Convergence - The Last Science #2.2 - Heroes and Villains

B2: Chapter 21 - A Return to Form - III

  "Save the world, I guess."

  "Oh, it needs savin'?"

  "It might." She sighed. "It was one thing Omega and I agreed on. Something my best friend once said really stuck with me, actually. She said magic was like we were playing with nuclear weapons, without any idea what the potential fallout might be."

  "Who's this best friend?"

  "Nobody from your lists."

  Goddammit. "Thought we were done lyin' to each other."

  "This isn't a lie, not exactly. But..." Rachel hesitated. Her brown eyes clouded over, dark and regretful. "Well, I treated her horribly. For once, I'm going to let her have the benefit of the doubt and let her do... whatever it is she's doing now. So her name stays out of it."

  I'll figure it out if I need to. "...All right then."

  Rachel smiled. "Thank you. To answer your question though, that's what I'm trying to achieve. I always knew magic was going to spread out. By the time Omega tried to do anything, it was already too late. Even if he had managed to kill every single person in Rallsburg, there were already some awakened beyond the borders. I know a few of them, and we'd already made it pretty clear we couldn't find everyone. Nor could he."

  "And those scraps of the book, right?"

  "Yes, exactly. The Scraps are spreading, too. I'm really not sure why or how. It's like they're moving on their own. I mean, since the paper seems to be effectively indestructible except by magic, there's no reason they couldn't just keep drifting around, but they don't seem to be following the wind, or any pattern I can discern. They're just spreading outward at random."

  Jeremy sighed. "That's gonna be a fuckin' headache."

  "There's only a certain number of them, so it'll be slow at least. But it won't stop. That's why we need to get a system in place. There's no way we can control the spread. Only one person in the world could hope to do that." She took a breath. "If history's anything to go by, society doesn't take well to rapid systemic change. Humanity will survive—it always survives—but I'm afraid of how much damage might be done in the meantime."

  "Nuclear weapons."

  "Right. If people with magic can combine their power to create something with the widespread lingering destructive power of nuclear radiation, they could permanently affect the whole world in cataclysmic ways. Nuclear weaponry is held in check by the prohibitive cost of such a weapon in the first place. It takes sophisticated equipment, a strong understanding of physics, and expensive materials to construct such a weapon. The real danger from nuclear weapons these days is from nations trading or even losing those weapons to less stable elements in the world.

  "On the other hand, the development of nuclear science has lead to so many technologies and ideas that make our world better. Nuclear power. Medical breakthroughs, especially in diagnostics and cancer treatments. Magic could do the same, and that's what Omega never recognized. He was too afraid of the dangers—and on that, he's not wrong."

  Rachel glanced out the window at the suburbs passing by, the endless in-fill of the cityscape. "If some random person snaps, on a bad day, with a bit too much passion and anger, and they could somehow muster the sort of power that we saw on the fifteenth? They could wipe out whole towns. Whole cities, maybe."

  "Thought you said that took special awakened people and a whole lot of effort."

  "Yes, but everyone seems to be getting stronger over time. We haven't actually seen an end-limit yet. So will the awakened keep getting stronger over time?" Rachel shook her head. "We need to be preemptive."

  Jeremy paused while he merged around a particularly slow car on the highway. There was a lot more traffic than he expected for the time of day. It was already dark, and the main rush of the day should have passed already. "Gonna be a fine line between preemptive plannin' and guilty until proven innocent."

  "Yes." Rachel nodded. "I worry about that line every day."

  "Good."

  "What about you?" she asked, turning to him. "I know why Maddie's here, but why you?"

  He shrugged. "I was lookin' for my partner and ended up in this mess. Complete accident."

  "You could have left at any time. You still could."

  "And miss out on all this excitin' drivin'?"

  She laughed again. "It's not because you like magic, I'm guessing."

  "Definitely not."

  "But you're still here, backing us up."

  He shrugged again. "It's my job." And Jackie ain't here to do it.

  "I thought you were on vacation."

  "I'm bad at takin' vacations. Ask any of my bosses."

  Rachel nodded. "Well, I'm grateful you're here. To be honest, I really needed someone like you."

  "Huh?"

  "Someone to show up on my doorstep and remind me that I can still do some good in the world."

  Jeremy shrugged. "I was just doin' what I was told."

  "By the girl you saw, right?"

  "That's the one." He glanced at Rachel, who was still staring out the passenger window. "You gonna tell me who she is yet?"

  "I can't."

  "Why's that?"

  "Because she hates me already, and I don't think making her angrier is a good idea."

  "She hates you?"

  She sighed. "Yes."

  I already know what she's gonna say, but worth a shot. "Why's that?"

  "I can't tell you that either."

  Goddammit. "Okay, give me one straight answer at least. What's this one stop we gotta make in town?"

  "...Kendra Laushire."

  Jeremy chuckled. "Of course the rich girl survived. Probably paid her way out."

  For the first time since they'd met, he saw a bit of anger return to her face. It was actually unsettling, even for Jeremy. He knew how little she was actually capable of doing, and yet... she was not someone he wanted to piss off.

  "...Sorry. So she's a friend?"

  "Yes."

  They rode in silence for a few minutes.

  "...I wasn't sayin' she was a bad person," he added uncomfortably.

  "I know."

  "She could be totally fine. I was just makin' a joke about rich people."

  "It's fine."

  For the next half-hour, they rode in stony silence, with only the hum of the car and the light snores of Maddie from the back seat.

  Well... fucked that one up.