The Licensed Mage

12 Legwork

        Henry stood there frozen as he stared at the projection. His mouth hung open with a cookie on his lips. He didn’t even hear what anyone was saying. All he could feel was the gut punch in his stomach. There on the projection was the cutest little angel he has ever seen. As she relayed the news to Raven and Claire she reached for her glasses, straightening them on her nose. Henry could barely breathe as he fell under her spell. Claire bumped him, bringing him out of his trance as she stood up.

        “I know what it is.”

        Claire repeated what she said as she bounded up and down on her feet. Henry slowly shrank back out of sight as Claire grabbed onto Raven’s shoulders in her excitement.

        “I know what it is!”

        “Well what is it?”

        Claire held out a finger as she started to speak but stopped. She snapped her jaws shut and ran to the break room. Raven chased after her to see her fumbling about, looking for something. Finally she squealed as she held up a newspaper clipping from the bottom of the stack on top of the file cabinets.

        “Here it is. I knew I read it somewhere.”

        She pushed the clip in Raven’s hands. He stared down at an old picture of a group of scientist. There were five of them, all male and wearing lab coats. Three of them stood at the back towering over the shorter two in the front. The foot notes named them as doctors in the field of magical research.

        “What is this?”

        Claire pointed to the article next to the picture, “It’s an article talking about this Brain Wave project. They were using Brain Wave magic, like mind reading and such, and trying to find cures for mental illnesses.”

        Raven scanned the article as Claire talked some more, “They were saying that they could cure paranoia and schizophrenia. At least that was the hope.”

        He finished reading and looked up as Claire crossed her arms, “What’d you mean?”

        She rubbed her neck as she sighed, “The project was shut down. There was paranoia that the same research could be used to control someone’s mind.”

        “Isn’t there already mind control magic?”

        “Well yes, but,” Claire sighed again as she tried to explain, “that’s a little different. Mind control magic has a limit. There’s only so much you can do controlling someone and only for so long. No matter how strong the mage, the magic will eventually wear out. But the fear was that, with this research, in the wrong hands someone can figure out how to permanently control someone’s mind without any limits, without any magic. They could be able to control anyone, anywhere in the world. The mastermind doesn’t even have to be a mage, they could be human, and that’s why it was shut down.”

        “Ok,” Raven turned the clip over in his hands and set it aside crossing his arms, “How does that relate to our case?”

        “The Zinc!” Claire clasped her hands together in excitement waiting for Raven to join in but when he only stared she explained further, “During the project they were having difficulties projecting a solid controlled signal to the subjects so one of the scientists created a special Brain Wave gun. It’s like a stun gun for the brain. It shots a metal zinc needle projectile to the back of the head.”

        “And from that the shooter’s able to control that person’s mind.”

        “Without the limits that regular mind control magic would have.”