Chapter 6

While we all got settled in to our new surrounding, Fifi was doing her thing with the code. By the time we were ready to go to bed the first chip was completed. I down loaded it, fed in the second chip marked C-M and I then went to bed.

When I awoke the next morning the second chip was through and I down loaded it and fed in the third chip marked C-P. I took the two deciphered chip readouts into the kitchen to let the others see what had come up so far. I loaded the first chip into the telecom and used its screen to bring up the information. Cain identified it immediately.

"It's magic. It's the formula to cast a Fireball spell using Hermatic Magic. Why would anyone have something like this loaded into a coded chip? This stuff at the end is how to cast the spell. You know, I'll bet that if you had a big enough chip jack you could load this into a Skillsoft and cast this thing. It has all the necessary parts. The thing that makes this really incredible is it looks like they have developed a way to enable a mundane person to cast a magic spell."

When I removed the chip and fed in the second one he identified it as a Hermatic Manaball spell with the casting instructions also.

"This is weird. It's almost like someone is trying to turn out instant Mages. You know, I vaguely remember someone saying something about something like this. One of the Corps or governments was working on a project to augment their soldiers with spell casting ability. You notice both of these are area effect spells. Go get the other chips, I want to see something."

When I returned with the chips I showed him the five that I had not yet tried to decode and separated them from the two that had been decoded.

"Look here. Magic is broken into five groups as far as the types of spells. These two," he said, indicating the two that had been decoded, "and the one that you are now working on all start with a 'C'. These two are and I'll bet the other one is also, they're Combat Spells. These two marked 'D' have to be some type of Detection Spells with the others a Health Spell, an Illusion Spell and a Manipulation Spell."

"But I thought there was only three types of Magic. Shaman, Hermatic and that specialist one."

"You mean an Adept."

"Yeah, now you're saying there're five types. I don't understand."

"There are three Disciplines of Spell Casters. It is then broken down into two Realms, Mana or Physical. But there are five Types of spells you can throw regardless of what Discipline you follow or which realm you cast it in. Now do you see?"

"Yes, thank you Cain," I answered. "One other thing though, how do you know what Hermatic Magic looks like? You're a Shaman."

"I didn't know that when I first started. I knew I could feel something different within me. I tested Hermatic first and when I couldn't grasp what they were trying to teach me I turned to Shaman Magic. It took."

While he was explaining the different areas of Magic, Dane was pondering the number of chips. "Eight? Eight? A Squad! An eight man Military Squad! Man, just think of an eight man, juiced up, heavily armed Infantry squad that can cast spells. You wouldn't pick up on any Foci or Fetishes or anything 'cause they wouldn't have any but then all of a sudden they start casting spells. Not detecting any magic you wouldn't be defending against it and it could do Major hurt to you before you could get your defenses up. It would be a real nightmare," exclaimed Dane.

"Ok, 'Coon keep on these chips. Make sure that Cain is right. Cain, with that in mind go over those papers again and see if they make any more sense than they did before. Also get in touch with your contacts and see if you can find out who was trying to develop this thing. Was it just rumor or did someone actually hear something. Dane, do the same with your contacts. As a Warrior your people might have picked up on 'improvements' or new skills that none of us would have paid any attention to." ordered Blake.

"We have a starting point now. We think we know what this stuff is, now we have to make sure. I'm going to try to back track on Mr. Johnson and find out who he is and where he got this stuff."

Removing the chip and gathering up all the others I went back into the den. We were already running into a bottleneck. I needed some other things from my shop. It looked like we would be here for a while and there were several things that I could be working on if I had them here. Even with all I brought along I also wanted some other programs that I didn't have here if we needed to do much decoding and that kind of work.

Returning to the kitchen I sat about fixing something to eat. When Blake came in I told him of my needs and that I wanted to return to my pad and get some things that I thought would be helpful. "It should be safe. I've only been on one run with you and not that many people even know that you and I are acquainted. It shouldn't take long to remove the things that I need and then I'll be gone."

"Take Cain's car and give us a call when you leave your place."

When I finished eating I cleaned up the kitchen and then left. The distance wasn't that bad, it was just the traffic. All the cars and bikes were going the same direction that I was. It took an hour and a half to get to the apartment where I lived. I parked in the back to speed things up and within minutes was packing up the programs, boards and tools that I might need. I had everything packed and was standing with a small spot welder in my hand looking over the bench to see if there was anything else that I might need when the door was kicked in. Into the room crashed two big guys. They were about the largest humans I had ever seen. They were both armed and seeing them I slowly raised my hands up to show that I wasn't going to try to fight them.