spellcaster's disease - chapter 21

8/14/2019 Spellcaster's Disease - Chapter 21

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/spellcasters-disease-chapter-21 1/9

Chapter 21 – At Some Point, You Care Less

I decided to take a better look inside Maharin’s offices the next night. Thing is,

that place is never empty. During the day, they do their testing, counseling, and usual

junk for the lost. During the night, they hold junkets and fund-raising events to woo the

rich. These usually went pretty late at night, with bouncers pulling out drunken bodies at

3am. Kind of like college, expect these drunks were major power brokers or political

bigwigs.

All this made it really hard for someone to sneak in and steal files. Of course,

there was always the direct approach.

“Hello, Dr. Shao. Enjoy yourself tonight.”

That was my greeting from a young, female receptionist in a slinky cocktail dress.

Dozens of her clones patrolled this meeting room high up in the Maharin Institute’s

tower. As the city lights glowed below, the leaders of the city shared drinks and stories

with each one another. Everytime a bigwig laughed, there’d be two ladies doing the same

nearby. Then the bigwig would throw down his drink and go for round two.

I’d seen this game before. Lobbying, it’s called. Back in school, the national

organizations would try to recruit the best looking students to go and talk to a politician

and convince him or her to support a certain bill or position. Now with students, I’m not

sure how far it went. But in this room, some of the ladies seemed awfully touchy with

their congressmen. Maybe pillowtalk was a good way to get their ear.

“Champagne, Dr. Shao?”

I took a glass but didn’t take a sip. I needed every bit of my brains tonight if I

was to pull this off.



“I’ll have two.” That was the mayor, whose face glowed beet-red as he fumbled

with two glasses. He was on his third term and had just finished off his second divorce,

so it didn’t surprise me to see him enter a circle of beauties.

He ignored me.

I didn’t mind. I wanted everyone to ignore me. I needed them to see me there,

but make little enough of a commotion as to draw absolutely no attention if I went

missing.

I spent a lot of the evening sitting on a couch near the window, just enjoying the

view. Occasionally, a bigwig would nod to me, or maybe a lobbyist Barbie would ask

who I was, but once they found out, they’d move away.

From my spot by the window, I could see what sort of security patrolled that

night. It seemed more for show. I mean, there were a bunch of giant men in black suits,

but they didn’t seem to keep a great watch over the room. I could come in and out

without checking in with anyone, and nobody stopped me or asked for my invitation.

Also, Maharin was nowhere to be seen. I asked around, but they told me that he’d

left for the day. Coercing politicians was something to be outsourced, I guess. I was sure

nobody gave a damn if I came or left, and that was just what I wanted.

“Hey, Doc. How’re you doing?” I turned around at the sound of a familiar voice.

It was Joseph Benjamin, still alive, though now rolling about on a robot-chair. “How’s

the magical surgery business?”

“Actually, I haven’t done any since you. I got the third degree from the regulators

and government for yours, and well, it’s been kinda rough.”



“Sorry, Doc, I appreciate what you did. Those government suits can be a real

bunch of assholes.”

I looked around, wondering if anyone would be coming.

“Don’t worry, Doc. These pussies are so sloshed, they can’t hear a damn thing.

They’re too busy with their corporate ho’s to worry about an old fart like me.”

I could see he was as brash as ever, and that gave me a laugh. Good thing too, it

took the edge off tonight. “You come to these things a lot?”

“You could say that, Doc.”

“Why?”

“Now, there’s a smart question. You know I’m not having fun here, why the hell

drag my ass up here to watch fat cats drink? I’ll tell you why. Because they built this

place with my cash and I’ll be damned if I don’t at least get something out of it.”

“So you come to all of these.”

“Beats the hell out of dying at home. At least if I croak here, Maharin will have to

drag my fat ass off his carpet. And, I know that man had to have worked you over some.

What are you doing here?”

“I’m just looking for some answers.”

“I see. Don’t trust the fucker either, do you.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You can trust me, Doc. And no one’s listening to us anyway. They tune me out

real quick.”



Sure enough, it almost looked like there was a, “Caution, do not enter,” zone

around us. Plus, all the big boys were keeping an eye on the mayor and his drunken

buddies. A good eye, actually, as he got kind of touchy with a lobbyist.

Mr. Benjamin started rolling towards the exit. “Good luck with everything.

Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to fix me again. Sometimes life ain’t worth the price when

you deal with the wrong people.”

Actually, Mr. Benjamin didn’t exit. He rolled around the exit, playing chicken

with big boys, and just being a nuisance.

Or providing cover. While he did all this, I slipped out of the room.

The first thing I noticed while sneaking around was that the place wasn’t deserted,

even late at night. Thing is, no one cared that I was there. As long as it looked like I was

going somewhere, not just wandering around looking lost, no one stopped me or asked

me a thing.

The second thing was that most offices held a lot of nothing. If this was a James

Bond movie, there’d be stacks of files to photograph, or maybe a secret room or

something. Being the 21st century, everything sat happily on servers. All I needed to do

was hack into their system and I’d find out everything.

I got good news - a few people stayed logged into their accounts. I got bad news

when I got nothing but forms to fill out and work emails. Low-level guys don’t get to see

files, it seems. Occasionally, there’d be a file attached to an email for analysis, but I

didn’t see any way to access the database.

The third thing I realized was that I didn’t care about phasing my hand through

doors to unlock them, reaching into locked cabinets and feeling around, or phasing in



general. Maybe I realized this earlier, when I decided to break in. Maybe I realized this

two days ago when the cracks spread to my arms.

It doesn’t matter. By now, cracks were all up and down my arms, across my body,

and it wouldn’t be long before I’d look like some kind of comic book super villain.

I wonder if my actions would be more superhero or super villain? I was breaking

in to steal information. That could go either way. Batman would do this to expose a

criminal, and you might say that could be what I was doing. Or maybe just expose

something that was technically legal, but dirty. Then again, I wasn’t really trying to

expose anything. I just wanted to get into my damn house and get my skin fixed. That’d

a selfish gain, something more supervillainly. I don’t really know.

I do know that eventually I figured out how to phase my key through an elevator,

de-phase it enough to short the button, call the lift, and go up to Maharin’s office.

The room was dark when I got up there. That made for an incredible view of the

city, but I tried not to focus on that. Thanks to Maharin’s minimalism, it didn’t take long

to see that I was alone. The alcoves seemed empty, as did the whole office. I didn’t see

any cameras or security, but I kept the lights off just in case.

I sat at his desk and switched on his computer. Fortunately, it was left on, just like

most professors and grad students do when they don’t have to pay their own electricity.

Unfortunately, he didn’t leave it logged in.

I guess he’s not an idiot.

Of course that left me with trying to figure out how to hack into his computer. I

tried his name, Astrial, Wilshire, and a few other LA names.

Nothing.



I tried Kobe, Shaq, and a bunch of sports combinations.

Still nothing.

I figured, why not? I put in my name, Ryan’s, Kev’s, and even Firewalker. That

didn’t do a thing, but then I wondered about putting in Rachel’s name. I tried Rachel,

Rachel Hoffman, but then I could think of any superhero name for her. Well, maybe Dr.

Hoffman.

And then the screen blinked. I was in.

I froze. How on earth did this, or why did it, and why Dr. Hoffman, and was it the

same Dr. Hoffman? It took a moment for me to snap out of this and remember that I was

breaking into someone else’s computer.

Looking through Maharin’s folders, I noticed that he kept his desktop as

minimalist as his office. There weren’t a lot of icons, nor extra games or time killers.

Just a listing of a bunch of phone numbers, mostly of bigtime government types, and a

database.

As sleek as his desktop was, the database was messy. This must have been some

hack job from the lowest bidder because it was hard to find any information. Name

searches were clunky, you couldn’t search by powers, hell, even categories for powers

were sketchy. I think I spent an hour wondering it the thing was even working before

something would finally come up.

And the info in the database was terrible too. Mostly, it’d just say stuff like,

“Mostly harmless, recommend that life without these gifts would be beneficial,”

“Common ability, recommend further schooling unless he wants to work in

construction.”



So I quit this database and starting looking for something more, something that

he’d look at a lot more than this junk. I found it under his “recent documents.” It was a

listing of people with a little more magic than the other database. Sitting at number one -

me. Although I was kind of happy to be number one, reading my scouting report turned

my stomach a bit.

- Dr. Steven Shao, DC. Abilities – Phasing – can pass through matter and

affect it selectively. Useful for medical purposes. Can perform surgery

combining medical and magical training. Possible side effect still

unknown. Requests use of skin regeneration system in his home –

currently seized. Ration use to influence Dr. Shao.

Dammit! I hoped it wasn’t like this, but maybe I knew deep down inside and I

was just lying to myself. I kept reading.

- Survived a riot with minimal injury. Use caution, may have resistance to

injury.

Ok, that made me feel a little better. Maybe we’d be able to work something out.

- Control of this asset is of high importance. His will appears to be his

weakness. Continue affecting.

Alright, what the hell did that mean? That didn’t sound good. It couldn’t be

good. I don’t know what was going through Maharin’s head, but it couldn’t be good.

There were also dozen of pictures of me, taken at home, at work, and some from news

sources. I felt stalked.

But that was it on me. I looked through the other names on the list. Ryan was

there.



- Ryan Douglas – calls himself the Firewalker. Abilities – fire projection.

Excellent offensive weapon. Alteration of transport – very fast feet, may

also flame. Very strong will, believes he is a superhero. Questionable

affecting possibilies.

There were also pictures of Ryan, but he seemed to be posing in all of them. I

guess he liked the paparatizi.

Kevin’s entry was surprisingly short.

- Kevin Hernandez – calls himself the Longarm. Spiderman-like

projection/ensnare ability. Not especially powerful.

And then there was my brother’s.

- Dr. David Shao – calls himself Go. Says he can go anywhere, though

exact powers unknown. Escaped from prison, stole millions, extremely

dangerous. Known – resistant to injury. Questionable ethical structure.

Possibly reachable through his brother, Dr. Steven Shao.

Great. If Maharin wanted to know about my brother through me, I had some bad

news for him. I hadn’t seen or heard from Dave in months, ever since that day in court.

Good luck.

In any case, I had seen enough. My bad feelings about this were justified, and I

was going to tell Maharin to get lost. Of course, I still had no clue how to fix my skin,

and it looked like hell. Maybe I could use this information for leverage to get into the

reactor.

I don’t know. I wish I knew, but I didn’t know what to do.



That’s when I noticed another name in the file. Dr. Rachel Hoffman. I wondered

about the login code, wondering if it was the same Dr. Hoffman. I also wasn’t sure why

she was there. She didn’t have any abilities. She was just a researcher. Right?

Right?

Well, her file indicated something different from the other files. First were

pictures, and they weren’t all new. Some looked like they were five or ten years old. She

was posing in some, like they were friendly shots from a trip or dinner. Some seemed to

be edited, with someone or something cut out of the picture. Others seemed more stalker-

y than the shots of me or my friends, showing her alone at home or other situations. The

text looked different too.

- Dr. Rachel Hoffman – PhD in molecular genetics, 2010 from

Northwestern University. Lived in Chicago until 2014, doing post-doc at

Univ. of Chicago, moved back to Los Angeles, attaining tenure track

assistant professor position at UCLA. Reconnected with former college

lover, Ryan Douglas, during research on magic. Currently residing at…

Ok, that was odd. It was all tabloid information, like personal stuff. There was

only one line later regarding anything that I expected. “Possible discovery of magical

training.”

All this made me want to call Rachel and warn her. I wouldn’t have to.

Right then, I felt a phone buzz in my pocket, but it wasn’t my phone. It was the

one that Ryan had given me, the one with the quick dial so I could reach him if I needed

help.

The only thing was that it was buzzing me now, and the caller was Ryan.

spellcaster's disease - chapter 21

Documents