Mable glared at her. “Stop. Before you ask, yes, I think I can get into the security system here in this building, but I’ll have to be really careful not to leave traces, so don’t ask for the moon. And no, I haven’t found a way to penetrate the electronic security at Building Z. I need to go old-school and hardwire itthere. Inside Building Z. I need to get in and plug the hardware into any electrical outlet. I can’t do anything from here.”
Everyone looked down at their drinks. They knew what her statement meant.
Marvin took her hands off her laptop and squeezed her fingers to get her to relax. He was a comforting man, and it was the little gestures like this that told Mable how much he loved her. She squeezed back.
Marvin walked to his closet and removed an overnight bag from the shelf. When he opened it the stink of male sweat and guy-gunk filled the room.
“Marvin,darlin,” Mable said, holding her hand to her nose. “What in the world.”
From beneath a pile of filthy jock straps, Marvin pulled out a plastic zippered bag and tossed it to the sofa. Inside were the IDs that marked them as traveling nurses. “I was able to smuggle in the fake IDs. Step one accomplished,” he said. “Nobody looks under a man’s dirty underwear.”
“Dear Lord, I understand why. My eyes are watering,” Sandra said.
He stuck the bag back into the stinky clothes and replaced the overnight bag. To the others he added, “More important than having IDs, is what the warden told the drivers of the white truck.”
“I got it on tape,” Mable said.
She touched the face of her illegal laptop and Margorie Devoe’s voice sounded, clipped and in control. “This is a standard removal protocol. One to transfer.”
A man’s voice said, “Yes ma’am. We’re picking up a resident from Dorm Alpha, seventh floor?”
Devoe said, “The desserts of the other residents on Dorm Alpha were dosed with a light sleeping medication to keep their dangerous magic down, in case it’s contagious.”
“Magic goin’ crazy iscontagious?” a second man asked.
“It is in the elderly,” Margorie lied, her voice uninflected, as if she was talking about a mannequin instead of a human being. “The dorm will be monitored to make certain they’re all asleep. The sedative should hit them in an hour, at which time you will take the resident from his room, cover his head with void strips, and take him down the service elevator, to the truck as per standard modus operandi.”
“Why we gotta do all that?” the second man asked. “’at sounds a lot like kidnapping. I don’t know about all this, lady.”
“His magic hit his own brain and fried it,” the first man said. “It happens more often in geezers than you think.”
Devoe added, “He signed the papers for this when he was admitted here. This method is to protect the residents from uncontrolled, dangerous, and contagious magic, not kidnapping.”
“We strap the geezer onto the gurney and transport him to Building Z,” the first guy said. “Easy.”
“What if he lets loose a spell? Or runs?” the uncertain man asked.
The other man laughed. “Look. I know you’re new to all this, but that shit never happens. He’s out cold. They always are when their brains get fried. And besides, we’re faster than any old fogies in support hose and knee braces.”
Mable touched her screen off.
Sandra closed her eyes. “Dear God.”
It was clearly a prayer and Mable didn’t know what to do. She had never prayed and when Sandra did, it was creepy.
Sandra opened her eyes and looked at them, meeting their eyes, one by one, her own full of conviction and purpose. Mable felt the power in her gaze like a slap to her face. “We have to save them,” the former preacher said. “It’s why we were put here.”
Mable wasn’t sure what Sandra meant about that, but she agreed. No one’s brain power and magic should be harvested. She went back to her laptop and a moment later said, “I got into the medical orders. Buck didn’t fry his own brain. He was dosed with a knockout drug.”
“That’s the proof we’ve been looking for,” Dani said. “The Sevens really are harvesting power. Send that to the office.”
Dani
“It’s time to institute plan Blow Things Up,” Dani said.
She glanced at her coffee and concentrated. The liquid reheated without boiling over or exploding straight up into the air. In class, when she tried that spell, she never used control; there, it was as if she’d stuck a magic cherry bomb in the bottom of the mug, just like when she first got her power. Scalding coffee all over.
Her talent had fallen on her like an anvil at age sixty-two, in midflight over Arizona, and had nearly brought down the 747 she was taking to Reno to visit her granddaughter. Back then, if she got mad, things blew up. Now, if she still wanted to, she could keep a small city in power through steam production, but she had all the cash and investments she and her family would ever need. After she finished her five-yearcontract helping to supply the energy needs of Las Vegas, she had wanted something more. Not a contract where she worked for a company, but something for her and her friends. TriDevi had come out of that need.
