Time: Late October 2039

Location: University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia

I had been asked to help start a new security and energy saving program that the University had been planning. While the program was experimental, the job seemed simple enough. I was to go through the buildings that I was assigned and ensure that the lights were out, and all of the students and faculty had left before locking the entrance doors. The job started at 10:00 PM and this was my first night. I had been assured that everyone was aware of the program and closing time, as the university had posted signs in the buildings, printed a warning in the campus newspaper, and had even advertised the closing time on the radio as well as sending e-mails to all of its students and faculty over the last two days.

Right at 10:00 PM, I entered the first building. Many of the lights were still on though I didn't see many people. Several passed me on their way out as I headed for the top floor of the building to start turning off the lights and ensuring that everyone had in fact departed.

Starting at the far end of the hall, I checked each class room or lab and made sure that the lights were out and no one remained in the room. There were no problems in the first building and I quickly finished all three floors and had all of the exits locked in a short time.

The second building was four stories and much larger. There were also numerous lights still burning on the upper floors. I locked all of the entrance doors but the front one before starting for the fourth floor. This floor was mainly offices and a conference room. No one was visible in any of the offices, and I turned out the lights after checking each room and the conference room.

On reaching the third floor, I had my first trouble of the night. The third floor was mostly labs of various types with a lot of expensive equipment in them, and there were still a number of people present. They were not in the labs however. They were out in the hallway.

"This building is closing. You will all have to leave," I informed the six people there.

"What about my boots?" the person in the lead asked holding up a pair of very fancy cowboy boots.

"What about them?" I asked.

"I has to finish working on them," that individual told me in a belligerent voice.

"You will have to wait until tomorrow to finish working on them. The building is closing!" I told him and the others again. I also noticed that there were more of them now. Their numbers were up to ten now and they were trying to surround me as even more of them came up the stairs.

"No, we is going to do what we came here for," he told me, but had lowered the boots and tossed them to the side. "Ain't no young punk like you going to stop us either," he asserted. The crowd had grown to over sixteen by now and was turning mean.

"You will all leave the building immediately, or I will be forced to take action against you," I informed them in a loud voice so they could all hear and to cover the fact that I was calling up my personal wards around me.

"What you going to do? You don't got no gun or even a nightstick. All you has is that radio and it ain't even turned on," he asked with a laugh.

"There are other options" I told him with a grin, as the increased crowd now surrounded us.

"Yous had better run, rabbit, before you gets your ass kicked," he advised me with a smile of his own that revealed dingy teeth.

"Are all of you here now?" I asked before doing anything.

"Why? Do you think that you can take all of us?" he asked pulling a pistol.

"No, I just wanted to be sure that all of you were here before doing this," I told him and completed the spell and glyph for the freeze spell that I had been working on. I put enough power into the spell to also freeze anyone else in the building in place, just to be sure.

It occurred to me then why the university's administration had wanted those in the Magic program for this particular job. I sighed as I reached for my radio and turned it on. I had left off because the calls on it and the constant chatter were distracting, and I didn't need them constantly interrupting my thoughts as I scanned the rooms that I was passing.

"Central, Central, this is foot patrol 6, over," I sent on the radio after determining that the channel was clear.

"This is Central. Go ahead patrol 6, over."

"Central, I am in building 612 on the third floor. I have detained what appears to be a robbing crew and need assistance to transport them to jail," I told them.

"Roger, patrol 6. How many individuals are we talking about?" Central asked casually.

"I count twenty individuals some of whom are armed, Central," I informed them.

"Twenty!! How in the world can you have them detained?" Central wanted to know.

"Magic!" was all that I said over the air.

"Oh! Are you the new guy?" Central asked, more interested now.

"Yes, that's me. The new guy."

"We'll send two vans to transport them and notify the police. They will be interested in the ones with weapons," Central advised me.

It was some time before help arrived. In the meantime, I checked each individual for weapons, unloaded them, and kept the clips replacing the chambered cartridge from each weapon in its clip.

"Jeese, what did you do to them?" the first arrivals wanted to know on seeing the crowd frozen in place.

"I used a freeze spell on them after they had surrounded me. I made it strong enough to also freeze anyone else in the building. We'll need to check the lower floors for anyone else affected by the spell," I told them.

"Which ones are armed?" one of the new arrivals asked in a careful voice looking at all of those frozen in place.

"Six had pistols. I removed the clips and the rounds from the chambers. I have the clips. Several more had knives and I have collected them also," I told him and pointed to the bag that I had relieved one of the robbing crew of.

"What about fingerprints. Yours will be all over both the magazines, weapons, and the knives," the sergeant who was in charge demanded.

"Actually, I never physically touched any of the weapons. I used spells to remove all of them, and spells don't have physical finger prints, although a good Sorcerer would be able to tell what spells had been used," I told him.

The Athens / Clark County police arrived shortly after that. They were particularly startled to find all of the culprits frozen in place in the hallway. I turned over the knives and clips to the police and then released the freeze spell on the the culprits individually, as the police searched them. They also found various items that had already been looted from rooms on the first two floors. Even the fancy cowboy boots had been stolen. The police arrested and removed all of them. The search of the lower floors didn't turn up anyone else, but it was well after 12:30 AM before I was able to continue on to the next building.