Nagoya, Japan

Thursday, August 11th, 2050

I wished I could have focused on my scheming more. Unfortunately, I had to maintain appearances. Soren Marlowe was expected in class, even if Captain Malthus and Holy Brother Mockingbird had their own work to do.

Thursdays were given over to affinity training, where I was placed in the remedial cohort. I had thought this ridiculous at one point, but that was before I had begun to plumb the depths of what Mimic could do. Instead of being merely a talent for reflexively copying cast spells, my newfound analytical skills required me to truly hone my craft. This is why if one wishes to be a slacker, it’s best to not develop a talent. Effort begets more effort.

Not that I begrudged it, but I had grown accustomed to passively sitting back and helping others with their talents. It seemed utterly wrong to be helping to develop human wizards like that, but at least I was building up my skills while I was at it. I took copious notes on the talents of my classmates, since in a few years that would be useful intelligence, when it came time to face them in combat.

I banished those thoughts with a shake of the head. There was no sense dwelling on the future just then. At least we were outdoors near the treeline around the school, and the weather wasn’t quite as blasted hot as it had been.

“Thank you, Rose,” I said as we ran through our regular warmup stretches.

“For what, the weather?” The blonde wizard giggled at that. “This is all natural, I swear.”

My Mimic Sight told much the same story; Rose’s faintly colored outline was no more active than the rest of the students. I found I was getting better at going in and out of the trance. I didn’t even have to interrupt my stretches like I would have before. Practice really does make perfect.

We had dispersed into our little cliques to wait for further instructions from the teachers. I usually worked with Rose and Hiro, since they were historically the most out of control. That seemed to have been sorted out, thank the Dark Lord.

“How’s your brother Daniel doing?” asked Hiro. “You mentioned he had a nasty flu last week.”

“You remember that?” Rose asked, looking shocked.

Hiro nodded. “Sure, why wouldn’t I? I know he has that kid on the way, so that can’t be easy on any of them.”

For the first time, I got a hint of why Mariko, Kiyo, and Yukiko had been attracted to him in the first place. (Well, Mariko’s answer had been his abs, but we had been teasing each other at the time). I’ll admit that I usually tuned Rose out during her frequent reports on the extensive Cooper clan until I caught a hint of something interesting.

I think Rose had finally caught on, since she gave me a playfully reproachful look as she responded. “Well, Hiro, thank you so much for asking! That’s so nice of you. He’s over it now, though Meera had to stay with her parents for a few nights, for the baby.”

Since I didn’t have anything to contribute, I decided there was no harm getting a little affinity training in. Remembering my experience during Red and Blue, I gave Rose a tentative sniff. The air was thick with pine, but not a hint of lavender, which confirmed the results of my Mimic Sight.

Perhaps I ought to have been a bit subtler, since the cough that came from behind had a tinge of disgust to it. “Ugh, what are you doing?”

I spun around, not seeing Rei Yamaguchi until I inclined my head downwards. I gave her my most winsome. “Ms. Yamaguchi. It’s a pleasure, as always.”

Whatever I was selling, she wasn’t buying. “Don’t do any of that weird stuff to me, okay? Ms. Edwards said that I needed to work with you today,” said Rei. She adjusted her thick, round glasses so as to better eye me suspiciously.

“Oh, did she?” How nice of my partner in crime to run things by me first. Now that I knew Rei’s face, I realized she had been with us in remedial affinity training the whole time. She had simply never seemed worth noticing, with her plain looks and tendency to sit alone. “Well, I’ll have you know that my Mimic sometimes can get useful magical information from a sniff.”

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, her disgust replaced by true curiosity. “Oh, really? Synesthesia caused by magic? That’s fascinating.”

“What’s synesthesia?”

She smirked proudly, adjusting her glasses. “The production of a sense impression relating to one sense by the stimulation of another sense. For example, some subjects will ‘hear’ a noise with particular colors.”

I nodded, marveling at how she sounded like she had devoured a dictionary. Then again, I really hadn’t known the word. I do so hate know-it-alls, but they have their uses sometimes.

Rose and Hiro hadn’t seemed to notice Rey’s arrival at first, but Hiro’s face brightened in recognition.

“Heya, Ms. Yamaguchi. How are you doing?” I had picked up enough Japanese to think around the translator spell at times. I could tell that Hiro had called her the baseline formal Yamaguchi-san. He almost always referred to people by their first name, which implied that even the gregarious Takehara didn’t feel especially close to her.

“Just fine, thank you. I am still… regretful about what happened to your phone in the first quarter. My apologies.”

He shook his head. “No problem at all. The school got me a new one. No blood, no foul.”

“Yes, indeed. Speaking of, Mr. Marlowe, you should give someone your phone for safekeeping. I lack… fine control.”

I gave it to Hiro. “I’ll trust you to take care of it.”

“Of course. I have great control these days.” That brought him up short, and he chuckled nervously again. “That reminds me, are you okay, Ms. Yamaguchi?” His tone got a tad less jovial. “I might have gone a little too hard yesterday.”

“Phrasing, Hiro,” said Rose, smiling wickedly.

“Huh?”

Hiro didn’t process Rose’s joke right away, but Rei didn’t even notice that the English girl had made one. “You need not concern yourself. The Peace Bond kept you from injuring me seriously yesterday.” She gave him a stiff bow. “Congratulations on seeing through our ruse.”

He chuckled nervously and waved it off. “Nah, that was Magpie’s doing. I was just the muscle.”

Mr. Maki called us to attention and gave us our assignments. Since every affinity is different, there was not any one method they could use to “fix” us, Thursdays were the closest I typically got to a free day. Mr. Maki and Maggie would frequently shuffle us into different combinations, so asking me to work with Rei wouldn’t attract any attention.

There wasn’t any particular need to walk out as far as we did, but I wanted to make sure I could talk with her freely. I was there to recruit her as much as I was to work on her affinity.

Once I thought we were a safe distance out, I put my hands on my hips. “Tell me, my dear, does your little affinity have a name?”

Her nose wrinkled. “You’re still saying that? It’s so weird!”

“Let’s not get into that again,” I said. “I’m not the only strange one. Robots in glass houses shouldn’t throw bricks.”

She shrugged. “Oh, a robot? I certainly have never been called that before.” She shook her head. “No, wait. There is no reason to fight. It’s a waste of time.” She bowed stiffly again. “My apologies for my lack of manners.”

I bit back a joke about an oil can. “Finally, something we can agree on! Now, how about that affinity name?”

“I named it Faraday Wave.” She seemed proud of the label, so I nodded politely. “I generate what can best be described as a localized EMP.”

“A what now?”

“Electromagnetic Pulse. It has a bad habit of frying electronics.” She adjusted her glasses. “It is why I prefer books. You can’t short out a textbook.”

“That sounds dreadful. Computers are hard enough to use without destroying them with a touch.”

She looked at me blankly. “Hard to use? Who could be born in this century and say that?”

“You seem to think I’m a throwback, but you’re here for my help,” I said.

She flinched. “My apologies. I am a bit on edge. I have heard… things about you.”

“Trust me, I don’t bite,” I said. “Unless you ask nicely.”

“Pass,” she said. She was either immune to double entendres, or simply didn’t enjoy them. She sat down on her knees. “Let’s get started. I am honestly curious what your Mimic can do for me. I miss being digital.”

“I take it my reputation precedes me,” I said, sitting cross-legged. “I suppose the first step would be to activate it.”

She nodded. “If you are worried, I am told I am unlikely to cause cancer. I usually only fry devices I touch.”

“What do you mean unlikely?” But, I could feel that her magic had already activated. That vague sensation was replaced with a scent like muotwyn, a sort of spiced wine that goblins favored. It’s not bad if it’s properly chilled. Just thinking of it made me feel a tad nostalgic.

I must have stayed in my reverie for too long, since her brow furrowed slightly. “What are you getting so far?”

“Patience, my d-… classmate.” I had begun to conclude that I would never get much in the way of fine detail from my Mimic Scent. All it could tell me was if an overwhelming amount of magical energy was being pumped into the air, and where it came from. Perhaps if I were a bloodhound instead of a Magpie, I might have been able to make more use of it.

But, I had always been more visual anyway. I focused on her and was nearly blinded by the pillar of magical energy before me. It all clicked in an instant. Much like Hiro and Rose before her, Rei’s issue was that she had not progressed past turning her magic off and on. There was no subtlety or finesse.

No worries. Mrs. Perera and I had figured out how to get around that. I emerged from my deeper meditation. I didn’t think I had gone under for long, though I couldn’t gauge how long Rei had blankly stared at me.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“When you use your magic, do you feel it flowing through your whole body?”

She nodded slowly. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Yes, but you’re shouting when you should be whispering. Turn it off.”

The sweet scent faded away, which was fine by me. It made me want a drink, and Tachibana ran the tower like a teetotaler. It wasn’t a bad policy with so many untrained wizards running around, but it was irritating.

“Shouting? What?”

“It’s a metaphor,” I said, holding up my hand. “Here’s another one for you to try on. Think of your magic as water. Think of it all pooling in your hand.”

She gave me a puzzled look. “What’s the point of that?”

“Do you want my help or not?” I couldn’t keep my irritation out of my voice.

“I’m not sure what this will accomplish,” she said. “Ms. Edwards has been trying drills like this with me for months.”

“Humor me, will you?”

I almost expected her to continue arguing, but she followed my instructions. I closed my eyes and my Mimic Sight showed her whole body flaring up with magical effort. It was stronger around the right hand, but she couldn’t tamp down on it for long.

When I opened my eyes, she had worked up a light sweat. “It isn’t easy.”

“You use fabricata, right? Those take the magical energy flowing through you and channel it to one space. Imagine you’re holding a wand in your hand.”

That seemed to help. Her outline appeared to be gold, with the strongest concentration around her hand.

“Better, but you’re still going too hard with it.”

Rei rolled back, shifting from her knees to her rear and using her hands to support herself. “Mrs. Edwards seemed to think I was doing that too. I don’t get it. My magic feels like a light switch; it’s either off or on.”

This was new territory for me. Usually, I had provided a teacher with information about what I saw going on with a student’s magic, but this fell on my shoulders. I briefly wondered if Maggie was testing me just as much as Rei. Did she intend for me to succeed, or fail? I decided that I would be speculating wildly. I could ask her directly later, if I thought it mattered.

The merest suspicion that Maggie didn’t believe in me convinced me to press on. Spite is a powerful motivator. I thought back to my practice with Rose and Hiro. Hiro had relatively weak reserves, so pooling his magic had done him good. We had basically given up on Rose, though, by bleeding her magic off to power the fabricata batteries. Rei was a thoroughly average mage, though, so we couldn’t do the same for her.

“Off or on? That isn’t how it works at all.”

“That’s how it feels to me.”

“Let’s try a different tactic. Activate your Faraday Wave again.” The air filled with a fruity scent. “Shut it off, then turn it on again. Good! Now again.”

We went through this a few times. “What are you seeing?”

“Oh, nothing at all. This is about what you’re feeling. Close your eyes. Do it a few more times, and really get a sense as you activate it and deactivate it. There are individual steps, aren’t there? It’s like when you flex your arm. It feels like one action, but there are a multitude of little steps along the way.”

“I suppose there are. I think you have a point…”

Was that respect in her voice? “I’m glad I meet your lofty standards. Now try it again, but this time, turn it on slowly. Think of each individual step, and draw it out as long as possible.”

She shifted back onto her knees, a new determination sparkling in her eyes. “Are you going to look with your magic sight this time? I thought that was the whole point of this operation.”

“Of course,” I said, lying through my teeth. If my guess was right, there was no need. “Like I said, do it again, but slowly.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Feeling a bit cheeky after the way she goaded me on, I came up with a way to indirectly test her magnetism. I had felt a light pulling on my shorts every time she put her magic at full tilt, and before you go there, she wasn’t my type. Despite her protestations that it wouldn’t affect beyond her range of touch, my zipper was being drawn to her. I searched my pockets and found a pen. I didn’t remember taking one from my apartment; I must have lifted it at some point without noticing. I felt a mild pull against its metal cap, and realized it would be perfect.

I leaned in and held the pen flat on my palm a few inches from her face. It slowly rolled towards the tips of my fingers, picking up speed as it went, before flying off and smacking against her forehead.

Rei let out a surprised yelp and fell flat on her back. “What was…” She reached up and tried to pull the pen away, but it was good and stuck.

I might have laughed a bit. No more than was proper, though. She did look rather ridiculous.

“What are you doing?”

“Testing my point,” I said. “You did it, my dear! If you had gone full blast like before, it would have flown straight at you. With you turning your powers on slowly, it was a slower roll.”

She let that ‘my dear’ go without comment. She deactivated her affinity and the pen fell to the ground. “I… wow. Ms. Edwards was right, you do get results.”

“Does she speak of me often?”

“Yeah, you come up a lot,” she said as she stood up, brushing herself off. “Do I pass now?”

That threw me for a loop. “Pass what?”

Rei adjusted her glasses. I noticed they had an all-plastic frame. A sensible precaution, given her powers. “Am I good enough to be a Holy Sister?”