Crown Vic to a Parallel World

11

Shattered Glass

Shawn said nothing from the time he saw my Vitalis magic.  His primary emotion was anxiety with a background of fear.  There seemed to be a problem, but I didn’t know what it was.  When I tried to ask, he shook his head without looking at me.  I gave up and bit my tongue as we followed Ars one floor down into another corridor of black glass and then into a room of the same.

The room was about the size of a child’s bedroom.  It had the hush of a space thick with sound proofing, but none was visible.  In the center of the floor stood a gold pillar as thick as my wrist that was encased in clear glass.  It stood about waist high and on top of it was a dull-grey dome with a handle on the side that reminded me of an inverted mixing bowl.  There was a smaller room built out of the corner of the main room.  I took the smaller room to be a control booth or something similar.  Ars moved into the booth and Shawn followed.  He closed the door when he was inside.

Ars’ voice rattled over a speaker I didn’t see.  “One moment, young man, merely a moment while I calibrate the equipment.  Under that protective cover of reflection material, there is a large catalyst that will convert magic energy to electricity.  It is this electricity that we measure.  Testing conversion magic users requires an extra step, tedious, tedious indeed.  Direct magic users are so much more convenient, sadly rare, but very convenient.”

I waited impatiently and played with my watch while I did it.  There was nothing to look at, nothing to think about that didn’t scare me, and no comfort from Shawn.  I felt as out of place as when the blonds from Shawn’s building were staring at me.  My thoughts started to spin out of control.  ‘Freakishly tall, freakishly fat, freakish habits, freakishly powerful…why did he put me in heels if I’m already taller than everyone?  Why dress me like a birthday cake if I already stand out?  How do I know if any of this is even real?’

Ars’ voice grated through the unseen speaker and interrupted my musings.  “I am ready Mister Philips, yes, more than ready.  Please, if you are ready, and I assume you are.  I hope you are.  Ready that is.  Either way, please remove the dome from the catalyst, place both your hands on it, and activate your direct magic.  Give it your all.  We must know the extent of your abilities.  Yes, we need to rate and rank you accurately.  A tool is only useful to someone who knows its purpose and use.”

‘Did he just call me a tool?’ I asked myself.  I felt a little indignant but dismissed it.  I figured that anyone who rattled as much as Ars was bound to say something off-putting from time to time.  I lifted the dome to reveal the catalyst.  It was a clear glass ball roughly the size of a bowling ball.  The gold column from the floor penetrated into the center of the glass.  Above the flat end of the column, was a flat, pink diamond the size of a playing card, with its bottom point resting on the top of the gold.

I put my palms flat on the ball.  As it did it, I wondered if I had gone mad, or if I really was on a parallel world getting ready to activate my magic…my magic.  ‘What choice do I have?’ I wondered. ‘This is the reality in front of me.  I have to deal with it.’  I used the knowledge that Preacanto had left inside my mind to activate my magic and push Vitalis energy into the ball.  Thin lightning bolts ran from my hands to the pink diamond.  The look of the ball reminded me of one of those weird electric globes that you touch, and it makes your hair stand up.

I held my power steady and watched the thin lightning bolts with fascination. ‘Fuck me,’ I thought, ‘real magic.’ I was apparently distracted for too long, a fact that Ars was quick to remedy.  He had been quiet for something like ten seconds when his voice grated over the speaker to chide me for holding back.  “Yes, excellent, excellent, except surely you are capable of more than that.  I am not impressed Mister Philips, not impressed at all.”

Ars’ taunting made me angry.  I’d purposely started small because I didn’t know what to expect.  I didn’t appreciate Ars’ smug bullshit. ‘OK fuck-head,’ I thought, ‘how’s this?’

I bore down on the magic.  The lightning bolts in the glass grew to solid columns of white light.  An electrical hum filled the room.  I waited for feedback on my performance, but Ars stayed silent.  I assumed that meant I hadn’t impressed him yet, so I tried harder.  As I increased the power discharge, the entire glass ball started to glow.

I also noticed something change inside me.  I focused on how I felt, physically.  I could feel the energy being born inside me.  It felt warm and creative, it felt right.  It flowed from my center…my core, down my arms, and into the glass.  I pushed harder.  Even my thoughts of ‘Fuck you, Ars’ faded away, submerged in the joy of creating power.  I felt amazing.  An almost-orgasmic thrill simmered inside me as power and life poured from my body into the ravenous equipment.

I chased the good feeling and tried to create more and more magic.  As I did, the glowing ball grew too bright to look at.  I closed my eyes, shutting out the wonder of what I’d been watching.  Closing off the distraction of my vision seemed to sharpen my resolve.  I found power I didn’t know I had, and I reveled in the strength.  ‘More,’ I thought, ‘more and more and more and MORE!’

The electric hum grew to a growl, then a keening whine.  The whine increased in pitch until it became a piercing cry.  A violent crack rent the air and snapped the cry to silence.  The ball between my hands exploded into heavy shards of glass that bit into my flesh.  I felt the impact of the explosion, but the pain didn’t hit until I opened my eyes and saw the damage.

Once my brain recognized the injuries I’d suffered, agony seared like a hot iron pressed to my skin from my forehead to my stomach.  I looked like a mangy porcupine with quills of jagged glass.  Blood soaked my shirt, ran from my wounded arms, and dripped into my eyes from a gash on my forehead.

I turned my whole body to face the control booth.  Shawn and Ars stared at me from inside it, both rooted in place and wide-eyed with shock.  Fear poured from Shawn, more than fear, he was terrified of me.  His terror was nauseating, like I was drowning in rancid vegetable oil.  The pain reminded me I needed help, and that no one had moved to help me.  I called out to them.  “HELP ME!”  I pleaded.

My plea got the automatic part of Shawn to function.  He ran from the booth to my side, guided me to the wall, and sat me against it.  His nimble fingers pulled glass shards from my flesh while warm touches healed the damage.  Shawn didn’t speak a word or meet my eyes while he worked.  He focused exclusively on his task and his emotions seemed to shift to a professional neutral.

I was hurt badly, but not badly enough to not be amazed by Shawn’s healing talent.  His delicate hands pulled the glass from my flesh and set it aside on the floor, into a growing bloody pile.  As fast as he removed the glass was as fast as his touches closed the wounds.  If he missed some glass, the healing process expelled it from my skin as it closed.

I watched Shawn closely, but not so closely that I didn’t notice Ars leave the room.  He was gone a long time, long enough for Shawn to close all my wounds and to kick the other shattered glass into a pile.  Ars returned with some cloth wipes and a lime-green jacket that looked like hospital scrubs.

Shawn took a cloth to clean my blood from his hands and I used the rest to clean away as much of the blood on my skin as I could.  I expected to see scars under dried red, or at least the pink of new skin, but I saw neither.  Once the blood was removed, there was no sign that I’d ever been injured.  Even the hair on my skin and the callouses on my palms were in place.  Shawn’s healing magic was incredible.

I was even more impressed that Shawn was able to do all that he did without a full connection.  It seemed that he could perform certain healing tasks with a touch, while more complex or deeper tasks required the connection like he’d used for my addiction removal.  When I thought about it a little, I was glad that he could help me without a full connection.  With his task complete, the storm of fear and negative emotion returned to rage inside him.  As I felt that, I doubted if he could have calmed himself enough to connect us for the work.

I finished with the wipes and swapped my bloodied shirt for the green coat.  It was too tight everywhere, but it covered what it needed to cover.  I thanked Shawn and tried to set a grateful hand on his shoulder.  He shrank away from me.  His thick fear had returned in full force.  I wanted to say something to calm him, but I didn’t understand what he was afraid of, or what I could say to make it better.

Ars took control of the scene and led us both back to his office.  He sat, Shawn sat, I tried to sit but the too-tight jacket threatened to burst open.  I moved to the transparent wall and leaned against it.  Ars picked two plastic cards from the clutter of his desk and shuffled them in his neat hands.  “Mister Philips.”  He held them out to the air.

I crossed the room, took the cards from him, and went back to lean against the wall.  The first card appeared to be a government issued identification.  It had my photo on it, an image I assumed that Ars had gotten from a security camera, and it gave my name as Church P. Incolumitas.  The card listed an address I couldn’t decipher, my true birth date, and showed my employer as The HALL Organization.

The second card was a different style identification, again with my photo and some printing.  It read, ‘Church P. Incolumitas, Level 1 Special Consultant, Telekinetic – Class 4AAA, Vitalis – Class 2AAA, Full Access, No Escort.’

I looked up from the cards.  Ars met my eyes for a second, then averted his gaze and explained.  “I just had them printed.  Those cards, Mister Philips, are your new federally issued identification and your new HALL pass.  I selected the last name of Incolumitas because ‘Philips’ is not like any name we have here.  Your first name is also unusual, but I cannot ask you to change everything about yourself.

“‘Level 1 Special Consultant’ means you answer to me and only to me.  Your magic affinities are listed with your ranking and rating.  The rating is the highest rating we have ever given to anyone.  That said, your true rating, if it were possible to rate you, would not fit on that card.”

Ars heaved a breath and made firm eye contact with me.  “Mister Philips, I am not a powerful man.  I am a fifth-class empath with a C rating.  I have spent my life around powerful people.  It has always been the powerful who are the most useful to this organization.

“You, sir, surpass them all.  The power you displayed today makes the achievements of the others seem like paltry sleight-of-hand illusions.  The catalyst shattered because your magic had nowhere to go.  It overwhelmed the equipment, fused it all, destroyed it beyond salvage.  I am both encouraged that you have the power to help us in our time of crisis, and terrified that power like yours exists within the control of one man.  I sincerely hope your compassion for your fellow beings is as large as your strength.”

I put the cards in my wallet, sliding them in front of my now-irrelevant Pennsylvania driver’s license.  “I don’t know what to say.”

Ars nodded like he understood completely.  “Then do not say anything.  I am sure what you have experienced today has left you with much to think about.  It has also left me with much to do.  Today is Friday.  Take the weekend.  Practice your magic and work on your control.  On Monday, be here in the morning and we will begin the mission in earnest.”

Ars turned his attention to Shawn.  “Nephew, please look after Mister Philips.”

Shawn didn’t move or look up.  It was if he hadn’t heard his uncle at all.  Ars called again. “Nephew…NEPHEW!”

Shawn shivered.  He looked at his uncle like Ars had just appeared before him.  “Yes?”

“It is time for you to go, nephew.” Ars explained, softly, gently.

“Yes.”  Shawn said to acknowledge his uncle, then he got up like he was a very old man.  “Time to go.”

Shawn led the way, and I followed him out.