I’d spent the last couple of days putting things together, using my new power to dig in places no one would ever have expected and coming up with answers I didn’t like at all. Military Intelligence, the armed forces version of the civilian Adjuster’s Office—the agency that monitored all preternatural and parahuman elements serving in the Confed military—had implanted an illegal code during Ranger’s initial programming.
Don’t ask me how I discovered this. Suffice to say that some of the things I did were not quite legal, even by today’s rather libertine standards.
Ask me if I care. If you dare.
The man in charge of their little operation was named Gerald Montague and he was a throwback to the old, super-paranoid types that pretty much ruled the roost in the days before the Cen War. How he rose to any position of prominence within MI, I have no idea. Most of the time his kind are shunted into career paths in which they can do very little damage. Certainly to some low-level perfunctory office where no one takes them seriously.
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to anyone including myself, Montague was a psi. A rather powerful psi, as things turned out. Maybe even a meta. He was powerful enough to hide his talents from the rest of the world and from the military’s own psi corps.
My guess is that he used this talent to further his own ambitions and managed to infect a whole section of the intelligence community with his own paranoia.
Something tells me we need better screening procedures.
I returned to the Magitech Lounge to see Jack again and found Montague there. How he knew to seek answers among Jack and his friends, I don’t know. I can hazard a few guesses, but that’s all they’d be.
He didn’t recognize me for what I am when I appeared on the scene. He leveled a hand blaster at me and I, of course, handily rendered it inoperable. When he tried to shoot me with it, nothing happened.
Now, I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t have done anything to me, since I’m only nominally physical and only when I want to be, but there was no reason to reveal that to him. Plus the particle beam weapon would’ve done damage to the bar, and that wasn’t any more desirable to me at the moment than revealing to him the fact that I was no longer human.
Also on scene was Jack’s adopted daughter, a girl who’d been rescued from the Dimension of Mirrors by the immortal, Hades, after being trapped there beyond time for over two hundred years. She looked at me with undisguised suspicion and I can’t say I blamed her much. She’d been through hell, quite literally, tossed into the midst of a war even I couldn’t understand very well at the time. And this atop centuries of imprisonment in a world so alien I can’t begin to describe it to someone who’d never been there.
I have. Once. I’d prefer never to go again. It’s very easy to get lost, even if one does know a way out. Nothing is ever quite what it seems there.
The girl’s origins are even darker than one might suppose. She was a child of the earliest days of the Arcane bug, the nano-virus that returned magic to humanity. Loki, the immortal bioengineer who’d crafted the viruses, had programmed them initially to transmit through sexual contact alone. He’d wanted only adults infected at first, thinking that they would be more adept at handling what he was giving them.
He wasn’t entirely correct about this, but that sort of mistake was forgivable for a being twenty-five thousand years old and not socially savvy in the first place.
Loki’s a scientist, and a truly decent human being. It never occurred to him that some of those infected would be the kind of pervert and piece of shit that Anya’s stepfather was. He infected her with the arcane virus and she became a mage. Not knowing what she was doing, she opened a doorway into the Dimension of Mirrors and fled there in an attempt to escape his filthy attentions.
She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
I did not know all these details at the time, but I knew she had reason to distrust adults. Her mother had betrayed her by looking the other way, pretending not to see what was being done to her, and her stepfather…well, let’s just say death would be too gracious a fate for him. If I believed in such things, I’d wish for him an eternity swimming in a lake of fire.
I don’t, of course. Belief in the old philosophies of heaven and hell isn’t all that common on Earth Prime anymore. For that sort of religious path, one had to seek out specific colonies spread throughout the interstellar neighborhood of the Confederation of Human Worlds.
For all I know, the bastard could still be alive. A two hundred plus lifespan isn’t entirely unknown for magi. Though, by the sounds of it, he wasn’t the type of guy who’d bother to learn the skills necessary to rejuvenate himself. Even with magic, one had to pursue the knowledge that went with it. It wasn’t like wishing things into existence, after all.
I found myself speaking with the girl, trying to reach through that hard shell of suspicion. I wasn’t sure why. She’d announced her intention to move out and get her own place, a decision that had left Jack a bit emotionally bruised. I’d had the immediate impression that I was at least partially the cause of this decision on her part.
I think on some level she was jealous of me. Not that she harbored the kind of feelings for Jack that I did, but she obviously loved him. In a way, I was taking something from her and she didn’t like it. She was reacting emotionally and not aware of herself enough to recognize what she was doing.
So I showed her.
She grasped it quickly. Her brain may be wired as a young teen’s, but she has many, many years to draw upon, and there’s some wisdom knocking around in there too.
She decided to stay. And to go back to school.
I didn’t plan on sticking around to play the mother figure. Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m not sure what I expected. All I had in mind was spending some time with Jack while I used my free time—like when he was sleeping—to chase down that bastard Montague.
I offered to be Anya’s friend. I meant it sincerely. She seemed to take it in the spirit in which I’d meant it, but the last thing I expected was her to embrace the idea as if it were a lifeline.
Silly me. She was a thirteen-year-old girl in desperate need of a female friend she could claim for herself. And I did volunteer.
It was about a week after our little talk when I found myself standing with her at the base of a wide set of concrete stairs leading up to the double doors marking the entrance to Golden Gate High. Or so the huge sign over the doors proclaimed in golden-hued block letters.
“So this is it, huh?” she asked in a small voice.
I nodded. “I checked it out. Golden Gate currently serves about a thousand students—eighth through twelfth grade.”
She blinked up at me. “I thought the old system had been abandoned. Y’know, the ancient grade system and all.”
“For the most part, they have been. One of the greatest flaws of the old system was the lack of attention to individual abilities and learning styles. They tended to teach to the lowest common denominator, or at best, the average. Those who required accelerated programs and those who needed a little extra help were often marginalized one way or the other. And the social structure made learning even more difficult for some.
“The downside to the distance learning techniques that were adopted after the Cen War was that they neglected the socialization end of things. There were some students who had very little organized interaction with their peers until they left school to enter the job market. That didn’t work too well either.
“So places like Golden Gate are trying to capture the best of both worlds—they employ roughly three times as many educators as did comparable schools of your time and also make great use of the super databases that have become available over the past couple centuries as well.
“Grades are divided into modules, aimed at teaching the students the skill sets necessary for the career paths in which they’re most interested. You can choose between business, legal, technology, medical, education, or civil engineering. You’re allowed to intermix certain
introductory courses to help you choose a solid path, but once you’ve figured out the direction you want to go, you’re fast-tracked toward a college level module once you’re ready to continue.”
“Sounds…interesting.”
Poor girl was terrified. Not that I blamed her. In her shoes, I would’ve been terrified too. I wish I could have told her what she could expect, but I was one of those who’d been focused from an early age in a certain direction. The schools that taught mage students exclusively, particularly for future government and military careers, were an entirely different breed from this one. This one would be at once very similar to the schools she remembered and quite divergent at the same time.
I knew she could handle it though. Anyone who could deal with being stuck in the Dimension of Mirrors for two centuries without going completely bonkers could handle high school. “We hedged a little on your background,” I told her. “We said you were fourteen. It’s the minimum age for enrollment at Golden Gate.”
“But can’t they just check?”
“Check where? The only place any records for you exist are in the Adjuster’s Office databanks, and they’re not available to just anyone. They seemed perfectly willing to take our word for it. The preliminary tests you did last week revealed that you’re at a comparable level with your fellow students here, so we thought we’d leave it at that.”
“Thanks, Dylan.” She peered up the stairs and heaved a sigh. “You don’t have to come with me. I can handle it from here.”
I pulled her into a hug, which she resisted at first, then grinned over her head as she relaxed into it. “You’ll do fine. You’ll be out at 2:30 and Jack, Bone, or maybe Hades will be here to pick you up then.”
“Hades?” By the sound of her voice, I decided she was caught between amusement and trepidation. Hades wasn’t exactly an unknown figure. Having him arrive on the scene to transport her home would either serve to make her extremely popular or a pariah for the rest of the year.
We would see which way it broke if and when Hades showed up. “I’ve got some stuff to take care of, so I might not be around when you get home. I’ll catch up with you when I get there later, though.”
She headed up the steps. I waited until the door had swung shut behind her and transported out, making the leap between San Francisco and Tacoma in one easy step. I accessed the mage road this time, though unlike most mages, I could’ve done it on my own without having to make use of the magical transportation infrastructure. I might have not been able to see or touch ambient mana anymore, but considering that my very form was made up of far more mana than any mage could hope to touch or command, I figured the trade-off was well worth it.
There’s been considerable speculation in certain circles as to my comparative power. Let’s just put it this way. The average mage can grab two strands at once and produce two separate mana effects or weave them into either a simple spell or the beginnings of a more complex spell. A very skilled mage may create a spell using up to fifty mana strands, though, in my estimation, this requires an immortal mage. The spell at my core that holds my soul on this plane is made up of three hundred interwoven threads. The rest of me—the physical illusion I wear around my core—is twelve hundred more threads that I can manipulate in any way I choose. They are a part of me and cannot dissipate, and as far as I know, cannot be destroyed. Each one is worth a single effect at a time and I can manipulate as many as I choose at the same time.
No mage, even an immortal mage, is anywhere near my equal. Though I must admit, the immortal Hades and the vampire Rio are closer than any other beings I can name. Magically speaking, of course.
I transported myself into Deryk Shea’s office, interrupting the squat little man in the midst of a golf putt. The ball went awry and slammed into the corner of a bookshelf before scuttling under it. He looked up at me with a pained expression and grunted a greeting.
Ever since I resigned my commission with Fleet, I’d been negotiating with Shea to take me on as an Adjuster’s Office agent. So far he hadn’t taken the bait. I couldn’t imagine why not and, frankly, I was getting a little annoyed by the whole damned thing.
“You again,” he muttered, shaking his head and tossing the golf club in the corner. “Still want an answer, do you?”
“Nah. Thought I’d take a walk and happened to show up here by accident,” I replied with a casual smile. Falsely casual, of course. I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself. If I could no longer serve the Confed as a mageship pilot, I thought working for Deryk Shea and the Adjuster’s Office might be a decent alternative.
I couldn’t quite understand his reluctance to bring me on, though. I doubt it was because I wasn’t human anymore. He didn’t have a reputation as a bigot. And it wasn’t because of any lingering doubts about my loyalty to the Confed either. I’d made the greatest sacrifice possible for the Confed. The way I saw it, the Confed owed me.
Many people describe Shea as an ugly little man, but I guess I’ve never seen him that way. He’s short, squat, and his facial features aren’t exactly proportionate. The effect is startling, but not in the least bit hideous.
What’s really amazing is that immortals can re-arrange their bone structure to alter their appearance at will. He wears that face because he wants to. Damn strange, if you ask me. But then again, no one ever accused Shea of being a normal sort of guy, even when compared to his fellow immortals.
“Have a seat,” he told me. “You want something to drink?”
I considered both the suggestion and the question. I extended a thread, dragged his guest chair over, and dropped my butt into it. I threw my feet onto the edge of his desk, crossing my ankles and summoning one of the cigars from the ornate box on the other corner into my hand. “What do you have to drink?”
I lit the cigar with the tip of a finger and puffed contentedly while he affixed me with a baleful expression. A tiny gleam in his eye, barely visible, revealed that he was more amused than irritated by my audacity. This fit in with what I’d heard about him over the years. He respected nerve more than just about anything else.
I could work with that.
“Something tells me you can rustle up whatever poison you have a taste for,” he grunted. “But, if you insist on drinking my booze, I’ve got cognac, single-malt, bourbon, vodka, and rum. All premium, of course. Take your pick. But you can damn well get it yourself.”
“Maybe I’ll just have a beer.” I shot out a strand and liberated a bottle of something exotic from nowhere in particular.
His brow shot up. “That’s theft, you know,” he remarked casually.
“How do you know?” I asked pointedly, grinning at him. “Maybe I got it from my own cooler.”
“And maybe I’m a fucking Martian,” he snorted dismissively. “What do you want, Dylan?”
I popped the cap and took a long swig. As I swallowed, I lowered the bottle and glanced at the label. I’d have to remember this brand. It was pretty damned good. “You know what I want, Shea. I want a job.”
“No, Dylan, what you want is my official sanction of your personal vendetta in pursuit of Gerald Montague.”
I blinked at him. I wouldn’t have put it that way myself, exactly, but he had a point. “And this is a problem?”
He shrugged. “Not particularly. I just didn’t like the fact that you weren’t being completely honest about it—to yourself, or to me. I’ve never had an issue with operatives being personally involved in their cases. I know that classic police wisdom says it’s bad juju, that it leads to mistakes and endangers not only the investigation, but the agent as well. I say that’s only true if one doesn’t truly know the stature of the investigator in the first place.
“This is why I vet all my agents personally and interact with them on a regular basis. I like knowing who I have working for me, what makes them tick and where their trigger points are.”
“Oh? So what are my trigger points?” This also fit into his reputation, I mused. He backed his peo
ple all the way. He’d gone on record as saying that Adjuster’s Office agents were incorruptible, the twenty-third century’s version of the ‘Untouchables.’
He settled into his chair behind the desk and regarded me silently for a long, pregnant moment. “You believe in duty. You believe that you owe something to the community and believe that your talents should be used for the greater good.
“In short, you’re an ideal AO officer.”
I disappeared the cigar, which was frankly starting to smell pretty foul. “I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
“Perceptive of you,” he remarked dryly. “As much as I think you’d be an asset to the AO, I also have to say I don’t think you’re quite ready yet. You’re too detached…no longer mortal or anything remotely resembling a real human being anymore. And the transition was so swift I don’t believe you’ve come to terms with it. Not so far, anyway.
“You need to rebuild a life outside the agency to anchor yourself to the real world again. Without it, you’ll lose perspective and become caught up in your own power.”
“Oh?” I lifted a brow and regarded him with undisguised skepticism. “And you know this how?”
His thick lips curved into a gentle smile. “I’ve had a lot of time to study people, human, superhuman, and other. I was good at reading people even before I became immortal. Now I’m probably as good at it as any psi who’s ever lived. Not because I have some preternatural gift for it, but because I care.
“Becoming a djinn did not make you any less human than you were, Dylan. I know deep down you worry about that. Because you’ve absorbed the unconscious meme out there that your biological self is what makes you human. But these days that meme is simply bullshit. We are all human. The definition has grown from what it once was. I am human, you are human, vampires are human, lycanthropes are human. ‘Human,’ in this day and age, simply means ‘born of the race of humanity.’”
I stared at him, literally astounded by what he was saying. I’d never heard it put quite this way before. He made it sound so simple.
Tales from the Magitech Lounge Page 22