Strange Aeons [Book 1]

15. Back to School [part III]

They collectively decided not to tell Garaham about her Academy infiltration plan. More precisely: Banshee threatened vile repercussions if the thing would leak from anyone of them. And she reminded it quite clearly to both her companions, as they went to meet their Chief.

«Jeez, been there for a day and I already want to run. We just sat at desks for the whole morning studying on tomes. On tomes!»

«What did you expect?» Chico, the only one who had passed through Academy, and with flying colours, tried to hide his amusement.

«I dunno! More practice? Great halls? Magical environments? Actual magic?»

«The magic you're born with, you learn to master almost entirely by your own, thanks to your Familiar. The Academy mostly lets you study disciplines of magic that you weren't born with, and that means a whole lot of studying even before you can think to put something into practice.»

«But I'm in all Advanced courses! Shouldn't they be practical?»

«On the contrary. They're even more theoretical, if you want to practice what you learned you can book a lab with other people and go shoot at dummies in the Sahara or something like that. But don't think for a second that you'll be allowed to do any magic in class. Rituals, sometimes, in the advanced classes, and only in Summon. Because, you know, that's basically all it does.» Chico explained, with an overly satisfied voice, as each of his words let Banshee's world crumble a little more into depression. Magic School was as underwhelming as any other school.

The air in Garaham's office was far from light and breezy. The neon-lit room was even less welcoming than usual. He didn't even raise his head when they entered, painstakingly focused on writing something with a furrowed brow. He finished writing in the rather awkward silence, put a black stamp on the paper, and then moved his hand in the air. A small portion of the papers, with the last stamped one on top, suddenly disappeared. He seemed to realize just now that the three had entered the room.

«You're more quiet than usual. I applaud to that. Let's make this a habit.»

«Chief, ye called me on me cell phone to get us here instead of Displacing us or leaving and angry message in our answering machine, which is why we still have an answering machine and a landline in 2014.» Banshee said. «We're worried.»

«I know. But mala tempora occurrunt and...»

«Gesundheit?»

«Shit hit the fan. But said in fancy latin.» Vopros translated.

«Crude but true translation. Very well. I might have a clue.»

«Ye? From yer office?» Banshee asked. He glared at her.

«I volunteered to take some work of the Internal Affairs on my shoulders. It's good on the resumé, and you never regret helping a Leshrac.» Garaham opened his laptop. This was a peculiar sight indeed, seen that it had the computing power of a brick. But still, it worked well enough, by magic and miracles alone, to summon a video on YouTube. «The task was to review all the last year, year-and-a-half quite viral videos to snuff out, and promptly delete, any trace of magic someone could have filmed by accident and put on the internet thinking it was some, as you young people say, "cool trick."»

«Ye remember you're forty and not seventy-five, right?» Banshee couldn't but comment. He glared again. This time, she fell completely silent.

«It appears that some five months ago, this video had been not all the rage, but had some decent views. Watch.»

After the first moment of shock in discovering that Garaham actually knew what YouTube was, the three proceeded to pay attention to the video itself.