FORT’S VERY FIRST MILITARY BRIEFING had already started when he arrived. “Time is short, so I won’t keep you long,” Colonel Charles said from the front of the Briefing Room, then paused as Dr. Ambrose brought Fort in. Everyone turned to look at Fort, and he felt his face begin to burn as the doctor led him gently toward the back, where Jia and Rachel were seated.
Of all the stares, though, the colonel’s was the angriest. The man looked like he hadn’t slept in days, which he probably hadn’t, not with everything that’d happened with his son Gabriel and the Old Ones. “Good to see everyone’s here, finally,” Colonel Charles said, and Fort winced.
“Sorry,” Dr. Ambrose said, as Fort silently took an open seat next to Jia. “Had to make sure my patient was fit for active duty, Colonel.”
This earned Dr. Ambrose a similar glare to the one Fort had gotten, but he couldn’t help but feel relieved that the doctor was on his side, at least a bit.
“Your devotion to your job is noted, Doctor,” Colonel Charles said. “Now if I might continue?”
She waved absently, dropping into a seat along the wall.
“Are you okay?” Jia whispered to Fort. “I’m sorry I couldn’t finish healing you. There were so many people that the Old One morphed—”
The memory of D’hea—the Old One of Corporeal magic—turning soldiers two-dimensional or merging them together filled Fort’s head, and he shook it off, trying not to think about how letting the Old One into the school had been all his fault. “I’m okay,” he whispered back.
“As I was saying, I’ll make this quick,” Colonel Charles said. “This isn’t a surprise, ladies and gentlemen. We knew this day would come. Many of you have been briefed on the situation from your squad leaders already, but for those who haven’t, we have another potential D.C. situation on our hands.”
A low murmur came over the assembled soldiers as the lights dimmed, and the screens on the wall lit up to show the video Dr. Ambrose had shown Fort earlier, news footage of an enormous black dome now covering half of the United Kingdom. A few of the soldiers actually gasped, while Rachel and Jia just stared in shock. That was understandable; even having seen it before, Fort couldn’t help but shudder at how unreal the world had become.
Eight months ago, a monster attack or a dome covering a country would have been unthinkable. Now it was happening every few weeks. And if Fort was terrified by that, he couldn’t imagine how the general public must be panicking.
“Another attack was inevitable,” Colonel Charles said, stepping in front of the screens. “And since that’s the reason you’re here, why the TDA even exists, consider yourselves at bat. At 2000 hours yesterday, Unknown Magic Users, or UMUs, created this dome over the countries of England and Wales, the southern half of the isle of Great Britain. The units of the United Kingdom military stationed outside the dome have attempted to breach it without any success. We don’t know if the soldiers inside have made similar attempts, as we’ve had zero communication with them.”
“Fort, isn’t that where Cyrus went?” Jia whispered to him.
Fort nodded, unable to hide his worry. “Sierra’s there too,” he whispered back, trying not to think about how Sierra hadn’t answered any of his mental “calls” since the dome had appeared. Last he’d heard from her, she was going to use her Mind magic to try to “wake up” the Clairvoyance students, Cyrus’s old schoolmates who’d somehow come untethered from the real world by using Time magic.
This had to be related. It had to be the—
“Based on the color of the dome, we’ve ruled out Destruction, Healing, Mind, and Summoning magic,” Colonel Charles said, mirroring Fort’s thoughts. “Obviously the most likely culprit is Time magic, considering the UK government saw fit to keep that book of magic for itself.” His tone made it clear what he thought of that decision. “Though we’ve had a student of Time magic on campus for almost a year, as far as we know, he never exhibited any power of this magnitude and was limited to Clairvoyance spells, by which I mean looking a short period into the future.”
A map of the UK replaced the video now, lit up with names as a black dome appeared to cover the bottom half. The colonel pointed at a marked area on the map in Wales. “Our Time student and the school’s civilian expert, Dr. Oppenheimer, are presently inside the dome, according to our last available intel. Shortly before it appeared, they had traveled to the UK’s school, the Carmarthen Academy, located here.” He tapped the map. “Based on our available information, which I will share momentarily, we believe this to be the current location of our UMUs, and therefore our objective.”
The screens went blank and the lights turned back up as Colonel Charles faced the room once more. “There are around sixty million United Kingdom citizens trapped within this dome, people,” he said, staring out over the assembled soldiers. Fort’s eyes widened as the number hit him. This really was so much bigger than the last two attacks. “And we’re their best—and only—hope. Your job is to infiltrate the school, find these UMUs, and take them down using any means necessary.”
“What?” Fort whispered, and it must have been louder than he thought, as several soldiers turned to look at him. But he couldn’t help it. Any means necessary? His friends were over there! What if something went wrong, and a soldier mistook Sierra or Cyrus for one of these UMUs? They could get hurt!
At least Cyrus might be safer, since some of the TDA soldiers should recognize him from his time at the school. Except none of the soldiers around looked familiar to Fort, which made him even more nervous. After his weeks at the Oppenheimer schools, he’d seen a lot of soldiers, mostly guarding the students or the school. But somehow, he’d never run into any of the ones here.
Had they been training somewhere else, away from the students? And if they had, why?
None of this seemed like a good idea, and Fort shifted in his seat anxiously. If he’d known this was coming, he might have just teleported over to the UK school himself before coming to the briefing, to see if he could find Sierra and Cyrus before the TDA invaded. He even knew what the school looked like, since Sierra had shown him a mental image of it the night before, which meant his Teleportation magic could get him there.
Maybe it wasn’t too late, even now. He could at least get his friends back, if not see what was going on, and possibly try to stop things before they got out of hand. If he could just sneak out of the briefing somehow—
“As I said before, we haven’t had any communication from British forces inside the dome,” Colonel Charles said. “But we did receive one message. We traced its origin to the Carmarthen Academy.”
The lights dimmed as the screens lit up once again, now showing video footage of six children wearing what looked like black school uniforms, only with black hoodies on top, each hood pulled down to hide their identities. This left them looking awfully creepy in the dim light of the video, with only the bottom half of each of their faces visible.
“Greetings, Oppenheimer School,” said one of the boys, stepping forward. His accent sounded similar to Cyrus’s, though his voice was very different.
But then a stray, silver-colored hair slipped out from beneath the hood on the boy’s face, and Fort’s eyes widened.
“It is regretful that circumstances have come to this,” the boy said, spreading his arms wide. “But you have left us with no other choice. Your actions have created a future that we cannot abide, and therefore we must take a stand. You—”
“If you give us what we ask for, we’ll drop the dome, and everyone will be fine,” said a girl, stepping forward to interrupt the first boy. “All we ask is your cooperation to—”
“If you do not do what we say, London will be destroyed !” the boy said, before the girl could continue. “Is that what you want?”
“Whoa, hold on,” the girl said quickly, raising her hands in a calming gesture and looking back and forth between the camera and the boy. “I don’t think that’s the best way to—”
“And that is only the beginning!” the boy shouted. “London will be the spark that lights the world on fire, if you do not cooperate and fulfill the following demand.”
The room was deathly quiet, everyone waiting to hear what they wanted—everyone except for Fort, who already knew, and Colonel Charles, who was glaring at him from beside the video screen.
“You will hand over to us three of your students, immediately,” the boy said, crossing his arms. “They are as follows: Jia Liang, Rachel Carter, and Forsythe Fitzgerald.”
This time, Rachel and Jia gasped, while Fort just tried to sink low enough in his chair to disappear completely as the assembled soldiers turned almost as one to look back at him. Again, even being warned ahead of time by Dr. Ambrose didn’t help, not when everyone now knew exactly why he was here and probably blamed him for the dome even existing. And why not? If that was why these kids had created it, to get him, Jia, and Rachel over there, wasn’t it his fault?
“Send them to the Carmarthen Academy alone, without any weapons or communication devices,” the boy continued. “When they arrive we will take down our dome, and London will survive. Disobey us, and the world will suffer for it.”
“No, stop,” the girl in the video said, glaring at the boy. “This isn’t what we—”
And then the video jumped, as if it had been edited, and the girl disappeared, leaving the one boy to speak again.
“You cannot deceive us, so do not even try,” he said. “We’ve foreseen every possible action you might take, and have prepared for each and every one of them. You’ve been warned, and we’ll await your compliance.” He slowly smiled, then raised his hand in a salute. “To the return of the one, true, future king!”
The others saluted as well, and then the screen went dark.
Colonel Charles stepped forward again, the hall now so silent Fort could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
“Any means necessary,” the colonel repeated. “Do I make myself clear?”