*Chapter 1 The Starting Gun*
The Merge decade was characterized by frenetic activity in a number of fields including space exploration, as the magic of the game worlds and technology were combined . . .
Houston, Texas
December 30 As the Merge reaches Houston
Jerry Garman set the coffee cup down and began to type. “By changing the aerodynamic loading we can/the spell is left overstressed.” What the hell? Freedric was also writing an analysis when the Merge hit. He was doing it with a quill pen, but his thoughts had gone out Jerry’s fingers before Jerry had become aware of the Merge.
Between one breath and the next, Jerry gained the memories of the second-level book-wizard, Freedric the Incompetent. Had he been asked before the Merge, merging with a second-level book-wizard would not have been his choice but, truth be told, he doubted that merging with him would have been Freedric’s first choice, either. In fact, he knew it wouldn’t have been. Besides Freedric wasn’t really incompetent. It was just a handle he had gotten stuck with early in his apprenticeship.
Jerry/Freedric closed his eyes and went through the routine that allowed a non-magically gifted person to sense magic. It was, in fact, a spell like any other. But, unlike most, this spell was used so often that most competent book-wizards could do it in their sleep. Freedric had no more innate magical talent than Jerry did, just lots of study and practice. With the completion of the routine, Jerry could sense the flow of magic fields.
He slowly constructed a minor spell. A concept, a gesture, a shape, hold that there. Another gesture, a visualization. It was like trying to tie a bow tie with his toes. At the same time, it was something he remembered doing hundreds of times before, as natural as tying his shoes. Having spent several minutes putting the small spell together from memory, he cast it and looked at the gentle glow on his hand. It was red-gold in color and about as bright as a candle, barely visible in his well-lit living room.
Jerry played with it for a few minutes, turning off the lights to see it more clearly, thinking about what he knew about light, which was rather more from Jerry’s college physics than from Freedric’s early-Renaissance world view.
As a further check of his sanity, Jerry turned on the TV only to see reports of dragons and people flying without benefit of aircraft. The Freedric part of him was shocked by the TV and even more shocked by Jerry’s knowledge of how it worked. It was quite apparent that whatever had happened to Jerry had happened to others around the nation . . . and was spreading around the world.
Then Jerry started making phone calls. For once, he thought, he’d get in on the ground floor of something.
* * *
“Yo, Tim,” Jerry said.
Tim Walters grinned as he heard Jerry’s voice over the phone. He had merged a little less than three minutes ago. Jerry was an old pal who had left NASA about the same time Tim had.
“Tim, you watching the news?” Jerry asked.
“Yah,” Tim said. “You merge?
“Yes!”
“I bet you got old Freedric, didn’t you? I always said you’d regret inventing him.” They had been new at NASA when a friend in their department had introduced them to WarSpell. They had played a few games for laughs and it had been kind of fun. But neither one of them had played long enough to advance past the lower levels.
Jerry and Tim had both left NASA in disgust when the robot boys had won the bureaucratic battles and everything but a token manned presence in space was effectively given up. That decision hadn’t been made public, of course.
When people go into space, people die. Not all of them, but enough. That makes for bad press. Bad press meant you had to go over everything you did again and again and again. Consequently, the cost went through the roof, not that the costs weren’t pretty steep to begin with.
“Smart ass,” Jerry said. “Okay, I got Freedric. Did you get anybody?”
“I got Alvin.” Tim couldn’t help but smirk a little. He had never been very good at small talk or social necessities. The classic geek, Tim was almost blind to social clues and always terrified of putting his foot in his mouth. Alvin the Bard had been his fantasy self, the person who always knew the right thing to say. So smooth he didn’t seem practiced. With the Merge, Tim remembered what it was like to be Alvin and understood that it wasn’t that Alvin knew what to say but that he was good at understanding what others wanted or needed from him. It was empathy. There was calculation in it, but also a sort of confidence that Tim had never felt in any social situation.
“Alvin, the bard. The guy who specialized in persuasion.”
“Yep, and let me tell you the secret, though you won’t believe me any more than I would have. It’s just paying attention to the people around you, like you would an airframe design. Anyway, what have you got in mind?”
“Okay, Alvin,” Jerry said. “Do you realize what this means? Space is possible, man. Really possible. Not at a cost of billions per space shot, but at a cost of millions. Maybe hundreds of thousands, if you go with a reusable spacecraft. We can do it. We can get enough capital for that and we can win the Orbit Prize. We have the credentials.” The Orbit Prize was a prize offered to the first group to use the same spaceship to reach orbit three times in a sixty day period and carry supplies to the international space station at least once.
“Maybe,” Tim agreed. “We need to talk to The Artful Dodger. And maybe Steve Lock, over at Boeing. And I think you need to let me do a lot of the talking. Alvin’s abilities can be a real asset now.”
“Tim, I honestly never cared for Alvin. He was too studied.”
“No, Jerry. Tim, the old me, was too studied playing him. I remember it both from Tim’s point of view and Alvin’s. To Alvin, it was real. What he felt, what he saw in the other person’s eyes and in the magic fields around them. What I see in the magic fields around people and plants and everything.” Tim/Alvin remembered what he had been like as both people. It was too early to tell if he would be more like Tim, the electrical engineer geek, or Alvin, the entertainer, a natural magic user who had concentrated both his skills and his magic in the area of entertainment. He could play a lute and a Spanish guitar; sing and dance. And, most importantly, he could use spells to enhance all those abilities. Tim loved music but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Alvin the Bard, back in the games, had been the party’s face and front man. A charming rogue that people went along with simply because he was such fun to be around.
“I’m not saying I should be in charge or anything. Alvin wasn’t actually a leader in any real sense. He was just the cool kid and nice about it. I want to try to keep that part without losing the tech geek.”
Orange County, California
December 30 As the Merge reaches Los Angeles
Cynthia Westin was waiting tables in a sports bar. It wasn’t the job she wanted, but it paid the rent. Tonight, though, the big screen TV wasn’t tuned to ESPN. It was tuned to CNN, reporting on the weird stuff that was spreading across the nation. Dragons and elves and magic . . . oh, my. All apparently heading this way. She was trying to figure out what was going on when the Merge hit.
Suddenly she remembered her life as Mandrake/Mandra the wizard. She hadn’t lost Cynthia, but was now a blending of the two. She knew how magic worked. Mandra was a high-level book-wizard that always kept some spells ready, just in case. She still had them; she could feel them. She said a word and made a quick gesture. Her tray lifted itself into the air, collected the three beers that had been ordered by table five and floated across the room.
People stared.
When the tray arrived at the table the three beers floated off the tray and settled on the table. By that time the only noise in the place was the TV.
San Francisco, California
January 5
Honey Abrams stifled a grin when she answered the door. These guys were classic geeks, or at least had been before the Merge. The first guy grinned back at her. She could still see the dents in his nose from where his glasses had rested. She’d be willing to bet those glasses had been taped together too. It didn’t fit with the “I’m too irresistible for words” half-grin. The other guy, now, he wasn’t bad. Dark hair and eyes, intense eyes.
Dark-eyes said, “Hi. I’m Jerry and this is Tim. We’re here to see Mr. Dodger.”
Honey smiled one of her best smiles, the one that said “I’ve got a secret but I’ll let you in on it.” It worked, as usual. Dark-eyes, Jerry, picked up on it. He smiled back. “Dodger is expecting you,” Honey murmured. “Come on in.”
On the one hand, Honey knew that a woman with an MBA didn’t have to open doors for anyone. On the other, she’d never been able to settle on the kind of work she wanted to do. Dodger knew she was a little older than she looked and knew about the MBA. He wasn’t interested in anything long-term, but was quite willing to spend his money on nice dates and presents. So Honey had drifted into his life and expected she’d soon be drifting out of it. Dark-eyes, there, Jerry . . . he might be a nice direction to drift in.
* * *
The conversation had been interesting. Tim noted that Mr. Dodger had brought the girl, Honey, into the talk more than he would have expected. Especially for someone who was obviously not all that interested in space exploration. She had asked a number of questions, mostly about magic and money. Tim was intrigued by the girl, but could tell that the feeling wasn’t mutual. That was all right. If Tim was reading her right, she didn’t trust the cool kids. Probably from experience.
Dodger nodded. “It will take a lot of money. I’ve got some money, but not enough to go it alone. At least, not at the price before the Merge.” Then he looked at Honey and grinned. “Tell you what, boys. I’m quite familiar with Honey’s assets and I know just how much is in her portfolio.” Honey stuck her tongue out at him. “For every thousand she puts in, I’ll go ten grand. With the provision that she is the CFO.”
Jerry looked shocked. “Why her? Why not one of us? We know what has to be done to get to space. I can get some money. So can Tim.”
“Because I’m not crazy, guys. Neither of you really understands money. More importantly, both of you want this to happen too much. It would be a disaster. You’d low-ball your estimates, try to do it for too little and be running back to me for more money to reattach the corners you cut. Honey, on the other hand, has a sharp eye for money and she isn’t in love with space. So sell her on the idea, sell her enough that she’ll put her own money in. If you boys want to put your money in, that’s fine, but it doesn’t get the multiplier. And once her money is in the pot, she’s not going to let you waste it.” Dodger grinned. “So there it is, Honey. If you can make this work, you’ll be rich as hell. If you can’t, your tits are going to be on public display again, because you’ll have lost your shirt. That’s if you want to try it. If you’re not convinced it can be done with the money we can raise, then you get to tell them no.”
Honey was obviously surprised. “Me? Why me?”
“Why not you?” Dodger grinned. “You’re sharp. You’ve been looking for something for as long as I’ve known you. Besides, this rootless existence of yours isn’t doing you any good. I think you’ve got it in you to be a real player. So this is a shot at the big time for you. A shot, but not the only one. Don’t go for it if it doesn’t look good. Saying no is part of the job too. In this I trust your judgment more than mine.” He grinned. “I’ve got the space bug just like them.”
Dodger stood up, still grinning. “I have other business to take care of, Honey. You three talk this out and let me know what you decide.”
* * *
Tim and Jerry were staring at her like a couple of puppies. Hopeful looks notwithstanding, Honey shook her head. “I’m going to have to research this, you two. There’s no way I’m putting up my money unless I’m convinced this will work. You guys want it too badly for me to take your words for it. We’ll get together in a couple of days for lunch. Then we’ll talk.”
They left, still swearing that yes, the plan would work. Honey shut the door behind them and made a few calls.
The first was to her broker. Her next call was to an old acquaintance, Frank Castle. He published Castle magazine, one of about four high-end men’s magazines that had centerfolds. “Hi, Frank. This is Honey Abrams. What’s going on?”
“Same stuff, different issue. You got problems? Say, did you Merge? I know a lot of the girls did. WarSpell was pretty popular a few years back.” Frank took a friendly and supporting interest in the girls who appeared in his magazine. It was one of the reasons the magazine was well thought of.
“No. It must have been before my time or after it. I just have some questions.” She told him what she needed and he said he’d have Lanai Jones call her.
San Francisco, California
January 6
Honey had always rather envied Lanai Jones her statuesque beauty. Lanai was five eleven if she was an inch. Her coppery skin seemed to gleam with an inner fire. “So what’s all this about, Honey? Not that I mind an invitation to dinner, but I’ve never heard from you before.”
Honey waved her to a chair. “I need some answers. I’ve got an opportunity to invest in a private company to explore space and I’ve got a couple of aerospace engineers who merged with magic users. They claim that the magic will make it cheaper and easier to get into space. Since I know you’re into tech and role playing games, I thought I’d ask you what you thought.”
Lanai grinned. “I think I want in. I grew up wanting to go into space. I still do. Did you see Carla Jackson’s report last night? Translocation to space won’t work, so we still need spaceships. Magic seems to work in space. At least, the effect of divination spells works. Magic can help make spaceships cheaper.”
“Honest answer, Lanai. How much does magic really change things?”
“No one can be sure yet, but I think it changes it a lot.” Lanai paused and considered. “On both sides of the equation, to be honest. Opposed to space are the spells that might be used to do what would have taken a zero-g environment or a largish area of really good vacuum before the Merge. There are spells that counter or reverse gravity, but I don’t know of any that negate it, which might be what you’d need for some of the materials research. There are wall of force spells, effectively force fields that might allow largish areas of really good vacuum. Those sort of spells are going to decrease the need for space travel by letting us do some of it here on Earth.
“On the plus side there are the spells that are going to make space travel a lot cheaper. The obvious ones are things like the ever-full water skin and shrink, but there are more . . . purify air, for instance.” Lanai stopped and her eyes took on a distant look.
Honey waited till Lanai came back from her world of calculation. “So how does it stack up?”
Lanai fiddled with her drink. “If it were just the spells that came with the Merge, I think it would come out about even. Maybe a bit on the side of space, but not that much. But it’s not just the spells that came with the Merge. Those spells are important, but in the long run I think they are less important than the magic itself. Part of it is space itself and the things that can be done there, but that’s not all of it.
“I make my living explaining high tech to the millions of people who use it every day, but mostly don’t understand it. Especially not the history of it. I wouldn’t have a job, at least not this one, without the space program. Better than half of the high-tech wonders that fuel that sector of the economy are there, directly or indirectly, because the people who developed them had to do something at a distance or make something smaller and lighter. Or some other impossible thing involved in putting people in space and keeping them alive while they were there.”
“And that makes me money how?” Honey arched one of her perfect eyebrows.
“We’re going to be facing the same problems and using magic to solve them,” Lanai explained. “Some of that we can do with spells that we already have, some by modifying those spells a bit. But some of it is going to take new spells that are designed and built just to get us into space or keep us there. Many of the spells—not to mention magical and semi-magical devices—we’re going to have to make are going to launch new industries. Research projects work best when they have a goal, but not too concrete a goal.”
Honey had been about to take a bite of her dinner, but cast Lanai a curious look. “Say again?”
“If you set your goal to try to make a better mousetrap, you generally get a better mousetrap and not that much else. Try to measure the age of the universe and mostly what you’re going to find out is how old the universe is. But try to put a girl on the moon and there are hundreds of problems to solve. Solve one of those problems, find another, solve it, and the solutions to one have to fit with the solutions to the others. That means black boxes that you can plug in and they do their job without screwing up all the other black boxes. When you’re done, you not only have a girl on the moon, you have a whole load of black boxes that can be plugged into all sorts of systems. Now, add in magic, a whole new type of energy that we understand about as well as a seventeenth-century sailor understood the wind.”
Lanai’s entire body felt eager, almost ready to jump up and fly. “What we’re looking at is a new industrial revolution. I can’t think of a better way to jump start it than a project like this.”
* * *
Jerry couldn’t help but fidget in his seat. “I hope she gets here soon. I hope she says yes.”
Tim nodded. “I do too. Dodger has the money. If Honey Abrams can be convinced we can really do this . . . I’m not thrilled that our dreams rest on the judgment of one of Dodger’s bimbos, but any chance is better than none.”
A stir at the front of the restaurant drew their attention. Their mouths fell open a bit as Honey Abrams and three other women headed for the table. “We’re going to need a bigger table,” Honey told the waiter. “There are six of us, not three.”
The waiter looked a bit desperate, but wasn’t about to argue with the women in front of him. He was clearly a bit stunned. “I’ll see what I can do. Just give me a moment.”
It didn’t take long. The waiter quickly moved another table into position and rearranged the place settings. When everyone was settled, he took their drink orders and left, still open-mouthed. With good reason, Jerry felt. He recognized all three of the other women. He’d had their pictures hanging on his walls for several years.
“Gerian Mason.” Tim nodded to the redhead. She’d always been one of his favorites. “As beautiful in person as I ever dreamed you would be. And Lanai Jones. And Cheri Stewart. I am honored that you would all join us today. But I do wonder why.”
Jerry was sitting frozen, stunned by the women surrounding him. It was a pity that he had merged with Freedric the Incompetent, another nerd, instead of the bard that Tim had gotten. Caught by surprise, Jerry tended to show all the grace and style of a fourteen-year-old caught with his pants around his ankles.
Honey smiled. “It’s a go, gentlemen. I’ll do it. I told Dodger that last night. But there are some conditions. These ladies, friends of mine, have talents we’re going to need. Lanai merged with a priest, Cheri with a natural wizard and Gerian with a book-wizard. All at least in the middle levels. We’ll be working with them.”
Jerry thought he might have died and gone to heaven. Four beautiful women. Working with them every day. On a spaceship. Life couldn’t get much better than that. Now if only he could get his tongue untied.
His hopes crumbled a bit, though, when Gerian looked at him. “I’ve got an aerospace background too. And I’m the highest level Merge at this table. So why do we need you?”
Tim spoke up smoothly, before Jerry could get defensive. “Contacts. We’ve got contacts in the industry, people who have worked on this for years. You don’t.”
Jerry gulped a bit. “And you may have the education, but you haven’t worked in the field. We’d have met if you had. At the very least we would have known about each other’s work. Certainly, you would have been mentioned.”
Gerian smiled. “Not going to let me intimidate you, Jerry? Good. We’ll need to work together on this. Now, what’s our first step?”
“The first thing we do,” Honey said, “is set up the company. Then we’ll need to find the people we need, sign contracts, all that stuff. Find a place to work, come up with a design.”
* * *
Normally, Robert Dodger would just as soon have done this in a boardroom. Cocktail parties and serious business didn’t really fit together that well, in his mind. Schmoozing investors, that was cocktail party stuff, not contract signings. But Honey had wanted it this way and what the hell. He liked her. She had a sharp mind hidden under the “bimbo” style she affected. So, he’d agreed, just this once.
His living space was full of beautiful women—not a bad side effect of having agreed to this. Honey Abrams turned out to have more contacts than he’d have expected, thanks to that little sorority from her centerfold days. It was surprising what those beautiful girls had gone on to accomplish, in many cases with the money they’d been paid for those pictures. Apparently a great deal of it had gone to further their educations.
Lanai Jones, there. Gorgeous, that woman. With a doctorate in environmental systems. Gerian Mason, with a degree in aeronautics. Cheri Stewart, the tiny Cajun with a faint French accent, a medical doctor, fresh out of her residency in athletic medicine. And the others who wanted into this project. Who would have thought it, Dodger mused. Who knew the sheer number of young women who had space dreams and were prepared to put up nearly every dime they could scrape up, just to buy into the company that would give them a shot at it?
Andrea Elliott, beautiful, blond and a mechanical engineer. She wasn’t a centerfold, but had done a Girls of Cal Tech photo spread. She had called Frank after word of the project got out. So had Susannah Cordoba, yet another blond, and a CPA. Still others, a few men as well. And each of them had bought into the company with a minimum of $100,000 or some necessary skill, just for the opportunity. This was going to work, Dodger thought. It would work. With this kind of talent and determination, it almost had to. So. Time to sign contracts. Contracts that gave him thirty-five percent of “Space Exploration Corp,” which some of the girls were already calling S.Ex. Corp. Not unreasonable, Dodger thought, since most of the investors had had a staple in their belly buttons at least once. In a way, it was a good thing that they weren’t taking themselves too seriously. On the other hand, Dodger noted, it didn’t hurt to have the competition underestimate you, as these ladies knew full well.
* * *
“Well, yeah, probably.” Jerry waved a hand. “It’s where most of the people who know this stuff are. Not now, I know that, but soon.”
“Eyew.” Honey wrinkled her nose. “Move to Houston? Why should we do that?”
Tim grinned. “Contacts, for one thing. We have a lot of contacts in NASA. We used to work there, after all. It’s kind of a brotherhood, just like you and the other women. Not to mention, that’s where the astronauts are. We’ll need some, sooner or later. Also equipment, like rocket engines and air locks.”
Jerry nodded. “The other thing is that everything is cheaper there. Labor, rent, taxes, all of it. I’m not saying we have to do it now, Honey, but we’ll have to do it sooner or later. You may as well start planning it.”
Honey wrote herself a note. Investigate moving to Houston.
“All right. Who’s next?”
Lanai Jones spoke up. “We’ve got two new investors, Honey, if we want them. A natural wizard and a priest, both fifteenth-level and space nuts. And you can thank Andrea and Cheri for them.”
Cheri had an explosive laugh for such a small person. “You betcha. Who knew? There we were, having nails, hair and makeup done over at de shop, talking about de ship. And Gary, he pops up. ‘I’m a fifteenth-level wizard, Cher,’ he says. ‘And my Donny, he got a priest. And we want to go to space, always have.’ So, I tol’ him about us and he wants in.” Cheri dropped her accent for a moment and her eyes sparkled. “I always knew I was tipping those boys too much. I’m a little surprised by it, but they’ve got about $125,000 between them and they really want in.”
Honey shrugged. “Well, their this world skills may not be much use, but the Merged skills are going to come in handy I expect. Any objections?”
Gerian Mason grinned. “Now, Honey. You know as well as I do that a good hairdresser shouldn’t be wasted. And if we wind up in Houston, we’ll need these two. They’re wizards with hair and makeup, and were even before the Merge.”
* * *
Honey tapped on the door frame. “Dodger? We’re probably going to have to move the operation to Houston. I don’t suppose you have a facility there that you’d rent us? Cheap?” Dodger had been looking a little worried the last few days, Honey thought. She walked up behind him and started massaging his temples.
“Mmmm.” Dodger moaned. “That feels good. Call Stephanie. She handles the questions for the property side of the company. She’ll have a current list of what’s what and where it is. For all I know, I own half of Houston. Or not. Right now, I’m a little tied up with the software company. It seems like every programmer I had merged with someone. And they’re all going off to live on mountaintops and commune with nature, or popping off to Paris. I’m running out of programmers.”
“Give them a while,” Honey suggested. “They’ll be back as soon as the new wears off.”
Dodger shook his head. “The Merge has changed the market. It’s not like it used to be. The merged are concentrated in certain fields. As programmers disappear into the hinterlands, the companies they were working for need replacements. We’ve lost more than ten percent of the working programmers, and at least some of those who’ve stayed can quit programming and go into magic if they want to. Companies are starting to raid each other for programmers, computer techs, system managers. They suddenly have this whole other life and whole new skill set. A good half of the merged are suddenly adrenalin junkies. They’re looking for things to do that have an edge.”
“Hmm,” Honey muttered. “Sounds to me like you’ve got a bit of a problem there, chief. And I’d fix it if I could. I’m still inclined to think they’ll be back. How much of their own company can they stand, after all?”
Dodger leaned back and enjoyed the massage. “I don’t know. And I wonder just what effect all these merges are going to have on the computer software industry.”
* * *
Honey waved the hostess away and headed for the table when she saw Stephanie. “Hey, Stephanie. How are things going?”
Stephanie Arens rolled her eyes. “I work for the Artful Dodger, Honey. One day things go amazingly well, the next they’re in the shitter. It’s just the way things are. And why, might I ask, did you invite me to lunch? You’ve got an in with the boss that I certainly don’t have.”
Honey giggled. It was true. Stephanie was about fifty-five and a bit hefty. Not Dodger-bait. “You’re probably better off, girl. You can go home to the husband and kids, get away from this stuff. I, on the other hand, don’t have that advantage.”
The waiter walked up just then and they interrupted their conversation for a while. When he’d finished taking their order, Honey got serious. “Steph, we need a facility in Houston, or somewhere close. The design is just about ready and we’re going to start building in about two months. So we need a hangar, a biggish one. Dodger told me to talk to you about it. We’re on a budget and I’d rather get something as cheap as I can. We’ve got about fifty people so far, so it needs to be somewhere where we can get apartments.”
* * *
“Well, I’ve found you a place,” Stephanie said. “An oil and gas exploration firm just went under. They were already in trouble and the suggestion that you can scry for oil and gas pushed them over the edge into receivership. They made the sensor sets that you send down an oil well to tell what’s there.”
“Is it going to be big enough?” Honey asked. “We need a fair bit of space.”
“Should be.” Honey could hear paper rustling over the phone line, as Stephanie shuffled things out of her way. “Here it is. I knew I had it somewhere. It’s an industrial park-type place. There’s a big factory building with a big open bay, and an office complex. In fact, the whole property is part of the reason the company went belly-up. They spent too much on that office complex about five years back.”
“Sounds good to me.” Honey tucked the receiver under her chin and pulled out her keyboard. “Any more details, Steph? Like the address, and so forth. Any problems you know about?”
“Well, there is one, but it kind of depends on you and your policies when you get there. Houston’s economy wasn’t doing that well even before the Merge. The oil industry has taken some political hits in the last couple of years. I managed to get this place for you a bit cheaper than I expected, partly because of that. The down side is that it was a fairly major local employer and quite a few people are blaming the Merge for the job loss.”
“Rats,” Honey muttered. “Nothing like starting off on the right foot. Okay. Note to self. Look into hiring as many of the laid-off employees as we can. If we can. I’ll have to check. There must be some jobs that won’t need merges. What’s that address?”
“It’s on Center Street near the ship channel, which might be important in terms of getting stuff in.” Stephanie rattled off the address, the realtor’s name and where to pick up the keys. “And there are plenty of apartments and hotels around,” she added. “You won’t have any trouble in that department. I checked.”
Orange County, California
January 20
“What I’d really, really like to do is go to space. I always wanted to do that.” Jason Westin was about six feet one, tall and lanky with wavy brown hair and brown eyes. The Merge had given him an authority that he hadn’t had before. In the weeks since the Merge, he and his sister had been concentrating on rebuilding their references for the crafting and casting of spells.
“No.” Cynthia Westin looked up from the computer screen and considered Jason, They had both decided to grow up to be astronauts after seeing the movie Apollo 13 in their early teens. “Won’t work. Neither of us have the background.” They had neither given up the dream easily.
“We do now,” Jason insisted with quiet certainty.
“I’m not convinced that we do.” Cynthia was unimpressed by that new found authority. She had the same wavy brown hair and hazel eyes that turned green in the right light. They were brother and sister and oddly enough had merged with the same character. Jason had had to drop out of his gaming group for a few months and Cyn had taken over the character, just changing its gender. When the Merge happened they both got the memories of the same character. They both remembered the character as Mandrake/Mandra the Wizard. A nineteenth-level book-wizard.
“Granted, we couldn’t afford college,” Jason said. “But Mandrake could.”
Cynthia nodded. “True, bro, true. But the college of wizardry in the university of Korbath isn’t quite the same as Cal Tech. Yeah, we merged and got magic. How would that help you get into space?”
“We got big magic.” Jason grinned. “Big magic. With the knowledge of Mandrake and his abilities, we’re two high-level book-wizards with all sorts of spells. Looks to me like we could send out a call for other people, just regular guys like us, and set up a company. If a bunch of bimbo centerfolds can get funding, why couldn’t we? All we have to do is get there first and win the Orbit Prize.”
“Could work,” acknowledged Mandra more than Cynthia. Then Cyn’s own personality came to the fore. “Why not? Why the heck not?” She bounced over to the phone, grinning and twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “I know some people. Let me make some calls.”
* * *
Cynthia thought about it a few moments. Who to call? Who else was interested in space? A few more moments thought.
She hit the auto dialer and left a message for Jan Beckman. “Can you meet me for supper tomorrow night? How about Martie’s, about seven? I’ll be there unless I hear different from you.”
* * *
Martie’s was a hole in the wall that had great burgers. Not just the usual beef, but turkey or chicken or even veggie. And Jan was there, but it was a Jan Cynthia was surprised by. Instead of her usual jeans and t-shirt, Jan was wearing a cotton robe. In pale green, which was a color Jan hadn’t ever cared for. More surprising, she ordered a veggie burger when she’d usually ordered beef double cheeseburgers in the past.
“Lots of changes in your life?” Cynthia guessed. She knew that Jan had merged with a cleric but hadn’t gotten the details.
Jan grinned. The grin was the same as it always was, pixieish and full of mischief. She rolled her eyes. “Well, on the one hand, you could say that. On the other, well, I’m pretty much the same as I ever was. Just focused a bit differently.”
“Who’d you get?”
“Efima.” At Cynthia’s quirked eyebrow, Jan went on. “I played in college. In one game I wound up as the priest. A nature priest, third level, with a particular affinity to water sources. When the Merge hit, I got her.” Jan shrugged. “Living in California, what with all the desert and all, I figure it will come in handy. I start a job with the Forestry Department next week.”
Cyn took a bite of her burger and ate a couple of the fries. “Guess you’ve lost interest in space exploration, then?”
Jan nodded, then shook her head. “Not really lost it, but there are more important things. I’m a little ambivalent about it. I’m still interested, but I want to work on this planet and try to clean it up. I think that’s more important. Once that’s done, well, maybe I could work on a different planet. Assuming we ever get to one, that is.”
* * *
Cyn didn’t have much more luck with the other people she called and arranged meetings with.
Dan Neely had good advice and wanted in, but didn’t really have the right skills.
Sara Dugin had merged but not with a magic user. She was a fourth-level fighter and had just put in an application to the police force. She did plan on learning magic, but it would take years to get good.
Janet Houlton tried to recruit Cyn and Jason for a project she had come up with. She wanted to make a dimension-walk to gather magic moss for the purpose of making magic devices. Cyn was tempted by that one.
From the time of the Merge, there had been calls from other friends, mostly asking if she had merged and with who? Calls from her parents, from coworkers, internet friends and old boyfriends. Everyone was calling everyone in the days after the Merge, trying to find out if anyone they knew had merged.
Cyn didn’t hesitate to tell friends that she had merged. Well, not that much. They were friends, after all. Though Mandra’s experience warned against it. Telling people you had magic was like telling them you had money. It could change relationships and, more often than not, for the worse. In any case, the fact that they were merged had become public fairly early on. Some of their friends wanted nothing more to do with them. Some wanted things from them. Some were just curious about it.
Cyn didn’t know how it happened but she and Jason ended up on a bunch of spam lists. Also some religious groups’ “Watch the merged” lists. Apparently someone out there had decided she and Jason were dangers to society. So they were now on a privately-owned web page with a list of other merged. It included their addresses, their phone numbers, description and a surprising amount about Mandrake/Mandra’s life history. It seemed to focus a lot on the sex change. Cyn wasn’t sure whether that was because the owner of the website thought it was especially bad or was titillated by it. Maybe both. At first it amused her. Then it alarmed her when she sensed she was being watched. An adventuring wizard learned to notice that sort of thing. She considered doing something about the website but decided against it. It would be seen as justifying the watch list.
Apparently not everyone felt that way. The website went down several times and there were a couple of news items about people’s computers being struck by lightning on clear days.
Space Race is about forty thousand words long. Which puts it just on the edge between novella and novel. Once we get a bit more organized there will be a link here to where you can buy it.
Gorg