Chapter 76: Proof

The little metal cup on the weathervane spun in my gale.

Let’s be clear. The amount of wind I felt whipping through the apartment would have knocked knickknacks off their shelves and torn coats from their hooks. Assuming Lena could even hold the weathervane in place, it would’ve spun too fast to see.

What actually happened, as she strained to both hold its base and to keep my Wood from flying past into the kitchen, was that the metal cup rotated around the shaft of the weathervane at a steady rate, like it’d been set out in a gentle breeze.

It was still enough to silence the murmurs from our audience, and to shut Zhizhi’s laughter right the hell up.

Which meant she was seeing the same thing Lena and I had.

Successful test.

I forced myself not to shudder, lest I lose selection on the Wood.

“What the hell,” Zhizhi whispered.

I cupped my hand and drew the Wood back. Instead of holding it away from the kitchen, Lena had to keep it from swinging back toward me.

The weathervane’s motion arrested, then, slowly, rotated in the opposite direction. The metal outline of the rooster shifted slightly toward me.

“Cool trick,” Zhizhi said.

“Right?” Lena said. “I’m messing around with the base to make it do that. Obvs.”

Zhizhi started to exhale.

I glanced at her. She’d swept her gaze over the rest of the audience, all of whom continued to stare at the weathervane. From what I could see of Erin’s tablet, Joon Woo in particular had his eyes fixed on it, his jaw pulled into a tight line and the tendons in his neck standing out. I supposed he was the one who’d seen the least evidence of what Third Eye could do.

“Tell you what,” Lena said. “How about we ask for a volunteer from the audience to help us out with what’s totally a magic trick?”

“You mean me,” Zhizhi said.

Lena grinned. “And a volunteer appears!”

I let my selected Wood level off and the wind died down. Lena released the weathervane. It teetered on the edge of the counter.

Zhizhi strode across the apartment and grabbed its base.

“Perfect,” Lena said. She gripped the Wood with both hands. Out of Third Eye, it looked like she was making a really weird gesture in the empty air. “I got it, Cam.”

“Then I’ll take it from here,” I said.

Zhizhi tensed. I waited for her to relax so she wouldn’t think a twitch of her muscles had moved the weathervane. Then I began to push the Air forward again.

Lena gripped the Wood tighter.

The weathervane creaked and began to move.

Zhizhi stared at it as it picked up speed. The rooster turned. As I pushed my hand forward, it continued to spin until it faced directly into the kitchen, only a single line visible to me. The little cup beneath it whirled faster and faster.

Once again, I shaped my hand and dragged Air and Wood back in my direction. The eddies made the rooster shift, and by the time I was done with the demonstration, it stood beak to face with me.

I leveled out the Wood one more time.

Zhizhi looked between Lena and I, surveyed the rest of our audience.

Joon Woo sucked air through his teeth.

“Amazing,” Erin breathed. “That’s... that’s proof, isn’t it?”

“It certainly does look like it,” Donica said.

“I did not require convincing,” Miguel said, “so I’m hardly surprised to find myself convinced.”

Only Zhizhi remained calm. She gave the weathervane a shake. “Can I pick this up?”

“Go for it,” Lena said. “You gotta figure out the trick, right?”

“Exactly.” She lifted it off the counter. She ran her hands over its base, up and down its shaft. She shook her head. “I don’t get it. It doesn’t seem thick enough to have a motor in it, but it’s got to be tied to your phone somehow.”

“Well yeah,” Lena said. “How else could we make the trick work? You can feel there’s no wires, right?”

“Some kind of counterweight system? Temperature sensitivity? A hidden fan across the room?” Zhizhi shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s a hell of a trick.”

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“Well, that’s just the first test we did,” Lena said.

The first that didn’t involve Bernie. I wasn’t sure about repeating that one in front of an audience, although we probably needed to.

“Let’s see the next one.” Zhizhi set the weathervane down on the counter, on its side.

“Step back a little, if you please,” I said. “I need a little space for this one.”

“Okay.” She pushed away from the counter and crossed her arms.

Lena let go of the Wood.

I guided the panel until it hovered over the scale we’d set up on the counter.

“Could you read that off for me real quick?” I asked.

“No pounds, no ounces,” Zhizhi said.

“Cool.” I released the Wood.

It settled on top of the scale, its center balanced. To me, it looked like I had set a meter by a meter and a half board onto a jeweler’s scale, until I lowered my phone and saw nothing on top of it.

But either way, the scale registered 18 ounces.

From what Lena and I had determined when we ran this test the first time, that was about a tenth of what the board ought to weigh.

But then, as a game construct, it shouldn’t have weighed anything at all.

Zhizhi backed further away. She held her palms up between her and the counter and half turned to look at me. “Again, you’re controlling that with your phone somehow.”

“That would make sense,” I said. “In a way, you’re not wrong. Actually, you can help us test something we couldn’t before.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Would you show her, Lena?”

“Sure.” Lena darted forward and grabbed one of Zhizhi’s hands.

Zhizhi tried to pull away for an instant, then shook her head and gave a little roll of her eyes. Convincing herself this was all part of the trick. Or that it was safer to play along with us?

Either way, she let Lena tug her over to where the Wood lay, invisible to her. Lena guided Zhizhi’s hand until it was just underneath where the board protruded over the counter.

“Okay,” I said. I waited for Zhizhi to glance back at me, then set my phone down on my desk and stepped away from it.

“As soon as I back off,” Lena said, “count to a random number in your head so you know we didn’t time it somehow, then lift your hand up. Be sure to watch the scale!”

Zhizhi eyed Lena like she expected to be bitten. Admittedly, considering the manic grin on Lena’s face, it probably seemed like biting was on the table.

Of course, Lena just stepped away.

Both of us showed our hands, demonstrating that we weren’t touching our phones.

A moment passed. Another.

Zhizhi lifted her arm.

Third Eye supplied the sound effects of the Wood clattering to the kitchen floor.

But the scale moved back to zero all on its own.

Zhizhi stared at it.

“We’re pretty good magicians, huh?” Lena asked.

Zhizhi sucked in a breath. “Very. It’s funny. That doesn’t show up on any of your socials. I would’ve thought you were freelance tech writers. I guess it’s a hobby?”

“Yep.” Lena gave an exaggerated wink. “Just between you and me though, Cam and I have been talking about going pro. Just got to scrounge up enough cash for my tuxedo and his bunny girl outfit.”

That startled a laugh from Zhizhi. “Okay. You two really had me going for a minute there. All of you. The whole stone-faced audience thing really adds to the experience. Is that what we’re doing? A magic party?”

“One more test,” I said.

I didn’t think we needed to continue. Zhizhi was seeing the same things Lena and I had, despite having never signed up for Third Eye, much less opened the app. This shit wasn’t just in the heads of us players. It really could affect the world.

Why not stop, then?

For one, the more tests we ran, the more measurements we got, and the more eyes we got on those, the more data we would have. After this, I was looking forward to going over the results with the other players, at the very least.

For another, Lena was having way too much fun.

The show must go on.

“How about checking the thermometer,” Lena said.

“Fine.” Zhizhi sighed. “I’ll play along. But after this, you explain the tricks.”

“I promise,” I said. “As soon as you do this, I’ll tell you everything we know about what’s going on.”

“That’s going to take a while,” Donica muttered.

I ignored her.

Zhizhi peered at the thermometer. We’d bought the old mercury kind, because it was cheaper, and simpler, and, at least as far as we knew, harder to fake. “Seventy nine degrees Fahrenheit,” she said. “I think you should turn your heat down.”

“Probably,” I said. With so many people in the enclosed space of the apartment, I suspected it would’ve been hot even if we’d relied on the occasional sputtering gasps of the furnace.

“I hate this part,” Lena said.

“It’s just for a little bit,” I said.

She scooped up her phone. She glanced at me and at Bernie, then, with a sigh, tapped the phone’s surface.

Unlike when she opened Third Eye, the change from her closing it happened gradually. The heat took time to dissipate. A minute passed. Zhizhi watched the thermometer. Lena and I, and the rest of our audience, watched her.

“Seventy eight,” she read off. A few minutes later, “Seventy seven.”

We waited until the thermometer hit seventy five. By then, multiple minutes passed between each drop, so despite the enormity of what we were hearing, the actual process had grown pretty boring.

I wasn’t sure how much lower it would go without stabilizing, anyway. It had dropped as low as sixty nine when Lena and I tried it earlier, but we hadn’t had so many people crammed into the space providing body heat.

Lena clapped.

Zhizhi, Erin and Miguel all jumped.

“Now to put things right again.” Lena’s fingers flew across her phone.

Nothing gradual this time. Warmth blossomed from her, and I knew that if I’d held my phone, I’d have been able to watch her wings unfurl across the apartment, her dress blaze to life, her crown ripple around her forehead and blend with her fiery curls.

Zhizhi didn’t even have to look at the thermometer. She recoiled from the physical sensation of heat and backed away along the counter.

Finally, her hands shaking and her voice worse, she read off, “Seventy eight.”

Lena nodded.

“Oh!” Erin said.

We all turned to look at her.

“How high does it go if you actually use Fire?” Erin asked.

“I got it over ninety when I burned Wood right next to the thermometer,” Lena said.

“Fascinating,” Erin said.

“What is it, Erin?” Donica asked.

“It’s just,” Erin said, “when I did this test the first day, I could only get my thermometer to move a single degree.”