The New World

by Matt Myklusch

  “That’s two you owe me,” Janelle said.

  “Something tells me I’ll get the chance to pay you back.” The next salvo of large stones was on its way.

  Janelle’s eyes widened. “Go!”

  They took off running down the bridge. The blocks came down with a vengeance, coming at them from all sides. Joey and Janelle fought their way forward, covering each other’s backs as they went. Joey drove his fist through block after block, and the Staff of Sorcero became a blur as Janelle swung it back and forth, obliterating every obstacle in her path. It was a tough slog, but they were making progress, and Joey felt himself getting the hang of it. He was just hitting his stride when the room tilted sideways. After that, it went upside down.

  “Talk about an unexpected twist,” Joey said, surprised to find his feet still anchored to the bridge. “You okay?” he asked Janelle.

  “Trying to concentrate here,” she answered, slicing through a stone the size of a buffalo. From Joey’s point of view, the broken pieces of the stone seemed to fall up, rather than down. It was a disorienting optical illusion, which of course was the whole point of flipping the room. Joey forced himself to stay focused on the blocks and keep going. It wasn’t easy fighting while inverted, but he took some solace in the fact that it was nearly over. The wall was running out of stones to throw at them. Soon there was nothing left but a couple of rows of stone blocks on either side of the bridge. Joey breathed a sigh of relief, but that feeling was short-lived.

  A sound like a freight train running over tracks at a high speed echoed through the room as the wall rebuilt itself. Stonework unfolded like an accordion, and within seconds, a fully replenished wall was ready to start over at square one.

  “I can’t keep this up forever,” Janelle said to Joey. He could hear the strain in her voice.

  “I don’t think we’re meant to,” Joey replied, also running out of steam. He felt like a character in a video game moving up to a more difficult level, but he and Janelle didn’t have three lives. He thought about using the wand, but he didn’t want to go there yet. He had to use its power sparingly, or he wouldn’t live through this adventure. Of course, he wasn’t likely to live through getting crushed or knocked off the bridge either. He was still going back and forth on what to do when every piece of the wall came alive at once. The giant stone blocks hovered in the air, poised to overwhelm Joey and Janelle in a simultaneous barrage. The two friends looked at each other in terror.

  “RUN!” Janelle screamed.

  They made a break for the tunnel covering the door at the end of the bridge. Joey sprinted after Janelle, finding cover just in time. The blocks rained down like a meteor shower, crashing against the beams and breaking apart. Fragments shot through the gaps in between the beams, pelting Joey and Janelle with rock particles and covering them in dust. Joey fumbled in his bag for the Hand of Glory as he ran. He no longer cared how gross it was. In fact, Joey couldn’t wait to slap the dead hand’s palm against the door. Unfortunately, a chunk of rock the size of a bowling ball came through at the last second to knock his backpack out of his hands. Joey’s stomach lurched as he watched the bag, and the many magical items it contained, go over the side of the bridge.

  “Shazad’s going to kill me.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to get the chance.” Janelle wrestled with the door. Naturally, it was locked.

  This time Joey didn’t hesitate. He pulled the wand out of his sleeve and thrust it forward.

  “No!” Janelle shouted, stepping into Joey’s path. She swung the Staff of Sorcero as hard as she could. Sparks flew and the door splintered around the doorknob. She pushed it open and reached for Joey’s hand. With no idea what they were getting into next, they dove for safety as the walls came crashing down.

  3 Office Party

  Joey and Janelle landed in darkness. Outside on the bridge, the tunnel was still getting shelled, so Janelle kicked out with her foot to close the door behind them. After that, everything went quiet. The bombardment finally stopped. Exhausted from their ordeal, Joey and Janelle allowed themselves a moment to lie on the floor in silence. It seemed they were out of danger. For the time being, at least.

  “You were going to use the wand,” Janelle said to Joey after she caught her breath. It was an accusation.

  He sat up and put the wand away, guilty as charged. “I know.”

  “You said you wouldn’t do that. You promised.”

  “Emergencies only, I said. You don’t think the situation qualified?”

  “ ‘Emergencies only’ means last resort. It doesn’t qualify unless you try every other option first. You weren’t going to try any.”

  “Did you see me lose my bag out there? That could have been my head. Or yours! I didn’t want to find out the hard way that the staff wouldn’t cut it. Fortunately, it did.” Joey stood up and looked around. The broken door let in a little light but not much. “Let’s not argue about it. It’s over, and I didn’t have to use the wand.” He reached out a hand to help Janelle up. “Thanks to you.”

  Janelle took Joey’s hand. “Nothing’s over. We’re just getting started. You need to be more careful.”

  “I know. Let’s get some light in here,” Joey said. He flipped the light switch, and the office building’s modern, corporate environment returned. They were in a posh executive suite with an incredibly soft gray carpet. Joey could feel its cushion and bounce through his sneakers. It was like standing on a pillow. The room had a minimalist design. Black walls with dark wood accents and no artwork hung anywhere. Floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around the office gave its occupants something better to look at. The scene outside the windows was not one that could be found outside the thirteenth, or even the fourteenth, floor of any building in Midtown Manhattan. Somehow their vantage point was higher, looking down on the spire of the Empire State Building and all the way out to the Freedom Tower at the southern tip of the city. Odd as it was, Joey didn’t give it a second thought. There was magic at work, and he’d seen stranger things. Much stranger.

  He gravitated toward the desk, which was empty save for a blank notepad, a paperweight, some papers, and a business card holder. A wall of flat-screen TVs filled the space behind the desk, which Joey found excessive. He couldn’t help but notice the office was twice the size of his living room back home with a much nicer sitting area. Leather couches and comfortable chairs were arranged around a coffee table on the far side of the room. In the corner, a bar tray shaped like a globe was stocked with what Joey assumed were very expensive bottles.

  “Nobody home,” Janelle said. She spun the Staff of Sorcero around counterclockwise, shrinking it back down to the size of a baton. Joey didn’t ask Janelle what the science behind that move was. If she overthought it, she might not be able to do it again. She took a shiny black bag the size of a pillowcase out of her inside jacket pocket and shook it out. “Think we’ll be able to get what we came for?”

  “We’ll get our chance. Just don’t let your guard down,” Joey warned. “Stay frosty.” He had put the firestone pendant back around his neck, but he stood ready to grab it at a moment’s notice.

  “Stay frosty?” Janelle tried out the phrase with a smirk. “What movie is that one from?”

  “Not everything I say is a line from a movie.”

  Janelle raised an eyebrow and waited.

  Joey sighed. “Aliens. Battlestar Galactica. Call of Duty. Take your pick.”

  Janelle snickered. “I like how you mixed in a video game reference this time.”

  “This is the boss level.”

  Janelle walked past the couches, glancing at the business magazines and financial trades on the coffee table. “It’s not what I expected.”

  “Not at all,” Joey agreed. “You have to run some kind of extra-dimensional gauntlet to get here, but then once you’re inside…,” Joey trailed off, shaking his head. “I thought it would look like Dr. Strange’s mansion in the village or a Death Eater’s lair, not some boring
banker’s office.”

  “The wall of TVs is kind of Bond-villain-esque,” Janelle said.

  “I guess.” Joey found the remote and hit the power button. The TVs flickered on, but Joey muted the screens before the volume kicked in.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want to see what he watches.” The TVs were each set to a different news channel. The stories that flashed across the screens were all too familiar. Wildfires in Australia and California. Red skies up and down the West Coast, which made it look like Mars. Polar ice caps melting. Oil spills and pollution. Hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and floods, and that was just the tip of the rapidly disappearing iceberg. Everywhere Joey looked, the planet was dying, and no one was doing anything about it.

  He shut the TVs off. He had seen enough.

  The world needed saving, and not just from the Invisible Hand. Magic was the key. Joey thought about all the polluting industries people tolerated… the fossil fuels that the world couldn’t live without… By this time tomorrow, they would all be made obsolete. After all, who needs oil when you’ve got magic? It was the ultimate sustainable solution. Limitless, clean energy, just waiting to be tapped. There was only one catch. People had to believe in it.

  That was where Joey and his friends came in. They were going to shake the world out of the state of learned helplessness it was in and introduce new possibilities. New wonders. Like Shazad’s mother had said, people needed to be shocked into a new way of thinking. As far as Joey was concerned, it was the only way to save the world from itself. People needed change they could believe in. The Order of the Majestic was going to give it to them, but they couldn’t do it alone.

  Janelle crossed the room to the desk and picked up a business card from a stack in a silver container. It identified Ledger DeMayne as CGI’s executive vice president of strategic development, operating under the alias John Black. “Why not CEO?” she asked, showing the card to Joey.

  “Not his style. He’d rather be the guy behind the guy. The power behind the throne. From here, he pulls CGI’s strings.”

  Joey continued to explore the room. There wasn’t much to see. There were no trophies or bookshelves with interesting relics placed among the books. There was nothing that seemed to be of any real value to them in their quest for information. Nothing they could learn from. DeMayne didn’t even have a computer.

  Janelle went through the desk drawers and found a black leather journal. She took it out and started looking through it.

  “Anything juicy in there?” Joey asked after a few seconds.

  Janelle bunched up her lips, scanning the pages quickly. “Nothing we didn’t already know or suspect. It does confirm that DeMayne had a hand in the NSA and DARPA taking over our energy project at Caltech last year. And, he’s got ‘Fixed News’ media running counterprogramming against Camelot, calling it a hoax.”

  “No surprises there,” Joey said.

  Janelle kept reading. “Listen to this: ‘Blackhart Protection, a subsidiary of CGI Military Solutions, to recall ten thousand private security contractors from assignment in the Arctic Ocean and North Pacific due to inactivity and reduced threat level at target sites.’ ” She closed the book. “That’s good news.”

  “Nice to know we were right about that,” Joey said. “It should make Shazad’s and Leanora’s lives a lot easier tonight.”

  At the moment, Joey and his friends had the element of surprise on their side. Hypnova had erased DeMayne’s memory of them outside Camelot, and for the last year, they had been free to do as they pleased without drawing the attention of the Invisible Hand. That advantage had been a game changer, allowing the Order to mount an offensive for the first time since Houdini.

  Joey spotted a game board set up on a small table behind the desk. He had missed it on his first lap around the room, but now it stood out to him as an item of interest. He approached the board. It was a thick, round slab of dark marble with concentric circles growing out from the center in fading shades of gray. There were five tokens on the board, each about the size of a standard chess piece. They were carved out of different materials and came in different colors. Two of them, the red ruby and gray stone pieces, had been set on their sides as if lost or captured. Joey wondered if they represented Scarlett and Grayson Manchester. The remaining pieces were black obsidian, white ivory, and what to Joey’s untrained eye appeared to be a flawless diamond. Joey picked up the crystal and ivory pieces and studied them closely. Ledger DeMayne had once referred to the struggle for control over the world’s supply of magic as “the great game.” Joey assumed the black piece was DeMayne, but these other two were question marks. He wondered who they were.

  Joey set the pieces back down, but unfortunately, he wasn’t careful to put them back where he found them. He placed them in the center circle, and suddenly there were two new people in the room. Janelle hit him in the shoulder, her eyes the size of gobstoppers.

  “Joey. Heads up. We’ve got company.”

  Joey took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. He had the window behind him, and the two men who had just materialized out of thin air were standing in front of the office door, blocking the only way out.

  Joey, Janelle, and the two strangers stood there in silence. Everyone seemed equally surprised to be there staring at each other. Joey didn’t know who the two men were, but he knew they were trouble. He got a bad vibe from both of them. One of them was six feet tall, muscular, and well dressed, sporting a shirt, a tie, and a stylish patterned vest. He wore a flashy watch, some large rings, and had a little pouch at his waist attached to a thin gold chain. He was bald but had a thick, well-groomed beard. He was handsome but intimidating. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and his pink skin was covered with tattoos. The other man wore a heavy coat with a fuzzy collar and a scarf that was wrapped around his neck and tucked into a sweater. Joey thought he looked like he belonged in a ski lodge. His face was thin, and his skin was pale, almost to an unhealthy degree. He had light blond hair that was so fair it was almost white and striking blue eyes, but the dark circles underneath softened their glow. Joey noticed a bracelet on the wrist of his left hand with a single clear stone.

  “Mr. Ivory?” the man in the winter coat said to the man with the beard. When he spoke, Joey saw his breath form an icy white vapor.

  “Mr. Clear,” the bearded man replied, recognizing his counterpart. “This is a surprise.” He eyed Joey and Janelle with an air of reserved curiosity. “I was just about to say I hate when the big man calls us in like this, but the big man’s not here, is he? What’s this about? I wonder.”

  Joey looked back and forth between the two men and the game board. Hearing them say their names out loud, he knew he had messed up big-time. They were part of the Invisible Hand, and he was responsible for bringing them there. He was about to move the pieces back to their original places when the man in the parka, Mr. Clear, stopped him.

  “Freeze.”

  He reached out a hand, and the stone on his bracelet sparkled with light. The next thing Joey knew, his own hand was encased in a block of ice. It fell heavy to his side before he got near the board.

  “Don’t do that,” Mr. Clear said in what sounded to Joey like a Norwegian or Swiss accent. Maybe it was German. He didn’t know. Mr. Clear cursed and zipped up his coat, muttering, “Unbelievable. I was just starting to warm up.”

  “Why don’t we all take a step back from the game board?” said the larger of the two men, Mr. Ivory. He motioned with his hands, and Joey and Janelle did as they were told. “After all, we just got here. You two called us here. You can’t go pulling the rug out from under our feet without even saying hello. That would be rude.”

  Janelle and Joey huddled close together. She looked at his hand in concern and asked him with her eyes if he was all right. He nodded. His hand was freezing, but he didn’t want to do anything rash. Not until he knew more about Mr. Ivory and Mr. Clear. They weren’t part of the plan.

  Mr. Ivory w
ent to inspect the pieces on the game board. He pointed at Joey, assuming he was the one who had moved them. “You moved the pieces and brought us here,” he guessed. “How did you know how this worked?”

  “I didn’t,” Joey said. “I was just… I was standing there and… I don’t know what happened. I…” He was rambling, trying to figure out what to say and how to play this. Eventually, he went with the truth. “I was wondering who those game pieces were supposed to be. I put them in the center and boom. There you were. Just like that.”

  “Just like that.” Mr. Ivory nodded. “Very interesting. Who are you? If you don’t mind me asking.” He looked at Janelle. “I heard you call him Joey, but I didn’t catch your name. What are you two doing here?”

  Joey and Janelle said nothing.

  “Are you lost?” Mr. Ivory pressed.

  Mr. Clear opened the door and looked outside. “They broke in.”

  Mr. Ivory took a peek at the wreckage out in the hallway. “Look at that. You came in the hard way. That’s impressive. But, again… I’m wondering what you’re doing here. Why would you go through all that? Do you have any idea where you are right now? Whose office you’re in? What do you think this place is?”

  Joey shot a quick look at Janelle and gave a tight, almost imperceptible shake of his head. He didn’t want to give up any information if he could help it. Maybe they could play dumb and talk their way out of this.

  The subtle exchange between Joey and Janelle didn’t go unnoticed. “Look at you two, being all sneaky.” Mr. Ivory laughed. “Come on, you obviously know something about magic. My friend here turned your hand into an ice cube and you didn’t bat an eye. The question is, what do you know about us? Because you definitely know something. It’s all right. You can tell me,” he said, his tone softening as if he were trying to put them at ease. It wasn’t working. “Here’s what I’m thinking: Maybe you heard rumors about this place, found out a few secrets, and wanted to learn more. Maybe you came here to join up and be Company Men like us. And Company Women,” he added, nodding to Janelle. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. We could use some new blood. But, then again, it could be you’re here for a different reason.” Mr. Ivory’s eyes narrowed. “It could be you’re the people we’ve been looking for. The ones who caused all that trouble last year. The big man’s been working awful hard trying to figure out who dropped Camelot smack-dab in the middle of an English meadow. Maybe there’s a reason he missed you.” Mr. Ivory tapped Mr. Clear on the shoulder. “Just a theory, but I think we’ve got some new players in this game. Very new by the looks of it.”