Automatons

Chapter 3: Kindette Syndrome

As we're ushered into what is a glorified waiting room, I'm not entirely sure what to expect. With the writing portion behind us, all that's left is the practical examination. But what does that mean? The AA exam is carefully proctored to keep the whole thing a secret.

I mean, I think I did well enough on the written section. How hard could it possibly—

"Dia!" I'm ripped from my thoughts by a familiar cheery voice. I blink and look up, right in time to see someone waving erratically at me from one of the giant room's many, many tables. "Hey, Dia!"

I stifle a laugh and wave back, happy to see a familiar face. Or rather, familiar hair. I may not be able to see his face from this far away, but the dark brown afro is unmistakable. I make my way over to his table, returning that goofy grin on his bespectacled face.

"Hey Ben," I say, dropping into the chair next to him. "Man am I glad to see you."

"Right back at'cha," he says, sighing as he rubs his temples. "The programming portion made me want to die. But, you know. All in all, it wasn't that bad."

"Not for you it wasn't," I correct. "Especially since there was that whole section on ancient history."

I know the second his brown eyes sparkle that I've made a grave mistake.

"Holy shit, I'm so excited," he says, practically bouncing in his seat. "I still can't believe they have an entire track dedicated to magic research! Finally, there's going to be people who actually want to listen to the complexities of magic origin—"

"Ben please, my head already hurts," I groan, fighting to hide my smile.

"Shut up, this is interesting," he says, waving me off. "You remember that one question about evolution? It got me thinking. Nobody knows exactly where our dynami comes from, right? Is it part of us? Do we get it from the world around us? We know that it gradually returns after it's used, but how does it actually generate?"

"As you've mentioned a thousand times," I say, rolling my eyes. "Hence the reason you're aiming for the research track."

"But we do know that in ancient times, there were people called magicians that could use magic without the aid of crystals," he continues, completely disregarding me. "But they also died really young because of it. Life expectancy has basically tripled since we started channeling magic through automatons, and over the years, we completely lost the ability to use magic by ourselves."

"Uh-huh."

"I would say that was caused by evolution, wouldn't you? The evidence is there, especially since there are people like you out there," he says, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

"People like me, huh?" I echo, playing dumb. "You don't say."

"You know, the whole you-have-so-much-magic-in-you-you'll-literally-burn-up-if-you-don't-get-rid-of-it thing."

"If you call me a missing link one more time, Ben the Butt, I will smack you," I tell him, raising a hand playfully.

"That's Ben the Brain to you, missing link," he says, eyes bright. He has this huge shit eating grin on his face, and it only gets bigger when I smack his shoulder.

"That's enough of that, Butt," I say, suppressing a laugh. I glance around the room, noticing for the first time that it's slowly emptying. Students are being taken from it and led into a few different rooms, one at a time. I direct his attention to it. "What do you think that's about?"

"I don't know for sure, but I've heard they're testing magical capacity."

"They're what?" I ask. The tips of my fingers suddenly go cold, and I find myself rolling those precious drain crystals between my fingers. "Does it affect our test scores? That seems a little..."