by James Riley
“Fort, isn’t that where Cyrus went?” Jia whispered to him.
Fort nodded, unable to hide his worry. “Sierra’s there too,” he whispered back, trying not to think about how Sierra hadn’t answered any of his mental “calls” since the dome had appeared. Last he’d heard from her, she was going to use her Mind magic to try to “wake up” the Clairvoyance students, Cyrus’s old schoolmates who’d somehow come untethered from the real world by using Time magic.
This had to be related. It had to be the—
“Based on the color of the dome, we’ve ruled out Destruction, Healing, Mind, and Summoning magic,” Colonel Charles said, mirroring Fort’s thoughts. “Obviously the most likely culprit is Time magic, considering the UK government saw fit to keep that book of magic for itself.” His tone made it clear what he thought of that decision. “Though we’ve had a student of Time magic on campus for almost a year, as far as we know, he never exhibited any power of this magnitude and was limited to Clairvoyance spells, by which I mean looking a short period into the future.”
A map of the UK replaced the video now, lit up with names as a black dome appeared to cover the bottom half. The colonel pointed at a marked area on the map in Wales. “Our Time student and the school’s civilian expert, Dr. Oppenheimer, are presently inside the dome, according to our last available intel. Shortly before it appeared, they had traveled to the UK’s school, the Carmarthen Academy, located here.” He tapped the map. “Based on our available information, which I will share momentarily, we believe this to be the current location of our UMUs, and therefore our objective.”
The screens went blank and the lights turned back up as Colonel Charles faced the room once more. “There are around sixty million United Kingdom citizens trapped within this dome, people,” he said, staring out over the assembled soldiers. Fort’s eyes widened as the number hit him. This really was so much bigger than the last two attacks. “And we’re their best—and only—hope. Your job is to infiltrate the school, find these UMUs, and take them down using any means necessary.”
“What?” Fort whispered, and it must have been louder than he thought, as several soldiers turned to look at him. But he couldn’t help it. Any means necessary? His friends were over there! What if something went wrong, and a soldier mistook Sierra or Cyrus for one of these UMUs? They could get hurt!
At least Cyrus might be safer, since some of the TDA soldiers should recognize him from his time at the school. Except none of the soldiers around looked familiar to Fort, which made him even more nervous. After his weeks at the Oppenheimer schools, he’d seen a lot of soldiers, mostly guarding the students or the school. But somehow, he’d never run into any of the ones here.
Had they been training somewhere else, away from the students? And if they had, why?
None of this seemed like a good idea, and Fort shifted in his seat anxiously. If he’d known this was coming, he might have just teleported over to the UK school himself before coming to the briefing, to see if he could find Sierra and Cyrus before the TDA invaded. He even knew what the school looked like, since Sierra had shown him a mental image of it the night before, which meant his Teleportation magic could get him there.
Maybe it wasn’t too late, even now. He could at least get his friends back, if not see what was going on, and possibly try to stop things before they got out of hand. If he could just sneak out of the briefing somehow—
“As I said before, we haven’t had any communication from British forces inside the dome,” Colonel Charles said. “But we did receive one message. We traced its origin to the Carmarthen Academy.”
The lights dimmed as the screens lit up once again, now showing video footage of six children wearing what looked like black school uniforms, only with black hoodies on top, each hood pulled down to hide their identities. This left them looking awfully creepy in the dim light of the video, with only the bottom half of each of their faces visible.
“Greetings, Oppenheimer School,” said one of the boys, stepping forward. His accent sounded similar to Cyrus’s, though his voice was very different.
But then a stray, silver-colored hair slipped out from beneath the hood on the boy’s face, and Fort’s eyes widened.
“It is regretful that circumstances have come to this,” the boy said, spreading his arms wide. “But you have left us with no other choice. Your actions have created a future that we cannot abide, and therefore we must take a stand. You—”
“If you give us what we ask for, we’ll drop the dome, and everyone will be fine,” said a girl, stepping forward to interrupt the first boy. “All we ask is your cooperation to—”
“If you do not do what we say, London will be destroyed !” the boy said, before the girl could continue. “Is that what you want?”
“Whoa, hold on,” the girl said quickly, raising her hands in a calming gesture and looking back and forth between the camera and the boy. “I don’t think that’s the best way to—”
“And that is only the beginning!” the boy shouted. “London will be the spark that lights the world on fire, if you do not cooperate and fulfill the following demand.”
The room was deathly quiet, everyone waiting to hear what they wanted—everyone except for Fort, who already knew, and Colonel Charles, who was glaring at him from beside the video screen.
“You will hand over to us three of your students, immediately,” the boy said, crossing his arms. “They are as follows: Jia Liang, Rachel Carter, and Forsythe Fitzgerald.”
This time, Rachel and Jia gasped, while Fort just tried to sink low enough in his chair to disappear completely as the assembled soldiers turned almost as one to look back at him. Again, even being warned ahead of time by Dr. Ambrose didn’t help, not when everyone now knew exactly why he was here and probably blamed him for the dome even existing. And why not? If that was why these kids had created it, to get him, Jia, and Rachel over there, wasn’t it his fault?
“Send them to the Carmarthen Academy alone, without any weapons or communication devices,” the boy continued. “When they arrive we will take down our dome, and London will survive. Disobey us, and the world will suffer for it.”
“No, stop,” the girl in the video said, glaring at the boy. “This isn’t what we—”
And then the video jumped, as if it had been edited, and the girl disappeared, leaving the one boy to speak again.
“You cannot deceive us, so do not even try,” he said. “We’ve foreseen every possible action you might take, and have prepared for each and every one of them. You’ve been warned, and we’ll await your compliance.” He slowly smiled, then raised his hand in a salute. “To the return of the one, true, future king!”
The others saluted as well, and then the screen went dark.
Colonel Charles stepped forward again, the hall now so silent Fort could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
“Any means necessary,” the colonel repeated. “Do I make myself clear?”
- FOUR -
SIR!” RACHEL SHOUTED, LEAPING TO her feet. “Permission to speak?”
Again, all eyes turned backward, as the soldiers began to whisper among themselves.
“Cadet, I didn’t ask for questions,” the colonel said, giving her a hard look. “This isn’t a training exercise.”
Cadet? He’d never called them that before, especially not Rachel, his favorite student.
“But, sir, there’s no need to put anyone in danger,” Rachel said quickly. “If they can see the future, they’ll know you’re coming. Turn us over to them, like they asked, and let us handle them. We’ve got the power to take them down—I know we do!”
A few of the soldiers began to laugh quietly but immediately went silent at a look from the colonel. Rachel, meanwhile, set her jaw and kept her eyes on her mentor.
“Cadet, you and Liang will not be involved in this operation and only attended this briefing for information’s sake. Given that these UMUs are after you, you’ll both be confined to quarters, under gua
rd, until the objective is completed,” Colonel Charles said.
“But, sir!” Rachel started to object, only for the colonel to interrupt.
“You have your orders, Cadet. Am I in the habit of repeating myself?”
Rachel blinked, then shook her head. “No, sir,” she said, dropping back down to her seat, not looking at either Jia or Fort.
Confined to quarters, under guard? Was the colonel that worried about the Time students getting to them? That wasn’t a comforting thought, that someone with bad intentions might be able to reach them here. Fort shivered at the idea of what they might do, before something else occurred to him.
What if the guards weren’t there for protection so much as to ensure Rachel and Jia didn’t try anything on their own? After all, it wasn’t just Fort who’d gone off to the Dracsi dimension. And Colonel Charles didn’t seem exactly thrilled with Rachel, either.
All in all, Fort wasn’t sure which interpretation was worse and didn’t especially want to find out.
“Cadet Fitzgerald,” Colonel Charles barked, and Fort quickly turned his attention back to the colonel. “You will be facilitating travel to the Carmarthen Academy for our squads. Guards will be assigned to you during the operation, and as soon as the squads have reached their destination, you’ll be confined to quarters as well. Do you understand your orders?”
Fort gritted his teeth. “Yes, sir,” he said aloud, while inside, his mind whirled with objections.
Rachel wasn’t wrong. Sending the soldiers over would just get people hurt, or worse. And some of those people might be his friends! Why shouldn’t Fort, Jia, and Rachel go? Of everyone at the Oppenheimer School, Jia and Rachel were the best at their respective types of magic, which meant they could handle almost anything between the two of them. And with Fort there to teleport them in and out, they wouldn’t be in any danger. After all, what could a bunch of kids who could see the future do against Rachel’s fireballs or even Jia’s Healing magic?
At the front, Colonel Charles began moving around the room, giving individual assignments to squad leaders. As Fort watched, lost in thought, something smacked into his shoulder, and he turned to find Rachel staring at him from behind Jia’s back.
“This is wrong,” she whispered. “Sending these soldiers into danger is a horrible idea, especially when we can handle this. So be ready, Fort. We’re going over there.”
“Really?” Jia whispered, turning to look at Rachel. “You’re going to disobey an order?”
Rachel’s cheeks turned a bit red. “I break the rules all the time,” she said, crossing her arms.
“The rules, sure. Direct orders, never.”
“Orders are just a different kind of rule,” Rachel said, but she didn’t sound thrilled about it. “Yes, they ensure the proper functioning of the military, and without them there’d be chaos. And when we disobey orders, it puts lives in danger, obviously. So, you know, there’s that.”
“Is there a ‘but’ coming anytime soon?” Jia asked, raising an eyebrow.
Rachel gritted her teeth. “Fine, I don’t disobey orders usually, and for good reason! But we can’t mess around with this. I’ve seen what happens when soldiers get sent to dangerous places. My mom and dad have come back from missions with injuries, once almost …” She trailed off, then shook her head. “We’re not going to let the soldiers get hurt when we can handle this, and better than they can, because we have magic.”
“Not to mention they might accidentally attack Cyrus and Sierra,” Fort whispered.
“Okay, so what’s the plan then?” Jia asked. “Those are basically six Cyruses over there. They’re going to know ahead of time anything we try to do.”
“So we improvise,” Rachel said. “They’ll never see it coming.”
That didn’t sound exactly right, but Fort let it slide, considering he was on Rachel’s side.
“We also have no idea what that dome does, or what else those students can do,” Jia said. “Not to mention that this is the whole reason why we’ve been making weapons for the military, so they can use them in missions like this. Since, you know, they’re the adults here, and we’re just kids.”
“Kids who just rescued Fort’s dad from a dimension of ancient evil monsters,” Rachel pointed out, nodding at Fort. “Granted, that was a horrible idea, but still, we did it.”
Fort sighed. Harsh, but fair.
“And almost let the Old Ones return in the process,” Jia said. “Look. You’re the one who taught me how fun it is to break some rules. But in those cases, we were the ones in danger. Who knows what will happen if we mess up here? Sixty million is a lot of people to hurt by accident. And this is the TDA’s job. They know how to handle this.”
“Yeah, by ‘any means necessary,’ ” Fort whispered, not even liking saying the words out loud. “That’s how they’ll handle it. You think they’ll hold back if Sierra or Cyrus gets in their way? Rachel’s right, Jia. We need to go.”
Jia sighed, as up front, the colonel began to dismiss squads from the room. “This is a bad idea. I just want that said.” But then she slowly began to smile. “Still, I was going to suggest the same thing from the start.”
“What?” Fort said, staring at her in confusion.
“I just wanted to make sure you both knew what we were getting into,” Jia said. “Rachel, disobeying an order? That’s huge.”
Rachel gently nudged her with her shoulder. “I knew you were in. So we’re going to need to move fast, if we want to beat the TDA there. Fort, can you teleport us to the school right now? Do you need a picture of it?”
“No, I—” Fort started to say, but stopped as he saw Colonel Charles begin to make his way back toward them. As he walked, his look suggested he’d already guessed what they’d been talking about, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.
“Did I ask for questions, Cadet?” the colonel said as he reached them, turning his angry gaze on Rachel. “Or were you just trying to embarrass me?”
Rachel seemed surprised by this. “Embarrass you? Not at all. I just wanted to—”
“Not at all, sir,” Colonel Charles said, leaning in so close that Fort could see the red in his eyes from lack of sleep. “Do you have any idea what’s going on right now, Cadet?”
Rachel looked away. “Sixty million people are in trouble, sir.”
“And that’s the least of my problems,” the colonel hissed. “China wants their book of Healing magic back, so they can build up their own defense against the Old Ones. And do you know why? Because they don’t think we can cut it!”
“That’s ridiculous, sir,” Rachel said, turning back to him. “The TDA is ready for anything!”
“I agree, but our track record says otherwise,” Colonel Charles growled, standing up again. “Even the president thinks we haven’t proven we can handle a magical attack—given how badly we’ve failed over the last two. So he’s thinking about shutting us down for good. Not to mention that every news station worldwide has been showing video of a dragon flying over half the world’s major cities for the last two days!”
Fort winced, looking away. He’d been teleporting D’hea around to keep the Old One away from people while trying to think of a plan, and it hadn’t exactly been his greatest idea.
“I’ve been lenient in the past,” the colonel continued, still focused on Rachel. “Especially with you, Cadet Carter, given your talents for Destruction magic. But I don’t have that luxury anymore, not with everything that’s happened. The world’s eyes are on us, and we cannot fail again. If we do, and they shut us down, who will protect the world, Cadet? Our people would be defenseless, and I for one will not allow that to happen! Do you understand?”
Rachel nodded, staying silent.
He glared at her for a moment, then stood back up. “Any one of you who even thinks about disobeying my orders is gone, cadets. No more second chances, not for anyone, not anymore. I don’t care who they are.”
“Sir, I just think we could help—” Rachel s
tarted to say, but the colonel whirled on her abruptly.
“Did you not hear a word I said?” he shouted. “You are the last person I want help from right now, Carter! Those UK students asked for you three specifically for a reason. That means I need you as far from this as possible, for your sake and ours! Are we clear?”
Rachel nodded, staying silent.
“Are we clear?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” she said.
“Sir,” Jia said, her voice shaking slightly. “About the book of Healing magic: Rachel and I have been working on new spells, just using spell words we already know and trying different combinations. It’s possible you could give the Healing book back to China, and that we’d still be able to—”
“Give up Healing magic?” the colonel asked, his eyes widening. “That’s literally all we have to fight off the Old Ones, Liang! Our books go nowhere, not as long as I’m around. Do you hear me?”
Jia nodded, her eyes wide.
“And you, Fitzgerald?” the colonel said, turning to Fort. “No brilliant suggestions from you?”
“I’m just worried about Cyrus, sir,” Fort said, not looking up. “I don’t want him to get hurt.”
“Oh, don’t worry—that won’t be a concern,” the colonel said. “As of tomorrow, you won’t remember any of this. Last night, while you were still in the medical ward, I put through all the paperwork I need to expel you.. You’re heading home with your mind wiped as soon as this operation is complete.”
“What?” Fort shouted, leaping to his feet, but the colonel pushed him back into his seat.
“You unleashed an Old One into our world, and almost killed my sons! Both of them!” Colonel Charles leaned in close once again, his eyes burning with such an intense rage that Fort actually shrank back, not quite sure what the man might do. But the colonel abruptly pulled away and turned toward the front of the room, his fists unclenching as he took a deep breath, apparently trying to calm himself down.