CHAPTER II
Getting Acquainted
Tuesday, September 23, 2008... 3:45am
The wooden casing of the wand had been painstakingly crafted from a species of Earth plant called salix matsudana, more commonly known amongst humans as the Chinese Willow. It was an uninteresting brown color and was polished to a high shine. Despite signs of regular maintenance, however, fingerprints from frequent use had worn the base into a duller shade.
It had a diameter of slightly less than an inch, while it was nearly ten inches in length. Nobody knew or could seem to find out if this was a standard wand size or if measurements were unique to each wand. In fact, there was no factual information readily available about magic. Humans themselves considered it to be a myth.
The substance inside the wand could only be identified as organic in nature. Optimus refused to let them crack the casing open in an attempt to visually identify it.
The wand itself did not seem to have any powers; rather, it was simply a conduit for Detective Thomas' energy. It did not react to either a cybertronian or another human's touch, which led them to believe it was somehow coded to accept only one person.
Ratchet imitated a sigh – a habit he had quickly picked up amongst the humans of NEST – and stared down at his newest patient.
Agatha Thomas was almost as much of an enigma as the foreign substance inside her wand. Extensive scans showed nothing wrong with the woman beyond the mild concussion indirectly caused by Bumblebee. While it was nice to see a human operating in optimal condition for once, it was extremely odd. The woman was approximately thirty-two years old, yet none of her systems had begun to show the usual signs of degradation present in other humans in her age group.
There was no apparent cause for the smothering presence of her electromagnetic field. He was going to take a blood sample once she woke up. Perhaps taking a closer look her genetic coding would shed some light on the unique situation they found themselves in. The only reason he had not already done so was because of Optimus' insistence that the blood be taken with her permission.
Until this mess was figured out, only one thing was for certain: Agatha Thomas and her wand could not be allowed to leave the base.