Chapter 37 Magical Bureaucracy
thirty-seven
Magical Bureaucracy
Before the first word of my protest forms on my lips, I’m enveloped in glinting green magic that makes it feel like I have to sneeze, desperately. My face scrunches up on instinct, and Jamie grabs me under the arm. When the feeling dissipates, I blink my eyes open with a groan.
“I’ve been told my magic makes the human nose itch, so I’m glad to see you’re at least as human as you claim to be,” Jamie says beside me.
I’m still trying to recover from the feeling as I look up at her with dismay.
She’s very anthropomorphic dinosaur-ish, still over six feet tall, and threaded through her golden eyes are lines of gray-blue that are reminiscent of her human eyes.
Her face is wider than a human’s, with a longer snout ending in narrow, snake-like slits.
The background behind her head flashes brightly, and my focus changes to our surroundings.
My brain’s first response is: cave. But no, those aren’t stalactites—they’re upside-down buildings.
Strings of light connect top to bottom and side to side in a lattice that little pods travel along.
There are things with wings, things that blob, things with too many legs and long bodies.
My gaze zips from one strange thing to the next as my mind churns. “Where…?”
“This is the Interdimensional Bureau for Magical Affairs HQ,” she says, pulling me along by the arm. “And we’re holding up portal traffic.”
I glance over my shoulder to see a bubbling circle of magic suspended over a metallic platform. A dude with translucent skin and lots of blue electrical impulses moving underneath operates a…tube thing…that connects to the magic bubble.
“Eyes front, or you’ll run into something,” Jamie says.
I whip my head around and focus my attention on the floor. Floor looks pretty normal. It’s smooth, dark rock, or maybe metal. A little trickle of green glitter and neon pink sparkles just below the surface in a straight line.
I point to the representations of our magic in the ground. “What?”
Apparently, I’m incapable of multi-word sentences.
“ID and tracking.”
She pulls us toward a blank wall and stops, placing her hand against it. Her magic surges out from her hand and words I can’t read appear on the wall beside a rough representation of Jamie in her dino form.
“It’s used for requesting resources, opening doors, finding your way, and travel. Everyone knows we’re here—but no one knows who you are yet since you’re unregistered. Put your hand up.”
I hold my hands up like I’m in a shootout.
She snorts. “Against the wall.”
I place my hand near hers and hot pink siphons out of me into the stone. I can’t read the text, but it’s very short.
“What does it say?”
“Undocumented witch in the custody of Jamie Ott.”
I scrunch up my face at her. “Why do you speak English?”
She blinks at me very slowly. “I learned.”
“Why?”
Her lips purse and she closes her eyes. “Stand close to me.”
“Wh—”
“Don’t ask why, just do it.”
Right. I am “in custody” so I should probably do as the officer tells me.
I move uncomfortably close to her, and she glares down her elongated nose. “Really?”
I shrug helplessly.
The jade tomb holding Lei pulls in behind us, and suddenly, we’re surrounded by white light. A voice murmurs from all around me, and I jump, pulling my fists up on instinct.
“Calculating trajectory, seven, three, eight point four, Office of Earth Resources and Operations.”
Jamie puts her hand on my closed fist and pushes it down. “That’s the elevator.”
The light shimmers, but not in a blinding way. I can still see out through the veil, but it’s all distorted.
“Oh, are we gonna get one of those pods?” I ask, pointing to one zipping along above us.
“Pods are for high matter density materials or criminals,” she replies.
I look at Lei. “Is he getting registered, too?”
“Trial,” she says.
I cock my head. “Why—”
My body leaves the ground. There’s a sucking sensation, like my head and my feet are trying to go in opposite directions. I touch ground again and blink away the disorientation as the light disappears. Jamie and coffinized Lei are beside me, and we’re somewhere completely different.
And I have a shirt now. I mean, I didn’t mind rocking my sports bra, but shirt is better, for sure. It’s a basic black thing that’s so loose around my neck it hangs off one of my shoulders.
“Shirt?” I ask Jamie.
“Requested before transition. Applied during transition,” she says, then begins to walk.
The floor is the same maybe-rock, maybe-metal texture, but it’s a brighter gray than wherever we were before. I look up and see the darker ground is now the ceiling, but I recognize no other landmarks.
“Are we upside down?” I ask.
“No,” she says, grabbing me under the arm as she tugs me along.
“Were we upside down?”
“No.”
“How is that possible?”
“To say our upside was down, there would have to be a down, or an up.”
I stagger along beside her, watching as other beings just as strange as the portal dude and Jamie give us a wide berth.
“How is there not an up or down?”
“Gravity—how you define what is up or down—is a result of mass,” she says, as if that explains everything.
“It’s been a while since I was in science class—and it was junior year basic physics—but I’m pretty sure everything has mass.”
“On the Earth plane, yes, but that’s not how this plane works,” Jamie says.
We dodge something that looks like a rhinoceros had a hate-child with a centipede. Thick center body, at least a hundred tiny spindly legs, a head with what looks like a horn, or maybe it’s a trunk? What the hell is that thing?
“Eyes front,” Jamie reminds me.
When I turn my head, I realize we’re walking directly at a wall and not slowing down. I push into my heels instinctively and Jamie’s hand tightens on my bicep.
“Keep moving,” she says with a sigh.
It’s then I notice a little flashing bit of green just above head-height for Jamie, and another pink one for me on the wall. I suck down a breath and wince as I walk face-first into—
A huge room, well-lit and bustling with activity. Beams of light shoot horizontally and vertically every few seconds, disappearing through walls and ceiling. Jamie moves me toward something that looks like an airport ticket kiosk, and we finally stop.
She speaks in a language that’s all hisses and deep-throated grunts as she puts her hand on the reflective surface. The kiosk comes alive with light and information. She says a few more things and the display updates, looking like it’s ready for input.
Ace would go cuckoo banana pants for this.
“Zixin!” I gasp and reach for my ear, but the bud is gone.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, and something else falls out with it. The screen lights up to show no service.
“He’s very likely fine. I’ll ask Lacey to check in,” Jamie says as she bends down and retrieves the other thing, holding it out to me.
Chocolate.
The damn skreet was attracted to this tiny piece of chocolate.
I take the foil-wrapped candy from her and stare at the little ghost-shaped sweet in my hand. It’s dark chocolate from our Halloween haul last year.
Brown and small. Bitter. Sweet. Energy.
I think that damn rubber plant was trying to warn me…
I peel off the wrapper and pop it in my mouth. “Will you let me know about my family as soon as you know?”
“Of course, but we have other business to attend to.”
She points at the kiosk.
“Say your full legal name and place your hand there. This is the first part of registration, getting your magical fingerprint of sorts aligned with your DNA and voice.”
“This is some Big Brother shit,” I murmur around the delicious bittersweetness on my tongue.
“We keep four hundred and ninety-eight known planes of existence—all with countless inhabited worlds—safe through this system.”
I grimace up at her. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it, but you do have to participate if you want to keep your powers and remain free to roam Earth.”
“Would they really lock me up? Or strip me of my magic somehow? What’s the penalty?”
“You don’t want the penalty.” She points at the kiosk. “Name. Hand.”
I sigh and place my palm on the smooth metal. It’s warm to the touch, tingling against my skin. “Feng Jiahui.”
The screen lights up with more symbols that are surely writing, and then flashes my color pink.
“Good, let’s stand aside while we wait for your adjuster.”
“Adjuster?” I ask as I let her drag me away. “I don’t want anything adjusted, thank you.”
“An adjuster is someone who will document your history as a witch, help determine your power and threat level, those things. They’re not adjusting anything.”
She brings me to a sitting room of sorts. There are chairs of all shapes, to fit many legs, or none, and even some kind of fishbowl. She shows me to a seat that looks comfortable and I take it.
Lei’s eyes move back and forth behind the green prison, but he’s unable to move more than that.
“Can he hear?” I ask Jamie.
She nods.
I stand in front of his glassy coffin and glare at him. “That’s what you get for messing with Feng.”
If eyes could talk, his would be saying, “Fuck you.”
I sit back down, feeling very little sense of victory from the taunt. As the moments turn to minutes, an anxious knot balls up in my gut. I’m in another plane of existence, getting documented as a witch, a threat.
A beam of light spears the atrium and a human man appears from the glow. He’s wearing a casual suit and shoes that clop on the gray stone.
“Feng?” he asks me.
“Yeah.”
He jerks his head. “Come with me.”
A tick of panic jolts through my system and I look up at Jamie.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “You’re still in my custody. I’m responsible for you.”
That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence to follow this dude I don’t know, but everything seems orderly and safe, so…
I blow out a breath and stand to meet the man. He holds out his arm and I grab on to it, knowing what’s next. The light zips us away, and the next second I’m in a small office space that looks very human compared to everything else I’ve seen.
“I’m Laurence, and I handle intake and registration of witches from Earth,” he says as he takes a seat behind the desk.
I take the chair across from him. His fingers dance through the air, and a holographic display appears between us. It’s all in English, but backwards, but four letters stick out to me plainly.
Zhao.
“What’s that about?” I ask, pointing to the name.
His eyes narrow on the words. “You’re related to the Zhao case, a witness. Looks like you’ve been scheduled for registration for a while.” He tsks and his fingers dance over glowing keys. “Bureaucratic nonsense holding it all up.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It’s really nothing that interesting. Your human interface wanted to delay registration until the Earth trial could conclude—listed you as flighty and suspicious.” He looks me over with a chuckle. “Yeah, I see it.”
“My human interface?”
“The officer assigned to the…” He draws out the word as his eyes hunt for information. “The Boston case for Zhao.”
I scowl. “Armhurts?”
“Amherst, yes,” he says. “Now, we should get to this, or it’ll take all night.”
I have a million more questions, but I suppose Jamie is a better target than this random dude who needs to get his work done.
He asks when my power manifested, what I can do, and what I’ve used it for.
It’s a little embarrassing to mention all my gambling and cheating, but I get through it without showing too much shame.
Then we get into some weird questions where I rate my emotional stability, my home life, and my comfort level with the supernatural.
“On a scale of one to five, one being very infrequently, five being very frequently, how often do I use my powers in everyday life?” Or “On a scale of one to five, one being very low, five being very high, how favorably do I feel about the IBMA?”
Are they for real? I’ve known this organization for all of ten minutes. So far so good, I guess? I blow through all of them, saying exactly what I’m sure they want to hear to tick off their boxes.
Finally, he finishes the questions, and the readout before me flips so that I can see it. My eyes scan through the information and I grimace.
Apathy, high. Chaos, high. Obedience, low. Threat level, medium.
“That’s bullshit,” I declare. “I said everything right.”
He raises a single critical eyebrow. “You sure did, and you lied about most of it.”
A huff escapes me as I sit back in my seat. Magic glows on the floor beneath my feet, neon pink and pulsing like a heartbeat. It runs right up the side of his desk to a flat readout only he can see. My traitorous magic, tattling on me. Damn it.
“Would you like to try again, this time with honesty?”
I look up at Laurence and groan.
“Fine. Let’s do it again.”