(Beth Miller)

May 30, 1998

Dear Kirsty,

You're not going to believe the adventure I've just had. Remember how I was wishing I could meet some other mages, so I could learn how to use magic better? Well, my wish was granted. With a vengeance! In the last 3 days, I've met a whole bunch of mages, including a 16-year-old girl with a cat's tail, an ex-cop who wants to be a priest, a martial artist who's being chased by demon-worshipers, a healer who works as a veterinarian, a guy who does card tricks, and a young woman who carries a billy club. After that, I watched someone blow herself up in my basement, broke into two buildings on the Duke University campus, got shot at, tear gassed, fought a member of the SWAT team, and got away to come back here and write you about it.

Got your attention, didn't I?

Okay, now I'll start at the beginning. I was out gardening on Wednesday, pulling weeds from the iris bed, when a car pulled up to the house. It contained three people. The first was a very short young man who I think is in his early twenties, but he looks more like he's seventeen. I noticed that he moves like a martial artist. His name is Glen. The second guy, Alex, was about the same age as the first, only he looked it. He was taller, and dressed all in black. The third was a young girl, 15 or 16, who speaks in long run-on sentences, without ever taking a breath. Remember in high school English when we had to read books written in stream-of-consciousness? Kasee talks like that.

Glen had come looking for Uncle Carrol. I was surprised, since he died two years ago and this is the first time anyone had come looking. It made me kind of suspicious about them. I told them he was dead and asked what they had come for. Glen said he had been given my Uncle's name by a friend. I figured the friend must be connected to my uncle either through martial arts or magic, and my research has suggested that the two were actually part of the same thing. There's a school of magic called the Akashic Brotherhood which deals a lot with oriental philosophy and martial arts. I've sort of guessed that Uncle Carrol was one.

Based on that, I decided to take a chance and spoke to Glen telepathically. He didn't bat an eye, so I invited them in. Yes, I know they were all complete strangers, but I've been looking for mages. I also invited them to spend the night, since they had nowhere else to go. Glen is on the run, Alex is a wanderer, and Kasee said her last two homes got blown up. That should have warned me, since bad luck is supposed to come in threes. Luckily, it was only herself, and not the whole place, that she blew up that night.

Apparently, the three of them were chance-met. Just like any D&D type adventure story, first you have to get your thief and your cleric and so on to run into each other. I'm starting to feel like I'm living in someone's imagination. Anyway, Alex had been hitch-hiking, and Glen picked him up. Kasee appeared out of nowhere in the back seat. Apparently, she can teleport. Kasee was full of wild stories about how she'd traveled to the land of the dead, restarted time, been on a space station orbiting the moon, had a vampire want to embrace her, and various and assorted other unbelievable stories (all of which are true, we found out later). Kasee explained (semi-coherently) that she'd seen someone who looked like her maybe-dead aunt who might be part of the Technocracy go into a building on Duke campus. The technocracy, in case you've forgotten, is the group who are trying to set science so firmly into reality that magic won't work anymore. She followed her aunt, and after she'd broken into a secure area, she found herself facing some guys in black carrying big guns, so she teleported away fast, and found herself in Glen's back seat. I guess she forgot to visualize her coordinates. She's lucky she didn't get caught between.

Kasee decided to meditate in the basement, for some purpose or other. I get the idea she isn't used to explaining herself, or obeying instructions, either. She sat down in the middle of the practice mat and laid a bunch of crystals around her. I don't know what she was trying to accomplish, but the electrical storm that resulted probably wasn't it. Arcs of lightning shot out of all the crystals and zapped her. When the light show was over, she was unconscious and slightly crispy. I think it was some kind of magical backlash effect.

We thought the hospital would look askance at Kasee's tail. Alex called an EMT friend of his who came and looked at her, said she needed serious help, and directed us to a vet known as 'Dr. Doolittle.' Glen and Alex took her. By this point it was around dawn. A while later, they came back, without Kasee. They said that they left Kasee with the doctor, who seemed to know her.

I was kind of annoyed that they didn't find out anything about the guy, like his real name, where he was going to take Kasee, if he was a mage, etc. For people who can talk, they didn't seem to have made very good use of the ability. So the next day they went back to the animal hospital to talk to the vet guy. His real name is Reuben. He basically told them that Kasee was okay, and that he knew her. He gave them the impression that she gets in trouble a lot. They gave Reuben my phone number so we could stay in touch. Luckily I had a brilliant idea when Alex relayed this to me, and I went and turned the phone's ringer on. I usually have it off; I can't exactly hold up my end of a phone conversation. The only reason I have the line is for the modem.

A woman named Rachel called the next evening. Kasee had been staying at her place. We arranged for all of us to meet at a neutral location to discuss things. Somehow we settled upon McDonalds. Thus I was introduced to three more mages (not that I was sure they were at the time). Rachel is tall and blonde. She's the ex-police officer I mentioned at the beginning of this letter. Reuben I've mentioned already. He's the oldest of all of us, but not by all that much. Cab is Rachel's roommate. She's the redhead who carries the billyclub.

Conversation is such a waste of time on some occasions, and this was one of them. I listened while they all talked in circles for a while. The only useful thing was Glen's story of the demon worshippers who are after him for interfering with one of their ceremonies. Finally even they got sick of all the circumlocution, and somebody (I forget who) blurted out a question about what traditions each of us belonged to. The traditions are what mages call the different schools of magic. You know, like White Winds, etc.

I really didn't want to answer that question, because people who don't belong to any school are called "orphans," and from what I've read in the library, most tradition mages look down on them. So I created a distraction. It also had the effect of moving the conversation ahead quite a bit. Nobody else seemed eager to respond to the question anyway, and someone, I think it was Alex, asked another question along the lines of, "Why do you want to know that?" I answered that one. I wrote in really big letters on my slate: Doesn't; Wants to know if we're all mages. Kasee gave us all a look and said she could have told us that. At that point it was decided that we'd gone beyond the point where meeting in a public place was useful, so we all came back to my house to finish the conversation in private.

Apparently, I've got my own personal moat monster living in my house. Cab and Reuben noticed it almost first thing when they walked in. Cab went over to the spirit realm to talk to it. Don't ask me how; she just sort of disappeared off to elsewhere. It was like she just stepped over into Grimbold's other world. She came back saying that it was a guardian spirit, and not terribly intelligent. The others have taken to calling it Fido. I think it's a dumb name, but since I'm not going to be calling it anything I'll let it slide.

So, anyway, we all agreed to go scout out this building where Kasee thought she saw her aunt. I took my camera, of course. It turned out to be the LaRoux medical building. Reuben and I both drove, and we parked a little bit away (Kasee didn't know exactly where we were going until we got there, anyway.) Reuben and Cab were both of the opinion that this was foolhardy, and we were just going to get ourselves in trouble, so they elected to wait in the cars. They were right of course. I left Cab my car keys, just in case.

We looked around the building, which we discovered had key-card locks, and security cameras at every entrance. I took a few pictures, in case we needed them for a planning session at some point. We considered trying to get onto the roof. Kasee says she can build a gate to transport us all. I think the gate is something like a flat mirror, except quicker to make, and it wouldn't turn us all insane to go through it.

We reconned the roof from the roof of the next building over, which was much easier to break into. I've got to get Alex to teach me how to pick locks (as long as he doesn't try to draw parallels between that and having sex). The roof didn't look like such a good idea once Kasee got a look at it. It was bristling with satellite dishes, and the door up there was keycard accessible just like the ground floor ones. We also weren't sure if whoever was in there would be able to notice a great big portal opening up right in front of the place. We decided to be discreet (you'll laugh at that when you read the rest of this).

I suggested that we forget about actually getting into the building, and try setting off alarms so we could see how the security system operated. Isn't that supposed to be the first step to reconnaissance? So we went and jammed a magnet in one of the card swipes, and covered the camera. Then we backed off and waited. After a bit, a rent-a-cop came along and inspected the camera. It gave the impression that they didn't know anyone had been fiddling with the door, but that they had noticed the camera go black for a few seconds.

That's when Alex decided to get creative. Somehow, I'm not really clear on it, except that it was obviously magic, he stole the watchman's keycard off his belt without the guard noticing. Kiera the thief couldn't have done better. We all went running around to a different entrance, and went inside the building. After we'd alerted them; pretty stupid, huh?

We used the watchman's key to get inside a couple offices, but we didn't find anything interesting. We did almost get caught. Rachel proved to be very bad at hiding. You know how in movies, people sometimes hide right by the door so that when it opens, it'll be between them and the person entering? Well, Rachel tried that, only she picked the wrong side of the door. Glen knocked the guard out before he could do anything.

Kasee showed us the hallway where the guards with the weird guns were. We didn't want them to see us, so we entered an office in that hallway by climbing through the ceiling from the office just behind it. That room was even more secure than the building. The cabinets and drawers all had strange locks on them that looked to me like they might require retinal prints or something. Not quite as complex as the ones in Marq Dyeth's time, but we don't have their gender-confused language, either. Alex got around them though, by reaching right through the drawer to pull out a file. I think it was the same trick he used to get the key.

It appeared that we weren't going to learn anything else useful, so we decided to leave and climbed back over the wall. I think Kasee got her skirt caught on something on the way over, because she fell through the ceiling and landed in a heap of broken acoustical tile. I stopped to help her up, while Alex, Glen, and Rachel proceeded to leave the room. Kasee was just getting to her feet when we heard a voice in the hallway yell, "Freeze!" He wasn't talking to me, but I froze anyway. The people in the hallway didn't. Alex ducked, and Rachel turned and fired. I didn't see much of the fight that followed, since I was still in the room. I positioned myself in the doorway so that if the gunman went past I could jump him from behind.

I had the sensation of something big and magical happening, lots and lots of energy. I had no idea what it was, but I figured it wasn't good, so I told Kasee telepathically about it and asked her to inform the others. Her response, in what I've come to recognize as typical for her, was, "Cool, what kind of magical thing?" I answered, "Bad," and she passed on the message.

I wasn't hearing any shots, so I went out into the hallway. Rachel and I tried to open the door at the end of the hallway, but it was sealed shut (isn't that a fire code violation?). Rachel looked at the door funny, and said that it was sealed by some kind of magnetic force field. I guess that explained the magical energy surge. Glen tried kicking the door down, while I went down the hall to another exit to see if they were all shielded. It wouldn't budge, either. I just hoped it wasn't like a duel arcane circle, where the shield wouldn't go down until all the people from one side of the conflict were dead.

I returned to the door we were concentrating our efforts on just as Alex pulled out his gun and shot at the door. The bullet bounced and hit me in the sleeve. I backed up before he tried again. The second time he managed to lodge the bullet in the latch mechanism, but the door still wouldn't open. Then the guard who'd been shooting at us from the other end of the hall peeked around the corner and shot Alex in the back. The gun was silent, and there was a big flash of light.

We all ducked into the side hallway, dragging Alex. Actually, all didn't include Kasee. She was still hiding in the office we'd been in, and wouldn't come out. Anyway, it occurred to me and Rachel that it would make a lot more sense to try to break out through a door that wasn't in a direct line of fire with the guy who was shooting at us. Rachel tried kicking the door down. I wonder if they train police officers in how to do that. I would have given a lot for a bit of Trent the Uncatchable magic just then.

Meanwhile, Glen poked his head back around the corner and got shot at. Then, God knows why, he decided to charge the guard. Maybe he'd gone fey or something. He got shot in the chest for his trouble. Rachel managed to shoot the guard, but a second one appeared, and I peeked around the corner just in time to see Rachel get shot, too. I promptly pulled my head back in. Just because all of my new acquaintances seemed to have volunteered for target practice was no reason for me to. I would never wear one of those oh-shoot-me-now uniforms, either.

I used magic instead. I felt for the mind of the person shooting at us, and I sensed him backing down the hall away from us. He was dragging his downed companion to safety.

Anyway, that told me no one was going to be shooting again for a few minutes, so we could work on getting the door open. After I felt the guard go around the corner, I went out to deal with Glenn and Rachel. Glen somehow managed to get back up (isn't magic wonderful), and he dragged Rachel down to the door. I picked up the big weird gun the guard in black had been using, and tried to use it to shoot open the door. It wouldn't work.

Apparently, the universe wasn't convinced the situation was bad enough, because at that moment we heard an amplified voice from somewhere outside say, "This Duke Campus Police. We have you surrounded." Wonderful. Especially since they were telling us to come out with our hands up, and we couldn't. We were still trying to get through the force shield. Eric kicked the door a couple more times, and then he and I started shooting at it. I used Rachel's gun, and you might like to know that I have terrible aim, but hitting a stationary door from a couple feet away is within my ability.

While we were working on that door, another one opened somewhere else in the building. We heard a quiet tink-tink-tink sound, like something metal bouncing. Then we started smelling the tear gas. Just a pleasant Friday night on the town, huh?

I fired one more time, and the door swung open. It was a back entrance, with a big trash dumpster a few feet outside the door, and a bunch of cops with a spotlight trained on the door a few feet beyond that They had a police line set up, and there were a few interested passersby watching. Two of the police were approaching the corners of the dumpster. They had big automatic weapons, and one was talking into a radio.

I was beyond worrying about much besides getting out of there. Everyone except me was wounded or unconscious (except Kasee, who was still missing). I thought that if I could distract one of those two policemen, I could make a run for the dumpster and climb on top, hopefully out of everyone's sight. I threw the most traumatic memory I have (you know what I mean) at one of the guards, and he flinched. Then the spotlight went out. (Thank you, Cab. I'd seen her back among the crowd of gawkers.)

I cast a notice-me-not on them, in good wizard of True Game fashion. Then I executed my plan, which turned out not to have been a very good one. Dumpsters aren't terribly well constructed, and climbing on one is noisy. Unfortunately, I'd also run out of options, since when I looked back, police had stormed the hallway we were in and had Glen (the only one conscious) at gunpoint. I ran.

If one of the police hadn't been busy trying to arrest Cab for obstructing justice, I probably wouldn't have gotten far at all. As it was, I ducked under the police line and kept running, with only one of the SWAT guys chasing me. I made it a couple of blocks before he caught up and bodyslammed me into a car. I managed to make good enough use of all those lessons Uncle Carrol paid for to get away from him. I hid under a car a short way away and concentrated really hard on him hearing footsteps running away from him on a course perpendicular to where I was really was. He bought it and ran off chasing shadows. I moved a ways away and then found a place to hide until morning, when the police roadblocks would hopefully be gone.

Early the next morning, I made my way to my car, and used the emergency spare key to get in and drive home. Thank god for that time I locked myself out of the car a few years ago and then realized I couldn't call a locksmith. Since then, I kept a spare key hidden on the car. When I got home, I crashed for about 12 hours.

Somehow, Glen managed to escape from the police. He showed up at my house this evening. He told me that Alex and Rachel had been taken to the hospital, and that Cab had escaped, too. Then he went off to sleep. I got some food and sat down at the computer to write you this letter.

So what do you think? That I've gone off the deep end? Possibly. But believe me, I won't be doing anything like that again soon. It was kind of fun until people started shooting off guns, but that pretty much ruined my whole evening. I would also suggest that if you ever get the chance, you should try to avoid being tear gassed. It's highly unpleasant. I've still got the edge of a headache, although I'm not sure if its from the gas or the paradox. I've explained to you about paradox, right? Well, I picked up quite a lot in the process of escaping last night. I'm afraid to know what will happen when it decides to express itself.

I'm going back to bed now. I'm still tired. I'll mail this off to you in the morning.

p.p.s. Go back and read the line five sentences ago. I found out. It's now June 5, and I've just regained enough coherence to mail this letter, so I thought I'd update it, too. I'll be brief, 'cause it's hard to type with a broken arm. After writing this letter, I went to sleep. On Sunday, Cab came back. Nothing seemed to be going on, so I decided to go back to bed, even though I wasn't exhausted anymore. Unfortunately, that meant I relaxed in a way I can't really describe, and all that paradox I'd accumulated let go.

Have you read "Memory" yet? That's what my next 4 days were like: Uncontrolled memory dumps in no particular order. It was like I was drowning in a blender. My life was flashing before my eyes, but all the events were chopped up and thrown at me in a random order so nothing made any sense. It was highly unpleasant. I think I'd been trying to act out some of the things I'd been seeing, I guess, because I'm all bruised and I've got a broken arm. When I came out of it, I pretty much collapsed into sleep again. I never knew magic involved so much sleeping. It's just as well that none of my houseguests speak sign, since I can't at the moment, either.

I discovered a disadvantage to being telepathic; In times of stress, I project my thoughts. Everyone else in the house had a core dump of my memories, too. Except for Glen, who somehow managed to shield me out by meditating for 4 days. Poor Kasee, who came back sometime in the middle of it, teleported into the basement and promptly got hit with my flashbacks. That was just the end of a very bad few days for her. apparently, the police didn't find her in the LaRoux building; the technocracy did. When she woke up from the tear gas, she was in a hospital bed and her arm had been amputated and replaced with a bionic one that runs on quintessence. (An without the excuse of a parachute accident, too.) Well, we're all resting and licking our wounds today, so I'm going to mail this letter off to you before anything else happens.