Hidden Nature

by S. M. Savoy

  Sara let the commandant solve every puzzle. She just laughed a lot while they decided what way to go. She fell asleep while he was solving a matching game.

  Oz was busily sorting through the applicants for someone to work on the game with him. Someone it would be fun to work with. It was clear to him now that he needed more human interactions. Hawk had been right. They needed more fun. And this fun would make them a fortune. Seeing the commandant play had given him new insights that he intended to take full advantage of. He could barely wait to get started.

  The commandant took off his glasses and handed them to Oz. “This game is very fun. I’ll be sure to buy it. I have nieces and nephews who’d love to play it.”

  Oz removed the glasses and gloves from Sara. “You’re welcome to check out the entire lineup. I think you’ll like the training programs we made for the Scouts— our security teams. We use actual guns for that, modified of course, but with lifelike interactions and responses with a completely simulated environment you can climb and crawl on. Its very fun. The midshipmen here work on that program a lot. We’ve designed complete virtual ships with every disaster we could think of. We’re thinking of opening a chain of them. Not using actual schematics like we do for our training but maybe recreating famous battles or scenes from movies.”

  “I’d love to see it.” The commandant gestured at the gear in his and Oz’s hands.

  “This all must cost a fortune.”

  Oz nodded, smiling wryly. “We’re going through money like water. Once our game launches, we’ll recoup it a hundred-fold though.” Oz frowned thoughtfully at Sara. “We need her well. She’s vital to Valor Industries. I need her. No one else understands me, not completely like she does. We have so much going on.” A finger held to his lips, he gestured the commandant to follow him as Sara stirred in her sleep. They left the room and Marcus entered and sat beside her.

  “Sorry. She needs to rest,” Oz said. “We’re still correlating data from last fall’s attack on the president, and she’s been working on a theory, tracking leads from her bed in there. It’s too stressful, but she’s determined to stop Mr. X. That’s what we call our unknown mastermind.”

  Oz waved his hands in the air a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “I’m trying to keep her distracted with nicer thoughts, less stressful things than presidential assassins and people trying to kill Chief or Stasia and Hawk. This visit helps. All normal visitors help. They keep her occupied with nice, normal things. She isn’t strong enough to teach yet but I was hoping some of her students could get permission to come here in their spare time and talk to her? She’d love the company, and she could help them with homework or whatever.”

  He’d make sure that she had some civilian assistants as well. People that couldn’t be ordered away and that had families and friends that kept them interested in the outside world.

  “I’ll see that all of your students get permission to come here as they wish.” The commandant said agreeably.

  “I’ll tell them she can see them all and ask them to visit her. Thank you. Amy and Paul visit when they can, but they only had permission to be here briefly. That will help her a lot.” Oz smiled crookedly. “They’ll probably come here often and work here as well as see her. They like working on the games and want their own wristcomps.”

  “How do you afford to give them the wristcomps?”

  “We have a grant and it’s an ideal learning tool. They learn it and how to use it from the ground up. When they graduate as officers, having and using one will help them tremendously. The Navy likes the Valkyrie operating system and the wristcomps. The cost per unit is down a lot from the original and I expect it to drop even more with next version. We aren’t charging the students access fees to our satellite.

  “With the newest skeins, the charger will be obsolete in the next model. The worst problem we’re having is more people want to take the class then we can accommodate. We choose our students by their GPA. You need a minimum math and science level. Basically, the smarter you are, the better the chances you can get into our class. We can only show sixty people a semester. You’re going to have some disgruntled students.”

  The commandant smiled complacently. “It’ll be good for them. Competition is vital for a well-rounded officer. Let me know when it’s convenient for you to catch me up to this semester’s class.”

  “I’ll email you my schedule and let you pick a time,” Oz said.

  * * *

  The students started visiting Sara. Liz monitored her and when she noticed her yawning, she’d shoo them away to let Sara sleep. Sara slowly grew stronger. Eating and drinking no longer made her hands shake. Charlie helped her shower, and someone had to carry her to the bathroom, but once there she could help herself. By the end of the week, she could sit up by herself. She still wasn’t walking, but just being able to raise herself into a sitting position lifted her spirits tremendously. Liz got her a wheelchair so she could go where she wanted inside the lab.

  She returned to work and spent her days in her office and teaching her students. Her evenings were spent with friends and Charlie. He’d study or do homework while she worked on her own projects or just rested quietly beside him.

  He smiled tenderly at her as she dozed. Her magic had stopped pushing her to come to him, it was her own contentment he sensed. Despite the other warriors she was happiest with him and it relieved his soul to know it.

  - 8 -

  Reporting

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” Liz saluted General Campbell.

  “Please, have a seat, Liz. I admit, I’m concerned you’ve asked for this meeting.”

  “I have a lot of new information. Let me start by saying Sara is recovering. I think she’ll be fully recovered within two months’ time although I’m not a hundred percent certain she’ll regain the height she lost. I expect her to be walking and doing exercises within a month.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “It is.” Liz smiled in clear relief. “Sara was mostly successful in teaching the magic. All the magic wielders can tell it no now and it listens. I don’t know what it will do if it really wants something. They’ve been keeping it happy.” Liz sighed. “One of the reasons I’m here is Sara wants to try to separate them all a bit. I recommend we don’t separate any of the couples at first. Sara would like to stop seeing the others slowly. She wants to have it only want Charlie again. I don’t think that’s possible anymore but she wants to try it. Charlie assures me he won’t let her stress the magic. I think we should let her try but keep them in the zone just in case.”

  “That’s fine.” Campbell grimaced ruefully. “We’ve already decided to give them to her. We won’t try to order any of them away. It’s a waste of training, but their scientific advances are worth more than an entire battalion of highly trained soldiers.”

  Liz winced. “That brings up my next point— we need that battalion.” She told him what Charlie had told her. “Sara has asked it to wait, and it is, but it won’t wait indefinitely. We need to be ready for it. If one of them dies or is severely hurt or afraid it could panic again and try to reproduce. We should have our people ready. I wish I’d thought to replace Mike with Harrison to see if the magic would’ve accepted a replacement for him or if once it chose him it was too late. I recommend we have a full raid ready. If Sara or Brenda do change someone, we can try to substitute our choice.”

  “Will it stop at the raid?”

  “No way to tell.” Liz stared down at her fingers twining in her lap and smoothed her hands over her knees. “I recommend we don’t change anyone else until we absolutely have to and then add the minimum it will accept. We need information on how long it can go to be able to judge how many we need.” She handed the general a file.

  “This is an important datum. The new magic wielders, excluding Joy, didn’t receive any other buffs; they retain the same strength, agility, and intelligence as they had prior to the change. Mike Wallac
e received the equivalent of raid buffs, but he isn’t as strong as Charlie is. I don’t know if it’s because he was dispelled and then hit with lightning again or if Sara subconsciously did it. Marcus, Rick, and Mike have all of the spells Charlie does, but Charlie’s spells are stronger. He’s stronger physically then they are. His endurance is higher; he’s a better warrior.”

  “Hmm, yes, I can see how in her eyes, he’s better, therefore they were made weaker. Brenda too?”

  “Yes, no intelligence buff beyond what she already had. Her damaging spells are stronger than Sara’s, but she’s a damage class. She can manipulate the magic like Sara can, but she can’t communicate as well. Brenda is unable to recharge the bracelets. She lacks the spell to store magic.”

  “They’ve both tried to communicate again?”

  His eyes as he said it were intent on Liz’s. The pressure of them would have made her duck her head if she’d intended to lie but she met them straightly, somewhat amused at her internal thoughts. She bet he could cow the green recruits with the merest glance.

  “They did and with moderate success. Sara convinced her magic to let the Scouts touch her, but not naval personnel or Marines. I’m sure it’s because she doesn’t want them to touch her.”

  Liz grimaced. “I should say all of the Scouts except Major Nelson. I’ll admit that worries me.”

  “Frankly, I’m amazed Charlie didn’t kill him.”

  Liz winced again. “They speak civilly, but the friendship is gone. Our reputation with them took a serious hit. I know none of them trust him anymore. And when I say none of them, I mean the entire raid. This leads me to my next point. I’ve written this nowhere and told no one. I’m not one hundred percent sure of my findings. Charlie, and to a lesser extent Sara, can control them all.”

  “What’s that mean exactly?” The general sat back in his chair, furrowing his brow.

  “It means, if Charlie says do something, they do it, all of them, even Sara. She can do that as well, but if he contradicts her, they listen to him. It’s hard to get accurate results because neither of them order them around, but when they do, they get instant obedience. I think it’s more noticeable now because they’re together so much. When it was just Team Valor, he rarely asked them to do anything, and almost never asked them to do something they didn’t want to do.”

  Liz made a face. “I can’t prove it without talking with them, and I didn’t want to bring it to their attention without talking to you and Doctor Gotlieb. I can give you examples of the behavior, but it’s just my opinion until it’s tested.”

  “Give me a few examples.” The general folded his hands on the desk. His calm reaction eased her fast-beating pulse. She hated to contemplate that Charlie might be controlling her almost as much as she hated to contemplate the general’s reaction if he found it to be true.

  Liz nodded and opened a flatscreen. “I have a few on video. This is a typical lunch. Charlie isn’t looking at Stasia. He wouldn’t normally ask anyone for anything while they were eating but he doesn’t see that she is. I’m monitoring him closely to be sure his aura isn’t affecting his classmates. The reactions are subtle so it’s standard practice for me to record him when he’s in large groups to better determine if he’s affecting them.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I digress. There’s no noticeable difference but I did notice this. He asked her to get him the report she was doing on cost analysis for the game development, and she gets up and does it. She doesn’t say when I’m done eating, which a normal person would do. Before you say maybe it’s her, I have recordings of someone else asking her for something while she’s eating, and she does say after I’m done. I’ve seen this multiple times with all of them, they instantly do what he wants.”

  She turned on a new video. “This one is more subtle. Toric is infatuated with Sara. They all know it. Sara is kind, but distant with him. He visits, and she lets him stay. Charlie orders him to leave and he does. He doesn’t even look back. Oz asks him to leave, and he makes an excuse to linger or touch her again before he does. See, it’s not conclusive, he could be afraid of Charlie and not Oz, or maybe he’s trying to be respectful of Charlie’s feelings. The next video is more compelling, but still not proof.

  Liz turned on a video of an unhappy looking Hawk. They listened to Charlie tell him to go sit with Sara. Hawk goes. Liz stopped the recording. “What you don’t see is him telling Sara to sit with Hawk. She doesn’t want to, but she does without complaint. Hawk doesn’t want to either, but he does as well.”

  “Wait, why don’t they want to sit together?”

  Liz sighed. “I’m telling you this in confidence. It’s a bit of a love triangle. Sara doesn’t want to hurt Hawk’s feelings, so she doesn’t want to sit with him and let her magic mingle with his. Hawk doesn’t want to upset either of them by airing his feelings. Charlie wants the magic happy, so he makes them sit together at least once a week. It embarrasses both of them. I think this is pretty compelling evidence. A normal seventeen-year-old boy wouldn’t go to the object of his affection and be turned away every week. When the magic mingles, you know exactly how someone feels for you. It must be extremely awkward for them.”

  “This is a big problem! I should’ve been informed immediately that Hawk is romantically interested in Sara.”

  “It just became clear when their magic touched, and he isn’t in love with her. They do love each other, but he doesn’t want to take her from Charlie. He just wants someone like her, a relationship like Charlie has. He does find her attractive and if she weren’t Charlie’s girl I’m sure he’d make a move, but he never would now. It really isn’t a problem. Charlie isn’t jealous at all. Hawk is jealous, but not of them, of their situation. He’s happy for them. It’s just awkward for him and Sara to share that knowledge. It’s one thing to know it, it’s another to sit by someone and feel it.”

  “Yes, I see… compelling proof indeed. If their romantic situation changes, I want to know immediately.”

  “I’m keeping an eye out on all of them and studying psychiatry. I’m planning on leaving the raid once I’m done with these classes. I’ll leave sooner if there’s a chance of being changed. I do enjoy the buffs, especially the intelligence buff but I don’t want to be a host for the magic. I’ve been taking classes for my doctorate and while I can do it without the buff, the classes are easy with it, so I want to finish first.”

  Liz handed the general another file. “This is about Joy. She’s fully recovered. You know we did a full autopsy on her, removed and weighed every single organ. We dissected her brain and took out her m-nerve and examined it.” She traced the picture on her screen of the new set of nerves magic wielders had. “We did every test we could think of on her body. She’s perfect now, exactly as she was. She remembers hearing the shots that killed her and then nothing until she woke in the hospital bed. I think we need to reexamine our hypothesis on resurrection. We’d considered it a form of healing, not true resurrection. A sort of advanced CPR that wouldn’t work after brain death. Obviously, that isn’t the case. There’s no doubt Joy was truly dead. Brenda and Rick were resurrected easily. As easily as a healing. In their case I think it was basically a heal. In Joy’s case, Sara preformed a reset. My theory is she could do it again, and if the body were more intact, specifically the brain, she could do it easier.

  “Joy’s brain was severely damaged. We’d destroyed much of it during the autopsy. It was much more damaged than Brenda’s was when she was murdered. Sara’s own brain was severely damaged in the healing. Team Valor was magically depleted for two days afterward. They all injured their m-nerves during that resurrection. I took a biopsy when Sara was sedated and her m-nerves were fried. Her bones had been scorched as if burned and large sections of her brain burned. Without healing it would potentially take years for her to regenerate and it might have been unrecoverable.”

  “But she has a healing buff.”

  “Yes, but because her m-nerve was fried, she had no magi
cal conduits. No way to form magic to make the repairs needed. To kill a magic wielder beyond hope of resurrection, the brain needs to be destroyed completely, and in a wielder who possess a healing buff, the m-nerves should be removed too. It horrifies me to think one might be buried and slowly regenerate. All should be cremated when they die. No viable flesh can remain. Sara’s current injuries prove that the magic can refashion the body to use it to power the host. It’s conceivable and even likely it could injure the host beyond repair if pressed.

  “I’ll know more as we see how Sara recovers. She’s perfectly healthy but she lost two inches in height. It’s possible the magic could just use one of them up.”

  The idea of it gave her the cold shivers.

  She cleared her throat and said in a calmer voice, “It’s clear memory doesn’t just reside in one area of the brain, or perhaps everything a magic wielder has experienced is an indelible part of the magic now.

  “It’s also clear that removing the m-nerve would only be a temporary solution. It would regrow. I can only hypothesis on the time needed for complete regrowth but I assume it would take at least four days as in a transformation but that’s assuming brain function is intact.”

  Liz tapped her wristcomp and displayed a highly magnified picture. “Our autopsy of Joy taught us the corpus callosum, the fibers that connect the two halves of the cerebellum, are configured differently in a wielder and is where the first spark of magic comes from. These tiny filaments here. Only casters have these. To cast requires reserves of magic that form and are stored in the m-nerve, but it requires these small delicate strands.”

  Liz changed the picture and the general leaned forward to examine it.

  “Those filaments didn’t reform until the brain had been completely healed and it took forty minutes or so. I don’t think our healing had any effect on that process. Every caster falls unconscious for forty minutes or so when the magic infects them. I think that’s those filaments forming.