Chapter Six: And I Feel Fine

  171 Days until D-Day

  Professor Maeda finished polishing the blade. It had only taken him half a day, and he marveled at the gold hue of the metal.

  Now, he just had to attach the handle, and it would be complete. He was pleased with the result, and despite the complicated steps that had been added to the forging, process, he was happy that it had taken him less than a day to complete this one.

  He gently placed the completed blade on the towel next to the other three knives in the set. Then he looked up at the young man sitting across from him, sorting through wooden blocks.

  “What do you think of these?” Marc asked, holding up a couple of large scraps of wood.

  Professor Maeda looked at the ugly scraps with a sour expression.

  “I was thinking something fancy, like cherrywood, or walnut. Not some weird driftwood that you found in the desert.”

  “What are you talking about? This is the best wood out there for knife handles. Desert Ironwood, also known as olneya tesota, was locally grown. I have some scraps left over from a fence repair I did last year,” Marc said, tossing one of the scraps to the older man.

  “It looks like scrap wood. Can you even do anything with it?”

  “Sure, it’s tricky. It’s one of the hardest woods out there, but trust me. It will make for excellent handles. They should last longer than your blades anyway.”

  “Hah! In your dreams. Look at this craftsmanship. Some of my best work!” The professor huffed, then moved aside so that Marc could examine the knives closely.”

  Marc bent over, but did not pick them up. Instead, he moved in close to see the work the other man had been laboring for over a week.

  “I’m still not sure about this process of yours, but I have to admit, the results are beautiful. I’ve never seen an alloy that makes such a lustrous gold hue to the steel,” Professor Maeda beamed with pride as they both appreciated the blades on the table.

  As Marc had more experience with woodworking, Professor Maeda let him take over completing the knives. He rested in the shade with Torren, while Marc cut four small blocks from the wooden scraps. He split each piece, then expertly carved out the space for the tang of each blade. Finally, he fitted the blocks to each of the four knives, glued them in place, and clamped them together to dry.

  They set the knives aside as they would need to dry overnight before Marc could shape and polish the handles. Finally, they cleaned up the forge and went back inside Marc’s cabin.

  While the area around the forge had been warm enough, it was still winter, and the old professor groaned as his joints protested the many hours he had been spending shifting between the cold wind and the hot fire.

  Marc was still a bit worried, but he could see the excitement in the older man’s eyes as Marc had shared his forging technique. He was surprised that Professor Maeda had been able to grasp the details so quickly. Perhaps it was because he had been a self-taught blacksmith and was more open to different ways of doing things than the more traditional smiths that Marc had been taught by in the other world.

  Marc was glad that the knives would be complete before Melanie got back from El Paso.

  Initially, he was surprised that the professor had decided to stay in Silver City, rather than go with his wife and stay in the hotel in the big city. He figured it might be that the old man’s ego had taken a hit when the tests had determined that he would likely never be able to Awaken properly like his wife had been able to.

  While he was undeniably happy that his wife was now better, her cancer had completely disappeared in just a few days, it was also a disappointment to both of them that the professor would not be able to enjoy the same rejuvenation benefits as his partner.

  Now that they had been exposed to the new world, Marc had decided to share some of his knowledge about smithing with his friend, and soon they had started on this project. A new set of Mana compatible cooking knives that would be harder and sharper than any commercial blades that could be found. A gift for Melanie to celebrate her recovery and her new job.

  Nearly every awakened individual was a highly sought-after recruit for the D.A.C., the Association, or the myriad of companies and private organizations attempting to stake a claim in the emerging new global paradigm.

  Melanie, for her part, had little interest in their offers but, at the urging of Selena and her mother, had a conversation with the Association and had been convinced to use her years of administration experience to assist the organization. As a low-ranked awakened, she would not be tasked with any dangerous duties and instead would assist the teams in the area in an administrative support role.

  Marc was sure that Selena had used some of her influence as an A-rank awakened to get Melanie a good position that would keep her in Silver City. In fact, she would be working supporting the small team that Selena managed, at least initially.

  After coming back from the testing facility following her Awakening, Melanie had quickly gone back to El Paso to get training and onboarding as an Associating employee. Marc had promised to take care of the professor, who had been adamant that he had no interest in returning to “that blasted magic factory,” and the two men had spent the time practicing other-worldly smithing techniques in her absence.

  After a dinner of rabbit stew, the professor drove back home. Marc promised to bring the completed blades to his house after he finished working on the handles. Melanie wasn’t due back for another two days, so he would have plenty of time to finish working on them.

  Despite all the time they had spent together over the past week, they had actually spoken very little. Apart from smithing instructions and techniques, they did not talk at all about the social and political ramifications of all the changes to the world that had taken place over the past few months.

  This had been odd, as over the years, they had been friends, and they had often discussed and debated politics and economic theories often. Now, they spoke of little more than forging and fire, and worked mostly in silence.

  It was clear that the professor was knocked off balance by the changes, as well as the turmoil that came with his wife’s illness and subsequent recovery. If anything, this drove him to focus more on his hobby, and do what he could to ignore the madness surrounding them all.

  The magic formations and special additions to the forging process in his wife’s new kitchen knives were simply a new popular technique that he was trying out. Beyond that, he seemed to have pulled into a shell of denial. According to the news, he wasn’t the only one.

  In the weeks since portals and monster attacks had become major headlines, the public’s reaction to the new events had been more than a little surprising to Marc. He had expected fear to drive people into selfish behavior, and anger at authority figures to dominate the common response. While both of those things did indeed happen in significant amounts, the greatest response had, in fact, been the opposite: Outright denial.

  While monster attacks were being reported all over the country and throughout the world on a daily basis, most people had yet to witness them in person. After the initial shock of the announcement of parallel dimensions and monsters had calmed down, many Americans had taken a stubborn, “It’s not as bad as they say on the news,” or even “It’s all a hoax to distract from domestic problems!”

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  It did not help that shortly after the President had gone on television to announce the existence of portals to the nation and the world, he had decided to resign in favor of taking a high level position in the Association as a global ambassador. This had neatly cut off the attacks and rumors of a brewing infidelity scandal and had left the country with a little-known midwestern congressman, elevated to the leader of the free world.

  Marc was shocked at how quickly things had seemingly returned to a state of normalcy, where protests against steps taken to protect the public from monster attacks were more prevalent than complaints that the government wasn’t doing enough to protect the citizenry. The D.A.C. had been formed to manage everything, just as the department of homeland security had been the response to the 9–11 attacks. In truth, it was a toothless organization that simply followed through with whatever the Association wanted and sold out the management of portals to the corporate interests with political backing.

  Even though he didn’t read the newspapers or even have a television at home, Sandra and Jess kept Marc informed about how things were moving in the world. The reality was that the reaction of the public was both surprising and concerning, as so many people seemed desperate to maintain the order that they were used to. Knowing at least part of what was coming, Marc understood that such hopes were destined to be smashed to dust.

  Selena found Marc outside, busy sanding the handles on the knives that the professor had left the day before. Marc worked quietly and diligently, filing and sanding away the excess wood by hand. Finally, he set the last piece down. Satisfied, he just needed to stain and varnish the wood, and the set of cooking knives would be complete.

  “Those are for Melanie, right? Can I take a look?”

  Marc nodded and gestured to the table. When she picked up the first knife, Selena let out a slight gasp.

  “I… I can feel… I can feel it?”

  With a smirk, Marc replied with a sense of pride.

  “That’s good. The formations are working, then. Here, you can help me test it. Try cutting this in half,” Marc said, tossing her a billet of scrap ore. He watched as she effortlessly snatched the fifteen-pound bar out of the air with one hand and placed it on the table in front of her.

  Holding the knife somewhat awkwardly, she got a childish grin on her face as the blade cut through the metal like a bread knife through a French baguette.

  “Not bad. You know how to circulate your Mana, right?” He asked while rummaging through his tools.

  “Huh? What… Um, I don’t…” she stammered, avoiding looking at him.

  “I know most of what’s in the training program… trust me, I know that stuff better than your instructor.”

  “I’m not sure what…”

  “They made you sign more NDAs, right? Don’t worry. You don’t have to tell me anything. Trust me, There is nothing you can tell me I don’t already know anyway.”

  “Did… did she tell you? That woman? Is she telling you stuff, too?” Selena glanced back toward the direction of the RV that Sandra was occupying.

  Marc grinned, but held back a laugh.

  “No, it’s nothing like that. Trust me, I’ve been doing this kind of stuff… for a long time. Anyway, try to circulate your mana into the hand holding the knife.”

  With a scowl still visible on her face, Selena looked back down at the knife, then closed her eyes in concentration. Slowly, the blade started to glow with a yellow light, visible, even in the bright mid-day sun.

  “Now try cutting with the knife again.”

  Selena opened her eyes wide when she saw the blade glowing. Then, she quickly positioned half of the metal ore and sliced off another piece. This time, however, there was almost no resistance at all. It was as if the metal was made of butter, and she was holding a red hot knife.

  “What? How…? How did you make this? Marc?”

  “Well, technically, the professor forged those knives. I just tweaked the recipe a bit and added some decorations.”

  The false humility in his face and response was enough to shock the woman back into herself. She giggled as she waved the blade in front of her face, watching the glow like a child holding a firework.

  “Here, try hitting the blade with this. Just keep the mana flowing into your hand while you do it,” Marc handed her a forging hammer, then mimed holding the blade to the table at an angle while using the other hand to bring the mallet down on the blade.

  Horrified, Selena shook her head. She couldn’t break Melanie’s gift. Maybe Marc didn’t know how strong she had become.

  “Trust me. It will be fine.”

  Holding the knife as instructed, Selena looked at Marc with a skeptical expression, but when he nodded his approval, she raised the hammer and swung it down hard. It was not nearly as hard as she could muster, but she didn’t want to obliterate the small blade.

  The clang from the impact and in her ears, and her hands tingled with the impact, but to her surprise, the knife did not bend or shatter. It was, in fact, completely unblemished. She looked back at Marc who stood with a large grin on his face.

  “You hit like a girl. Is that really all you could muster?”

  She scowled back.

  “Ok. Don’t blame me then. I’ll let Melanie know it was you who smashed her present to bits,” she snarled as she brought the hammer up again. This time, she brought it down as hard as she could.

  The explosion was small, but shrapnel flew in every direction. Marc had protected himself by ducking behind the forge, but Selena was peppered with small metal fragments.

  “Oh shit! I’m so sorry! I didn’t think it would break like that, ohmahgod, Melanie is going to be…”

  She froze when she looked back down at the still-flawless knife in her hand. There wasn’t a scratch on it, and the blade was still perfectly straight. She looked confused until she glanced back at the hammer in her other hand.

  All that remained was the handle. The head of the hammer had shattered and was not in pieces as far as twenty feet away.

  “What the… FUCK!” Suddenly, she noticed the state of her suit. She put down the knife and the wooden stick and checked her outfit out, there were now dozens of cuts and tears all over the front of her suit, slacks and blouse.

  “A la verga! What the fuck Marc, this is a brand new suit!”

  She was completely unharmed, the shrapnel was hardly strong enough to hurt her hardened skin. Her clothing, however, had seen much better days.

  “I didn’t think you would go that hard on it. Are you okay?”

  She nodded slowly, checking herself. The holes were plentiful, but small. She shook out a few sharp pieces of metal from inside her blouse, and they hit the ground with a tinkling sound.

  “Still, go inside and check yourself in the bathroom. You can grab a clean shirt, too. I’ll clean up things here.

  Still in a daze, the young woman nodded and went inside the cabin. Marc picked up the knife that she had been testing. The glow had faded, but he could still feel the warmth of the power it had just channeled.

  He set it back down with the other knives in the set and gave it a sad look, after checking to make sure there were no marks from the demonstration. Satisfied that it was still pristine, he swept up the mess and put his tools away. Then he went inside the cabin to see how Selena was doing.

  “Who are you?” She was on the floor, setting up the wood in the fireplace. She had taken off the jacket and was now wearing a one of Marc’s sweatshirts.

  Marc didn’t answer. Instead, he went into the kitchen to start some water for tea.

  “I need some answers. How are you able to do things like this? You know more than the geeks at the Association headquarters, and it’s creepy that they know as much as they do in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?” Marc called back.

  There was a brief pause. Then she continued.

  “From what I’ve seen, and that’s not a lot, really, the association has been preparing for this for years. I mean, they had data and equipment. I mean, this was just a software company a few months ago, but now they have buildings and resources… How long have they been preparing? How long did they know this was going to happen?”

  Marc came out carrying two steaming mugs. He set them on a table, then knelt down beside Selena, who was fiddling with a lighter.

  “You don’t have enough kindling. It’s not going to start-“

  Just as he was warning her, she placed one hand out, palm forward, facing the other hand holding the lighter. There was a faint yellow glow from her hand and the small flame of the lighter burst out like a torch to engulf the nearest log in the fireplace. Within just a few seconds, the fire was started and burning steadily.

  She still did not look at him, instead looking at her own hands while the fire started to warm the room.

  “What’s going on? Tell me what is happening. Is it safe? Is my mom safe? They say that monsters are coming. I’m supposed to get ready to fight real monsters. Like the ones that attacked the Lobo and the Orc, we saw… wherever that was. How am I supposed to…”

  Marc put his hand on her shoulder, and she finally turned around to look at him.

  “Sorry, I should have told you this before. I was hoping… I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. But there is no stopping it now.”

  She looked back down at her hand, then looked back at Marc.

  “Will you tell me now? Tell me what is happening. I have to know. Is it safe? Are there more monsters coming? Where did you learn about all of this? How-“

  He cut her off.

  “I’ll tell you what I can. It’s going to take a while, though. First, i have to finish those knives for the professor. Just give me half an hour. Just wait here, and I’ll be right back.”

  She seemed hesitant, but also not in any hurry to move away from the fire.

  “About those knives…” she said in a low whisper.

  “Any chance I can get something like that too?” She said while turning to look back into the fire.

  Marc smiled. He had been expecting that.

  “Maybe. We’ll see. But I have one condition.”

  She turned back to look at him.

  “You owe me a new hammer.”