Chapter 5
Chapter 5
So, Davin explained what Magic was.
He’d been assigned to write a paper about this precise subject by his professor on the first day of class. Everyone had. The professor explained later that the task was meant to "take everyone down a peg," as everyone had a lot of arrogant preconceived notions about magic, how it worked, and what exactly it was. No one ever got it right, not even Davin, but this was because nobody really knew exactly what magic was, just that it was a major force of the universe, like Time, Space, Gravity, or the Higgs Boson.
But Davin’s paper was filled with a humility, and passion, and depth of understanding that it almost bordered on poetry. It made you think about your life, and your choices, and your own sense of purpose. You began to appreciate how deep the subject was, and how ingrained it was in the universe.
So the professor had read it to the class. There was no applause at the end, just a gentle murmur, which made Davin a little uncomfortable, thinking no one had liked it. But after class three different girls had come up to him at different times, and hugged and thanked him. One said that after hearing that she was dropping magic and taking up philosophy, and that she had only taken magical engineering because that’s what her parents had expected of her, but choosing for herself, she’d said, "was a kind of magic in itself." It made Davin a little uncomfortable, but happy all the same.
Davin himself had read the paper in front of each new class at the beginning of the new semester, and now he knew it so well, that he could recite it by heart.
So he explained it to this small group as well, and this time was free to add a few things that he had heard of, or learned about during the class. It took about 15 minutes all told. As he spoke the demeanor of each person began to change in subtle and/or not so subtle ways.
Rachele’s eyes narrowed, and her features began to tighten, and she folded her arms across her chest.
Gary had been looking at his computer, glancing occasionally at Davin, but after a few minutes he was looking only at Davin, with a sort of glazed look on his face, mouth hanging slightly open.
Bernard was working on the car, but his activity slowed, and he sat on the edge of the hood, his head tilted sideways, and his mouth hanging open.
Miranda was bouncing slightly at first, then slowed, and eventually stopped, her mouth making an almost perfect "O."
Robert made almost no change in expression but something relaxed ever so slightly around his eyes, which started losing focus just slightly.
Finally Davin’s speech wound down. "Um. Any questions?" he asked.
"No, uh... That sounds about right," said Gary. "A bit more... flowery ...than the Wikipedia description, but..."
Davin nodded. "The entry needed to be more simplified for the Wiki. Just the facts."
Gary looked at Davin and back at his screen, muttering, "You wrote the..."
Miranda looked like she was in a daze, staring straight ahead as she said, in a tiny little voice, "I think I need a towel. " It took him a moment to work out what she meant, and when he did his felt his cheeks grow hot, and wondered if she would ever say anything that wouldn’t make him blush.
"Is all that true?" asked Bernard.
Davin shrugged self consciously, and said, "As far as we know, yeah."
Bernard just nodded, and went back to staring at nothing, lost in his own thoughts.
Rachele was looking at Robert. "You know who he sounds like?"
Robert nodded.
"And?"
"He’s sincere." said Robert, speaking for the first time. His voice sounded as flat and forgettable as the rest of him. "He believes what he’s saying."
"So we can trust him?"
"I would."
Rachele nodded. She stood up and walked over to Davin. "Okay then. So you know what your talking about when it comes to magic. The reason I called you was that I-" she paused and glanced around, "WE... need some information about something. Some kind of artifact."
Davin frowned at her. "Like a magic artifact? Most artifacts that were used for magic no longer have enough magic in them to actually do anything."
Rachele nodded. "Yeah. But this one seems like it was made to last for a while. It was a cube, about 5 inches to a side, jet black, except for the frost. Supposedly it was my by-"
Davin jumped in, "By Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern calculus. You’re talking about Newton’s Battery." He chuckled a little. "And here I thought you were serious." He looked around at their faces. None of them were laughing. He blinked, and furrowed his brow at them. "You are kidding right? Newton’s battery is a myth. A fantasy."
Gary and Bernard looked at each other as if confirming something, and Miranda looked disgustedly at them.
"I mean nobody’s ever seen anything like that which fits the description. Besides, it was said that Newton’s floated about 4 feet off the ground, which is... uheh... Impossible.” He smirked.
They all looked at each other for a moment, and even Bernard and Gary looked a little disconcerted, while Miranda smirked at them.
Then Rachele pulled a smartphone out of her back pocket, and cued up a video, and turned it to show Davin. It showed two identical cubes floating diagonally, about 4 feet off the ground. The person taking the video sounded very excited, but the sound was a bit muted.
Davin squinted at the screen, looking for any signs of trickery or special effects. He looked up at Rachele and asked, "Is this a joke?"
She shook her head and said simply, "Keep watching."
He turned his eyes skeptically back to the little screen.
After a moment the camera turned and showed the door of a storage unit - this storage unit Davin realized - opening, and men with guns running in. There was gunfire, and the camera fell to the ground pointing at the ceiling. There was shouting for a moment, then the camera was picked up, accidentally leaving a bloody smear across the bottom left corner of the lens. The cameraman’s hands were shaking now, but they managed to point it at the place where the the two cubes were floating.
Davin could see then the subtle differences between the two cubes. Where one was darker and blacker than the other, its twin had a much thicker layer of frost.
One of the gunmen was pointing to the frost covered one, and another man snapped a case around it, and walked toward the entrance to the unit. The remaining men were looking at the other cube in apparent interest, spinning it with their fingers, when the apparent leader noticed a slight opening, and reached down for a screwdriver. The cameraman seemed to shout something at them, but one of the gunmen ran over, out of the camera’s sight, and the angle went slightly askew, as if someone had grappled the person holding it. The man with the screwdriver laughed and joked with the person holding the camera operator, and casually stuck the screwdriver into the cube, and gave it a twist.
At first nothing happened, and the man looked a little frustrated, then he grabbed the cube, and twisted the screwdriver with more force. Then the screen went white for a moment.
For a moment no one spoke. Then Rachele said "The Micro SD card was protected by the phone, which was Mil-Spec. Unfortunately the phone itself didn’t make it. Otherwise the result is what you see here," and she gestured around the ruin they’d gathered in. She put the phone away, and appeared to struggle with her emotions for a moment. "So," she said, a little sarcastically, and raised her eyebrows. "What do you think now?"