Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

Flash Forward in Time - Part III

A small group met around a table in a back room, beneath a smaller web of sound dampening and anti-surveillance spells. One particularly loud crack snap of the bright lightning web brought all twelve pairs of eyes to the ceiling, interrupting the woman the girl's thought of as the mouthpiece mid-speech.

The woman had a name, it turned out. It was Cadena Solin.

"Solin," Inyanga mouthed, and then she sent the same name in a mental link. "Exequi Solin. Cadena works for the company, no? Cadena's an executive aerself, no?"

The funny thing about the gathering of rebels was that every protestor present was a magician. They were wealthy. They had good jobs — ones they could take off from for an hour to go protest Constellation in the middle of the day without their bosses giving them much trouble. They were in the strata — the upper class of magic practitioners in Soliara — but the lower portion of it. The bottom of the strata was angry because they — like Storm — were relegated to the waiting list that would never move.

Cadena introduced herself and began to brag about the murder the Lower Strata had committed the night before. "With our independent connection to the star dial, we were able to fire our gnomons without the guardia tracing our spellcasting to us."

Storm mental linked to Inyanga like a rebellious student whispering in a lecture, "By 'independent connection,' aeh means black market, yes?"

"Yes," linked Inyanga. "Aeh means illegally untraceable."

Cadena summoned a whole box full of contraband gnomons, and twelve pairs of eyes around the table grew wide. The woman next to Inyanga, Zhu Seres, leaned in and said, "Probably best not to confuse these with our own legal gnomons."

Cadena levitated one contraband gnomon to each recruit. "Obviously we cannot simply keep killing civilians until enough animae become available in the pool. The waiting list is over 40,000. We're not aiming for a one to one return; we need to scare the executives, make them fear for their own lives, unsure whether they will be next, until they agree to our demands.

"That's what this task force was designed for. If anyone doesn't feel comfortable becoming the agents of our lottery, yo may leave. Everyone present will undergo a spell that will prevent you from talking, so you're under no obligation to participate just because you've heard what we're up to. The initiation is completely voluntary."

Storm linked to Inyanga, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I doubt it."

"We pretend to join them, follow them, and when they commit one of their 'initiations,' we take the animae for ourselves."

"Two things. The right thing to do would be to prevent them from attacking anyone. And I haven't developed an animus theft spell."

"Oh, but you will. And we can information gather to turn these crazies in to the guardia while we steal any animae that they happen to release, should they happen to succeed in assassinating anyone."

Mouthpiece Cadena Solin was going on, "Our hit last night was a success, proving our back door connection is functioning. It's always been an arms race between the black market dealers who breach the security on the star dial, and the company, as it patches those breaches up and develops more security measures. Which means our lack of detection could be a mere sweet spot. These gnomons must be used for your initiation, and the sooner the better, because within weeks, perhaps days, the guardia may secure the breach, or develop the trace. As of tonight, these gnomons are untraceable. You will work in groups of three for the initiation. Each group working together to collect three initiation . . . tributes."