Chapter 11

The following characters appear in this chapter:

Franklin (Frank)

Dragon Security employee, 5’-9’’ tall, 165 pounds, 29 years old, black hair, brown eyes, very strong Talent

Harmony

Youngest Daughter of the Lords of Magic, 4’-2’’ tall, 55 pounds, 8 years old, blond hair, very blue eyes

Sid

Liar, bullshitter, and spin doctor, 5’-7’’ tall, 185 pounds, 47 years old, nearly bald with a gray fringe around his head, beady gray eyes

Craig still has the Narrative

We were up just after midnight. Jorani and Mom fed their Daughters and then put them back to sleep. They had been behaving rather well and were sleeping longer between feedings, giving their moms a bit of a break. Dad and I had dressed while they were busy and went to check on the others to see when they would be ready to leave. Steve and Keith were ready, but Dallas and Doreen were still feeding their Sons. We would meet Stewart and another employee with a strong Talent named Franklin at Dragon Security a bit later. We would all be leaving from there when everyone was ready.

Everyone had arrived by 12:50, even the Wives. We were all wearing dark colored clothing to make us harder to see at night without needing to use the invisibility spell.

“Does everyone know what buildings you are going to work on?” Dad asked before we started. Everyone answered yes.

“Do you have your maps showing where your buildings are?” he asked next. We had made enlarged individual copies of portions of the maps showing where each person’s buildings were located. Again, everyone answered yes.

“Stewart, you and Franklin will be going with Craig and me. We’ll drop you off in your areas and pick you up when we are finished,” Dad told our two employees. Stewart had been with us in D.C. on our previous trip, but Franklin hadn’t gone on that trip.

Once everyone was ready, we all cast the transfer spell and vanished to arrive in Lafayette Square Park in D.C. a second later. Dallas and Doreen had the office buildings on either side of the White House, and also the newer office buildings on either side of Lafayette Square Park. Doreen also had the White House to quarantine. Mom had Foggy Bottom and the buildings that we had selected there.

My responsibilities were the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the Capitol. Jorani, Stewart, and Franklin would take care of the office buildings for the Senators and the Representatives. The others had the remaining buildings that we had selected. It didn’t require all that long to cast the new house ward around all of the buildings and then add the power removal spell. At locations with a lot of security personnel, a perimeter ward was added to contain them. Of course, all of these wards were cast on standby. It would require someone to activate all of them at the same time. I had volunteered to be the one to do that after all or most of the government’s employees and their bosses had reported to work.

When we finished with our assigned buildings, everyone met again in Lafayette Square Park to return home together. Everyone, that is, except the ladies who had returned as soon as they had finished to take care of their children. We were all back and in our beds shortly after 2:15 that morning. No one had seen us. No one had heard us. No one knew that we had been there ... yet.

Awakening at just after 9:00 in the morning, I got up but didn’t wake Jorani who had fed our Daughters again after returning. Following my normal morning preparations and a hearty breakfast, I dressed in a business suit and prepared to transfer to D.C. to start the fun. Steve arrived just as I was ready to leave.

“I’ll go with you. You never know when you’ll need a little back up. Besides, we’ll need to check on at least some of those buildings to ensure that everything worked correctly,” he told me.

“Did Dallas put you up to this?” I asked.

“Actually, I was thinking about it, but she told me to go with you,” he answered with a bit of a grin.

“My big Sister is still looking out for me,” I said with a laugh and slapped him on the back. I had a grin on my face also.

“Okay,” I said following that, “let’s do this,” and we transferred to Lafayette Square Park appearing there just after 10:00 o’clock.

“Shall we cast the activation spell together?” I asked, and Steve grinned again. We both chanted the activation spell and drew its glyph in the air. Nothing appeared to happen, but at all of the buildings that we had selected and visited earlier that morning, the spells for the wards that had been left there activated, and the wards snapped into existence.

Wards formed around the buildings blocking both entrance into them and exit from them, while the power spell cut off the use of electricity throughout the building, and they all went dark. Those inside the building were immediately upset, but expected the power outage to last only a short time. Those outside of the buildings didn’t notice anything initially.

It took a little time for those in the buildings to realize that the power outage was more than temporary, and even longer to realize that they were trapped in the buildings with no way to get out. Many of them had a long trip down the stairs before learning this as the elevators no longer worked. Many of the really important buildings had back up generators, but none of them worked with the Power Disruption spell in effect.

It also took a bit of time for those outside of the buildings to realize that they couldn’t enter them or return to work inside them. While this wouldn’t be a big problem if it only involved one building, this involved 31 buildings. (Yes, 31 buildings. Mom had added one that she particularly disliked. Who was going to gainsay her?) Those having business with the government soon realized that it involved many of the major buildings and departments of the government, and that no one could enter or leave them.

The news-hawks weren’t slow in discovering this problem. With the American 24 hour news cycle, it soon became apparent that major portions of the U.S. Government were no longer doing business as usual or at all. Calls to those in authority didn’t go through, and no one was able to contact the President, the White House, the Pentagon, the Capitol, or anyone in Congress let alone others with lesser authority.

By noontime on Monday the 27th of July, the story had become the headline subject of every radio, television, and internet news site. People, ordinary people, began to worry and then to get angry before becoming frightened.

“Who had done this, and why did they do it? What did they want?” became the questions from everyone everywhere, or at least from most people.

There were people who were overjoyed that large portions of the Federal government had been shut down. They made their feelings known on the air, in print, and on the internet as well as on the street with riots and other gatherings.

The Military and other organizations such as Homeland Security and the FBI among others didn’t have any directions or leadership. Additionally, their local offices were busy with problems in their immediate areas. Organizations like the Strategic Air Command and NORAD went on high alert expecting an attack.

The top Military Commanders across the country called a meeting over the internet to try to determine what to do, and who should be in charge during this crisis as they had no contact with those at the Pentagon. The Governors of many states activated at least a part of their National Guard units. City, county, and state police put most of their people on emergency duty to be prepared for anything. The Division Commander of the units that had supplied the tanks that surrounded the Kavanaghs’ homes and their business ordered the removal of the tanks. It would be a slow business removing them.

That day the stock market dropped three thousand points in less than two hours before trading was suspended for the day. They weren’t sure if trading would open the following day.

The CIA who are located out in Langley, Virginia seemed to be the only ones who knew the truth.

“It’s the Dragons who did this. We weren’t in favor of them sending tanks to try to intimidate them, but no one listened to us. No, they listened to those idiots at State. Well, they’ll just have to live with the results. There isn’t anything that we can do about it,” the Leaders of the CIA said at their meeting that afternoon.

At the Russian Embassy in D.C. that afternoon, their Ambassador called in his Chief of Staff as he sipped his glass of Vodka.

“Send message to Moscow. Tell them not to fuck with Dragons. We don’t need to look like U.S. Government either,” he told him as he swallowed the remains of his current drink. It was his sixth drink since hearing the news on the television less than an hour and a half ago.

All of the Chinese Embassies were still closed, but their Leaders soon learned of what had happened from the internet news cycle. They were happy to see that the Americans were having trouble with the Dragons also. They had naturally assumed that they were the cause of their trouble. It indicated to them that they probably hadn’t been responsible for sending the Dragons to attack China.

“Yes, very much like the trouble in Tibet,” a number of members of the Central Committee were heard to say.

The Leaders of many other nations also saw the news and viewed it as not being their problem. Several nations viewed it as an opportunity to cause the Americans more trouble. Few had any sympathy for the Americans or their government.

At a number of electric generating plants in the area around D.C., the managers needed to reduce their output due to the reduced demand because of the many government buildings that had been shut down.

Over the next two days, the news outlets continued to carry the story well into the night. The public heard from every type of cutthroat and kook, both conservative and liberal, all of whom advanced their pet theories, schemes, and conspiracy plots to explain what had happened. None of them were anywhere close to being correct.

In Atlanta, very little was said by those in the Magic Community. They were waiting to see what else the Dragons would do. None of them were in doubt that the Dragons were the cause of the government’s problems.

On the morning of the second day after disabling the tanks, Keith called Dad about them from work.

“Ken, the Army has arrived with low bed trucks to try to remove the tanks around our building,” he told Dad. “What, if anything should we do about them?” he asked.

“Go ahead and cancel the Power spell, Keith. If they have to drag those tanks onto those trailers, they are going to make an even bigger mess than they already have. I’ll check here and see if they are doing the same thing. At least if they get those things out of here, we’ll have one less thing to worry about,” Dad told him.

He and I went to check, and I canceled the Power spell on the tanks and the command vehicle. Their generators came on, and the crew fired up the main engines. They were soon loaded on the trucks and were gone.

Those trapped in the various government buildings knew nothing about all of the things that were happening outside of them. They had more important concerns. There were people trapped in elevators who needed to be rescued. There were also those of limited mobility who were trapped on the upper floors of buildings. The long-term liberal bureaucrats and those who had been brain washed in college sat around and bemoaned their situation. There were others, however, who took charge and got things done. These were often people who had been in the military, police, coaches in sports, or had been teachers.