Stand Your Ground Hero

by Paul Duffau

  Harold shook his head, disgust in every line of his body. “MAGE is an affront to the Art.”

  “How do you know about MAGE?” asked Kenzie.

  Mitch avoided her eyes. “The disk. I palmed it and kept it as insurance against Lassiter. Once he was dead, I kept it in case you needed it again.”

  Numbly, she closed her eyes. Of course, the doofus would do something that stupid. As if the Family doesn't have enough reason to remove him already. She sighed.

  “You all are pretty bad at the keeping secrets business,” said Mitch, his normally blue orbs gray and grim. “3rdGen has a copy of the schematics.”

  Chapter 19

  Consternation raged in Mercury’s library. At the edge of his vision, Mitch observed Harold whirling, anger prominent in the set of his features. On the other side, Mercury was babbling something with an offended air. Mitch ignored both of them. He waited at the edge of a precipice to see whether Kenzie would forgive him for holding out on her or cast him away. He clung to a thread of hope, in limbo, one agonizing second dragging into two, then three, before she spoke.

  Kenzie’s eyelids fluttered open. “It would be nice if you would at least try to keep my Family from killing you.” Cute creases of worry decorated her brow. She took a dainty bite of chocolate, and puckered at the bitterness. “Please.”

  Pent-up breath whooshed from his lungs. “If they were going to, they already would have. For some reason, they haven’t. These two probably know why that is, but they aren’t going to tell us.”

  Mercury interrupted them. “Tell me about 3rdGen.” His right hand began the unmistakable pattern of the spell to force Mitch to speak.

  Kenzie saw it, too. “Oh, stop,” she said resignedly, and snapped her fingers. Instantly, the pressure exerted by Mercury disappeared. “Just ask him.”

  Mercury shook his head, chagrined. “The last person able to do that to me was your mother.” At the look on Kenzie’s face, he grimaced and said, “Tell you later. First, I need to find out how much 3rdGen knows.”

  Mitch quickly recounted the story of finding the multitude of files on his workstation after the upgrade, admitting that curiosity made him open up the folder, and that he had recognized the MAGE file. Yes, he’d compared it to the file at home. Same creation date, newer modifications date. Same author, Aric something-or-other. Kenzie jumped at the name and blanched.

  While Mitch delivered his spiel, Mercury paced. Harold parked himself into the other armchair, and folded his arms across his chest. When Mitch got to the end, the gray-faced wizard stopped. “Absolutely amazing. I can’t decide if you’re the luckiest boy on the planet or just have a supernatural instinct for trouble.”

  “Trouble,” muttered Kenzie. Mitch shot a surprised glance at her. She wore a delicate smile that made her eyes glow like amber lit from within.

  “You want to explain this to the rest of us?” Mitch pointed to Kenzie. “MAGE seems to be the reason that Lassiter came after Kenzie. If Bai uncovered the mathematical basis for magic in quantum field theory, is MAGE the engineering construct built to the new principles?”

  Harold’s response was terse, his lips turned down at the corners. “Succinct, and yes.”

  Argghh. Mercury’s brother was as big a pain in the butt as the old wizard. “How?” Mitch tried to sound patient.

  “You do not possess the mathematical basis that would allow you to understand.”

  “A competent mind could explain it in terms even a dummy like me could understand,” Mitch fired back. “Assuming that they comprehend the concepts themselves.”

  Behind him, he heard Mercury guffaw. Harold’s head snapped back as though Mitch had whacked him with a bat. Kenzie reached across the arms of the chairs, laid a hand on the black-robed arm nearest her to stay him from action.

  Movement at the window competed for Mitch’s attention. A quick survey in the moonlight showed silver leaves from a single shrub dancing as though a breeze played with them. Wuffie? He hadn’t seen the beast in a while. . . .

  Harold spoke under tight control. “The premise of MAGE is nothing more than to gather and distribute energy—in this case, the type that is responsible for magic—and focus it, much in the same manner that a laser does with photons.”

  “And it is coherent?”

  A raised eyebrow greeted the question. “Yes,” replied Harold, some of the animosity dropping out. “Eddie’s paper suggested that interference, either constructive, building greater amplitude, or destructive, flattening the waves, reduced the amount of delivered energy at the point of change.”

  Mitch rubbed his fingers over his chin, felt stubble. “How does the control mechanism work? Your magic works by altering reality. Does MAGE do the same thing?”

  Kenzie gasped and then choked on a piece of aspirated chocolate. Mitch beat the other two men to her side. He thumped her on the back.

  She looked up at him, watery-eyed. “I’m okay.” Kenzie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Thanks.” Drawing a deep breath, she asked, “How do you know that it is altering reality? Is it really?” The latter question was aimed at Harold.

  The wizard had aged a decade in seconds. When he answered, his voice wavered, but his gaze was steady and hot and aimed at Mitch. “It does. The implication is built into Eddie’s—your father’s—equations. No one has figured out how to let Meat utilize or direct the energy. Until then, it remains in the province of our kind.” Speaking directly to Mitch, he said, “How did you know? You didn’t have a chance to review the paper.”

  “I figured it was your guys at the library.” Mitch pivoted from the blanching wizard in front of him to confront Mercury. “More accurately, they were yours.”

  Mercury wore a sardonic grin. “Complete the reasoning.”

  Mitch paced to the window, turned back. Confusion filled Kenzie’s face, so Mitch explained. “Research into magic leads to exposure of the Families at best, and diminution of their power, political and financial, at worst. Neither would be acceptable to the Grahams or the Rubieras. The sheer volume of research that takes place all over the world makes monitoring it all infeasible, especially in countries that lack a free exchange for ideas. So you left a copy of Edward Bai’s paper where it can be found with minimal effort while erasing all the references to it online. I’d bet there’re exactly two copies left in the whole world.”

  “You’d be wrong. There are three.” Humor glinted in Mercury’s eyes. Harold seemed near apoplexy. “Continue.”

  “The copy at U-Dub is bait. Whenever someone accesses the file from the system and goes looking for it, it gets tagged by your team. I assume someone visits them and ‘suggests’ a different course of study.” Mitch shrugged. “What do you do if the record access is from outside the country?”

  “They get a visit, too. It just takes a little more effort.”

  “Matthias, this is insane!” Harold rose from his seat to point at Mitch. “That this, this boy, should be left to wander with all our secrets on the tip of his tongue is unacceptable. I’ve been very patient with your need for Mitch to fulfil his role, but you don’t even know if he’s the one you’ve been looking for to—”

  Kenzie lurched from her seat. “You don’t touch Mitch.” Her voice cut a cold swath in the air.

  The hairs on Mitch’s forearm rose as the room became charged with deadly intent. She stood poised on the balls of her feet, hands in front of her, and Mitch didn’t know if she was getting ready to cast a spell or launch a kick. The earthy green of her robe draped close to her skin, and the fabric clung to her curves.

  Mitch silently cussed himself and blinked. Focus!

  Mercury strode over and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Events are moving faster than we will ever be able to control. You haven’t gotten an answer to your other question. I suspect Mitch has an additional surprise for you.”

  “Huh?” Mitch thought furiously. “Oh, that. Bending reality. Something that Hunter said a while back, that he got my uncle to be
less of a jerk by altering his personal reality. It got me to thinking—”

  Harold harrumphed.

  “—that altering the world as we observe it is a matter of rearranging energy into new patterns. Seemed to fit what Hunter and Kenzie can do. Bai must have thought so, too. Look at the title of his dissertation. ‘Strong Anthropic Principles.’” Seeing Kenzie’s wide-eyed skepticism, he said, “It’s the old ‘a tree falls in the forest’ riddle. The answer isn’t whether it happens or not. Until a person observes it, it doesn’t.”

  “What if I find it already down when I go for a walk in the woods?”

  “You created the downed tree when you walked into the scene.” Mitch exchanged glances with Mercury, who nodded approval, and with Harold, who had horror written on his face. To him, Mitch asked, “I’m not wrong, am I?”

  “No.” The single syllable slipped from Harold.

  “But what does it mean?” Unlike the older wizards, Kenzie hadn’t seen the ramifications yet.

  Mercury answered. “It means, McKenzie, that when you touch the magic like you just did, you’re not drawing on the resources within you. You’re touching all the energy in the universe, as much of it as you decide to pull to you. You, as the observer, can do anything that you imagine, provided”—Mercury lifted a warning finger—“you maintain your control of the forces.”

  Icicles hung themselves from Mitch’s gut at the mention of control. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  Harold took over the talking, tucking his chin into his chest. “When you lose control of the energy, it reorganizes itself back to a chaotic system.” Distress played across his features.

  “Entropy,” whispered Mitch. He stared at Kenzie with fear turning his bones to jelly.

  Harold responded with words strangled at birth, as tears leaked down his cheeks. “If you lose control, the magic will consume you, burn you up.” Finally, the implications registered as incipient terror in Kenzie’s eyes. “It will burn you up just like it did with your mother.” A shudder ran through Harold’s frail frame. “I was too late, much too late to save her. My physics killed her, killed Elowyn.”

  Chapter 20

  Harold’s confession struck Kenzie like a hammer fist strike in the solar plexus. All the air left her body and she couldn’t recover her breath, her lungs wouldn’t work. The surreality of the setting, this odd library with a window to the Glade, shelves of books, even the teakettle, a twin to Harold’s a doorway away, ran together like watercolors staining a page one droplet at a time. She swayed in her seat. Mitch’s hand steadied her.

  She closed her eyes. This is real, she told herself as she put her own hand on top of his. We are real. The coolness of his skin registered under her palm. She leaned her head over to put her cheek on the back of her hand. That’s all she needed, an anchor, Mitch’s hand touching her, the feel of him, his scent in her nostrils.

  “Breathe, babe.”

  Shuddering, Kenzie followed Mitch’s direction. A firm squeeze was her reward, a ripple of tendons moving underneath the fleshy part of her hand, Mitch’s knuckles hard against the creases of her palm.

  “Don’t scare me like that.”

  “Too many surprises.” Kenzie drew in more air, as much as would fit in her chest. Light-headed, she let it back out. Opening her eyes, she spied Harold slumped into his chair, looking into the far past. “Harold.”

  He stayed slouched without indicating whether he heard or not. Annoyance bubbled up, carrying with it dozens of questions. She shook his shoulder with enough vigor to nearly dislodge him from the armchair. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself and talk to me.”

  Pale-faced and mute, Harold faced her.

  “Physics never killed anybody,” said Kenzie.

  “Applied physics sure has,” muttered Mitch.

  Kenzie pinned a withering glance on her boyfriend. “You’re not helping.” To Harold, she said, “Tell me about my mother.”

  “Perhaps I can help,” said Mercury. With a grateful nod, Harold slumped back. “Your mother, McKenzie, was much like you. Precocious as a child. We trained her to be the next leader of the Family. Unlike the hechiceros, we operate under a matriarchal governance. You did realize that, didn’t you?”

  Kenzie nodded. “The men are responsible for security, the women are responsible for the Family.”

  “It’s been that way as long as the draoi have existed.” He searched her face and must have seen the question. “Just as we call the Spanish wizards hechiceros, they called us by our Gaelic name, draoi. It translates to ‘druid’ or ‘wizard,’ pretty close to the actual fact. We gave up the designator a century ago as a defensive strategy. As police forces became increasingly sophisticated, the risk of discovery grew. Having a special name draws attention and made it more likely that we could be discovered. That’s also when the Family made the decision to enter in the investigative agencies so we could influence them away from us.”

  Mercury grimaced. “The Spaniards went a different direction and took over large swathes of the business world, but did so from the shadows. They hid, amassed money, and used that money to buy influence and privacy. In critical aspects, both Families carry with them the remnants of their origins. For us, it is the legacy of the Cenél Conaill, one of the earliest of over-kingdoms in what is now Donegal County. The early druids were our ancestors, with a strong respect for nature. You see that in the Glade,” Mercury said, with a nod to the window. “The hechiceros derive from Al-Andalus, southern Spain, with a strong Arabic influence and a history of violent conquest.”

  “What does this have to do with my mother?”

  “The Families are like feudal fiefdoms. As with European royalty, marriages were arranged to augment their power and minimize wars.”

  Kenzie tightened her grip on Mitch’s hand. “She refused, didn’t she?”

  “She was already in love,” answered Harold. “With Eddie.”

  Kenzie considered her own isolated existence. Outside of school, she never met people except from the Family. At school, she kept to herself. Why? Why didn’t she make friends? A dozen memories of walking up to would-be friends and flailing to find words traipsed through her mind. The awkwardness, the tongue-tied stumbling, brought heat to her cheeks, along with a singular awareness, like a spot of light enhanced with a magnifying glass.

  She could talk to Mitch.

  “You’re crushing my hand,” said Mitch. “Or trying to.” His pitch rose at the end, the question hanging for her to answer.

  With a boulder sinking from her chest to her tummy, she asked Harold, “Is there a spell . . .” She regrouped. “Is there a spell that can . . . inhibit . . . a . . . girl from making . . . friends.”

  Concern flashed and disappeared as though a curtain of steel mesh had been drawn in Harold’s mind, guarding an unpalatable truth. “With a sufficiently light touch, almost anything is possible, though you cannot force a person to operate completely against their will.”

  “Why not?” blurted Mitch.

  Good question . . . Kenzie looked out the window, at the Glade. A sensation of prying eyes overcame her and she missed the first part of Harold’s reply to Mitch.

  “—so the effect is like a localized anesthesia, to use an analogy. We can numb part of the free will of an individual. That’s the way our compulsion spells and such work, by subverting the free will in a narrow channel. Trying to overcome the totality of the self, though, leads to resistance. We at first thought that this was a function of the psychology of the individual, a mental declaration of ‘I think, therefore I am,’ to quote Descartes. The mechanism behind this was not discoverable as a matter of biology, and the field of psychology is notoriously poor at objective results.”

  Mitch was nodding his head like the gobbledygook made sense to him.

  Show-off.

  “Eddie postulated something entirely different. He approached it from the realm of physics. He suggested a convergence of the physical world that we can touch and see, with the inner
world that we can imagine, with the true nature of each described, quite imperfectly for now, in quantum field theory. According to his equations and theory, each person, in creating a version of reality, acts as an anchor to the world that we all comprehend. Change happens terribly slowly due to those billions and billions of anchors from mundane minds clasping to the world as they know it.”

  “Contrast that to even the poorest wizard who possesses an outsized ability to affect the world.”

  Harold let the words run out and sit on the air. Kenzie pursed her lips, then nibbled at them, as she absorbed the information. Mitch wore a stunned expression. His eyes darted around the room like he was gathering a thousand pieces of a puzzle and simultaneously fitting each into its place. With an exasperated sigh, he rubbed his hand up over his forehead and through his cropped hair.

  “Nothing is real,” he said.

  “Everything is real,” corrected Harold.

  Kenzie sighed, an echo of Mitch. The whole framework threatened to overwhelm her, so she aimed for clarity. “Why does reality feel so fuzzy then?”

  Mercury entered the conversation. “Because you are not a poor wizard, except in technique and control. That’s expected with an immature mind”—he delivered this comment without rebuke—“but a consequence is that you tend to warp everything around you. With better control, your version of reality won’t overrun everyone else’s.”

  “A black hole,” said Mitch.

  Harold gave a sage nod. “Of magic, yes.”

  “Someone want to explain it to me?” Testiness at being the dummy in the room made Kenzie snippy.

  Mitch faced her, taking her attitude in stride. “A black hole is a collapsed star with matter so dense that it exerts a gravitational force that prevents light from escaping. In two-dimensional modeling, they usually show it as a big ball sinking into a hole in the fabric of space and time.” Mitch indicated the two older wizards. “They are saying that you exert that much force around you, dimpling the world to fit your perceptions.”