of the dire warnings a hundred times in these texts. They popped up at me in big, blaring magic letters and booming voices.
A second reading room realization had come after speaking with Neph. It was my magic that influenced the reading room. The experience of a room was unique to the mage controlling it. I was seeking out this type of information, so nuggets of that type would “float” to the surface, so to speak. Another student's magic might not think to look for such things, but their magic might find something I missed.
I guessed it was like reading or viewing anything. People absorbed, interpreted, and used data differently. Even as an introvert and someone who worked well alone, such a perspective made working with interesting people exciting and dynamic.
I plucked a red nugget, spreading it open, then yawned into my upper arm. Doing these searches always exhausted me. But it was worth it. The end of my yawn turned into a silly grin. The nugget contained a list for creating a golem from blob matter based on corroborated sprinklings throughout all three texts. It also contained a dozen dire warnings: death, destruction, and taxes, should a mage attempt creation without a permit. There were no directions given, but all texts agreed on the ingredients. I flung the chart toward my well-used storage device with a smile.
Two far smaller nuggets, each with a corona of black, were nestled at the back. My smile grew. I folded the grid around and to the sides, bringing the nuggets toward me.
A list for creating a doppelganger.
