The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister - Landon Wark (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

On the thoroughfare the mood of drudging annoyance lifted and the honking of cars died away as the motorists who, up until the instant it happened had been boiling with anger towards the pair standing on the rear of their rusted out old truck, blinked once and opened their door to stare at the place where those two imbeciles had disappeared into a flash of light.

The street emerged from the white light around them and Aegera had to grasp around for something to hold onto as the feeling of motion suddenly ceased and she felt with all certainty that she should be flying through the air.

"The molecular density of solids and liquids makes the electron interference too great to displace them. It's not possible to jump into walls," Jonah was already saying as she reeled backward, bracing her back against a chain link fence running along the outside of an adjacent building, carefully keeping the rods in her hands from brushing against the side.

"Shit," he heard her say and swung around to see a pair of jittery looking piles of black plastic armour scrambling to point a pair of whatever kind of rifle the police used in this area.

The response was as automatic as the spike of adrenaline hitting his nervous system. For a brief instant he was proud that the words were so ingrained into him that he was able to wield them the same way his would strike out with a hand or foot.

The two of them were swept to the ground as their legs kicked out from under them with the sound of a bone breaking and a scream of surprise and agony echoing across the alley. Satisfied and proud for a moment Jonah recoiled when he heard one of the thrashing piles shouting something into a radio mounted on his shoulder and both still pointing their weapons towards him. He shuddered, holding his arms out defensively before his face as they managed to squeeze the trigger.

Pop

The gunshot was loud and Jonah felt his bladder loosen slightly before realizing that nothing had actually happened.

Pop. Bang.

One fallen soldier screamed as his weapon exploded in his hands, ripping at his gloves and spraying a small slick of blood across the alley pavement. Jonah blinked as Aegera rushed over and kicked the gun away from where the man had let it fall next to him. Jonah exhaled with a shudder, taking in the fact that while the suppressors had worked, they hadn't worked perfectly. The first round must have fired with insufficient force to propel it all the way out of the gun barrel. When the second round had gone off the blockage had pushed all the force out of the sides of the breach, taking the tops off of the man's thumbs.

If the order had been reversed...

Aegera planted a foot in the ribs of the second soldier and ripped his weapon from his hands, heaving it up onto the roof of the adjoining building.

"We're gonna have to knock them out a lot quicker," she said.

"I know," Jonah replied shakily, wondering how she could be so steady. "Maybe—maybe electricity? Could overload the nervous system. Could just fry them where they stand."

"I don't think we can be gentle," she said.

"I know, but—"

"They just tried to kill you!" she shouted.

"I KNOW!" He kicked a small box full of garbage sending it flying over the groaning masses at Aegera's feet.

A better world is one where you stand up for people in trouble by killing other people?!

"Okay," he breathed. "Okay. Let's just... Find your Adepts and get the hell out of here. We'll worry about the morality of it all after."

"They're going to be looking for us now," Aegera motioned to the radio on the soldier's shoulder.

"Yeah. Just... Act now, worry later," he said. It was all his brain could come up with.

He slotted the tubing into a pair of pockets in the lining of his heavy coat, hoping it would be out of the way enough that it would survive the pressure of his arms and Aegera did the same. They moved carefully to where the alley intersected with the street. It was there that the cause of the traffic along the thoroughfare became apparent. A large vehicle, some kind of personnel carrier was perched at the place where the large street joined up with the grid of the city roads. Several dozen meters down there was another and then another after that. A pair of soldiers stood watch over each in their disconcertingly identical black riot gear.

Stormtroopers is right.

"Holy Hell," Aegera whispered. "What the fuck is going on? It was always just groups of about four or so. This... this is organized. This is some straight Gestapo shit."

Jonah nodded slowly. There was a kind of bleary, unreality about the whole scene where he could have sworn he was looking through a screen into the realm of a kind of Fascist dystopia. A sickening worry that he had woefully misjudged exactly what kind of world he was throwing rocks at rippled into him. He had to lean against the brick wall of the building they were using for cover lest he fall over.

"This isn't supposed to happen. This isn't supposed to happen," he found himself repeating.

The men guarding the carriers glanced around the area, undoubtedly on alert after having heard the call on the radio.

"We can jump across the main street to over there." Aegera pointed, but Jonah wasn't completely listening. His mind was busy trying to unwrap what must be going through the heads of whoever set something like this up. Send soldiers in? For trying to make people's lives better? For fucking science? They didn't have to do this!

They don't have to do this.

"Yeah, yeah, we can do that," he muttered.

But...

Before he really knew what was going