Chapter 5
To Dream and Wake Up
"Look mommy, there's an evil man", a small girl in a red suit shouted while holding her mothers hand and pointing at Vladimir. How has they got into this place, it was a highly important and well-guarded science lab in the middle of Siberia. Or it had been just a minute ago, now it was a small park in the middle of some great city, probably St. Petersburg looking at the fine houses, well they were finer than most Russian houses at least; several of them were falling apart, left unattended for half a century or more.
Blink.
Now it was the familiar laboratory again. Solid white walls, computer screens hanging from the roofs, tables, chairs, a bulletproof window showing a white examination room with concrete walls. The small girl and her mother were inside it, still looking at him. Or actually they were looking at themselves, as from the examination room the glass window should look as a large mirror. But they were still looking at him.
"They found their way inside here. We cannot let anyone know of this place, else the counterrevolutionaries find out where we are. Kill them." a voice said behind him. Who was that, Vladimir wondered.
As he turned around, he saw that it was Isaia standing there. Honorable minister of space in the Soviet Union, High-Leader of the Peoples Casters Union, or so the man liked to call himself at least. I am supposed to be the leader of the Magicians, Vladimir shouted inside his head, but there was no one there to hear him. Isaia had taken full control of the Union. Vladimir didn't doubt the man had done the same in the Space Ministry. He was a man you didn't say no to. Maybe he even had managed to find a way to use magic to control people's minds? But now there was no choice, was there?
"No, I won't do it." Vladimir answered back. I will not become a murderer, or will I, he wondered in his head. The girl had called him evil after all. Was she right? Was she wrong? Did it matter?
As Isaia took a cigarillo out of his mouth, strange Vladimir though, he was sure the man didn't have one when he had turned around, Isaia drew a loud sight and started talking "And why not? Well my friend, you don't need to answer that question anyway. I'll take care of it." and he reached for the intercom. "I have just received evidence that comrade Vladimir here has sympathized with the counter-revolutionaries. Take him to the examination room and kill him. Oh, and kill the two persons already there too, they are enemies."
Before Vladimir could understand what was happening, all three doors to the room were opened, with a flood of soldiers in brown uniforms entering. They took him by the arms just at the moment he understood what they were doing here. He tried fighting them as they started moving him towards the door to the examination room, a door which he was sure just had appeared. Finally, when he was already in the white examination room, he tried reaching for the source, the magic source it was officially termed, but everyone called it the source by now. But he could not reach it. Something was in between. Then he saw something what he could only call tendrils of darkness reaching out from Isaia from the other side of the window, which should in this case too be a mirror from his point of view. Why wasn't it? They blocked him from the source. He tried reaching it again, in vain. He could hear Isaia laugh from the other side of the window, even though he was sure this room was sound proof. Maybe it was the door, but when he looked for it, it was gone. Two loud bangs and on his right side the girl and her mom had fallen in a pool of blood. Then it started ringing. It was as if his head would fall apart, the loud noise was so great.
Blink.
Vladimir sat himself up in his bed while the wake-up clock was ringing as the last day had come. It was just a dream he realized now, but it was a magnificent dream. Any other person would probably call it a nightmare, but not he. He had said no to Isaia, and that alone made it a more beautiful dream than he could imagine. Yet sweat dropped from his bare chest. He had to get a shower. He was one of the lucky few to have his own shower, or he would be later at least. So far they had only had five days on themselves to draft magicians, if that was the right word that is, into the Union. Only about one thousand had come so far, all of them volunteers. This base was meant to accommodate fifteen thousand people; it was a military base, emptied five days ago, after it had been taken for the Union. Right now everyone had a shower of his or her own.
After he had finished showering and had gotten himself into uniform, the intercom found in all officers' rooms rang. I am sure that Isaia had created a weave; they liked to call the spells that, which showed him when I'm ready to go to work. It was no wonder if he had of course, something like that would probably be easy to create. It would be hard to spot too, the male magicians all agreed they couldn't see each others weaves any good, if all. The females, there were three hundred of them, said they could see each others weaves quite good, and also know if any female was a caster, how strong she was and if she held the source. The males could do some of that too, but in a far smaller degree.
Suddenly waking up from his thoughts and quickly pressing the receive button on the intercom, Isaia's familiar voice said trough the intercom "Comrade Vladimir, I hope you had pleasant dreams. Come to the main compound, room 5B, there is something I wish to ask you."
Hmm, something wants to ask me. Usually he demands that I explain something to him, or does something anyway. I wonder what it is. I better hurry anyway, Vladimir though. It was good that most of the buildings were connected trough and underground net of tunnels, it was freezing outside. The floor in the tunnels even had a nice red carpet; he only needed to put on his indoors, black leather shoes.
As he reached into the room, holding a cup of coffee he had picked up from someone less important than him along the way, seeing what was in the room, he almost dropped his mug. Actually he dropped it, but he managed to seal it in a weave of air, then picking it up again. But happy about how his reflexes had managed to use magic was the least thing on his mind. The room he entered was the same room he had been in the dream at. The walls, the doors, the computers, the window leading to the examination room, everything. There were several rooms alike this one of course, and the door to the examination room was missing, you entered it from the other side. But inside that room was the girl and her mom from the dream last night. Was it possible to change someone's dreams with magic? It might be, but no one should be able to learn to do that so fast. So far they had only learned how to do the most basic magic, using one of the four elements they had found the source to hold so far. Few weaves held two elements, none three so far.
Isaia started talking, at least he didn't have a cigarillo Vladimir noticed "These two were found walking at the outskirts of the base. I think that they may be counter-revolutionaries, fighting against the communistic revolution. Don't let them deceive you, many of the enemies use small children, even their own, as deception. What do you think we should do with them?" he said in a low, monotone voice.
Vladimir's thoughts ran without direction. The girl in the examination room was crying while its mother tried to comfort it. The two doors leading to the rooms beside this one were closed, were there soldiers behind them? Maybe, but then again maybe not. He remembered what had happened in the dream. He had said no, and he was about to die. He didn't want to die; no he wanted to live forever. Once when he was in his two year period in the army, he had been forced during the last half year of his training to fight in Chechnya, his commander had led them into a fight while shouting "Who wants to live forever?" He wanted to do that, and had hid himself under a rock. Ten minutes later he was the only survivor of his group. He had made up a fine story, which gave him a medal even. And he still wanted to live.
"If you think they are counter-revolutionaries, I'm sure you are right. We might have use of them living to tell us who their contacts are, but if you want to kill them, go right ahead. Actually I rather believe that testing our offensive spells on living subject might be quite useful, especially if we gather a larger group to observe?" he said. Those two would probably die, but rather them than him. Besides, it had just been a dream. They couldn't even see him.
Later on the day as he walked trough the corridor towards his room he went trough the happenings of the day. They had summoned roughly a hundred fellow magicians. First Isaia had wanted to test something, and hap used Air to pull the child and mother away from each other, and told someone to hold the mother while he would test something with the child. Both of the subjects had been crying wildly, and in between the sobs the mother had tried to say words like "Please" and "No". Then Isaia had done five small weaves of air, holding the legs, arms and the head of the child, still crying. Then the crying had stopped as Isaia pulled the weaves and the legs, arms and head of the child flew around the room. Luckily someone had been smart enough to make a wall of Air between the crowd and the subjects, so no one got stained clothes. Then the mother suddenly slumped to the ground. Isaia had probably told the channeler to release her. The mother started to crawl towards the place where her child had been a minute ago. She never made it, as she literally melted on her way there. Then Isaia started talking "Some of you might think this was a terrible thing to do. But remember, they were traitors to the will of the proletariat. And since I am sure none of you will ever betray the proletariat, you have nothing to fear, do you. Besides, that melting spell was quite efficient, I am sure all of you learned it. Now return to your studies, and Glenko, come with me" he said, and then walked out of one of the doors in the room. As soon as he had left, Vladimir heard the voices of vomiting in the room, but he didn't have time to see it, as he was in a hurry to follow Isaia. A bit later he Isaia had talked to him after which he started walking to his room.
The TV-screen flickered on as Vladimir entered his room for lunch. He had used magic to press down the button on the remote control, doing simple things like that happened from time to time now, but rarely unless he concentrated on it. This time he had decided to start the TV using a weave, and it had worked. If he would do that all the time, someday it would be normal to him. He was not a psychologist like, he had never been much interested in that, only waves and some biology. He had just had an interesting discussion with Isaia. It seemed the man had discovered a new element to supplement the four they had already found. He called it soul, mind or spirit; he hadn't made up his mind yet. Vladimir supposed Isaia had discovered it days ago, keeping it to himself to gain an advantage. For a while that is, everybody had to tell everyone what he or she had discovered sooner or later, a fact that Isaia reluctantly had to agree with. Of course a few days couldn't hurt, and the advantage he got was surely useful for him, even though he would never admit it. He had convinced Isaia of that, or was it the other way around? It was kind of foggy, Vladimir pondered at how someone could be so cold and heartless while making someone do something that they didn't realize themselves even. Anyway they had decided to keep their discovery a secret for a few days, or maybe a few weeks even.
As he started eating his officers' meal consisting of meat, potatoes and some salad, the TV, showing CNN started showing World Report after the several boring commercials. "Hello. This is World Report with George Croft and Laura Smith. Our headlines for today are; A Week since the "Magicians Wave", what has changed, what are the governments doing, what are they; New Terror in West Germany, two-hundred people killed in a small German village just south of Braunschweig, the police suspects the same killer as a week ago in Ramstein; A strong economic recovery after the stocks plummeted last week following the "Magicians Wave" and finally, the USSR reports that Norwegian terrorists were caught trying to blow up a power plant in the Kola peninsula. All that just after these commercials."
Hmm, so that's what the KGB has been doing. Five days ago I told them that the origin of the wave was in Mageroya, Norway. They told me that Norway would never allow the Soviet Union to build a base of any kind on their soil; they are a part of NATO after all. They just told me to wait and do some other work while the KGB would start a campaign to give us an excuse to invade them. Damn me for starting to argue about it just today with Isaia, Vladimir thought. He had had a long and angry argument with Isaia about how necessary it was to get to the origin. He had lost the argument, painfully.
Some worthless commercials had gone by on the TV, but then one caught Vladimir's notice. A man and a woman, both young and good looking stood on a white background while some sparkles of fire flew on. Their dresses also flew in a wind, and than a voice started talking "Are you one like these? Can you cast spells? Do you want to learn more? Are you from the US or Canada? If yes, join the United States Casters Guild. Remember, your government needs you, and only we can help you control this skill of yours. Join the USCG, make a difference, whoever you are."
So that was how the Americans were doing it. Figures, they were always so focused on TV, they would recruit that way too, Vladimir chuckled inside himself. Soon the commercials ended and Vladimir started concentrating on the news again, laughing a bit at the irony.
"It has been now seven days since the "Magicians Wave" hit us, leaving death and destruction in it's way. Governments have so far been unable to determine the origin and cause of the wave, but almost all working governments have started up a group for these magicians. The US and Canada have joined together to form USCG or the United States Channelers Guild. The EU has created the Casters Ministry and China is showing off with its Peoples Magicians Guild. Russia hasn't reported anything officially yet, but we have received information that they are creating a group called the Peoples Casters Union. No other information about them has been given to the public, but the almost all governments are complaining about how few people are willing to join. Some are even afraid. A recruitment post for the Casters Ministry in the EU has been burned to the ground." The program continued of course, but Vladimir had already eaten all his food, and he was in a hurry to get back to work. There was always so much work, and much of it was paper work. The only one who didn't do paperwork was Isaia, but he was member of the Politburo after all. Strange about the seven days. If they had asked him he would have said five days. Well, it had been a hectic time after all.
As he was walking trough the underground tunnels, one of the casters came up to him, Dr. Juri "Frankenstein" Nikolaiov. The man had been a doctor in medicine once, but he had been imprisoned because of his experiments to the subjects. When he channeled in the prison and learned of the Union, he joined immediately. Not the most popular man in the base, actually he was the least popular one, but he was still one of them, and a quite strong one at that. Not even half the strength of himself or Isaia, Vladimir though, but a strong one none-the-less.
"Hello Commander. I will be continuing with my experiment on field medication using the source. I had my first attempt yesterday, a failed one at that, but I think I have a better idea on what to do now. It's a very complex weave, using even three of the powers, and I was hoping you could comment on it. I have understood that no one else at this base has used three or more elements in a weave at once? No matter, I am quite proud of this on myself. Come and look."
What was the man talking about field medication, Vladimir wondered. He would rather just do something else, almost anything, but a weave using three powers would be magnificent to watch. He had devised a small trick to see the weaves more clearly, it would come useful now. The man would be hopefully be disposed of later. But not now.
After a walk trough the underground tunnels to the holding area, Vladimir listened to the man explaining what he was doing. He had instructed Juri to keep the discussion to how he used three powers at once, without telling anything about his experiments. Vladimir realized he didn't want to know. Juri seemed unhappy at being unable to tell, but he was used to no one liking what he did.
As they reached the study room, Vladimir finally realized what Juri had meant. In the room a boy that was maybe ten years old was sitting. Or if you could call it sitting, he was missing one of his legs. Juri explained something about how he needed to create a usual field trauma, and with those words, he closed a weave of air around the surviving leg, and another one around the boy himself. Then he separated the two weaves, ripping the boys leg off. Vladimir expected the boy to shout high enough to be heard at the other side of the base, but it seemed that a ball of air had closed, or opened depending on which way you looked at it, the mouth of him. Not a flicker came out of his mouth, but tears did flow. Several of them in fact.
Juri began speaking up "See commander, a normal field trauma, a missing leg. Of course they will not be cut of this nicely, but we need to start it simple, don't you think. Now watch while I try to put it back together again." and he used a weave to put the leg on it's original location, while using earth and fire to put it back and using some water to make it colder. The entire process took maybe two minutes, using fire, earth and water all at once. It wasn't until the full weaving was finished that Vladimir realized he had only though of the boy as a subject. And it had felt good too. That was something he would have to continue doing, feeling good that is.
The leg was fastened in place, but he noticed it was as useful as a piece of meat. When he tried picking on it with a small weave, he noticed that blood didn't flow in its veins. The weave had been good, but useless. Pity for the subject, but he was unimportant. He said to Juri "You have done good. But the leg doesn't work. It's just a piece of meat now. Just cut it off again, then think of what you may have done wrong, and continue with the arms. Tell me if you have any success." and begun to walk towards the door. He heard a small rip before the door started closing, which was probably the leg coming off again he though. As he walked trough the red and gray half-lit corridors, he could do nothing but smile at how much easier it was now than it had been just five days ago. Yes, better.
"Look mommy, there's an evil man", a small girl in a red suit shouted while holding her mothers hand and pointing at Vladimir. How has they got into this place, it was a highly important and well-guarded science lab in the middle of Siberia. Or it had been just a minute ago, now it was a small park in the middle of some great city, probably St. Petersburg looking at the fine houses, well they were finer than most Russian houses at least; several of them were falling apart, left unattended for half a century or more.
Blink.
Now it was the familiar laboratory again. Solid white walls, computer screens hanging from the roofs, tables, chairs, a bulletproof window showing a white examination room with concrete walls. The small girl and her mother were inside it, still looking at him. Or actually they were looking at themselves, as from the examination room the glass window should look as a large mirror. But they were still looking at him.
"They found their way inside here. We cannot let anyone know of this place, else the counterrevolutionaries find out where we are. Kill them." a voice said behind him. Who was that, Vladimir wondered.
As he turned around, he saw that it was Isaia standing there. Honorable minister of space in the Soviet Union, High-Leader of the Peoples Casters Union, or so the man liked to call himself at least. I am supposed to be the leader of the Magicians, Vladimir shouted inside his head, but there was no one there to hear him. Isaia had taken full control of the Union. Vladimir didn't doubt the man had done the same in the Space Ministry. He was a man you didn't say no to. Maybe he even had managed to find a way to use magic to control people's minds? But now there was no choice, was there?
"No, I won't do it." Vladimir answered back. I will not become a murderer, or will I, he wondered in his head. The girl had called him evil after all. Was she right? Was she wrong? Did it matter?
As Isaia took a cigarillo out of his mouth, strange Vladimir though, he was sure the man didn't have one when he had turned around, Isaia drew a loud sight and started talking "And why not? Well my friend, you don't need to answer that question anyway. I'll take care of it." and he reached for the intercom. "I have just received evidence that comrade Vladimir here has sympathized with the counter-revolutionaries. Take him to the examination room and kill him. Oh, and kill the two persons already there too, they are enemies."
Before Vladimir could understand what was happening, all three doors to the room were opened, with a flood of soldiers in brown uniforms entering. They took him by the arms just at the moment he understood what they were doing here. He tried fighting them as they started moving him towards the door to the examination room, a door which he was sure just had appeared. Finally, when he was already in the white examination room, he tried reaching for the source, the magic source it was officially termed, but everyone called it the source by now. But he could not reach it. Something was in between. Then he saw something what he could only call tendrils of darkness reaching out from Isaia from the other side of the window, which should in this case too be a mirror from his point of view. Why wasn't it? They blocked him from the source. He tried reaching it again, in vain. He could hear Isaia laugh from the other side of the window, even though he was sure this room was sound proof. Maybe it was the door, but when he looked for it, it was gone. Two loud bangs and on his right side the girl and her mom had fallen in a pool of blood. Then it started ringing. It was as if his head would fall apart, the loud noise was so great.
Blink.
Vladimir sat himself up in his bed while the wake-up clock was ringing as the last day had come. It was just a dream he realized now, but it was a magnificent dream. Any other person would probably call it a nightmare, but not he. He had said no to Isaia, and that alone made it a more beautiful dream than he could imagine. Yet sweat dropped from his bare chest. He had to get a shower. He was one of the lucky few to have his own shower, or he would be later at least. So far they had only had five days on themselves to draft magicians, if that was the right word that is, into the Union. Only about one thousand had come so far, all of them volunteers. This base was meant to accommodate fifteen thousand people; it was a military base, emptied five days ago, after it had been taken for the Union. Right now everyone had a shower of his or her own.
After he had finished showering and had gotten himself into uniform, the intercom found in all officers' rooms rang. I am sure that Isaia had created a weave; they liked to call the spells that, which showed him when I'm ready to go to work. It was no wonder if he had of course, something like that would probably be easy to create. It would be hard to spot too, the male magicians all agreed they couldn't see each others weaves any good, if all. The females, there were three hundred of them, said they could see each others weaves quite good, and also know if any female was a caster, how strong she was and if she held the source. The males could do some of that too, but in a far smaller degree.
Suddenly waking up from his thoughts and quickly pressing the receive button on the intercom, Isaia's familiar voice said trough the intercom "Comrade Vladimir, I hope you had pleasant dreams. Come to the main compound, room 5B, there is something I wish to ask you."
Hmm, something wants to ask me. Usually he demands that I explain something to him, or does something anyway. I wonder what it is. I better hurry anyway, Vladimir though. It was good that most of the buildings were connected trough and underground net of tunnels, it was freezing outside. The floor in the tunnels even had a nice red carpet; he only needed to put on his indoors, black leather shoes.
As he reached into the room, holding a cup of coffee he had picked up from someone less important than him along the way, seeing what was in the room, he almost dropped his mug. Actually he dropped it, but he managed to seal it in a weave of air, then picking it up again. But happy about how his reflexes had managed to use magic was the least thing on his mind. The room he entered was the same room he had been in the dream at. The walls, the doors, the computers, the window leading to the examination room, everything. There were several rooms alike this one of course, and the door to the examination room was missing, you entered it from the other side. But inside that room was the girl and her mom from the dream last night. Was it possible to change someone's dreams with magic? It might be, but no one should be able to learn to do that so fast. So far they had only learned how to do the most basic magic, using one of the four elements they had found the source to hold so far. Few weaves held two elements, none three so far.
Isaia started talking, at least he didn't have a cigarillo Vladimir noticed "These two were found walking at the outskirts of the base. I think that they may be counter-revolutionaries, fighting against the communistic revolution. Don't let them deceive you, many of the enemies use small children, even their own, as deception. What do you think we should do with them?" he said in a low, monotone voice.
Vladimir's thoughts ran without direction. The girl in the examination room was crying while its mother tried to comfort it. The two doors leading to the rooms beside this one were closed, were there soldiers behind them? Maybe, but then again maybe not. He remembered what had happened in the dream. He had said no, and he was about to die. He didn't want to die; no he wanted to live forever. Once when he was in his two year period in the army, he had been forced during the last half year of his training to fight in Chechnya, his commander had led them into a fight while shouting "Who wants to live forever?" He wanted to do that, and had hid himself under a rock. Ten minutes later he was the only survivor of his group. He had made up a fine story, which gave him a medal even. And he still wanted to live.
"If you think they are counter-revolutionaries, I'm sure you are right. We might have use of them living to tell us who their contacts are, but if you want to kill them, go right ahead. Actually I rather believe that testing our offensive spells on living subject might be quite useful, especially if we gather a larger group to observe?" he said. Those two would probably die, but rather them than him. Besides, it had just been a dream. They couldn't even see him.
Later on the day as he walked trough the corridor towards his room he went trough the happenings of the day. They had summoned roughly a hundred fellow magicians. First Isaia had wanted to test something, and hap used Air to pull the child and mother away from each other, and told someone to hold the mother while he would test something with the child. Both of the subjects had been crying wildly, and in between the sobs the mother had tried to say words like "Please" and "No". Then Isaia had done five small weaves of air, holding the legs, arms and the head of the child, still crying. Then the crying had stopped as Isaia pulled the weaves and the legs, arms and head of the child flew around the room. Luckily someone had been smart enough to make a wall of Air between the crowd and the subjects, so no one got stained clothes. Then the mother suddenly slumped to the ground. Isaia had probably told the channeler to release her. The mother started to crawl towards the place where her child had been a minute ago. She never made it, as she literally melted on her way there. Then Isaia started talking "Some of you might think this was a terrible thing to do. But remember, they were traitors to the will of the proletariat. And since I am sure none of you will ever betray the proletariat, you have nothing to fear, do you. Besides, that melting spell was quite efficient, I am sure all of you learned it. Now return to your studies, and Glenko, come with me" he said, and then walked out of one of the doors in the room. As soon as he had left, Vladimir heard the voices of vomiting in the room, but he didn't have time to see it, as he was in a hurry to follow Isaia. A bit later he Isaia had talked to him after which he started walking to his room.
The TV-screen flickered on as Vladimir entered his room for lunch. He had used magic to press down the button on the remote control, doing simple things like that happened from time to time now, but rarely unless he concentrated on it. This time he had decided to start the TV using a weave, and it had worked. If he would do that all the time, someday it would be normal to him. He was not a psychologist like, he had never been much interested in that, only waves and some biology. He had just had an interesting discussion with Isaia. It seemed the man had discovered a new element to supplement the four they had already found. He called it soul, mind or spirit; he hadn't made up his mind yet. Vladimir supposed Isaia had discovered it days ago, keeping it to himself to gain an advantage. For a while that is, everybody had to tell everyone what he or she had discovered sooner or later, a fact that Isaia reluctantly had to agree with. Of course a few days couldn't hurt, and the advantage he got was surely useful for him, even though he would never admit it. He had convinced Isaia of that, or was it the other way around? It was kind of foggy, Vladimir pondered at how someone could be so cold and heartless while making someone do something that they didn't realize themselves even. Anyway they had decided to keep their discovery a secret for a few days, or maybe a few weeks even.
As he started eating his officers' meal consisting of meat, potatoes and some salad, the TV, showing CNN started showing World Report after the several boring commercials. "Hello. This is World Report with George Croft and Laura Smith. Our headlines for today are; A Week since the "Magicians Wave", what has changed, what are the governments doing, what are they; New Terror in West Germany, two-hundred people killed in a small German village just south of Braunschweig, the police suspects the same killer as a week ago in Ramstein; A strong economic recovery after the stocks plummeted last week following the "Magicians Wave" and finally, the USSR reports that Norwegian terrorists were caught trying to blow up a power plant in the Kola peninsula. All that just after these commercials."
Hmm, so that's what the KGB has been doing. Five days ago I told them that the origin of the wave was in Mageroya, Norway. They told me that Norway would never allow the Soviet Union to build a base of any kind on their soil; they are a part of NATO after all. They just told me to wait and do some other work while the KGB would start a campaign to give us an excuse to invade them. Damn me for starting to argue about it just today with Isaia, Vladimir thought. He had had a long and angry argument with Isaia about how necessary it was to get to the origin. He had lost the argument, painfully.
Some worthless commercials had gone by on the TV, but then one caught Vladimir's notice. A man and a woman, both young and good looking stood on a white background while some sparkles of fire flew on. Their dresses also flew in a wind, and than a voice started talking "Are you one like these? Can you cast spells? Do you want to learn more? Are you from the US or Canada? If yes, join the United States Casters Guild. Remember, your government needs you, and only we can help you control this skill of yours. Join the USCG, make a difference, whoever you are."
So that was how the Americans were doing it. Figures, they were always so focused on TV, they would recruit that way too, Vladimir chuckled inside himself. Soon the commercials ended and Vladimir started concentrating on the news again, laughing a bit at the irony.
"It has been now seven days since the "Magicians Wave" hit us, leaving death and destruction in it's way. Governments have so far been unable to determine the origin and cause of the wave, but almost all working governments have started up a group for these magicians. The US and Canada have joined together to form USCG or the United States Channelers Guild. The EU has created the Casters Ministry and China is showing off with its Peoples Magicians Guild. Russia hasn't reported anything officially yet, but we have received information that they are creating a group called the Peoples Casters Union. No other information about them has been given to the public, but the almost all governments are complaining about how few people are willing to join. Some are even afraid. A recruitment post for the Casters Ministry in the EU has been burned to the ground." The program continued of course, but Vladimir had already eaten all his food, and he was in a hurry to get back to work. There was always so much work, and much of it was paper work. The only one who didn't do paperwork was Isaia, but he was member of the Politburo after all. Strange about the seven days. If they had asked him he would have said five days. Well, it had been a hectic time after all.
As he was walking trough the underground tunnels, one of the casters came up to him, Dr. Juri "Frankenstein" Nikolaiov. The man had been a doctor in medicine once, but he had been imprisoned because of his experiments to the subjects. When he channeled in the prison and learned of the Union, he joined immediately. Not the most popular man in the base, actually he was the least popular one, but he was still one of them, and a quite strong one at that. Not even half the strength of himself or Isaia, Vladimir though, but a strong one none-the-less.
"Hello Commander. I will be continuing with my experiment on field medication using the source. I had my first attempt yesterday, a failed one at that, but I think I have a better idea on what to do now. It's a very complex weave, using even three of the powers, and I was hoping you could comment on it. I have understood that no one else at this base has used three or more elements in a weave at once? No matter, I am quite proud of this on myself. Come and look."
What was the man talking about field medication, Vladimir wondered. He would rather just do something else, almost anything, but a weave using three powers would be magnificent to watch. He had devised a small trick to see the weaves more clearly, it would come useful now. The man would be hopefully be disposed of later. But not now.
After a walk trough the underground tunnels to the holding area, Vladimir listened to the man explaining what he was doing. He had instructed Juri to keep the discussion to how he used three powers at once, without telling anything about his experiments. Vladimir realized he didn't want to know. Juri seemed unhappy at being unable to tell, but he was used to no one liking what he did.
As they reached the study room, Vladimir finally realized what Juri had meant. In the room a boy that was maybe ten years old was sitting. Or if you could call it sitting, he was missing one of his legs. Juri explained something about how he needed to create a usual field trauma, and with those words, he closed a weave of air around the surviving leg, and another one around the boy himself. Then he separated the two weaves, ripping the boys leg off. Vladimir expected the boy to shout high enough to be heard at the other side of the base, but it seemed that a ball of air had closed, or opened depending on which way you looked at it, the mouth of him. Not a flicker came out of his mouth, but tears did flow. Several of them in fact.
Juri began speaking up "See commander, a normal field trauma, a missing leg. Of course they will not be cut of this nicely, but we need to start it simple, don't you think. Now watch while I try to put it back together again." and he used a weave to put the leg on it's original location, while using earth and fire to put it back and using some water to make it colder. The entire process took maybe two minutes, using fire, earth and water all at once. It wasn't until the full weaving was finished that Vladimir realized he had only though of the boy as a subject. And it had felt good too. That was something he would have to continue doing, feeling good that is.
The leg was fastened in place, but he noticed it was as useful as a piece of meat. When he tried picking on it with a small weave, he noticed that blood didn't flow in its veins. The weave had been good, but useless. Pity for the subject, but he was unimportant. He said to Juri "You have done good. But the leg doesn't work. It's just a piece of meat now. Just cut it off again, then think of what you may have done wrong, and continue with the arms. Tell me if you have any success." and begun to walk towards the door. He heard a small rip before the door started closing, which was probably the leg coming off again he though. As he walked trough the red and gray half-lit corridors, he could do nothing but smile at how much easier it was now than it had been just five days ago. Yes, better.