Dani
One woman screamed,“In the bathtub? You perverts!” Her magic zoomed out like a gunshot, the tectonic force breaking a ceramic pot of silk flowers, which tumbled to the floor in pieces.
Another man stood and shouted, “You mean they watch me with my wife?” His wife was a goat, and Dani’s brain slid sideways, not thinking about that one.
A woman shrilled something unintelligible and the electric lights browned out all through the dining room as her magic zinged away from her fingers.
“I want Harold back! I want Carl!” Sandra wept loudly, her fists banging on the table.
When she raised her head to wail, the counselor dropped a pill into her mouth. Sandra coughed and drank her water. She had been warned not to swallow the pill however and when she put her head down to wail again, Dani watched to make sure she was able to spit out the pill and tuck it into her pocket.
When Sandra was safe, Dani turned to the room, ready to become Tridevi’s sacrificial lamb, in a plan that they all had helped to craft. Unexpected fear washed through her. If this didn’t work …
She pushed the fear away. They would get her out. They always did.
Dani shouted, “We need to take over this place! It’s not what they say it is! The food is garbage! Look at thecream pie! It’s nothing butJello!”
The staff were calling for backup. All the eyes were on Dani.
“Think about it,” she called, raising her arms, drawing her power to her. “They told us there was no way to control our powers without their anti-magic tech, but they say there isn’t enough anti-magic tech for all of us.”
She pointed at the other tables scattered around the room, each table with four classmates who were of similar power signatures, or who had been admitted close to the same time. Every resident-student had been ripped away from their lives and their families to learn to control power they didn’t want and that could be dangerous, and each of them were being forced to eat disgusting food.
“They watch us,” she shouted. “They teach us nothing. And this lemon stuff they call cream pie is mostly corn starch! The whipped cream isn’t even from a mammal. Its main ingredients are water, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated vegetable oil.” Old people had few demands, but privacy and decent food were high on the list. Dani picked up her pie plate and slung it across the room. “It’scrap. I bet the warden and her staff get therealwhipped cream.”
“I’m lactose intolerant,” Marvin shouted. “The dairy stuff makes me fart. But no way am I letting them watch Mable and me!” He stood too. “Fuck this! Fuckety fuck this.” The newly replaced plastic light fixtures overhead turned to dirt and dribbled down. The bulbs still burned, but now too bright.
“And we need to know the truth about the rumors. About table J.” Dani pointed at the empty table, ignoring the pain under her arm from the recent amateur surgery. “And about that building they don’t talk about!” She pointed in the general direction of the windows. “I think we’re right! The failed magical geezers are probably living their final days in a drugged haze, their magic harvested to make the school money!”
Which was the truth. The truth was a powerful thing and the geezers all around her knew truth when they heard it.
Around the room there were little explosions of magic: a small fire as the fake flowers on one table flamed; a mini earthquake shook the floor, sending the water in the glasses shivering; a tiny puff of wallboard dust erupted as a wall cracked from ceiling to floor. The geezers were losing control. It was spreading.
An explosion sounded from the kitchen. The chef squealed in shock and pain.
A glass shattered on one table. A stoneware plate cracked.
“Maybe we were right!” Dani shouted. “Maybe they really do surgically implant plugs in the back of our heads, directly into our brains.”
The man who had set the fire shouted, “I told you so! They hook us up to supercomputers that run the world!”
A woman at another table yelled, “They use us!”
Marvin stood and yelled, “Is that what you people are doing? Using us for power grids and shit?”
A former politician yelled out, “Probably high-tech military devices, and financial markets.”
“It’s like that movie, the Matrix, but without the cute guy and the cool special effects,” another woman shouted, pushing against the table to stand.
People were milling everywhere. The room itself was shaking. Three windows shattered but proved to be safety glass, and Marvin didn’t turn his recycling magic at the plastic, so they stayed together instead of turning to sharp shards and dirt.
Dani had lost track of who was getting involved, but half of the tables were empty, and everyone was upset. The feel of magic was an electric buzz in the air and along her skin.
“Zombies,” a man with a very rounded belly shouted. “Kept drugged, our power drained and used by the warden to make money! Working us until we die.”
All the plates on table Q flew up and hit the ceiling. Shattered stoneware rained down and some of Marvin’s remaining dirt landed on the inmates.
“The warden said all the people at table J got contracts!” A woman said, her voice quavering.
