New York City, 2003

I tried not to snarl in frustration as I watched another note card shrivel into ashes. For the past year I had been stuck trying to figure out how the runic arrays worked in this new life of mine. My magic flowed the same way as before. The runes were the same, with the exception of others I had found that had either been lost or never explored in my past life. I still couldn’t get a simple array for light to work though. I knew the runes that had been on my gear by heart, maintaining my equipment meant I had memorized those, but something was missing with these current experiments. I knew the real problem was that I had been a soldier, not a runic engineer. I used the runes provided, and added onto existing arrays after testing. I knew it wasn’t the material, unless the rules had changed more than it felt like, because wood and stone also both failed. It was oh so much fun explaining to Sean and Jennifer why the stone had exploded. The two had officially become my foster parents after a six month wait at the orphanage Father Fortem’s church managed. The funny part was they still hadn’t remarried. I had seen plenty of weird relationships the last time around, but I suspected those two would continue to confuse me.

“Götter verdammt!” I cursed as another notecard went up in flames.

A feminine giggle sounded off behind me. I froze before turning to find Rhiannon sitting on my bed, blue eyes twinkling as she giggled at my cursing. I must have been absorbed in the work because I hadn’t heard her come in. Some of my frustration leaked out as I growled, “What are you doing in my room?”

“Watching you go even more crazy,” she said with the same tone her mother spoke in when she was laying down the law.

I sighed, “You know what I am talking about. Jennifer would kill me if my experiments hurt you.”

“What mom doesn’t know, won’t hurt me,” she said with a bit of the sassy attitude she had picked up from me.

I hung my head and said, “Just me right?”

“Yup. So what are you working on?” she asked, hopping up to come look over my shoulder at the notecards and reference books on my desk.

I turned back around and pointed at the notebook laying open on the side, “These are all various symbols that represent light. Each one comes from different cultures, and as far as I’ve been able to determine they all emit light depending on the flow of magic into them. Light of some form is usually one of the first magics learned in fantasy stories, so I figured it would be a safe choice.”

That last statement was utter bullshit of course. I was using light because it was simple, didn’t take much magical energy, and would have a measurable effect. Rhi asked me, “How is it supposed to work? Do you just slap the painting on it and it lights up?”

“Not really, or the text books would be glowing. I can draw the runes on the card and then channel the energy from myself to them, but what I’m trying to do is make it glow on its own, without me touching it,” I said.

I flipped back a few pages to a list of symbols, “Each of these represents gathering the energy, like how one of those solar panels takes it in. I found that if I’m not intending to use the symbol as a rune, then it is just a symbol. I know this is working, but every time it glows then burns or explodes.”

She cokced her head at me and asked, “Where is the symbol to tell it to stop gathering?”

I stared at her, and then banged my forehead against the desk and said, “Götter verdammt!”

She giggled again and asked, “What’s wrong big brother, did you overlook the simple explanation?”

I groaned into the desk without raising my head, “Yes I did. I didn’t put anything in to stop it from gathering energy so it overloaded the material. I was looking at it like art, instead of programming.”

She patted me on the shoulder before saying, “Speaking of art; Georgia’s mom is picking me up in a few minutes to go with her to go see a movie since mom is running late and dad is at work.”

I reached over to the cell phone and opened it up to see that Jennifer had sent me a text message saying the same thing. I sent a reply back in acknowledgement and said, “You have your emergency cards with you right?”

She pointed towards the living room and said, “They are in the jacket, and it’s too cold to leave without it. Think you will have this working by the time I get back?”

I grinned at her and said, “Oh I can probably put together a simple one in a few minutes, but I’ll try and have something special for when you get back.”

She gave me a quick hug and then all but skipped out of the bedroom. She had learned over the past few years that if I said I would do something, then she could consider it a promise. Now I just had to figure out how. Ever since Sean and Jen had learned that I was an adept they had tried to help me learn more about it. I couldn’t exactly explain that I had reincarnated into this life with memories of how to use my Talent already. When I explained that I could feel the energy all around me and wondered if there was a way to let them use it, Sean had found some books that referenced occult symbols from throughout history. Nordic runes, Egyptian hieroglyphs, some Native pictographs, and even Japanese kanji; they all worked for directing magical energy. Each set of symbols had positives and negatives in how to use them. Surprisingly it was the kanji that were the most versatile in their use, with Norse runes being the most straightforward. With kanji being both a language as well as each having an inherent meaning I could literally write out the effects I was wanting along with the symbols representing the controlling aspects.

First though was a test. I started with the effect, a soft light about as bright as a desk lamp. Then I put the symbols to stop the gathering of energy when the light was produced, and then finally the accumulation symbol. With that done I rested my hand on the notecard and channeled a little of my will towards it. This was the real trick to using arrays, you had to start them with intent, but you couldn’t use intent to stop them. That required destroying the array, which is one reason I was using paper to experiment with, or possibly some form of deactivation command.

The notecard started to emit the specified light, and I could feel the ambient magic in the room being drawn through the rigid paper. Unlike fossil fuels you couldn’t use up magical energy. It was literally one of the building blocks of reality, some in my past life even stated that it was the embodiment of chaos that we had to give form to be able to interact with it. That was a bit more philosophical than I ever wanted to get at the time, but I couldn’t argue with the concept. There were various myths that had been tossed out by scientists in my last life that stated the same. In most myths it was the gods that embodied chaos in one form or another that had the greatest magical aptitudes: Loki, Hecate, Marduk, and all the other deities associated with changing reality or perception seemed to have some label associating them with chaos.

Seeing that the light wasn’t turning off I covered the card with my notebook to show Sean later and made a few notes in one of my notebooks that I had labeled as Theory. I had a case of the little composition notebooks each one dealing with a specific topic or concept to make it easier to reference later, I didn’t trust the computer security that was available currently and felt that eventually when the cat was out of the bag about magic having the references would be a boon. Well that or it would get me locked in a deep dark hole unless Jennifer knew I was taken.

Now though, with the proof of concept sitting under a notebook I could have a bit of fun and surprise the baby sister when she came back. Getting up and going to my closet I pulled out a larger sheet of poster board, this project wouldn’t be able to work on a little three by five note card. First was a small section that was devoted to turning the effect on and off, like a light switch. Then I used kanji to literally spell out the effect that I wanted. I was still working with a form of light as the power draw was simple enough for the material to manage. It was amusing now that I was actually creating my own arrays that I realized that the few anime I had watched that showed magicians using one time use cards might have had a point. Many of them used a multitude of cards for bigger effects, but would in effect use paper. I wondered if there was a way to have the paper use the material it was attached to as a buffer or even a power source in the case of the concept of sealing away something.

That was for later though, this project should make Rhiannon smile, maybe even Jennifer. After I drew out the various symbols for what would show in the light I had to figure out the angles and how it would show.. Rhi’s room was a mirror of mine so I used the dimensions to set the effect before going to her room. Unlike most girls I had known Rhiannon kept everything neet and tidy. There were a few posters, her desk, her bed with soft purple linens, and not an empty wall to be found. Now comes the real test. I took down one of the comic book posters that had a collage of superheroines from both DC and Marvel comics and put the poster board on the wall. I used a blank poster to cover the array and triggered the activation. I grinned at seeing the effect I wanted appear on the ceiling of the room, and upon examining the poster I found that it was still in perfect condition. I deactivated the array and put her hero poster back up over the work I had done, leaving just enough room on what would be the border to use the ‘switch.’

As I finished I heard my phone ring so I picked it up to see Jennifer calling me. Accepting the call I listened to her crying as she said, “Georgia, Rhiannon, and Mary were in a car accident on the way home from the movie. They are at Metro General.”

“I’ll be there soon, what do you need me to do?,” my voice shifted to all business as I replied.

“Leave a note for Sean, they are taking her into surgery now,” she said.

Hanging up I quickly wrote a note on the notepad kept on the coffee table for just that purpose and grabbed my wallet, keys and a jacket headed for the hospital.