Birthright (The Technomage Archive, Book 1) - Complete Novel

Chapter Nineteen

Damien was hungry. The one piece of fruit he had eaten a few hours ago was long gone. Once the elevator dropped him off at the third-floor dining hall, the smells of so many different foods wafting over him made his stomach rumble. Aside from the fruit, he had scavenged here and there but had not eaten a full meal since the night his home had been invaded.

"Visitor, please enjoy your time at the Ennd's Academy dining hall. May I recommend..." The voice trailed off as Damien walked quickly out of earshot. He had no intention of getting food recommendations from something that could not eat.

He stalked directly toward one of the self-service stations and made himself a sandwich. The dining hall was big and round; students and faculty mingled here, but he thought the size would allow him to blend in well enough that he wouldn't seem out of place. He chose a seat by the only window in the hall, one that made up a good quarter of the circular room's wall. It overlooked an interior courtyard, which was perfect for Damien's needs. He sat and ate his sandwich as he surveyed the school's basic architecture. He had to see what else had changed since he left.

Two small spires shot up from the ground of the courtyard, though he could not see how tall they were from his table. Across the courtyard, he could see Ennd's central tower, and that's where Damien focused most of his attention. That one structure dwarfed everything else about Ennd's. That's where the Library had been once upon a time and should still remain. Instance physics were unlikely to have changed too much in recent years. Or, well, ever. No amount of renovation would be able to change the laws of the universe.

However, the renovation that the technomages had instituted would make it impossible to know which floor the entrance would be on, but he was still confident that he could find a way in. Space and location were imperative to Instancing, sure, but it was all relative. As long as the portal was in the general vicinity of the energy pocket, it would open. The portal being shifted a few stories in one way or another would not prevent access.

He finished his food, glad to have some protein in his system, and looked at the central tower a moment longer before moving away from the window and toward a corridor that hopefully led to the Library, and in turn, to Headmaster Gilbert Squalt. He casually worked his way through the crowd, nodding at people when they made eye contact—he had to be careful not to call attention to himself by seeming too anxious. He even tossed his trash in a receptacle as he passed it.

As he approached the hallway, his left hand tingled. It was not exactly painful, but it was more than just an itch. It was probably an alert, a warning. Damien assumed the sensation was caused by being too close to a restricted area access point.

So he kept walking.

As he entered the hallway, the tingling became more insistent, verging on painful, but he pushed through. If he had known a little tingling in his hand was going to be the school's best attempt at confining him, he would have marched his way through the halls hours ago.

And then he stopped. Or more accurately, his left hand—the one containing the nanite stamp—stopped while the rest of his body kept going. He was thrown off balance and just barely managed to avoid falling completely. His body was free to move, but his left hand hung suspended in midair. He could not, with any amount of force, pull his hand any further down the hall. It was as though his wrist were a gigantic square peg trying to fit through a very tiny round hole.

Damien felt around with his right hand, and there was nothing in the air holding him. No invisible walls had clamped down on him.

He could walk backward, though. He was perfectly free to move back into the dining area. So this, he thought, is how they keep visitors in line; by putting us in invisible cages. He realized that he had spent probably the last two minutes struggling with his own left hand, and he wondered how that might have looked to anyone who was watching. He looked back toward the dining area and was pleased to see that the corridor had just begun to curve when he hit this invisible boundary. He could only see a small section of the dining hall around the curve, and there were only two tables with line of sight to him. No one was sitting at either of them. Yet.