Balance - Book 2 by Marc Dickason

  *****

  In the enormous Preparation Hall I found rows of black D.O.M vans. Some were ready for deployment and others under maintenance. The air was alive with noise and the smell of engine oil.

  “Well well, Clarence,” a voice said, “we meet again.”

  I turned to see Delaney approaching.

  “Good morning,” I replied, hesitating, “I’m not sure what to address you as anymore.”

  “We’re both Junior Enforcers now, Jet,” he replied, pointing to an Active medal on his breast, “So call me whatever you want.”

  “Leonard then, I guess. You’ve been accepted back into the D.O.M.”

  “So it seems. Still recognised as a skilled trainer though. Hence, here we are.”

  “I admit I wouldn’t prefer any other trainer.”

  His smile was genuine. “Thank you for saying that, Jet. So I believe you’re to learn how to trace a rather tricky Crowd Surfing mutation.”

  “I believe so. But why are we in the Preparation Hall?”

  “The Spell is already difficult to detect. More so in an environment of distracting ambient noise such as large crowds, so consider this hall your simulated noisy crowd.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “It is unlikely you will be fortunate enough to catch this particular spell as it is initially cast,” he began, gesturing for me to take a few steps back, “In fact it is virtually impossible, especially when variations of the spell will already exist in multiple hosts. Instead you will be trying to catch a thread of the fresh spell as it extends out into the crowd, then attempt to follow it back to its source. It is never just one single spell, you see, it is many variations of that spell. Cast over and over from person to person, and each variation, although similar, is unique. Are you with me so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. The key is that the original spell, in such cases, will always be the most pure. As the spell passes from person to person it is changed, added to or taken away from, and so in being able to spot these variations it is possible to trace the spell back to its purest origin. You might think of it as trying to pick out a single violin in an orchestra. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No. Not to a person with a keen ear.”

  I thought back to the chart I had seen in the Global Net building. How I had first mistook it for sheet music. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Don’t look so worried, Jet,” he said with a chuckle, “Once you get the idea you’ll find it’s not as complicated as it first seems. Are you ready?”

  I nodded and found my Place of Calm.

  “Excellent. I am going to send to you a very basic spell. The core of which is known as Crowd Surfing, or a Spontaneously Multiplying Entity. The spell you will be trying to detect will be similar.”

  “What should I do with it?”

  “Send it right back.”

  He took a deep breath and focused. At first, with the noises of car maintenance rattling in my ears, I could detect nothing but my own flinches. But then I found it. A spell so dim it could have been mistaken for my own thoughts. And that was the point.

  “Hello, Jet,” the tiny voice said.

  I homed in and isolated. The spell sat waiting patiently, wanting to be sent on its way. The image of a patient child sitting on a swing flitted through my head. I eased it back out to Delaney. But the little voice remained lingering like a residue.

  “Good,” Delaney said, “And here it comes back again.”

  “Hello, Jet.”

  I accepted the voice and returned it a second time. And a third. And fourth.

  “You’ll be noticing something by now. What do you notice?”

  “It’s getting stronger,’ I replied”

  “Yes. And it will keep getting stronger the longer we continue. But still remain deceptively hard to detect. It is a tricky spell. But as I’m sure you’re aware, in normal circumstances it would not be passed as such; at least in most cases, and would burn out. Either way, since up until now the message passed could not be specifically manipulated it has been a harmless addition to society.”

  The tiny voice kept flying back and forth.

  “What else do you detect,” he continued.

  I examined the voice as it drifted in and out of my head, noticing an accumulation of residue but nothing more.

  “Nothing.”

  “Look deeper, Jet,” he said, “Look beneath the voice. What is keeping it together?”

  I closed my eyes and focused, granting the little intrusion every ounce of my concentration.

  “Hello, Jet. Hello, Jet. Hello, Jet.”

  “Below the voice,” he repeated, “below the words.”

  I frowned, unsure what he was referring to. And then it struck me. Like a person obsessed with the surface of a rock only to lift it and realise an entire colony of ants lived beneath, I found a previously unseen world. Or, more accurately, like a scientist looking through a microscope and realising the world was in fact made of billions of tiny particles.

  ‘Or perhaps you simply don’t believe water is made of molecules,’ the voice of Templeton said.

  There was indeed another level to the Spell, so subtle that detecting it made me gasp. Just below the voice was a collection of vibrations and frequencies.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed, “what is that?”

  “That’s it, Jet. Have a good look.”

  There were dozens. A potpourri of seemingly random chords living in the spell, all singing like the strings of an instrument in constant motion. I was surprised, then dumbfounded. For my entire life I would not have realised this truth.

  “This is incredible,” I whispered.

  “It is rather beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “What are they?”

  “The very substance of a spell. Should these vibrations cease the spell would no longer exist. And, you’ll notice, each time the Spell is passed the vibrations change. Their rhythms altered, a chord is added, sometimes duplicated.”

  I watched and noticed the vibrations altering with each trip in and out of my head.

  “So how can I trace the spell back to its source?”

  “The earlier versions of the spell are always purer. Less complicated, more focused. The original, as such, will always have only a few simple chords.”

  We continued to pass the spell and I studied it. In time I became completely engrossed by the vibrations. When it became too messy Delaney dispersed it and created another. This time I watched as two simple vibrations were distorted, multiplied, and duplicated.

  “So then,” Delaney said as the day ticked over into noon, “Do you feel capable?”

  “I think so. But in a crowd of thousands I imagine it can be a bit more taxing.”

  “Naturally. But never fear, Jet,” he said, “I will be there to help. I’m sure between the two of us we can locate one soul among ten thousand.”

  “Right.”

  He laughed and patted me roughly on the shoulder. I wasn’t sure what the joke was.