The Power of Ten

I WILL SET YOUR PHONE UP WITH SIMPLE CALL-IN AND OUT, AND AVOID THE OTHER FUNCTIONS, he informed me. SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING WILL BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE APPLICATIONS, AND GREGORIGORI AND HIS PEOPLE COULD DO SO REMOTELY, WITH YOUR PERMISSION. BRAND WITH YOUR MAGIC, PLEASE.

He held it out, a big glowing fingerprint thing there on its screen. I coalesced a Dart around my thumb and touched the screen, which was instantly branded with a jet and silver pattern scattered around my thumbprint. He noted it curiously, but promptly got back to work on things.

There were probably monitoring and tracking things involved with it, but I didn’t care. “Can you download her prior logs of calls and things?” I asked.

YES. DATAFILES AREN’T KEPT AT THE MAIN SERVERS FOR OVERLY LONG DUE TO THE AGGRESSIVE DATA BUILD-UP, SO THEY TEND TO GET WIPED ONCE DOWNLOADED. BUT THINGS LIKE CONTACTS AND PHOTOS ARE OFTEN BACKED-UP, AND CAN BE REACHED WITH THE APPROPRIATE CLEARANCE AND EFFORTS. GREGORIGORI IS GETTING THOSE NOW.

I didn’t actually know if I wanted her phone book, but doubtless it could be mined for contact information that might be useful. The texts and messages could be useful, too, if they could be retrieved.

“Are there any recent messages?” I inquired calmly. Those should have downloaded once her number became active again.

He flipped through something with his thumbs, and slowly shook his head.

Nobody had called her. Nobody had known something had happened to her. This poor girl... the only people she had connected with were some pretty bad people.

“How possible is it that she has a criminal record that has been scrubbed?” I asked calmly. Master Fred paused in his fingertapping. “Come on, look at this face. She would have had to beat people away. The odds she did not exploit it are low, especially after such a resentful childhood.”

I’LL PRETEND I’M INQUIRING DISCRETELY. He switched back to his own phone for a moment, sent that off. ANYTHING ELSE?, he asked in burning letters.

I held up a sheaf of paper. “She was getting five thousand dollars a month deposited into a trust fund bank account, just for her. Given who her mother is, that’s a minor financial sum. But given her age, the income, and the timing, I would not be surprised if she came of age, was threatened to keep her nose clean, given the income, and sent here to America to get away from bad influences, while her past was scrubbed of some bad stuff even harder. If she had a baby on the way, she might not even have been that mad about it.”

He thought that over, and had to agree with it. THE BABY’S ROOM WAS NOT SOMETHING DONE IN SPITE, he agreed. IF THE SHOULS ARE BEHIND IT ALL, RUNNING AWAY WITH THE BABY WOULD HAVE DEFINITELY UPSET SOME PLANS. SEND SOMEONE TO SEDUCE HER IN HER NEW PLACE, THEN TAKE THE BABY WHEN IT WAS TIME.

“And she probably had not the slightest idea, because she didn’t think she had any magic at all.”

I set the mail down. “I’m going to do my two hours of Meditation, and keep going through her things. Do what you need to do. If the city wants you to do something, just leave me a note. This is going to take some time.”

UNDERSTOOD.

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Ed. Note: Shoul rhymes with dowel/foul. Shouls rhymes with ghouls/fools.

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Going through the artifacts of someone else’s life can be pretty depressing, or pretty interesting. It tends to lean much towards the former when you’re in their body.

Being the reasonable, patient, and mature sort of person, I started with current paperwork, digging out everything everywhere, and going through it bit by bit.

There were bills, and receipts of stuff she had bought... I even had the receipts for the electronics which had been stolen, although I didn’t know how useful they were. They were purchased on a debit card, and she had renter’s insurance, so I could probably claim theft... but what was I going to do with electronics I couldn’t use, anyways?

The media bill she was getting was for a top-flight internet connection, so I assumed a lot of online surfing and gaming. She didn’t have to work, so there had to be something she spent time on, and she didn’t make an unlimited amount of money, so she couldn’t shop until she dropped, although the clothing I saw indicated she had a good eye for what would look good on her.

She also had a fair amount of magazines stacked up here and there... clothing and fashion predominated, with society/gossip news too.

Mana was one of them. There was a splashy picture of some gorgeous Caster or another in impractically revealing garb, heading for a party somewhere, with glowing clothing, fluorescent Tats, and illusionary flames dancing about her shoulders.

Part of the world that, had she known how to deal with her Bloodline, she would have been part of.

I thumbed through the pages of it, looking at the names. If mass media had survived in Terra-Luna, Aelryinth probably would have been a frequent target of these kind of publications as the most powerful Caster on the planet...

Naturally I recognized absolutely nothing and no one, but my, did the local high-end go in for the colors for fashion. Black suits and tuxedos were definitely something for the Primos. Powered wore whatever they wanted in terms of styles, even if there was solidarity within Guilds and Schools. Wizards tended to prefer scholarly robes, Sorcerers anything flashy and individual that showed their Bloodline, Clerics ceremonial garb, Dragon Warriors layered uniforms that indicated their achievements and Schools, and Minstrels dressed like entertainers who had magic to accentuate the edge of fashion.

The ubiquitous of attractive Powered meant that simple good looks didn’t attract the attention of the photographers, so the advent of the supermodel and glamour actresses had never really come about here.

The focus was on the Powered, some of whom got into those careers, and would naturally dominate them... what actress was going to surpass a Priestess of Nuava, or actor a Minstrel of Tiirith? It just wasn’t going to happen.

If you had Power, you had the money, the power, the status. These Mana magazines simply oozed the lesson that you should envy and emulate the Powered.

The smarmy commentary alternately gushing over or deriding the contents certainly didn’t help matters... eh?

There were pages missing...

They’d been carefully cut out. Having an idea of what might be on those pages, I continued reading and memorizing faces, names, pictures, positions, and power, accumulating some useful general knowledge of the world of the Powered that might be useful in the future.

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The deed to the house was in the name of the Trust feeding her money. So, she didn’t really own the house. A bird in a cage, just stay out of sight, exist in the shadows, and die quietly, please...

I found the scrapbook in the early morning, and went through it slowly.

I don’t know when she started collecting the stories and the pictures, but I was pretty sure I could have found when the pictures were taken, and it would have given me a date.

It seemed she had been collecting stories of her mothers and sisters for a lot of years...

Aelryinth had been a Div Spec. I wasn’t, but I knew how to parse Detects like a master, even as a One. The simmering anger, desire, resentment, and regret attached to these photographs and stories were like little flames. The life that should have been hers, and because she had no magic, she was denied it.

Because she was Shroudborn, she couldn’t even take a Warlock Pact, which I’m sure she would have tried for, too. Anything to get the magic that was supposed to be hers...

I grimaced as I turned the pages of the album, and the three daughters of the beautiful Jaelez Morningfire grew older and lovelier as they did so. The rarely-seen youngest, Azaia Morningwind, with her light blue locks; the golden-haired Sinead Morninglight, whose fame grew with her musical talents; and the fiery-tressed Brigette Morningflame, taking after her uncle and going into the field of martial endeavors with her mastery of fire magic.

Getting older, getting more beautiful, getting more powerful, more famous, richer, more desired.

Ugh...

I came to the last pages, clipped pages featuring Morningfire and Morninglight at a gala in Nice. The star-studded mother and one of the most famous Minstrels in the whole world definitely set the place off.

The resentment clinging to the page was almost palpable.

Caged bird, never to fly free...

I could only sigh and close the book, before setting it aside...

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My hand paused, and came back to touch the little pony on the shelf next to her bed.

It was wonderfully crafted; made of wood, QL 25, amazing for a little thing like this, with superb musculature display, and a magical mane and tail of pale blue hair, like a palomino with an alternate color scheme.

And it was magical.

I focused on the hair, and the color... and the Bloodline.

No dust on it. I reached up, and stroked the mane.

It animated instantly, a little jerkily, stroking its wooden head against my fingers and giving me a caring look before neighing, running around in a circle on the shelf with little clickety-clicks of silvered hooves, mane flying, tail flapping, and ending up in a rearing neigh of warmth and welcome and greeting.

It returned to all fours, and the Cantrip-level magic faded away. It wouldn’t be able to do that again for another hour.

I touched it again, feeling and seeing the aura of magic around it, more accurate than a fingerprint, if the color of the mane hadn’t given it away.

Azayla had made this.

I could feel the defiance and the regret in the magic. It was clearly a beginner’s effort, not smooth at all, and there were marks where it had been held for long hours, fairly aching with grief and many, many shed tears.

I closed my eyes, very unsettled by the emotions that came from the horse, but had definite echoes in these bones.

Fully half of those pictures in the scrapbook had been stabbed viciously, torn, marred, marked, ripped, or scribbled angrily upon.

But none of Azayla...

It seemed the little sister knew of her lost half-sister, after all...