“Sirs,” He addressed them through gritted teeth and an unfriendly smile. “Why is Anna Wattkins being detained and questioned? She has had a very draining day holding off a class four manifestation for several hours alone before a combined task force of Magicorps and museum personnel were able to relieve her. I respectfully request that my charge be released and allowed to go home to her mother.”

“Ha!” the Army Brigadier General who happened to be the highest-ranked individual in the room, gave a bark of laughter. “Respectfully my left butt cheek. Nice try, but no.” He turned to the others. “Take a seat gentlemen. You too, Specialist. I can’t question you because you aren’t in my chain of command and are assigned to the museum. But Miss Wattkins has answers we want.”

“Your funeral, Sir.” He muttered darkly to himself. Jones returned to his seat in the corner and sat down while the others took seats of their own. The lights went off, which made the view through the mirror much easier to see. A few moments later, a man in a black suit and an Army Colonel entered the room with Anna and sat down facing her but away from the observers.

“Hello, Miss Wattkins.” The man in the suit greeted her. “Are you feeling better?” He was friendly in the way people who weren’t used to dealing with kids were friendly. Warily. Awkwardly.

“Hello…Sir…ers?” She glanced between the suit and the Colonel. “I’m still tired, but okay.”

“That’s good.” He shuffled some papers in front of him, aligning their edges on the table with a few taps. “We have a few questions for you.”

“Uh…huh…” Anna might have been a kid still, but she knew that this wasn’t a smart thing to do. This was all kinds of bad-idea on this guy’s part. “Do my parents know where I am?” This jackass had the affrontery to look surprised that she would ask. That didn’t seem to stop him though and he continued on.

“Are you aware that it is illegal to lie about magical ability to the government?” His question seemed nonsensical to her, and the teen frowned at it.

“Does General Wickers know what’s going on here?” General Wickers was the man that her mother reported to. He was the Magicorps person who would normally interact with the Wattkins children for things like PR opportunities or bribery for Anna’s cooperation in making Camina look more human to quiet the people who were afraid of one woman having the kind of power she did.

“Eyewitnesses at the New York Preparatory Academy incident state that an individual in a cutting edge magitech suit came specifically to rescue you. Who is he?” What the artificers fuck was this? They were worried about Kyle? There was a real genuine threat to American soil and these jackasses had kidnapped her because someone was doing their job for them?

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Does the Secretary of the Magicorps know this is happening?” Because this was bullshit. It was getting clearer by the second that there was no one of an appropriately high rank who was aware that she was being held and questioned.

“Where did the man who rescued you get his magitech suit?” Anna stared at her interrogator and snorted in amusement.

“Do any of the Joint Chiefs know what you are doing here?” Because you are going to lose your job when they find out. She thought maliciously at the jerk.

“Do you know which Daedalus Engineering employee leaked the plans for the Valkyrie flight suits?” That’s what they thought was going on? Were these people fucking morons? Her head turned sideways as she looked closely at the man before her. Then she turned her incredulous look towards the blank mirror behind them.

“Wouldn’t a magitech suit like that be the purview of the Magicorps or the museum? I don’t see any Magicorps or museum personnel here. Except Jones.” She was done being nice. No. This was some kind of idiocy and she checked out of the experience and stopped taking anyone seriously. “But you aren’t questioning Jones, are you? Probably because you know you aren’t allowed to know whatever he would have to say.”

“Eyewitnesses claim that your brother, Kyle, was the individual flying the magitech suit. But Kyle’s abilities are well documented. And he does not possess the magical capacity nor compatible warlock powers to use that type of tech. Especially not in his profession as a… cook.” That made Anna laugh. Kyle? Weak magically? And cook? Was this guy who might have been from one of the three-letter agencies, actually using a magazine article as a reference for what her brother did for work?

The Colonel had been silent until now. He’d been just watching impassively until Anna’s tinkling laughter had been the straw that broke the camel’s back of his patience. His eyes narrowed angrily.

“The narrative survivors provided does not mesh with the known facts. How were you able to contact the mage in the magitech suit if you were trapped in a school without power or a means of communication?” In the observation room Jones rubbed a finger nervously against his forehead as he recognized the look that had come over Anna’s face. Yeah, he’d seen that look on her two older siblings’ faces that very same day.

“Well, I called his cell phone, but he didn’t pick up. So, maybe a fairy took a message to him for me?” Anna’s flippant remark was meant to be humorous and break the tension a bit. More for her to relax than anything else. But it had the opposite effect on the man questioning her, his eyes widened, and he jerked his eyes to laser focus on the young woman attentively.

Watching through the one-way mirror, Jones covered his eyes with a hand as he felt the beginnings of a headache starting.

“Oh, kid. No. Now is not the time for jokes.” He groaned as he realized that Anna had just made things go from inconvenient to probably bad. Beside him, his own guards and the higher-ranking officers had perked up at the idea that another species of sentient lifeform might exist on their world then relaxed and chuckled as they realized what was happening.

“Are you saying that the fae are real?”