Swan Song

Chapters

The Project
The Device
The Event
The Assignment
The Arrival

The Project

John jumped into his new role with gusto. As predicted, he proved himself an incompetent and thoroughly corrupt administrator. His first act as head of the Maths and Sciences department was to remove the handicapped signs from the front of the school and assign the area as his own personal parking space. After that, he settled into a pattern of embezzled funds, misappropriated resources, and stolen office supplies. But his virtually limitless budget was enough to deflect any criticism or close inspection. Anything resembling work was delegated to his subordinates, who saw their workloads explode exponentially. Over time, even delegation proved tedious. So a new personal assistant was hired with the sole purpose of taking care of and delegating his responsibilities.

The only task he couldn’t pass off was the daily reports and updates the Super had requested. But even then he put only the barest effort into them. The information he included was intentionally misdirecting and often contradictory. None of them were ever questioned anyway, so John sent them less and less frequently. They were eventually nothing more than scribbles on the backs of cocktail napkins. Finally, he stopped sending them altogether. That left him with just enough time out of his day to figure new ways to screw with people who annoyed him.

Under his leadership, the Maths and Sciences department drained almost the entire school budget. Arts and humanities faculty quickly found themselves furloughed. Sports all but disappeared. Anything that didn’t have anything to do with Maths and Sciences was forced from the building and made to have class in the parking lot, rain or shine.

The occasional gripe or complaint was handled with a re-reading of the letter from the Board of Education and a thinly veiled threat of what non-compliance would mean to one’s employment and health. The teacher’s union, whose interests were deemed contrary to the policies of school administration and the Maths and Sciences department, was declared an illegal organization. Its leaders were imprisoned and faculty was forced to signed oaths of loyalty to the CUSD. The student council was deemed subversive and disbanded. Every issue of the student newspaper was carefully scrutinized and censored.

The only group left to put up an organized front was the PTA, which was eliminated in an epic orgy of violence, turning several dozen students into orphans. With no opposition left, the school was humming along exactly the way John wanted—as a well-oiled machine that needed no further intervention from him. The only thing better than daytime TV was daytime TV on a giant flat screen in his own office.

But it didn’t last. He eventually became what he dreaded most. He became bored.

Bored with a giant pile of money and no one to tell him what he could or couldn’t do with it. With him in charge, it was a dangerous scenario. It didn’t take long for inspiration to strike.

In their rosette in their vast underground hardened bunker, microscopic cameras and microphones recorded every conversation and nuance. Emails were scanned and analyzed the Board of Education quickly assessed the situation. From their subterranean bunker, they made a complete assessment of the situation.

It was good.

For a while, John was rarely seen at the school. When he was, he shut himself in his office with the door locked and the shades drawn. Then with barely any notice, he called a press meeting. No details or information was given, only that attendance by the press, students, and faculty was mandatory. There, among pomp and applause, and under a giant hi-definition video screen bearing his image, he announced the creation of the Central Unified School District Junior Achievers’ Physics Club. Membership would be by invitation only, and only the best and the brightest would be recruited. Somebody in the audience pointed out that the school’s budget was all but tapped out. And that there was no money to fund anything, let alone fund the list of items that would be required.

“This…” John stated. “Should clarify everything.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket

BOARD OF EDUCATION

CENTRAL UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

CLASSIFICATION—PUBLIC

RE: CENTRAL UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT MATHS AND SCIENCES DEPARTMENT JUNIOR ACHIEVERS’ PHYSICS CLUB.

ALL FUNDING AND AID NECESSARY TO THE IMPLETMENTAION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CENTRAL UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT’S JUNIOR ACHIEVERS’ PHYSICS CLUB IS TO BE MADE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ARE SECONDARY.

ANY AND ALL EFFORTS TO DELAY OR HAMPER THE ACTIVITIES OF THE CENTRAL UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT’S JUNIOR ACHIEVERS’ PHYSICS CLUB ARE EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN.

He pointed to the signature at the bottom of the letter. He also indicated the watermark and medallion guarantee as being proof of the letter’s origin and authority. With his next breath, he announced the creation of the Junior Achievers’ Physics Club bond issue. It was approved overwhelmingly, as John knew it would be.

Club recruitment began in earnest. Student transcripts, standardized test records, and disciplinary reports were studied. Potential club members were grilled and interrogated without mercy. Selection was made according to grades, tractability, and faculty recommendations. Once admitted, students signed non-disclosure agreements under penalty of defenestration.

John soon had his cadre of handpicked recruits. The club was housed in the newly repurposed ceramics classroom. Kilns and throwing wheels were replaced with a networked series of powerful computers, built to his specifications. Twelve of the school’s finest sat at nervous attention, most still nursing wounds from the selection process. John faced them. They weren’t the prettiest bunch the student body had to offer, but they would do nicely. They were his tools, the instruments of his will. He would lead them and they would follow.

Now, at last, the fun could begin.

“How many of you dumbbutts have heard of zero-point energy?” Only one student raised his hand. “Good, could you explain it to us, please?”

The student broke out in a sweat as stress pimples began to dot his face. “I…I…only heard of…I don’t…”

“That’s fine, you can relax.” John humphed. This was actually going to require some work from him. John broke open a new box of dry-erase markers. They were the good ones, not the non-toxic kind. He held one close to his nose and inhaled deeply. His head began to tingle behind his eyes and he began.

“Zero-point energy, known more formally as rest mass energy, is the energy that remains in a system after all other atomic motion has stopped. It exists everywhere, all the time. It fills the entire universe. And it, I maintain, can be harnessed and be made useable. Do you see the implications here?”

John could see the light of understanding in their eyes, but no one spoke. He continued.

“It has been proven that matter and energy are interchangeable. The total amount of energy and matter that exists in the universe is constant and unchanging. Right? Right. As a whole, it can never be subtracted from or added to, only transformed into some other sort of energy or matter. From the laws of thermodynamics, we know it takes energy to create energy. Dead dinosaurs get refined into chemical energy. That energy gets transformed into mechanical energy. And, thanks to friction, your car moves forward a few centimeters.”

Some students nodded. He continued.

“With the harnessing of zero-point energy, those conservation rules still apply. But with the transformation of energy into something useable, the system feeds back into itself. In other words, any energy removed from a closed system is fed into its surroundings, conserved, and reused. In keeping with the car analogy, it’s like an engine that it one runs off of its own exhaust and waste heat. Instead of loss to non-conservative forces, the total energy remains constant and useable. The second law of thermodynamics still applies, but the energy lost is still available to us.”

The entire assembled group leaned forward in their chairs in rapt attention. The implications were enormous! Free energy for everyone! No pollution, no deforestation, no more reasons to kill anyone or destroy anything for it.

With it, just about anything is possible. Forget about notions of relativity. Spaceflight to other stars becomes possible. An object’s mass reaches infinity as its velocity nears the speed of light. And an object of limitless mass needs limitless energy to accelerate it, but that’s exactly what you have, right? Just keep your propulsive energy ahead of the mass-velocity curve. You may not reach the speed of light, but you’d come close.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are here. We are going to harness zero-point energy. The project is to design and build a rest mass energy converter.”

A student raised his hand. “Please, sir!”

“Yes?”

“What are we going to name the project?”

“Ohhh…lessee..how about ‘The Project?’”

The students stood at once and raised their fists in the air. “THE PROJECT! THE PROJECT”

The Device

The students dived in on the Project like starving jackals on a carcass.

It progressed slowly at first. Most of the available information on zero-point energy was largely speculative with very little empirical theory. There was not nearly enough of it to form a complete theoretical model. They were almost starting from scratch. But discussions eventually moved beyond speculation and into hypothesis. Equations were produced and debated. They went through a case of dry-erase markers every week. Most were used to jot equations on dry erase boards, the rest were simply inhaled.

Computer models were eventually built. New computers were built as their need for processing power multiplied. As the Project expanded, so did the space that housed it. The gymnasium was repurposed to hold a linear particle accelerator, needed to test predictions on mass/energy conversion. Offices were gutted and rebuilt as dorms for the physics club. Brownouts occurred throughout the district as the power needs for the Project increased.

Outside the Project’s ever-expanding confines, the Law of the Jungle ruled. With no maintenance budget, the school grounds quickly fell into disrepair. The walls and ceilings cracked and fell. Some students and faculty remained and held class within the crumbling walls. But the competition for resources became violent. History warred with English Lit over paper and dry-erase markers. Biology fought with chemistry for control of scarce laboratory supplies and lab space.

The most brutal exchange was between the wood and metal shop classes. Armed with primitive spears fashioned from wooden dowels, wood shop students dotted their faces with shellac warpaint. Steel was needed for new saw blades, so siege was laid on the soot encrusted metal shop compound. The attack was unexpected, but the metal shop easily beat back the attackers. Wooden spears were no use against sheet steel armor and crude metal axes cut through the wood shoppers’ thin rattan breastplates.

The remnants of the wood shop army allied with the electronics club and the chess club. Electronics needed the solder that was horded in the metal shop compound and the chess club would be invaluable for their strategic expertise. The alliance was short lived, though. The metal shop had fashioned a flame thrower from propane tanks liberated from the cafeteria. The inferno left the survivors in stunned silence, covered from head to toe in a thick, greasy soot.

The general of the metal shop forces—a warlord named The Hunger—stood on the ashes of the massacre and declared himself as master of the crumbled empire. Instead of punishment and retribution, he promised succor. They would not be enemies, for they shared a common foe--their true enemy. Under his iron fist athletes, geeks, emos, and GDI’s were unified into a single grand army, larger than any that had preceded it.

The Hunger set his forces on the walls of The Project. A great cry of war arose through the abandoned halls and classrooms, over the overgrown athletic fields, and past the rusted husks in the parking lot and autoshop. The united legions rushed forward to destroy the thing that was the cause of so much misery and despair. But The Hunger was not without mercy, and he halted before the massive walls of The Project. With microphone in hand, the grand warlord delivered his ultimatum.

“There has been too much violence…too much pain. None here are without sin. But I have an honorable compromise…just walk away. Give me The Project and the whole compound. Just walk away and I’ll spare your lives. Just walk away from here and will give you safe passage. There will be an end to the horror.”

A tiny slit opened in The Project’s rampart. From it, a tiny rolled piece of paper fell out. The Hunger sent an aide to retrieve it. He unrolled it and read the response.

Balls.

The Hunger threw the message to the ground and crushed it beneath his foot. A great cry of war arose from his legions. Threats of torture and obliteration. Of being ground and burned to dust. The Hunger, the eye of their rage, would crush The Project until nothing remained. His army rushed forward, waving swords and battleaxes, promising destruction to any who would dare defy them.

They were obliterated in seconds by a beam of concentrated gamma rays. The burst of directed radiation had come from a controlled electron/positron reaction in a little side project John had set up in his spare time. Just something to make use of the surplus antiparticles created in newly purchased synchrotron. He patted his new toy affectionately. He called it the Tesla Death Ray 3000, and hoped to market it to the State Department after the Project was over.

He looked over the remains of what was once a well-maintained school campus. “What a fucking dump.”

By the time spring break came around, the physics club looked like it had aged thirty years. John, he noted to himself, looked as awesome as ever. Feeling charitable, he allowed the club members to take the week off. Also, he had three months’ worth of television to catch up on. He arrived home to finds a month’s worth of phone messages and emails. Each one was demanding an update on the Project.

It was his first visit to the Superintendent’s office since he received his new assignment. That was, what, eight months ago? He wondered. The place had definitely been in decline since then. The carpet was worn through in spots, cracks had appeared in the ceiling, Even his bosses’ overstuffed leather chair was worn through in spots. Pots and pans were scattered over the floor, catching drops of water from the ceiling. It was cold and there were the remains of a fire in the fireplace. Apparently, someone hadn’t being paying the heating bills. He looked above the scorched fireplace to a bas-relief reproduction of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling that adorned the wall. In the past, it had driven home the weight of the Super’s position and authority. Now, with its crumbling surroundings, it looked like a wistful testament to a bygone era. He wondered how it would look in his office.

His perusings were interrupted by the Super, who stumbled in from a side room, balancing two armloads of files, which he dropped unceremoniously on his desk. The man had not shaved or showed in days, weeks even. And John could swear he wore the same suit he had on the last time he was in his office, plus a few scuffs and patches. The man had not dragged a comb through his hair, lately, either.

“John! John! Oh it’s so good to see you? Are you well? You look well. Would you like some coffee? Let me get you some coffee.” He reached into a drawer and produced a gallon of bottled water and instant coffee. He poured water into a metal cup and set it to heat over a kerosene stove. “Sorry! Things have been a little tight lately.”

“Clearly.” John looked back at the bas-relief behind the Super and wondered how it was GOING to look in his office. “Look, I’m in something of a hurry, here. Forget the coffee, could we speed things up?”

“Of course! Of course!“ The Super pushed the stove aside and grabbed a file from the pile. “It’s nothing really, barely even worth your time. But I…I mean the Board…just wanted a little update on the Project’s progress. Tell me, is it on schedule?”

John checked his fingernails. He had never had a manicure before, maybe it was time for one. “Well, there’s no schedule, per se. As I’m sure you already know…you were at the press briefing, right?. Well, as I’m sure you know, we’re in uncharted scientific territory here. Frankly, some lines of research have ended in dead ends. But you’ll be happy to hear that we’re close to having a working prototype.”

“That’s wonderful! I’m sure it’ll be completed in no time.”

John shrugged.

The Super balanced his glasses on his nose. The glasses, John noticed, were missing an earpiece. “There’s just a few other things, small small things, that I was hoping to ask you about.”

“Be my guest.”

“There’s been troubling reports of genetic mutations in infants born around the area. Did you know that? It’s fine if you didn’t, but we were hoping you could shed just a little bit of light on that.”

John shrugged. “Can’t be sure, really. The local power grid was insufficient to meet the Project’s needs. We weren’t getting the sort collisions we needed from targeted experiments, so we upgraded from the linear accelerator to a synchrotron. That sort of containment eats a lot of power, so we had to purchase a second hand surplus fission reactor to take up the slack. I think it came off a submarine.”

“Uh huh…uh huh.” The Super was scribbling furiously. “I don’t remember any such requisition being made. Maybe it’s in here…” He fumbled through the scatter of cocktail napkins John had made his last reports on. “Maybe this is it?” He held up a crude drawing of stick figures dancing around a glowing radiation sign.

“Yes…probably. Anyway, there may have been some containment leaks. It was second hand, after all. We could’ve purchased a new one, but we were trying to save money.”

The Super gushed. “Oh, God bless you, John. God bless you!”

“It’s nothing some spackle and duct tape don’t clear up. I’ll look right into it.”

“Excellent! Now, one thousand cubic meters of liquid nitrogen.”

“Needed to maintain the superconductors at below their critical temperature.”

“An on-staff sushi chef?”

“Fish is brain food.”

“And geisha hostesses?”

John waved his hand dismissively. “Strictly an indulgence.”

“And one that I’m sure you deserve every bit of! John, the Board is really looking forward to this. Can I give them some sort of estimation on time of completion?”

“Very soon.”

“Thank you, John. Thank you!” The Super dropped to his knees and backed out the door he had come in, his fingers scraping the floor as he left.

The Project had at last taken form.

The engineering and scientific principles of the Zero-point energy device were monstrously complex and way too advanced for most people to understand. Very few people could comprehend it, and they were all now in the same room.

Its physical form, once it had taken place, was so simple and plain that to even describe it would bore the listener to sleep. One student even suggested putting some flashing lights on it, or even a paint job, just to make it interesting to look at.

“Decoration? No. Not in the budget.”

John eyed the student charged with the Project’s accounting tasks. “How about a nicer button? One that lights up?”

“Not in the budget.”

“Are you saying that out of a four billion—that’s billion with a ‘B’--budget that we were short the cost of a button that would’ve cost forty nine cents at Radio Hack?.

It was true. All the device had on its bland, featureless surface was a button. And not even a very interesting button. The button had been found in a drawer in the auto shop teacher’s desk and put to use.

And like any other button, it got pressed. But that would wait until the unveiling. John still felt they had rushed things a bit. Their funds were dried up and there was no time or money for a test run. The unveiling would be the test run.

“I don’t know, boss. I still don’t think it’s a good idea. We really don’t know what’s going to happen.”

John turned to the student. The kid was smart and dedicated, and kissed John’s ass incessantly. The made him endearing. John shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

The news of the Project’s completion was delivered to the Board of Education. But it wasn’t necessary. They already knew.

No emotion registered on the nearly hairless heads. Inside, electrical pulses cackled with glee.

The Event

The last time John had seen the Board of Education was through the sight of a submachine gun. He wasn’t sure what his reaction to seeing them again would be, or what theirs would be to seeing them.

“John! You look presentable…for a monster truck rally.”

John turned to come face to face with the Superintendent. His disheveled rags were gone. Now he was decked out in a waist coated tuxedo with tails, obviously tailored to his measurements. Kid gloves, top hat, and a monocle completed the look.

“Superintendent! If I didn’t know better I’d swear I was looking at a monkey butler serving dinner to Mister Magoo.”

They shared a mutual sardonic laugh.

The synchrotron had been removed and sold. The proceeds went towards renovating the gymnasium in gold and blue. An elevated stage had been constructed at one end of the gymnasium. Rehired faculty, students, and political dignitaries formed a dense crowd at the entrance. They were kept away from the red carpet that had been rolled out by a black-armored CUSD tactical division.

There was a surge in the excitement as the Board of Education arrived in a stretched jet black van with dark tinted windows. As the van stopped, the noisy throng immediately quieted down in an awed hush. Only the few that stood closest to the streets would catch a glimpse of the grand potentates of the education system they attended. The van was escorted by a team of four police motorcycles. A second van—less austere than the first--followed close behind and stopped some distance away. Ten attendants in matching white nurse’s uniforms disembarked from the second van and took their places.

The area had been deemed secure, and one of the motorcycle cops opened the sliding door of the long stretched van. Wisps of frigid air curled out from the opening. Inside, the van was sterile and antiseptic with cooling units along the floor and ceiling. Someone pressed a button and a wheelchair elevator folded out.

The first member of the Board to emerge was the president. John didn’t know how it was possible, but the man looked even older and frailer than he did almost a year ago. All the members of the Board of Education sat in wheelchairs and were wheeled about by their attendants. There were eight of them in all--four men and four women. The youngest looking of them seemed to be well over eighty years of age. The men wore identical black tuxedos and bowties, the women wore severe-looking formal gowns. All of them had sparse white hair that shot out at odd angles.

Their eyes grew wide with panic as they were brought out of the refrigerated van’s interior and some began to make frightened vocalizations and gestures. Their aides tried their best to calm them, but with little success. Some Board members began to sweat—not normal salt water sweat though, but a viscous amber colored substance that oozed down their skin like motor oil.

The Board’s panic grew until an odd looking machine was brought out. It was eggshell white and had a small panel with switches and gauges on it. The largest gauge had an analog gauge with a needle that hovered in a green “safe” area. Exactly what the machine indicated was safe was unknown until John noticed a condensing coil ran along the outside of the machine. It was a portable refrigeration unit. The needle indicated the temperature of whatever the machine held within it. Whatever it held, it was at its safe temperature, though just a little bit of movement in either direction would move the needle into a yellow caution area and then into the red.

Tubes that ran from the machine were plugged into intravenous units that each Board member had on his or her wrist. An aide flipped a switch and a pump started. Fluid the same amber color of the sweat on their faces flowed from the refrigeration unit and into intravenous units on each of the Board members’ wrists. Some had additional intravenous bags that dripped life-sustaining nutrients into their bloodstreams. They were all hooked up to heart rate and vital sign monitors clamped to their wheel chairs. John got the impression that most of them were being kept alive through unnatural means.

Once the amber fluid found its way into their bloodstreams, the panicked Board members calmed down. They passed by John and the Superintendent as they were wheeled into the school auditorium’s side entrance. Neither they nor their nurses gave so much as a glance to either of the two men or the crowd that had gathered. In fact, the Board seemed like it was completely unaware of its surroundings.

The gymnasium was filled with the din of hundreds of different conversations. As they spoke to one another, a string quartet sat in a pit before the stage. Every seat was occupied by either a student or a parent. The press and VIP’s had their own sections. Low tones of tuning instruments provided background for the scattered noise.

But when the stage lights went on and the Board of Education was wheeled onto the stage, an awed hush fell over the auditorium. The Board sat ramrod straight and their aristocratic faces were identical in their austerity. Their skin stretched so tight over their faces it looked like it would crack of they ever broke into a grin. Not that they could ever find anything amusing. John wondered what these people did when no one was looking. They were an act, alright.

The lights began to dim, and the orchestra performed a medley of classical favorites. Pieces by Bach, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and others were represented. The Board had spared no expense and had hired only expert musicians, and their performance reflected this. There were no missed notes and, despite the lack of a conductor, they kept tempo from each other perfectly.

When the auditorium grew dark, the quartet segued into Thus Spake Zarathustra. As the piece built in intensity, the stage lights came on and slowly brightened. Every conversation, every noise, every sound was hushed when the lights on stage revealed a table. On the table sat the reason for the evening. The Device was shrouded by a curtain woven from gold.

Thus Spake Zarathustra reached a stirring crescendo. At its peak, some members of the audience shedded tears from the raw emotion of the piece. When it finished, the musicians stood with their instruments in their hands and bowed to the audience. There was a moment of passionate applause from the audience. Then, though no cue was issued, the acclamation stopped all at once and became silent. The quartet resumed their seats with their instruments held rigidly on their knees.

The President of the Board of Education was wheeled to the stage. His attendants—tiny women in immaculate white nurses’ coats—helped him stand at the lectern and supported him as he prepared to speak. The skin on his face was like parchment and it crackled with every minor shift of his features. His nose was tiny and almost nonexistent, and his inhumanly red lips were drawn backwards into his toothless mouth. Like his peers, the fringe of hair around his head was white and shot out at odd angles. There was almost no musculature on his limbs and when he spoke, his voice was high, almost piercing. Before he spoke, a curtain behind the table opened to reveal a gigantic video monitor. When it was turned on from some unseen location, the President’s visage was projected on the screen, larger than life.

“Today, we are assembled to honor a man who has attained a level of personal excellence that renders all of our pathetic, hopeless lives meaningless by comparison. A man that has done more this morning than most will do in their entire lives. A man of dedication, commitment, and efficiency. Of course, I speak of…” He turned and gestured at John with his hand. “…Mister John Maximillian Steiner.”

A spotlight came on and shone directly down on John. Every pair of eyes in the packed auditorium was on him.

“And here, on this night, we shall bear witness to the penultimate glory of human intellect, of supreme achievement of science and technology, and the crowning of humankind as master of all it surveys. Tonight will be…glorious!”

The gold curtain was lifted and the Device was presented in its glory. The crowd gasped in awe. Somehow, the bland humility of its appearance lended to the austerity of the momentous occasion. The President and the Board were wheeled away to the front of the VIP section. The CUSD tactical team flanked them on both sides.

John took center stage beside the Device while the students of the Junior Achievers’ Physics Club assembled behind him in perfect, straight formation. He raised an index finger while absolute silence filled the auditorium. His eyes scanned the audience, then finally rose to meet those of the President.

A brief moment passed. A tiny smiled formed on the President’s lips. He nodded, and the most important button in all of existence was pressed.

And not one damn thing happened.

The crowd waited with hushed anticipation. Every eye was locked on the bland little instrument and the man who stood beside it.

Still nothing happened. Someone coughed. People started whispering. John showed no emotion but moved his eyes a tiny bit to the President of the Board of Education. The smile was still on the tiny, ancient man’s face. If anything, it had grown larger.

Across the auditorium, people whispered, some laughed, fingers were pointed at him and his useless little box. Camera flashes ignited and reporters worked at their laptop computers.

Was this it? Was this their plan? Was this was his punishment for his sins against them? What was supposed to be the greatest technological achievement in history had become the most colossal, most expensive, most widely displayed fuckup in all of creation! And it was all centered on him.

Inaudible whispers grew into outright cries of derision. The outrage spread among the audience until it coalesced into a single organism of contempt.

John had spent months in isolation, fearing a death that was not to come. No, their intentions for him were far, far worse. They were never going to kill him. They were going to let him live. Live with this. Live with the laughter. Live with the scorn. Live with the greatest failure in history.

Or maybe they wouldn’t.

John closed his eyes until the rising tide of contempt disappeared from his ears and became just a faint ringing. When his eyes opened, the Board’s armed phalanx had disappeared and his eyes locked with President’s. The smile on the creature’s face had grown even more.

It was time to finish what he started so many months ago. He didn’t care about death anymore. Not his or anyone else’s. His eyes narrowed, his fists balled, and was about to rush the decrepit thing and pound it into oblivion.

But something else happened.

First there was the Project. Then the Device. Now the Event.

A deep, throbbing pulse swept through the auditorium. No one could hear it, but everyone felt it. The effect was like a bass note from an enormous speaker. Like a note that was too low to be heard but was felt through the entire body.

The shouts and cries ended immediately and silence once again ruled. No one moved. Outside, on the streets, cars came to a halt as their drivers were swept with some unidentifiable force. Animals, far more sensitive than people, howled as they were overcome by an overwhelming sense of dread. It was as if everything had …shifted.

Seconds ticked by and a sense of relief settled. People made nervous smiles at one another. A baby cried. John’s eyes were still locked with the President’s, but his rage had settled. He cocked his head to one side.

What is this?

Conversations sprouted out among the audience. Mothers worked to settle their crying infants. There were all sorts of speculation about what had just happened. But there was agreement on only one thing—that whatever had happened was because of the mysterious object that had just been activated.

Another pulse hit. This one was harder. Silence fell again as people looked around in apprehension. People closest to the exits got up and hurried to the doors.

A third wave washed over the room. This time, there was no silence, but cries of fear. The windows lining the top of the gymnasium crashed. A man screamed at John to turn off the device, but he did not hear him. The President then did something that, to John, seemed amazing. The tiny man rose from his chair and stood on legs that were little more than sticks of wood.

A fourth pulse hit. Then a fifth. Each one was felt harder than the one before it, and they were rising in frequency. Like a frightened herd, people rushed to the exits, towards some imagined safety. It was like every molecule in the body was being violently shaken. The exits became clogged with those trying to escape.

There was no escape anywhere. Not in the school, not in the district, not on the entire planet. John’s eyes were locked from across the room with the President’s. The President smiled. He seemed almost gleeful. John’s face was a blank, pallid mask.

Let it happen. Whatever this is.

The pulses quickened and all in creation was shaken to its core. Living things succumbed as they were literally rattled to death. John looked to his hands and found them completely intact. Whatever was happening, he seemed immune to it. He turned to the students that he had led to create…this. But they had fled and joined the human throng, desperate to save their own existences.

The frequency of the pulses accelerated into a piercing whine that tore apart everything it touched. All around him, people and objects were dissolving into nothingness. The building crumbled around him, but John felt and heard nothing. He looked to the Device. His device. From an infinitely small space inside, unbridled quantum energy—the building blocks of an entire universe--spewed forth. A new universe that would either build upon, or supplant, the old one. Or wipe them both out entirely.

John looked back to the President. The entire Board now stood with him, each one reveling in the swirling chaos and destruction that spun around them. John stood at the very eye of that destruction.

Anger. Hatred. Confusion. Dread. Now, nothing.

The President clapped his hands together in simple, saintly joy.

“Bravo, John Steiner! Bravo!”

All that ever was and ever would be collided with the quantum energy that spewed from the device that he had created, spinning off into unattached particles. Nothingness. The world, all worlds, stars, nebulae, was dissolving. John’s last image was of the President dancing with unbridled joy in the chaos that now ruled the universe.

“You motherfucker.”

An instant later, John was whisked away, leaving his shattered universe behind him.

The Assignment

In the wooded southeastern corner of the Central Unified School District’s unincorporated sector, up a dirt drive way, past security cameras, hidden microphones, pitfalls, booby traps, and tripwires was a tiny A-frame house. Inside that house lived a man who had given up all hope and resigned himself to his fate.

You wouldn’t know just by looking at it, but the tiny wooden cabin was, pound for pound, more heavily fortified than Fort Knox. The walls were eighteen-inch dense rammed earth and could stop anything up to and including a .50 rifle cartridge. He knew…he had tested it. Maybe it could’ve stopped something larger, but the .50 was all he had to test it with. Explosives could’ve gotten through, but anyone getting close enough to plant them would have to get past some serious hell to do so. The windows were double ply bulletproof glass, and the doors were burned from T1 armor plate steel.

The occupant of the house had been extremely busy lately, and his efforts made sure that two things would survive a nuclear war—him and cockroaches. So at least he’d be in good company, having preferred the company of cockroaches to other humans for some time now.

But there would be no nuclear war. Not for him, anyway. He was going to die soon. Pity. Testimony from the Los Alamos tests claimed that the burst from an atomic explosion was actually a beautiful thing to behold.

Inside his fortified bunker, John Steiner had little do but wait, sleep, and eat the cans of beef-a-roni and iodine-purified water he had stockpiled. No calls from his supervisor had come in the last several weeks and it only meant one thing—his employer had no further use for him. And people the Board of Education had no more use for seldom lived very long to reflect on their lives.

His tenure with the Central Unified School District’s Board of Education Behavioral Correction and Social Dogma Enforcement Division was not a very long one, but it had been eventful. It wasn’t bad gig. It had let him put his finely honed talents to use and the stipend he received from the Board of Education was enough to keep in beer and cigarettes, with just enough left to construct his mini-fortress.

He wasn’t sorry to see it end.

He had only just given up any notion of free will and made the decision to throw the events of his life over to the whims of fate. His past was a violent one, usually at the whims of others. His only real attempt at self-determination ended in absolute failure; leaving a trail of wreckage, bullet holes, and bodies in his wake. But always, even after his occasional successes and colossal fuck ups, he always ended up where he started. His professional career with the CUSD/BOE/BCSDED was nothing more than a stepping stone to nowhere.

The very next day after “The Incident” (as it came to be known in official reports), as he recuperated in a hospital bed, he threw his hands out, and shouted, “Fuck all!” Why bother? Take things as they come. If it needs fixing, fix it. If it needs hurting, hurt it. If it needs doing, do it. Otherwise, leave it the hell alone. He tried his best and ended even worse than when he started. He scraped some money together for a new place, and shut himself off from the world. He only emerged from his private world for work and supplies.

So far, the new world view worked well for him and freed up a lot of time for the things he enjoyed: watching TV, cleaning guns, and armoring up his new house. He never even entertained the idea of dating again. He had tried, but he wasn’t even sure what love was.

And so freed from the idea of self-actualization and the burdens it entailed, he was actually enjoying himself. As mid life crises go, this turned out to be a happy one.

But then the calls from the Superintendent stopped and, with them, his income. His retainer stipend ended, and he knew his life would soon follow. Nobody crossed the Board of Education, let alone make an attempt on their life. Everybody knew that, and nobody was stupid or unhappy enough to do anything about it. Except for him. And now he knew he would pay the price. He had run a few human physiology labs in his time and now he wondered if one of those stupid, grinning skeletons that hung in the class was going to be his.

But if he was to die, then let it happen—suffocated under a pile of corpses that he had created. He pored over every book on survival and improvised munitions he could dig up and turned his cozy little home into firebase Steiner. Every closet and cupboard had a loaded gun stashed in it. He drilled watch holes and concealed them with shrubs. He cut down every tree and bush that obstructed his line of fire. The acreage around his house was turned into a veritable no-man’s land. He slept under a blanket of flak jackets and snuggled up with his M1 Garand. He had more modern firepower at his disposal, but it the only one that had never malfunctioned. It had never let him down. Besides, it could cut through body armor like it was paper. Turn cover into concealment, as they say.

So he waited, and the empty Beef-a-roni cans started to pile up. He ran out of caffeine pills and his cozy little cottage started to stink like a locker room. He had read of this--assault strategy lesson one. They were trying to wear him down physically and emotionally, then he would be easy pickings.

He remained vigilant, but the body needs what it needs. Eventually, he succumbed to sleep. When he woke, he checked his watch. He’d been out for eighteen hours. If they had wanted to take him out that would have been the time. The sensation of impending doom subsided. Every day after that he became less vigilant, and was soon able to sleep without nightmares of armored men crashing into every opening into his house. His life of catlike readiness soon atrophied into sloth and inactivity.

The then something even more unexpected happened.

The call from the Superintendent of Schools came in the early afternoon, when John was only just getting out of bed. There had been no calls for the six months since The Incident, no attempts had been made on his life, and he was just beginning to enjoy life again. He had looked forward to a leisurely breakfast, a leisurely patrol of the premises and its defenses, followed by a leisurely afternoon of TV, followed by a leisurely dinner. He knew it was the Super before he even answered the phone. Only one person in the district had the phone’s number.

It took him a while to find the phone, eventually finding it in the pocket of a pair of jeans he had been meaning to launder for at least a month. The battery was almost drained completely. He flipped it open and put it to his ear. He still held on to a shred of hope that it was a wrong number, or at the very least, not a prelude to an attack.

“Good morning, sunshine.” The voice on the phone sounded mechanical, having been run through several layers of encryption and decryption.

John automatically fell into professional mode. “The sunrise was beautiful this morning.”

“Planets revolve around the Sun. Not vice versa.”

“It’s not a vice to be versatile.”

The line was secure, so the security protocols were dropped.

“John, it’s been a while. You sound tired. Are sleeping too little or too much?”

He had almost forgotten what the Super sounded like, but the prospect of any more days of pills, relaxation, and game shows immediately shattered. He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to sound as sick as possible. “Sorry…I’m getting over a…thing.” That “thing” being his now accustomed to life of leisure.

“Regardless, I need you dressed and in my office to discuss your next assignment. This one’s long term. Permanent, maybe. That and there’s a stack of stipend checks waiting for you here. You never signed up for direct deposit.”

That woke him up. Not the money, but the prospect of employment. “Permanent? Why? Did someone die?” Most jobs were short term. A day, maybe a week in the case of illness. In spite of the pleasurable rut he was in, the idea of being useful once again was appealing. He was getting a little flabby, after all. And a permanent assignment? He looked around at the tiny A-frame he inhabited and immediately thought of the improvements that a steady paycheck would bring. Maybe some shutters over the plexiglass windows.

“No. No one’s dead. Lost their mind, maybe, but not dead.”

John glanced at the TV. The Armory Channel was taking viewers on a tour of the Heckler and Koch factory in Oberndorf. “Shit,” he murmured. He set the TV to record the show. He knew he would never watch it, but it was a small consolation.

“Shit? What? You don’t like working?”

“Me? No sir! I’m up for anything!” He could tell his boss was pissed, and it pleased him. His old self was coming back with a vengeance.

“Anything?”

John looked around at the fortress he called his home. “Yeah.. anything.”

An hour later, John was dressed and standing in the Superintendent’s office, as promised. The Super was not an overbearing man, but the trappings of his office did a lot to convey the weight of his authority--enormous polished mahogany desk, stuffed leather chairs, a thick plush carpet over a polished hardwood floor. The hides of extinct animals adorned the walls. Every hard surface had been buffed to an almost blinding sheen.

The Super was sitting at his desk when he arrived. He eyed John over the rim of his business-chic glasses. Apparently, John’s months of solitude had taken a turn on his appearance. “John, when I said ‘dressed,’ I assumed you had the sense to dress PRESENTABLY.”

John pretended to take offense, looking over his loose robe and old t shirt, down to the untied combat boots on his unsocked feet. He shrugged, playing at being oblivious to whatever wrong he had committed.

The Super pursed his lips like he was going to spit. “You look like something the cat dragged in.”

“Well, I have been feeling a little regurgitated, lately.”

“Seriously, is this how you live your life? Or do actually have a decent wardrobe you wear when I’m not around?”

“You said ‘dressed.’ I, as you can see, am dressed.” These conversations were not unusual. John was an insufferable bastard when dealing with authority.

“The spirit of my request…”

“Tut! Tut!” John waggled his finger in front of his face. “Tut! Tut! The spirit of your request is debatable. The words, however, are not. I have adhered to your words, sir. In the future, perhaps you should choose your words with greater care.”

“Your smell hasn’t even reached me yet. I can tell it won’t be pleasant.”

John sniffed at his underarm and grimaced. His boss had him there.

The Super shook his head, signaling that the discussion was to proceed no further. He turned his attention to a sheaf of papers that lay on his desk. As he picked them up and pretended to study them, John took the opportunity to sit and drum his fingers on the armrests of the only other chair in the office. They sat, neither making the first move. Two sharks trying to psychologically outflank one another. John flinched first.

“And why, exactly, am I here?” The playfully mocking tone was gone and his voice practically oozed sardonically.

The Super ignored him and pretended to nod at whatever page he was pretending to peruse. He took a pen in hand and signed it.

“Heh.”

The Superintendent looked up raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“That pen has no ink in it.”

The Super looked down at the paper he had thought he signed. There was an indentation of his signature but, sure enough, no ink had been laid down. He glared at John and dropped the pen in the trash.

“Do you even read what you’re signing?”

The Super crumpled up the paper and dropped it in the trash next to the pen.

“Do you even need a brain for what you do, or just a spinal column?” John’s motives were as transparent as his glasses. The allure of a new assignment was starting to wane, especially if it meant the usual bullshit he had to endure. Hell, if he could get suspended he could make it back home in time for Double Jeopardy with a wad of uncashed stipend checks.

The Super wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He pulled an envelope from a drawer and handed it over the desk. “You, apparently, are the new head of the District’s Maths and Sciences department.”

Of all the theories John had come up with regarding his new assignment, this was not one of them. Though he held the envelope in his hand, it had been forgotten. “The what of the what, now?”

The Super enunciated carefully, “The new…faculty chairperson…of the Maths…and Sciences…department.”

John had learned long ago never to reveal confusion, or any kind of weakness, so he forced himself to recover from the news quickly. This was new, and he had no plan. He was forced to improvise. “Well now, that doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

The Super picked up his pile of papers and went back to pretending to study them. “Oh? And why is that?”

"Because as I’m sure you already know, I'm not faculty. Hell, I’m barely even employed right now. And I’m sure you recall the…unpleasantness."

“Unpleasantness? Is that what you call it? You caused eleven million dollars worth of structural damage alone. And those pieces of art? They were original, you know. You just don’t get them at the dollar store. Unpleasantness, indeed.”

“Fine…fine…mea culpa.”

“Add to that another six million dollars of security upgrades. Oh…then there were the condolence letters to the security guards you killed during your ‘unpleasantness.’ Thank God their insurance plan didn’t cover accidental death or dismembership.”

“Heh.”

“That wasn’t a joke, dammit!”

“Alright alright. I’m backing down.”

The Superintendent of School leaned back, stared at the ceiling for a moment, and let out a breath. “Anyway, back to your concerns. Believe me, you're the last person I would pick for the job and that's in addition to the fact that you're not even technically eligible. In fact, had the message come from anyone else, I’d lock that person up, take the key, melt it down, and cast it into another lock for the cage."

Anyone else? John wondered if his boss even wanted to tell him who ‘else’ was. Well fuck it. He wanted to know. He didn't like unknowns in his life. "Okay...so who then?"

The Super leaned back in his chair and gestured towards the envelope in John’s hand. “Read.”

John suddenly wondered if he wanted to know now. He pulled a single sheet of paper from the envelope. The elegantly styled script of the letterhead sent a chill down his spine, which was something few things could do. John had never figured out the power structure of the Education Department, nor where the Superintendant stood in it, but he knew only one authority ultimately mattered.

"This is from..."

"The Board of Education, John...directly."

Though most people had heard of them, almost no one knew of the tendrils of power the Board controlled. There was no shortage of rumors regarding the Board’s true nature. Almost everyone had their own theory, and there were almost as many theories as people who held them. Everything from all-powerful godlike beings who hurled lightning bolts to an immense supercomputer devoid of human frailties to bodiless brains kept alive in nutrient baths. Their power, however, was never questioned. As far as anyone knew, they ran…everything.

“Why the hell…”

“I already know what you’re thinking, John and, yes, there was talk of liquidation. Frankly, you came very close to being ground into hamburger and served in the cafeteria. But, let’s face it, there’s not a lot of people like you to go around, so I talked them out of it. You owe me for that.”

John pressed his palms together and bowed. “Namaste. Many thanks, and such.”

“Anyway, that was the last time I’ve seen or heard from them.”

The Board of Education was rarely seen in public, but the Super had regular briefings and conferences with them. The Board was power incarnate, and they always got what they wanted. John was still alive because he was worth more to them alive than dead. That was for certain. His destiny was theirs to control. Whatever they wanted out of him, it was worth more than the slight inconvenience he had caused.

He carefully read the letter, checking each word and phrase carefully, searching for whatever the Board’s angle for this new position might have been.

BOARD OF EDUCATION

CENTRAL UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

CLASSIFICATION—PUBLIC

UPON IMMEDIATE RECIPT OF THIS COMMUNICATION, JOHN STEINER, CONTRACT EMPLOYEE IN GOOD STANDING OF THE CENTRAL UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, IS TO BE APPOINTED FACULTY HEAD OF THE CENTRAL UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT’S MATHS AND SCIENCES DEPARTMENT.

ALL CURRENT FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES WILL BE RELEGATED TO QUALIFIED OTHERS.

MISTER STEINER’S AUTHORITY IN ALL MATTERS RELATING TO THE FUNCTIONS OF THE MATHS AND SCIENCES DEPARTMENT ARE ABSOLUTE AND NOT TO BE UNQUESTIONED.

The letter ended with an illegible scrawl that John assumed was the signature of the President of the Board of Education, nicely watermarked and medallion guaranteed.

John replaced the communiqué and handed it back. “Still, this is…irregular.” He was puzzled, but if this was the fate the Board had in mind for him, it was a good one. Damn good, considering.

The Super took the envelope and replaced it on his desk in the exact space he had removed it from.

“Irregular? That’s not what I’d call it. This is more like…like…I can’t think of a good word for it.”

John felt control of the situation shift, giving him an upper hand in the conversation. He leaned back in the overstuffed chair. “Well, now. I guess someone up there really likes me.”

The Super huffed and leaned back in his chair. He carefully scrutinized John with an indecipherable poker face. After a moment he opened a panel on his desk and pushed a button. When he did, an almost undetectable, high-pitched whine filled the room. The sound was at the very limit of human perception. John knew what it was--an audio jamming signal that would disrupt any listening devices planted in the room. Anyone tapping the room would hear nothing but white noise, a hiss that could be explained as a malfunction in the electronics. John had heard the sound before, but never in the Superintendent’s office, though he knew had the Super recorded all his conversations. He leaned in close.

“You’re wrong John. Nobody up there likes you.”

John felt a tingle run down his spine. Their back and forth banter was always antagonistic, but with a playful undertone. But there was very real menace in the Super’s voice this time. What was his boss getting at?

The Super dropped his businesslike affect and hissed like a cobra. “Listen to me. The Board of Education has lost it. I have not had any communication from them in months. Nobody has. Not since The Incident. And now, suddenly, this.” He stabbed a finger down on the envelope. “There are dozens of people more qualified than you. And I don’t just mean their qualifications, either. There are stabler people, more ethical people, people with far more control. People that do what they’re told and don’t try to murder their employers.”

The Super was right. John hated authority, but he wielded it like a sadistic jailer with a bullwhip. He grinned. Whatever the reason for its existence, the letter on the desk made John his boss’s equal, or at least close to it. “Is that dissention I’m hearing?”

The Super snapped back, “Listen to me you asshole. That letter changes nothing. As long as I’m sitting in this seat I’m still in charge of you. Now I can’t tell you how to do your new job, but I can and will watch you like a hawk. Understand? You still answer to me.”

“I get it…you’re the boss. Good of you to set me straight, though. I get a might uppity at times.”

“I want weekly…no…daily reports on everything. Every half-assed decision, every stupid conversation, every wasteful expenditure. You should be pushing up the daisies, right now, John. The fact that you’re here right now with that letter means that something very strange, and very big is UP.”

The letter he held in his hand suddenly felt very heavy.

John dropped his own attitude for a moment. “What, exactly? How ‘big’, do you figure?”

The Super shook his head. “I don’t know, John. But you said it yourself. Maybe no one up there up likes you, but they definitely want you for something. And face it, you’re the last person that should be put in charge of anything.”

John looked over the letter again, his newly found fatalism started to take hold. If he was being put there to do something, whatever it was, why fight it. Hell, he may even have some fun in the process. Gears in his head were turning. “I’m going to need a copy of that. And on the same letterhead. Medallion stamped and guaranteed, too. Just like the original.”

The Super switched off the jamming device. John couldn’t tell if he was happy or pissed over the way their private conversation went. “Already on its way.”

John puzzled over the contents of the letter some more. Was it sent to him by mistake? Meant for someone else with the same name? He dismissed that one. It wasn’t an uncommon name, but no one else employed by the Department of Education had it but him.

The Super thumped his desk and John was shaken from his reverie.

“Per the letter, the position starts immediately, John. You may want to get yourself cleaned up. Any questions?”

“Just one.”

The Super pinched his nose between his eyes, like he had a migraine coming on. “What is it?”

“Is it weird that I have a boner right now?”

“It would be weird if you didn’t. You’re dismissed.”

Deep in the subterranean depths under the Department of Education Headquarters, in a hardened concrete bunker, the eight members of the Board of Education lay in their hospital beds. Each was immobile, tethered to a litany of monitors, IV drips, respirators, and pumps. None moved or spoke as each was tended to by his or her own team of doctors, specialists, and nurses. The room was filled with the hisses, beeps, and quick speech of an emergency trauma ward. The only movement of the members themselves came from faint currents of air that swayed the sparse, white hair on their heads.

To an outside observer, they were comatose, or possibly dead. But that would be a mistake. Their eyes were open and alert, and their lips and tongues were moving almost imperceptibly. Tiny microphones attached to their throats recorded, amplified, and sent their inaudible speech while wires attached to their skulls transmitted their thoughts and reactions to the hub of their human network. Their bodies had long atrophied, but their craniums remained their normal sizes, giving them a hydroencephalic look. Tiny blue veins that ran through their temples throbbed with the rhythm of their heartbeat monitors. Each housed a brain that would put the world’s geniuses to shame.

The members of the Board of Education were arrayed in an octagon. At its center, the President of the Board sat in his throne--a tiny, wizened figure unmoving in a tub of nutrients. If anything, he appeared even more ancient and decrepit than his colleagues. Tubes ran from his neck, filtering and circulating his blood. A kidney dialysis machine hissed and pumped nonstop. Machines monitored his heart and respiration functions. His musculature had completely wasted away and he appeared as not much more than hundred year old cadaver.

His brain, however, was as clear and calculating as a supercomputer . He was the hub of the human network that surrounded him. Their words, their thoughts, and their impressions were all fed to him and melded together into singular, unified thought. The President was the soul of the Board of Education.

The Superintendent’s meager attempt to hide the conversation amused them. High definition cameras monitored the office from every angle. They zoomed in on the faces of its occupants. Mouth movements, gestures, and facial expression were analyzed and interpreted in real time. Yes Superintendent was being defiant, but not dangerously, though. All that mattered was that wheels were set in motion.

At the eye of a whirlwind of thought, the president smiled.

The Arrival

A young unicorn mare tried her best to smile but, inside, her stomach was in knots. It was her first night at the castle, and she was eager to impress her princess. She had heard of Princess Celestia’s kindness, of her intelligence, and of her grace. The only thing she was not prepared for was her beauty. The princess was sublime. The little unicorn felt lost staring into her mane, which seemed to be made from the stars themselves.

The mark on the unicorn’s flank was a simple, green leaf. It had shown itself in her early adolescence, as she played alone by herself. Though the meaning behind a cutie mark is usually self-evident, hers had her confused. She had no luck in growing flowers, tending plants, or even singing to trees.

For a long time, her cutie mark was a mystery. But right now, she waited.

Princess Celestia carefully levitated the cup to her mouth and took a sip. It was the most perfect cup of tea she had ever tasted!

“This is wonderful!”

Her new aide and attendant, Chamomile, beamed with pride and joy. “Will that be all, m’lady?”

“That will be all, dear, thank you.” Princess Celestia gently nuzzled the young unicorn mare, who practically hopped up and down with joy through the chamber door.

Her duties as princess were never complete. But they would wait until morning. Now was her time to relax. She spent the last minutes of her day with an ancient book of poetry and sipping from the wonderful cup of tea her new aide had prepared.

From somewhere in the castle, a faint gong sounded. Midnight.

She heard the squeak of a hinge as Chamomile came through the door. “May I take that, m’lady?”

“Just, one last sip, please.” She levitated the cup to her mouth.

Something unexpected happened. A shudder passed through her. It felt physical, but there was nothing that could have caused it.

Whatever it was, Chamomile felt it too. She let out a surprised gasp. A preternatural silence filled the space between them.

The cup and saucer fell to the floor and shattered. The magical sconces that lit the room fell dark. The magical energy that surrounded her horn went dead. For the first time in her existence, she felt empty and lifeless.

It was as if a giant switch had been flicked off. With it, all the magic in Equestria disappeared in an instant. Across the land her subjects, even the non-magic using pegasi and earth ponies, felt the effect. Animals cried out at such a sudden loss.

Chamomile pressed herself to the royal chambers’ floor as hard as she could and shivered in fear. She looked to her princess with eyes as wide as dinner plates. “What’s happening?” She squeaked.

The Princess stammered for an answer. Anything to calm the terrified mare. “I…I…”

I don’t know!

Equestria sat in darkness, in stunned silence.

But soon after the frightening event began, it ended. The magical energy of Equestria returned. The sconces relit and she felt could feel it coursing through her again. For a moment, all Princess Celestia and her aide could do was look at each other. An ancient memory, of something she read long ago, came to the forefront of her consciousness.

“Fetch Luna and Princess Twilight! Go!” The little unicorn did a quick curtsey and fled the chamber.

Her memory wasn’t perfect, but she recalled something from a book she had read ages ago. Of an event just like the one that had just occurred, when the magic of the realm seemed to simply disappear.

But magical energy does not just disappear.

It was taken. Something had come from outside and sucked the land dry of her life blood. Whatever it was, it had opened a door that allowed Equestria to be drained of her precious magic. But Equestria is a stubborn lady, and for what she gives up, she demands something equal in payment.

She went to her shelves and selected one book, then another. Several had been piled on the floor before she found what she was looking for. In a tome of ancient Equestrian history, before goodness and light had come to the land, when magic was a forbidden and dangerous thing. When all the creatures of the land were silent then, as one, cried out in terror.

A demon had arrived in Equestria.