The hotel-like room that had once been devoted to keeping second-generation Olympian Aureus confined in comfort looked quite a bit different than it had while the girl was staying there. Every object in the room had been taken down and separated from any other object. The blankets, sheets, pillow cases, pillow, mattress, and box springs were each stacked up with several inches of space between them. Every bit of clothing had been taken out of the dresser drawers and were laid out neatly near those very same drawers, which were stacked side by side. Every object, every knick knack, every picture, book, tool, everything that had been in that suite had been separated, thoroughly examined multiple times, and then set apart from anything else. Next to each object was what looked like a small blue button hovering several feet off the floor. They were holograms, allowing someone to walk right through them. But touching any of those buttons with one’s finger and holding it there briefly would project a screen listing a staggering amount of technical details about the object they were connected to. This ranged from physical measurements including the weight and size of the object, to the purpose of it, to the temperature it was measured at in that moment as well as when it had been cataloged, to dozens of even more intricate calculations of various magical energies the objects gave off. Everything in the universe had magic in it, of course. But the exact amounts and types of magical energy in an object could tell a curious and educated researcher quite a bit about what had been happening in an area.
Few people realized just how many different types of magical energy there were. For the most part, even those who regularly used it simply classified the stuff as ‘magical energy’ and left it at that. They used that energy to cast their spells and that was enough for them. In truth, even living beings gave off several classes of energy, and the very few people in the universe who understood how to read that could tell what species a being was simply by looking at the exact types and amounts of energy that being produced. In most cases, even shapeshifting wasn’t enough to hide that particular signature. You could shapeshift into an animal, but the energy you produced (what some called an aura) would still be that of your birth species.
Objects, on the other hand, tended to absorb the energy in the air around them.
Of course, to make heads or tails out of anything that way, objects had to be cut off from outside influence corrupting or contaminating those details. Which was why these rooms had been completely quarantined. The steady thrum of a powerful forcefield surrounding the entire suite carried on day and night, ensuring that no unauthorized personnel were able to enter the room. It was a forcefield that had been designed and powered by the Dyeus (or archangel) known as Gabriel, and was currently set to allow absolutely no one inside who wasn’t escorted by herself, Athena, Sariel, or the Fusion school principal, Abigail Fellows.
Despite herself, Gabriel found herself liking the incredibly young Fellows. She had a good head on her shoulders, and she was carrying on under the responsibility of leading this institution quite admirably considering her age and lack of obvious power. But then, Gabriel was rather painfully aware of how little the power a being had related to how well they handled responsibility. Just thinking about how many times she’d seen her own people take a bit of power they’d managed to stumble across and nearly destroy themselves or a good chunk of the universe with it was exhausting. If she’d had even a handful of people like Abigail Fellows to help deal with that, she would be so much further along her to-do list.
And speaking of people she wouldn’t mind having more of, even as the Seosten woman (people native to Rysthael/Earth would say she appeared to be Asian) in her blue bodysuit and white leather coat stood reading the holographic technical details given off by one of the carefully separated books for the eighteenth time, a voice spoke up tentatively behind her. “Um, Miss Gabriel, I have that report you asked for.”
Turning, the woman took in the sight of the hybrid girl, Vanessa Moon. Child of a human and a Seosten. Not only was that supposed to be impossible, it opened up entire new fields of potential study. If humans and Seosten could successfully produce offspring, that could completely revolutionize the efforts to counteract the Seosten population decline. They needed to study just how fully human a physical partner needed to be in order to successfully create a viable offspring. They needed to find out if simply adding some human DNA into a Seosten fetus could halt the development of their possession capabilities long enough to allow safe birth. They needed… they needed… She needed to be told about these things so she knew where to devote proper research! She had entire facilities under her purview that were devoted entirely to solving this problem, and one of the best leads they’d had in millennia had been quietly living on Rysthael for almost two decades!
She loved her people, truly. But sometimes they exhausted her beyond all comprehension. Physically and emotionally.
With some effort, Gabriel put those thoughts aside and extended a hand to accept the electronic clipboard the girl was handing her. “Thank you, Vanessa.” She perused the information on the screen, reflexively doing a few mental calculations to check the hybrid girl’s math. But there were no mistakes she could see. It was all as good as any of her own assistants could have done, if not better than some. Another reason to be impressed with the girl, a list which continued to get longer the more time she spent with her. “Excellent work.” After a brief pause, she added a bit thoughtfully, “Have you come to any of your own conclusions after examining this data?”
Vanessa looked hesitant, squirming a bit on her feet. But she held her ground and gave a little nod after a moment. “Um, if you look at the temperature readings on each object at the moment the room was quarantined compared to now, they’ve dropped three point two degrees centigrade with no outside influence. The rooms have been sealed and temperature regulated both before and after the… event, and they weren’t occupied by enough people at that time to notably change the temperature through body heat. My brother and his companion weren’t here long enough to change the temperature themselves, and they wouldn’t have done so by themselves. Not that much. It’s also not in line with the temperature set by the environmental controls. Oh, and we’ve been monitoring the temperature of the room itself but there’s absolutely no indication of the heat on the objects escaping into the open air. The best takeaway is that there was a spike in temperature at the moment that they… disappeared, significant enough to still register in the measurements we took some time later. But not significant enough to be noticed by anyone who came in here. At least, not that they commented on.”
Regarding her without showing any reaction to that, Gabriel asked, “And if no one who entered this room immediately after the event noted any significant temperature change, yet objects within retained a several degree heat difference for upwards of an hour before the temperature was measured, what does that tell us?”
Again, Vanessa hesitated. She was clearly taking a moment to sort out her answer, or how to phrase it. Or possibly asking herself how much she should say to this Seosten woman she barely knew. “Physical objects retain magical energy longer than the air around them. So, um, whatever happened to send those guys into the… Reaper Archives gave off enough energy for these objects to retain it for that long. It’s not about the temperature of the room, it’s about the energy the… event created. Energy which has been steadily–oh.”
Smiling very faintly as the girl clearly reached the same conclusion she had, Gabriel silently gestured for her to continue. She wanted to hear it.
“Um, if the temperature of the objects has been lowering, it means the energy they took in is fading,” Vanessa went on with a visible grimace. “But the room is sealed and we aren’t reading any temperature variations in the air itself. The energy has to be going somewhere. Which probably means there’s still some sort of link to the Archives. Even if we can’t detect it with any of our instruments. The objects took in that energy and now it’s going back where it came from. Which means there’s a chance we could find my brother and the others and pull them back. But also–that’s a bad idea, because the Reapers might be upset if we tried that.”
Raising an eyebrow, Gabriel replied, “You love your sibling and wish to find him, yet you recognize and acknowledge that pursuing this possibility would be a mistake. That, Vanessa Moon, puts you quite a bit above many others I could name.”
Now the blonde girl was blushing. “I want Tristan and the Carnival back, but I don’t want to give the Reapers an excuse to destroy the whole solar system just because we tried to jimmy their back door open.”
“As I said,” Gabriel agreed, “above many others. Yes, you are correct about this lingering connection to their so-called Archives, and about their probable response should we attempt to leverage that connection into actual access. The safest way to proceed without provoking a response is to continue monitoring the changes in temperature and several other measurements I will point out to you, to determine, as near as possible, how long the connection to those Archives persists. It may not be precise, but it is, as they say, the best we can do.”
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With that, the woman turned and began to walk to the exit. “Come, if you wouldn’t mind. I think better while eating something, and I have heard positive things about Rysthael food. Something called cheesecake intrigues me.”
It was obvious that Vanessa wanted to object to going anywhere else while her brother and the others were missing. But she realized as well as Gabriel did that they were fairly limited in what they could do about that. Any attempt to actually break into the Archives to retrieve those who were missing would lead to reprisals from the Reapers themselves. Reprisals the people here were in no condition to recover from, let alone defend themselves against. The last time the Seosten had attempted to breach Reaper space, their retaliation had destroyed an entire solar system. They did not react well to anyone attempting to break into their private universe, whatever their reasoning.
So, with an audible sigh, Vanessa followed Gabriel. They passed through the security checkpoint that had been reinforced outside the room, then proceeded to the cafeteria. On the way, Gabriel asked her young companion, “Your mother is pursuing another avenue of research, I believe?”
Nodding quickly, Vanessa replied, “She said that while we can’t break into Reaper space without… um, making them angry, she can at least come up with a way to find Tristan and the others if they get sent back somewhere else on Earth instead of here on the station. She’s working on a way to get an alert if there’s any event down there at all similar to the one up here.”
“Identifying when a similar portal into Reaper space has been opened,” Gabriel concluded. “That… should not offend them too much, with any luck. Though from prior research I can say that such detection methods will not catch all such incursions. Only the ones closely connected to this specific area of the Archives. Every Reaper gives off vastly different energies when they transport between their own space and ours. Your mother’s efforts may indeed work to identify when, where, and if those missing people return, assuming they are returned by a similar method from which they were taken.”
Vanessa glanced that way. “In other words, we’ll only detect them if they come back the same way they left. Reapers have a lot of ways to send people around, so maybe they’ll return and we’ll never notice. I mean, until they send a message to let us know.”
“Yes.” Gabriel gave a short nod. “But that is not to say that your mother is wasting her time. Beyond still potentially alerting us to the return of those missing people after all, her efforts may be expanded in the future to identify similar breaches. While it is far too dangerous to go kicking in the Reapers’ front door, knowing when and where they are active could be quite helpful.”
They had reached the cafeteria by then, the two taking their orders (cheesecake for Gabriel and a baked potato for Vanessa) to a back corner of the room where they could continue their conversation in private. Granted, it wouldn’t have been difficult to speak in secret even in the middle of the room when magic was included, but it simply felt right to be away from the crowd.
As they sat and Gabriel marveled over just how good the dessert actually was, Vanessa asked, “I was reading those notes you put down, about how there are actually many different types of energy that we all simply classify as ‘spell energy,’ and I was wondering if you could um, maybe tell me a little more about that? It’s not exactly well-studied around here.”
With a soft smile, Gabriel took another bite of the treat, savoring it briefly before responding. “For the most part, that general classification works well enough for any magic the layperson uses. But yes, there are actually many different types of that energy. Think of them like the seven colors of the visible spectrum. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. There are many more than that, of course, but that will suffice for the purposes of this example. A creative child can create a picture using any or all of those colors at once, and it will often be ‘good enough’ to at least be identifiable. But a true artist can use those seven colors and variations thereof to create true works of art. Similarly, one with enough expertise could separate and use these different energies to create much more efficient and powerful spells. Your mother has some skill when it comes to what we should simply refer to as mental magical energy.”
She considered her next words for a moment, tapping the fork against her glass plate before continuing. “You see, if one can learn to manipulate the specific energy, separating it from the others it is entwined with, they can not only use that to create more powerful and elaborate magic, but also manipulate what that particular energy is linked to without any spell required. In your mother’s case, as with certain other experts in mental manipulation, by taking control of the threads of mental energy connected to one person’s mind, they can manipulate that mind. Think of it like this, a person’s very thoughts imprint on the psychic energy they give off. One who is skilled at recognizing and manipulating this particular type of energy, and can unthread it from where it is bunched up with every other type of magical energy a living being creates, can then change that imprint and send it back to the same being who created it.”
“Like using a computer to alter a picture and then sending the altered picture back to the camera or the negative and changing that?” Vanessa frowned. “Is that what Mom does when she’s changing memories? Wait, how does she bring back altered memories?”
“In most cases,” Gabriel replied, “those who alter memories don’t do so in the way I described, they–to use your own comparison– alter the image on the camera without doing anything to the threads of psychic energy. Your mother and others like her may retrieve the true images from that energy if they know when and where to look. Even after much time has passed, there are remnants of those threads. Though they may become much more difficult to find.”
“Wait,” Vanessa abruptly blurted, “is that where all those other powers originate from too? I mean, people with fire powers, are they just manipulating ‘fire related magical energy’ in a specific way without actually having to draw spellforms to create the effect? Or people who can teleport, they’re naturally using some specific thread of magical energy that allows that sort of thing?”
Setting her fork down with a noise of satisfaction, Gabriel nodded. “Precisely. All magical energy is a thick rope, where each thread is a separate type, tied to something different. When the average caster uses a spell, they simply blunt force the energy to fit what they’re trying to do, utterly inefficiently. By contrast, most beings with a natural gift, such as what you’re referring to, reflexively use that specific energy to accomplish their effects without ever consciously knowing what they’re doing. It’s all magic, just different ways of using it. At least, for abilities originating in this universe. Tartarus gifts tend to be… different.”
Vanessa digested that for a moment, sitting there frowning at her empty plate thoughtfully. “So if you put enough time and effort into understanding how to untangle these separate magical threads, you can create much more efficient spells just by using only the proper energy. Even if a spell requires multiple types, you could thread those specific lines of energy together again while leaving out what isn’t needed.”
With another small smile playing at her face, Gabriel confirmed, “They could, yes. It would not be simple, as even understanding how to properly manipulate a single… thread, as we’ve been putting it, requires quite a bit of study and practice. Your mother can attest to that with her own memory manipulation efforts. Which, I believe, she has put so much effort into in an attempt to cure her own mother.”
Wincing a little, Vanessa replied, “Yeah, her mom– um, my grandmother, I guess, was affected by something that makes it so she’s always lost in her old memories. From what my mother said, she almost never understands where and when she is. She just plays out her old memories over and over again, and thinks anyone around her is someone from those memories. Except… except she remembered who her daughter was a lot more often than she remembered anyone else. Mom’s been trying to find a way to help her basically her entire life. It’s why she got into memory magic to begin with. But she hasn’t been able to get back to her mother to try anything new for a long time.”
“Perhaps it’s time to do something about that,” Gabriel mused. “After everything your mother has done, after everything she has contributed toward the advancement of our people in various ways, it seems that the transfer of a single patient is little enough to ask for.”
Vanessa blinked at that. “Wait, you’re saying you’ll bring Korsmea here, just like that? Mom and Athena have both been trying to get her transferred somewhere else for… for a long time. Even Chayyiel tried but got blocked.”
“Yes, well, it seems Kushiel’s pettiness runs in her family, and Metatron has enough pull to prevent that from happening,” the older woman pointed out mildly. “He does not, however, hold such sway over my decisions.”
Still staring at her, Vanessa managed, “And you’re just going to use your own pull to help transfer her here?”
“She’s hardly getting better where she is,” Gabriel pointed out. “More importantly, if in fact your mother is capable of helping her, those methods will be disseminated amongst all the other doctors attempting to fix similar conditions. I’m not a fan of wasting resources on petty grudges, Vanessa Moon. And to the end, I believe you yourself are quite the resource. I’ve been impressed by everything I’ve seen of you so far. I’d like to offer you an apprenticeship.”
That was enough to make Vanessa choke. “You’re offering me what?”
Gabriel held up one hand a bit soothingly. “On a trial basis at first, of course. And I have no desire to rip you away from your family and your personal endeavors. What I would like is for you to accompany me on several excursions, once your brother and others are safe. Let’s say one week out of every month for the foreseeable future, so that I may gain a better understanding of you. I will teach you everything I can, and accept your input on what may be very important situations that could pertain to the future of this world. It won’t be easy, but it will be educational for both of us. And if I understand anything about you, it’s that you appreciate a good education.
“So what do you say, Vanessa? Will you come on as my apprentice?”