Harmonics: Rise of the Magician (Harmonics Series Season One)

by Chris Snelgrove

  Sam, without realizing it, let her robe drop to the floor, and with it the anticipation turned into satisfaction.

  Boom Goes the Methanol

  Time: Current day, early afternoon

  Scene: Chemistry class

  "Richard, I told you it's not my fault. It was the biggest suit they had and I haven't been able to get a new one."

  Sam removed her school interface from its protective case and placed it in front of her, taking a long moment to pair her touch screen with the project holoboard in front of their desk. Richard turned from Sam and gazed soberly out the window.

  Sam sighed. "I don't know why you are so mad; the suit wasn't that revealing. I was mostly covered up."

  Richard's eyebrows scrunched, a clear sign that he was annoyed. "Samantha, if your swimming attire can double as floss, it's too revealing."

  The comment would have been funny in any other circumstance. She thought back to the week before.

  "You have the chance of a lifetime Sam," Cammie had said eyes glowing with anticipation mixed with jealousy. "You've got the goods and now you can show them off; all the other girls have to wear the new models. You're the only one that gets to wear a cute suit. You're a swan in a lake full of cows."

  Sam remembered shaking her head. "First of all, lake full of cows? That doesn't make any sense. Second, no way Cammie. I wear something like that and it's bordering on public indecency. I will just have to skip that--"

  "Sam! You don't have time to be shy. You've got to be bold. Adam is going to be there. He won't be able to resist you. Show a little skin and gain a lot of ground. That's what my mom always used to say."

  Sam's eyebrows creased. "I have a hard time believing your mother used to say that."

  Despite her argument with Cammie, Sam took the swimsuit and afterwards didn't look for another. Two days before her "unveiling" she had tried on the swimsuit and looked at her figure in the full-length mirror. If she was being truthful, she felt embarrassed; incredibly embarrassed. But aside from that she liked it--she liked what she saw in the mirror.

  Later that night embarrassment beat out her potential ego boost. She sat in bed telling herself it was just a school swimsuit. Not that big a deal. It wasn't that revealing. Her head knew better of course. She had been trying to convince herself otherwise ever since, but now thinking of Richard's remark (who didn't pull any punches when it came to the truth), she had always known.

  She really wasn't sure her actually wearing the suit was the problem for Richard. The suit just represented something deeper, like his inability to articulate what was really bothering him. She protected herself own by falling back onto her excuse. Adam was there and she didn't get many chances to impress him. Plus, she reasoned, it wasn't really her fault that the school suits were on backorder! What else could she have done?

  Sam sighed. She could have done any number of things really--She knew it. Richard knew it. Ultimately she didn't know why she chose to wear it. Sam figured it had something to do with her trying to change her own perception of herself as much it was trying to get the guy of her dreams to notice her.

  Still, she couldn't place her finger on the source of her recent behavior. She simply did not know.

  Nevertheless, there was no way that she was going to let Richard know that. She would never hear the end of it.

  Sam tried to keep her face from lighting up and glared at Richard. "This makes no sense. You've never commented on what I wear before, good or bad, sexy or unisex. I wasn't even aware that you actually saw me as a girl."

  "If you want to objectify yourself as some sort of item rather than a person in an attempt to invoke coitus or a coitus-bearing relationship then it's none of my business, but," Richard turned and steadied his gaze on her, "But, I am well aware of your feminine charm, Samantha. Trust me, I'm well aware."

  An awkward silence passed in which Richard tapped half-heartedly upon his screen, deep in thought. Sam was at a loss for words.

  He's aware of my feminine charm? she thought. What in the name of the Old Catholic Church did that mean? Did that mean he saw her as a girl? Like someone to, like, like? And why was he saying this now? He never talked like this. She didn't know what to do, and definitely was not sure how to react to this new Richard. He rarely showed this much of himself, even to her. As a matter of fact, he only became this open when--

  Then Sam understood. She understood why he was acting so funny.

  "You're going into the health center again aren't you?"

  Richard glanced at her, obviously taken aback. "N-no. No, of course not. I would have told you if--"

  "You're lying, Richard. I can always tell when you're lying."

  "Samantha, don't be silly. Of course I'm not going into--"

  "Stop lying Richard!" Sam's voice carried, causing the other students to look her way. She fumed, breathing heavily. "What is it this time?" she said more quietly.

  Richard studied her briefly. She could tell he was debating whether to tell her or not. "My heart."

  "Again?"

  "Yeah, it seems my body might be rejecting the modified one."

  Sam slumped down in her chair. Unbidden thoughts traveled back to the previous year. Richard had been in the hospital for his heart then as well. And now he was going to relive it. He was going to do it again; she knew it. There was a problem. There had to be. Richard had played it off the first time around too. A tune up, he had called it. Nothing serious. The really stupid thing was she had believed him.

  The first time around she had to pry the whole heart condition/medical leave thing out of him. That's when he told her that when he was a child, he had received a genetically modified heart…and that his body was rejecting it. The defect was rare due to modern technology, but not unheard of and one that Richard's siblings had fought and lost. Richard didn't talk about it much.

  The battle between Richard's heart and body raged on and was the source of his continued weight gain despite his ridiculously healthy habits. One never would have guessed how klutzy Richard the super genius was.

  This wasn't all though; Richard had strange pains if he sat too long, couldn't breath most of the time without wheezing and probably the weirdest of all, his skin was always cold; always. It could be 37 outside and Richard's skin was cool. It was eerie. The few times that Sam recalled brushing up against it really drove it home. Richard was really, really sick.

  The hardest part of the whole circumstance was Sam couldn't tell anyone. Richard valued his privacy. No one else knew about his condition except maybe the school admins, and they didn't ask a lot of questions for fear that Richard would transfer. Richard was the type of student that could put Academy City 676 on the academic map, and they didn't want to jeopardize that. As far as she knew, Richard had ever only allowed one visitor to ever see him in the hospital. It was an experience she would remember for the rest of her life.

  Witnessing Richard strapped to state-of-the-art monitors, punctured and tubed like a long forgotten science experiment, was another image that had hit home. She didn't know why, but it scared her more than she would have ever admitted to anyone, including Richard. She thought he might know, though. The one time she came to see him she had left the building crying, sobbing uncontrollably. And to this day, Richard had never mentioned her visit.

  "When do you go?" Sam asked in a quiet but toneless voice.

  Richard spied their surroundings, attempting to find eavesdroppers. "I'm going to be gone the whole break; maybe longer if something happens."

  Richard averted his eyes.

  Sam slouched in her chair. Her little triumphs, those little moments she had gained that day, felt so unimportant now. Richard was going back into the hospital for yet another surgery. Last time…last time he had almost died. Ugh…today really sucked.

  Her head reeled as she attempted to find something, anything else they could talk about. She needed to show him she wasn't worried about it, that she knew he was going to be ok. The silver box nestled at th
e bottom of her bag popped into her mind. She mentally examined it briefly. That strange little box sat strangely present, ever nagging in the back of her head as if she was magnetically drawn to it. But then again, something else pushed upon her consciousness, telling her that it wasn't the time for that. Richard needed something else, something more.

  She touched her screen, pulling up her cloud Spyder. She typed "OGGOLE" and the engine loaded. Next she typed "the magician" into the search bar and started the engine.

  The page loaded with 256,834,576,212 hits!

  "Whoa," said Sam as she adjusted her holoscreen to increase the size of her viewing partition. She picked the first link in the line of results and watched the cloud load. A Vii S fanpage exploded onto the screen, starting with a graphic movie that showed a rather cheesy depiction of a single individual posed in a variety positions.

  He was visible from his neck down to his waist and wearing a tuxedo of the finest quality. The head and face remained partially hidden under a corny black top hat that only revealed a nose and mouth. A smirk of a smile suggested an ironic knowledge that the rest of the world was not privileged enough to possess. The smile intrigued Sam, but not as much as what objects framed the face. The man with the knowing smile and black hat had crossed his arms atop his chest, each holding a handgun; big ones, the kind of guns that used the old metal projectiles for ammunition. The picture came as a surprise and Sam wasn't sure how to react.

  Richard glanced at the screen, sighing heavily. "You've done it now, Samantha." Chat bubbles started popping out over the projected screen.

  "Hi."

  "How are you?"

  "A/S/L Please?"

  "Are you a girl????"

  Richard reached over and quickly killed the link. "The fanboys tend to come out in droves when they think a female is a fan of the Magician. Especially one they haven't pounced on yet. It's better for you to not visit that page. If they get their hooks in you they'll never leave you alone."

  "All that just because I visited a fanpage on Vii S?"

  "Oh that was nothing. Like I said, you need to stay away from that page. Those guys are disturbed even by 'disturbed' standards."

  "Well then, are you going to--"

  "He's an urban legend, Samantha. Well, I suppose "he" could really be a "she" but leaving the formalities of politically correct verbiage aside, he is someone that doesn't exist."

  Richard shifted his body, clearly indicating his intention to end the conversation. Sam diverted before Richard could fall back into study mode.

  "When did you become such a sucky teacher? I don't understand at all, Super Genius Richard, but if you find it difficult to tutor me then I would be happy to find someone who can."

  Richard glared at her. "The Magician, Samantha, depending on who you are, is either the world's greatest freedom fighter or the most notorious assassin in the last 300 years."

  Sam paused, waiting for the punch line, the next step, but Richard offered nothing, much to her disappointment.

  "So he's an assassin?"

  "Or freedom fighter, yes."

  "Ok…so then why do they call him the Magician?"

  Richard shrugged. "Because teenagers have too much time on their hands, for one. The other reason, while not as obvious as the first, is far more obnoxious. The Magician supposedly only kills using magic."

  Sam burst into laughter. He had sounded so serious she couldn't help it. Richard didn't join in; rather he looked at her impassively. Sam's chuckles died out and she realized--

  "Oh my George W. Bush, you're serious?"

  Richard shrugged again. "Is it that hard to believe? He is called the Magician after all. Irrelevant however, as he's completely fictional."

  "So if he's fictional, why does he have such a huge following?"

  Richard gave her one of his rare smiles. "Because the youth of this generation, like every generation preceding it, want something bigger than themselves to believe in. Times are dreary nowadays, Samantha. A cold war already in its 50th year; nuclear and nutronic fall out resulting in many of the lands on the earth becoming unlivable except for the most formidable of persons; a line of demarcation separates the Collective and the Jade Empire, making air travel close to impossible; and of course let's not forget the economic state of the world markets. Now, consider for a moment that a single man or woman could change that with a thought. That one person had the supernatural ability to fix it. It'd be better, right?"

  Sam thought about it. "Yeah, I think it would."

  "And so you finally know the legend that is the Magician. Now do me a favor."

  "What's that, Richie?"

  "Please stop talking about it."

  "Ok, ok settle down," Mr. Thomas told the class as he walked into the room holding his satchel. "Mr. Jackson and Mr. Phillips, I hope you are not online playing what I think you are playing on those school interfaces."

  The two boys sheepishly tapped on their screens and set them down on the desk. "All right class, we are continuing our exploration of combustible gases and liquids that we started earlier in our fossil fuels section. We have covered ethanol and propane; today we will be discussing methanol. Please continue to take notes as this will be covered on the exam, and I don't want to hear anything about studying outdated fuels. It's in the curriculum, so you'll be tested on it."

  Students began to shuffle things around, pulling out tablets to begin taking notes. It appeared that some were resuming previously banned activities as evidenced by their constant furtive looks to see if they had been discovered.

  "Now, methanol has a composition similar to methane except that a hydrogen atom has been replaced with a hydroxide. So while methane is CH4, methanol is CH3OH."

  Students continued their note taking, or for some of them, lack thereof.

  "Now we also know that through combustion, the methanol will react with the oxygen naturally occurring in the air. This reaction will produce carbon dioxide and water. Today we will be doing some small practical examples of this reaction."

  A small snickering caught Mr. Thomas' attention, but when he turned from the holoboard, everyone seemed to be paying attention or recording their notes. He turned back to the board.

  "Each set of partners will need a 100cc beaker of methanol, a plastic jug and cap, and a long match. Of course, safety equipment including goggles, fire shields, etc. is also required. Any questions? And Richard--"

  Richard, who had been staring out the window deep in thought, faced Mr. Thomas. "Yes sir?"

  "I know that you've probably already finished the equation, but at least pretend to pay attention, ok?"

  Richard returned to staring out the window without answering. Mr. Thomas scanned the rest of the students and caught a glimpse of a smirk from Jackson and Phillips in the back. Sam could tell that he had had it with those two.

  "And since Mr. Jackson and Mr. Phillips have been such exemplary students recently, why don't you two come up and begin your experiment so the whole class can learn from you."

  Jackson and Phillips begrudgingly started towards the front of the class.

  "Uh, gentleman, you'll need to gather your supplies from the equipment closet before proceeding. Safety gear too, if you don't mind."

  The two turned and headed for the closet to retrieve the list of items. As they were collecting them, a plump old woman entered the room. "Mr. Thomas, Dean Sanchez sent me to ask you something. Do you have a moment?"

  "Yes, of course. Jackson and Phillips, don't do anything until I get back." Mr. Thomas followed the woman out of the classroom and closed the door behind him.

  Jackson and Phillips finished gathering their items and started setting them up at the front of the classroom.

  "Stupid Thomas. Why do we have to do this?" asked Jackson.

  Sam spoke up. "Maybe it's because you're both cretins. Or maybe because he knows what you two do all period long in his class."

  Phillips sneered at the remark. "Not like anyone could get a passing grade in th
is class without copying all their homework from a science geek like fatty over there. We all know that's the only reason a hot little piece like you sits with him." Jackson pulled the large glass jug towards him and grabbed the methanol bottle.

  "What are you doing, idiots?" Sam said, obviously angry. "Mr. Thomas said to wait."