The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XXVII

"We spent the last two weeks talking about thaumaturgy in general and a little bit of the history and science surrounding its discovery, so today I want to start going into depth about modeling thaumaturgy." Professor Perid picked up a marker and pulled off the cap. "There are a couple of different kinds of telekinesis, and unlike the different fields of thaumaturgy, they aren't nearly as easily defined. And you can see this in the example I'll give. Say you decide to define effortful telekinesis as any type of telekinesis which has a higher potential energy in the end state than in the starting state."

Lillian scribbled something down in her notes, watching as the professor moved the marker up into the air and drew a pair of axes on the board and then a hump-shaped curve, with the right side lower than the left.

"The problem with this definition is that there are plenty of thaumaturgical processes that require energy to be put in, but end in a less energetic state than they started. For instance, if I were to move this book across the table and then down onto the floor, the energy that the book loses when I move it down becomes heat and sound energy. It doesn't come back to me. Another problem is that there are plenty of things you could do that require effort yet don't have any change in energy. For example, if I physically lifted this table over my head, and then mentally held it there, it would be very difficult for me to keep that up, just because of how heavy this is. And yet there isn't any change in energy at all between the initial and final states."

Many of the students in the class were leaning back in confusion, but Lillian, for once, felt at home. She may not have been a thaumaturge, but she was still interested in thaumaturgics, the science and modeling of thaumaturgy. There was a small amount of crossover between thaumaturgics and physics, and Lillian had enough grasp of mathematics and mechanics to be able to understand everything the professor was saying. She leaned forward, her dark blue eyes glinting as they caught the light, and listened carefully as Perid discussed thaumaturgical capacity.

❧☙

Mesmerized, Dakota sat before his file cabinet, watching the blue dot bloom like a drop of ink across the computer screen. As it finally spread to the edges of the screen, he concentrated, anticipating the image which began to resolve.

Ashley was sitting at a desk in the center of a small room. Both of her hands were scribbling anxiously on papers, and yet her eyes were closed and Dakota noticed that she was wearing a pair of earbuds. As the words atop some of the papers began to resolve, Dakota realized that she must have been filling out some sort of inventory, probably for personal purposes. She briefly looked up, opening her eyes, her gaze pointing out of the screen, then waved at Dakota, who smiled in return.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

"I'm just wondering what she's up to," Dakota answered.

You could have simply asked Rory.

"I think he's busy. No idea what he's doing."

You could look.

"He's picking up his luggage." Ashley answered the question from within the screen, without looking up.

"Oh! Or I guess we could just ask you," Dakota responded. "How are you evading questioning, anyway?"

"The DIAO can't call me," she replied. "I made sure of that on Galena's first day."

Galena. Her daughter's name was Galena.

"I like this," Ashley continued, still not looking up. "It's like calling you but it can't be traced, and it doesn't waste my phone battery." Dakota stifled a laugh. "If you ever want to talk to me, this should work fine, but for right now there really isn't anything to talk about. So thanks for calling, but bye."

Seemingly of their own accord, both switches in the back of the cabinet flipped off. Instantly, the screen went dark.

❧☙

Galena leaned back in her usual seat, the first chair to Rolf's left, and listened carefully to Derek as he talked about the police officers.

"Thankfully, I was able to get in touch with all of them and the two in the area will be coming in later today. The officer in Portland said he would be glad to have a video interview. So we'll be able to talk to all three of them and figure out exactly what happened. Unfortunately, from what they've already said, I don't know if we'll glean anything from the interview. But I did look through some old issues of the Register-Guard and I found an obituary for the kid." He pulled a piece of paper out of the file in front of him and slid it toward the center of the table. Rolf reached out to drag it towards the end of the table and began reading.

Galena squinted as she read the photocopy sideways. It was a fairly simple statement, quite frankly revealing that the police had not yet identified the mysterious vagrant, and that no wake or funeral services were to be held. Her eyes slid over the short block of text, pausing only when she reached the name of the funeral home responsible for the burial. "Sunset Hills," she muttered to herself.

"I looked into it and they're actually still in business, so I'm looking into contacting them. It's family owned, so I'm hoping there will be at least some record or someone we can talk to about it. Other than that, there pretty much isn't anything else we can investigate," Derek informed them.

"Who was the first person to report the vagrant? Can we talk to them?"

"As of right now, we don't exactly know who that is, but it's a good idea," answered Diane. "You can save that question for the interview."

Galena shrugged and looked around the room. "Anything we can figure out from this?"

Rolf answered immediately. "I think there are two things we can use this to help figure out. First, it will be helpful in finding out more about who he was in the first place and why he was loitering there, which might help us figure out more about Beanie and that illusion. Second, it will give us more information about exactly what happened after his death."