The trio carefully navigated a nest of computer equipment and supply crates to arrive at a low table serving as a desk. A grizzled man sat on a folding chair behind it, surrounded by radios, laptops, assistants, and two ringing phones. He glanced up, nodded once to acknowledge them, then looked at the caller IDs. He shook his head, sent the callers to hold, and turned back to John and company.

  “Alright you three, I’m Commissioner DeFranco. You’re here to answer a question: what am I going to do with you?”

  Jen piped up immediately, “Sir, we’d like to help! We’ve apprehended five other mages already and I’ve grown a taller wall outside! John can heal people, and I’m sure we’ll figure out something that Case can do!”

  DeFranco’s face switched from mild bemusement to laser focus in an instant when Jen mentioned that John could heal people. His eyes locked onto John. John found it extremely uncomfortable.

  “You. I know Kenderson’s kid, so you must be John. You can heal people?”

  John hesitated. “Uh, yessir?”

  “Be confident, kid. Lives are at stake,” Defranco growled.

  John gathered himself to meet the man’s glare, “Yes, sir. I can heal other people. It takes a large amount of mana, but it is possible.”

  DeFranco pointed towards the medical area, “Then why, pray tell, are you not over there healing my people?” he demanded derisively.

  Surprised, John blinked then focused his magical sense. He couldn’t detect anyone in critical condition. Ambulances were parked by the tents, presumably to shuttle people to hospitals nearby. The commissioner wanted to use him to solve the immediate problem and clearly wasn’t thinking ahead. Or he thinks I’m some sort of miracle solution to getting people back on their feet.

  John’s magic was markedly inefficient when it came to healing others, so it would be a waste of his abilities and energy. Even ignoring all that, John didn’t appreciate DeFranco’s tone. He readied his rebuttal and prepared to present his own plan.

  John squared his shoulders. “To begin with, I didn’t go through the tent to heal people because my mana is really inefficient at healing other people. It’s best suited for healing myself, at least for right now.”

  DeFranco scowled, “Well then, how are you going to make yourself useful?”’

  In that moment, John had a realization. Commissioner Defranco would become emblematic of failure in the coming days if he didn’t change his mindset. He saw the mages as either liabilities or extremely simple assets. He couldn’t conceive of John’s capacity beyond an ambulatory panacea, which on paper was a valid evaluation. John would have to lead this fifty-something year old man around like a horse on a bit to get anything done. It was unfortunate, but John knew any authority figures who failed to adapt in the coming days would succumb to chaos and arcane anarchy.

  John’s face twitched, but he kept his tone polite, “Well, I can still treat anyone in really critical condition who the hospital can’t handle. Or if we can’t get there, I suppose. But why wouldn’t we be useful otherwise? Between the three of us,” John gestured to Jen and Case, “we’ve subdued four belligerent mages and drove another off before he could cause more damage.”

  DeFranco raised an eyebrow, “So what, you want to go out on patrol and be headhunters? The media would have my head if I authorized a bunch of kids to go run around and get into fights.”

  Didn’t stop you from authorizing cops to shoot those same kids. John’s mana pulsed in response to his anger. His blood felt hot.

  “Sir, we’re going to wind up fighting regardless. How long will it be until someone powerful comes and attacks this miniature fortress? The explosion mage we fought earlier could appear again, or some other anarchist chucklefuck. Besides, we’re some of the best that you could send out to help. I have a get out of jail free card and can help my friends if they get hurt.”

  Jen and Case had been silent until now, but Jen spoke up, “I’m going back out there regardless. We need to learn and get stronger. Sitting behind a wall of guys with guns won’t do us any good when someone figures out how to beat them, then we’re just sitting ducks.”

  Case joined in, “I don’t know if you’ve had time to look at the footage coming out of New York or Moscow, but there’s already people out there who could flatten this whole complex without noticing it. Those walking calamities aren’t your problems, but imagine how it’d look for you if you mentored the people who wind up solving them?”

  If John could have cheered in that moment, he would have. Case was a good suck up when it mattered.

  For the first time, Defranco’s tone was amenable, “You three might be crazy, but I’ll allow it. You can be… test runs, I suppose. Lord knows that we can’t handle the entire adolescent population rising up on us, not if you all have superpowers. Hell, if even ten percent of y’all do, we’re going to be in deep shit.”

  John grimaced. Based on what his aura senses were telling him, ten percent might be a spot-on guess. There were mage presences blossoming all across the city, swelling as people manifested their powers then shrinking back down outside of his range.

  Defranco continued, “I don’t particularly enjoy the idea of letting you three roam around, but you’re right. We’ll need to be able to match anyone who pops up. I’ll communicate with my colleagues and introduce the plan to them, see if we can’t find any other ambitious youth like you three anywhere else. For now, go linger by the medical tents in case anyone arrives in critical condition. You should all practice your magic, I’ll put together a patrol for you to leave with later in the day.”

  The trio bid their goodbyes then filed out of the tent.

  Jen was positively giddy. “You guys, that went so well! I was so worried we were gonna get locked up!”

  John was momentarily confused, then remembered why he had wound up getting shot earlier. “You’re right. Speaking of earlier, should we have had those cops arrest Oliver and that girl?”

  Case shook his head fervently “Absolutely not. We had no way to secure him, and if he lit up a car with lightning everyone inside would die.”

  Jen shrugged. “He’ll live. I’m more worried about Mr. Sudeiki. I didn’t see him leave.”

  Case waved a hand, “Oh, he’s fine. John’s dad told me was planning to leave right after us. I don’t know where he’s going, but he works at a bank or something, maybe he’s going there? I can’t imagine they’re having a good time.”

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  John briefly thought about trying to keep a bank operational during this crisis and shuddered. There was already enough breakdown in the social order that John worried about utility companies keeping their services intact. Internet lines and cell towers were already getting thrashed by mages fighting. The damage they’d seen on the way over was not kind to delicate infrastructure.

  The trio found a group of picnic tables and sat down to talk while they waited. The bustling camp continued to fill up with police, national guardsmen, and the occasional civilian mage. The mage population continued to swell, more and more auras filling their new senses. John poked at the feelings in his head like a loose tooth. They were aggravating when he focused on them, but hopefully they would fade to the background soon. The feelings felt more intense in the wake of whatever he’d done to his heart, but not by much.

  John let his attention drift downwards, towards his heart. He could feel the exact location of his heart in his chest. There were feel particles of… something, similar to his mana, drifting around the heart as it beat. John realized it was probably bits of pericardial fluid that were being saturated with mana and decided to investigate later. Jen tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at Case, he must have missed something Case said. Goddamn I’m tired, I need to sleep properly soon.

  John shook his head, “Sorry Case, I spaced out. What’s up?”

  Case looked excited and started talking rapidly. “So! Let’s talk about magic!”

  John noticed a manic gleam in Case’s eye. His buddy’s excitement and desire to experiment with their powers thrilled John, but he was exhausted.

  John shook his head. “You two can feel free, but I am desperate for a nap.”

  Jen nodded, “That’s fine John, you go rest. I’ll keep Case occupied,” she said with a wink.

  Case looked aggrieved, but acknowledged John, “Oh I’m sorry man, this is just too exciting. Go sleep, Jen and I’ll talk. You’ll have to fill us in when you wake up.”

  John thanked them before turning towards the medical area. He figured someone there could direct him towards a place to sleep. He texted his Mom to wake him up if anybody arrived in critical condition, before getting directions towards a rest area. Somebody had helpfully made a sign that read “Nap Zone!” outside a tent that was much smaller and darker than the rest. John went in, discovered it was empty, shrugged, and claimed a cot for himself. He was asleep in seconds after he laid down on the simple stretched fabric.

  Outside the nap zone, Case and Jen’s conversation continued. Case called a chunk of quartz up out of the ground and placed it on the table. Jen gently traced the injection-molded grain of the plastic table with a finger, deep in thought.

  “Aright, let’s compare what we can do, see what’s similar and what’s different,” Jen said as tiny portions of mana swirled around her finger. The green motes didn’t do anything to the fake plant matter. Jen hadn’t expected anything else, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

  Case opened a note on his phone and started typing, explaining his entries as he went. “Ok first, I can feel other mages, metals, and little portions of the rocks around me. Secondly, I can control them to a limited degree, so far I’m mostly limited to moving objects around. However, with the knife in John’s kitchen, I could feel the edge and made it… better somehow. Sharper. Finally, I can call mana out of my body and project it into geometric shapes.”

  Jen nodded along to all those points before ticking off her own on her fingers, “I can feel mages too, the plants around me, and I can call out the vines. Admittedly I haven’t tried any other shapes like you, but I bet I could. I was able to make those two huge trees to block the tops of the barricades on the street. To be honest I have no clue how I managed it, I think I must have somehow fueled and supercharged the tree’s photosynthesis to let it create that much extra matter.”

  Case snapped, “Extra matter, that’s it. Your vines and my geometric shields both dissipate when we’re done using them. Mana can affect physical matter, but the things made from mana aren’t permanent.”

  “Alright,” Jen said, “but what about John’s magic? Those whips of his look like they flow back into him. Is he using his own blood in them? And how does he heal himself?”

  Case thought for a moment, “I don’t think he is, the amount of volume in one whip would make him pass out if that much blood suddenly left his body. Extreme hypotension or something similar.”

  “So it has to be his mana?” Jen conjectured.

  “Almost certainly, yeah. Our mana has that glowing effect, his is no different. I think he just calls it back into his body before it vanishes, like a circulatory system pulling blood back from the extremities,” Case assured her before continuing, “I’m unsure how his healing works. He doesn’t seem very gaunt or malnourished from regenerating that much matter, so there might be some special rules about healing?”

  “Ok, so what do you think made him pass out like earlier? I’m worried about that happening to us.”

  Case shrugged, “That happened cause he was shot in the heart. If something similar happened to us, we’d just be dead.”

  “You don’t think he could heal us?” Jen asked incredulously.

  “I bet he could, but I don’t whatever he did to himself to happen to me.”

  “We should test this when he wakes up.”

  “… probably, yeah.” Case shuddered.

  “We could test healing ourselves right now, couldn’t we?” Jen looked at her hand with a calculating glint in her eye.

  Case nodded, “I think I follow. Small scratch?”

  Jen smiled, “Yeah, that ought to be safe. A bandaid will take care of it otherwise, yeah?”

  Case pulled his multitool from his pocket and flipped open the tiny knife. He drew it across the top of his left arm, leaving a cut just deep enough to draw blood and about an inch long. He passed the blade to Jen, who did the same.

  Case focused on the painful sensation and tried to force his mana into it. Nothing happened. Nothing he tried worked on the recalcitrant energy in his abdomen. He gathered his concentration and attempted to form a bandage or plug with his mana. Nothing Case tried worked.

  Across the table, Jen enjoyed a modicum of success. She’d managed to convince a portion of her mana to grow out from where it nested behind her sternum. The vine worked its way down to the cut on her arm and hesitated there. It was as though the tendril was confused. It poked around the edges of her skin but seemed helpless to put her back together.

  Jen doubted this was her limit, she just needed to get creative. It seemed like her mana was treating the cut in her skin like it was just another body part, and not something in need of correction. On a whim, she pushed further, and a tiny vine emerged from the side of the cut. It tried to wiggle and expand further, but she stopped it. Instead, she made the vine plunge back into the other side of the cut. Her mana resisted at first, but Jen forced it through. The sensation of controlling mana simultaneously inside and outside of her body was disorienting.

  The miniscule vine doubled back and stitched the cut up tightly. Jen watched as the viridian mana pulled her skin together before slowly saturating the gap. When it boiled away, the cut was reduced to a very raw line of skin. Jen checked how much mana she had left, and discovered healing herself had used up most of the mana she’d recovered since growing the trees outside. Something to work on in the future, then.

  Jen looked up to see Case still glaring at his arm. Small flickers of blue appeared around his cut, but he failed to make anything substantial happen.

  “No luck, huh?” Jen consoled Case.

  “Seems like it. I can’t make my mana appear in any useful shapes inside the cut, but I’ve managed to slightly saturate the flesh around it. That definitely made the blood clot faster, and maybe it’ll help the cut heal faster?”

  “So, essentially the same as the girl with the fire magic y’all fought earlier?” Jen asked, as Case jotted things down on his phone.

  “Yeah, exactly,” Case agreed, “I think there’s some types of mana that are better at healing, and others that just give energy to help the body. I wouldn’t be particularly shocked if there’s folks whose mana actively harms them.”

  Jen frowned, “That’s bleak, I hope nobody hurts themselves,” she shook her head then exclaimed, “Oh! I meant to ask! Where does your mana come from when you use it?”

  Case quirked an eyebrow, “Do you mean where my mana is stored?”

  Jen nodded.

  “It’s in my abdomen. Roughly behind the navel. You?”

  “Mine is right behind my sternum.” Jen tapped her chest just above her mana reserve.

  Case practically leapt out of his seat. “The implications of that are massive! Maybe that’s what causes the differences in our magic?”

  Jen shrugged, “Maybe. Let’s wait for John to wake up then ask what his situation is. I want to mess around with my magic for a while.”

  Case wondered what Jen’s plan was, but when a quartet of vines sprung from her back and wove a hammock between two trees, he understood perfectly. He decided to experiment with sourcing crystals for him to use. Case’s magical senses had occasionally indicated random patches of dirt on the ground, spurring curiosity about what crystals he could pull from the dirt. Case made a mental note to buy books about geology in the future. Well, geology to start out with. He had a lot to learn.