Chapter 1
When an enormous explosion destroys a storage unit on the outskirts of Terre Haute Indiana, Davin Quickly, a student of MetaPhysics, is called in as the only choice that a rag-tag band of misfits has to find those responsible. But will he succeed when he has to overcome kidnapping, mercenaries , biker gangs, gun runners, strippers, the FBI, and a potential magical super bomb? And that’s just the first 24 hours...
Chapter 1
The alarm clock went of at 5:30 am, same as every day, but instead of playing music like normal it was two guys talking in serious voices.
"...ould lead someone to do something like this Chet?"
"I’m not sure but one thing I do know it it’s a good thing it happened there and not somewhere more public."
Davin, who was sleeping facing away from the clock pushed himself up and turned to look at it through a haze of rumpled hair.
"It’s a disturbing thought to say the least. QWRK time is 5:31, and we’ll be getting back to some music here in a few minutes. He’s Chet, I’m Dave, and if you’re just joining us we’re talking about the mas-"
The voice cut off as Davin’s hand hit the snooze button. "Damn fear-mongering..." he muttered. He was still fuzzy as he sat up on the bed and pushed his tangled mass of hair out of his eyes so he could rub the crust and gunk out of them.
He glanced over at his computer. The dragon on the World of Warcraft login screen stared back at him, challenge in it’s eyes. Davin shook his head. Tempted as he was to go farming to get those pants for his 38 Tauren Hunter, he had to get to class. Merriwether was going on vacation this afternoon, and wanted to make sure Davin was there in case any of the students had questions after class. And of course Davin had the powerpoint on his laptop because he’d just finished it last night. At 3 am. After the raid.
Then got two and a half hours sleep.
Davin stood up rubbing life back into his face. His hand ran over rough stubble, and he made a mental note to shave. His neck felt a little stiff, so he grabbed his head at the top and bottom and gave a sharp twist, hearing a gratifying *snapcracklepop* as his neck popped into place. He sighed contentedly, then stumbled, still bleary eyed for the bathroom to take care of business.
Twenty minutes later he was pulling on his pants and a shirt, and lamenting the folly of late night WOW raids. He looked around his cluttered dorm room for his socks, and found a pair he had only worn once so far, and pulled them on, and looked for his shoes.
He wondered for a moment if he would have time to run over to the Dunkin’ Donuts to get some coffee before heading over to the Metaphysics building, but the internal calculator of the brain did some estimates of distance, speed, and the variables of how long it would take the counter girl to get his order right, or how many people would be in line today, and how many of them would be paying with cash, and having to count out change, and showed him the totals.
He shook his head. The day was going to be miserable if he couldn’t wake up. Professor Merriwether always knew, and the hard time he would give Davin would be unbearable in this state. He didn’t approve of Video Games, feeling they didn’t add anything to the culture of the world. Davin disagreed, but he could sense that he was about to start mentally replaying the argument for the thousandth time, and forced himself to back away from that line of thought, and try to think of a solution.
He thought the run to class might help a little, but then he would just be tired and exhausted. He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, and groaned in frustration.
Then suddenly he smelled it, just a wafting scent on the breeze, but possibly the source of his salvation.
He searched the pocket of his jeans frantically looking for a marker, and finally found one in one of the pockets of his grey hooded sweatshirt, a black chisel head sharpie. He bludgeoned his tired mind for a moment as he pulled the pizza box out from under the bed of his small room with his foot. It rattled reassuringly with the bones of a long dead pizza... or the one from last night anyway.
He picked up the box and set it on the bed and flipped it open, and pulled the cap off the sharpie with his teeth. He was still racking his brain for the molecular structure of carbohydrates, but it was fighting back against him, punishing him for his lack of sleep. He pulled his smartphone out of his back pocket and googled "Carbohydrate Molecule" and found an image.
He grunted, and felt a little dumb that he couldn’t remember all those hydrogen and carbon chains. He looked up another molecule, and nodded. Just needed a little nitrogen, but there was more than enough in the air. He sketched out a circle inside the lid of the pizza box. It wasn’t a perfect circle, but it didn’t really need to be for what Davin had in mind. He drew out some quick and dirty guidelines in a few triangles, then jotted down the symbols for the formula he had in mind.
He put the pizza crust in the middle of the circle and laid his hand on the edge of the circle. The physical contact wasn’t necessary, but Davin found that the contact help to make the spell easier to concentrate on. As he concentrated there was a sound that started small, and grew louder over the next few seconds. Deep down, on the molecular level carbon and hydrogen atoms were splitting away from carbon, and twisting up, and recombining with oxygen and nitrogen. There were both spare hydrogen and spare carbon, but the amounts would be so small the worst that might be mistaken for an SBD fart. There were also spare electrons which were dispersing as heat energy, which had the side effect of heating up the crust.
After a few moments Davin opened up his eyes again and picked up the crust. It was ever so slightly warm, and he smiled at this. "Aaaaahhhh.... " he smirked. "Caffeinated Pizza Crusts. Magic is so awesome," he said taking a bite.
His face froze for a moment, and it was all he could do not to spit out the thing. It was SO BITTER. His face twisted up in disgust, but he kept going. He needed this. It might be disgusting but it would be better than falling asleep in class all day.
He shoved his marker back into his pocket, and his phone, and grabbed his bag with his laptop and headed for the door of his cluttered, grubby, little dorm room.