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

are at the forefront of 1980's technology," another replied. "Nobody does 1980's like us. It would be stupid to change streams now."

"Speaking of the 1980's," Ray chimed in, "I need to get out of here. Go play in the snow, if you know what I mean."

Looking at his watch, Phil pushed out his chair. "Christ, bro, you know there's, like, a bunch more designer drugs that are a million times bett—" Phil muttered.

"Stupid to change streams," Ray interrupted. "It was good enough for my dad, it's good enough for me."

"Hey, can you guys save me a seat?" Bob muttered, thumbing through his phone.

"Everyone's asleep in Europe, Bob. And no one wants to suck you off."

"Europe?" Ray regretted the word coming out of his mouth immediately.

"Yeah. Bob's lost—like—fifty million over the past week an-a half in bum-fucking-sylvania. That's your area, right Bob? Bum-fucking?"

"Haha. I'm glad the loss of that much company money amuses you," Bob said flatly.

"When it's you losing it? It's fucking hilarious," Ray moved towards the door.

"You guys wanna see something fucked up?"

"Nobody wants to see your sex tape, Bob."

"Just... Look at this thing. It's not that the money is just gone, it's that... The plan was to buy up these properties from some of the struggling regional muppets. We slap on a coat of paint and let them sit there. Government there is so desperate for investment that the taxes are almost nil. We get the money off our books around tax season. If the muppets can't pay the rent, who cares? But..."

Ray glanced at an email chain on the phone. "The muppets aren't struggling as much as you'd like."

Bob shook his head. "Across the region, it's the same thing. Property is way up, but..." After a few well-placed flicks of his fingers Bob's phone a series of charts rolled by. "Almost all of retail is completely gone. Food. Alcohol. Automotive. Electronics is still good..."

Phil grasped the phone. "So, nobody has trouble making the mortgage but is buying absolutely nothing else?"

"Let's go." Ray prodded. It was a strange problem, but not his. Who cared?

"Maybe everyone got really responsible. That's a marketing problem."

"Muppets aren't that smart. They can't be." This was said with the same conviction as the assertion that velociraptors surely could not open doors.

Something bit in Ray's brain that would stay there for the rest of the night; through the evening at the talentless strip club when he should have been focused on the forced smiles on the woman in front of him, something which always tugged on the delicious schadenfreude section of his brain. He looked around lazily. It was a Friday night. Shouldn't there be more girls?

Half-drunk, half blitzed out of his mind, he staggered into his building from the company town car, sidestepped the begging muppet outside. Wasn't there supposed to be door security on? Fucking muppets were disappearing from the whole world.

Once securely encased in the trappings of his townhouse Ray flipped open his laptop. Within the depths of his emails trash bin, a mere two days away from being swept into digital oblivion was a video attachment from one of his own regional buyers. He claimed it was being pulled and banned from any social media because the creators were a cult. The subject line of 'URGENT: THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING' had raised his eyebrow at first, but he had dismissed it the same way as any other stupid internet video he had ever been sent: "God damn, muppets are easily impressed". He had not even watched to the end of the first time. This time he paid attention to the cringe provoking words "MAKE MAGIC YOURS" splashed over the title bar and even scrolled backward after his attention was diverted by an ad for an online legal advisor.

Reluctantly he pulled a pad and pen from their corner on the desk, tapping the expensive metal of the pen against the edge of the table as the video began again.

The camera shook slightly as the operator adjusted it before moving to a chair positioned behind the table on which the camera sat. He nestled into place with his forearms on the table. The pleasant Slavic face smiled before he began speaking in a language which anyone listening might mistake for Polish, Ukrainian or miscellaneous. A series of subtitles began to pop up along the bottom of the screen.

"Hello, I'm Lukindore98 and today we're going to learn how to make a fifty cent Euro coin from... nothing. As always, no editing or digital effects are being used in this video. If you don't believe me, you're welcome to try for yourself."

The narrator paused for a moment before retrieving a handful of coins from off camera and placing them on the table. As his narration continued he held up each coin in turn.

"We are currently working on a video about producing two Euro coins using a similar technique, but because those are made of a composite of materials it's a lot more complicated and you can likely do the fifty cent coin much faster. This spell is based on research done by Mr. McAllister and several of his Adepts. I'll put their names in the comments."

He swept away the coins.

"Now, I realize that those of you listening in other languages might have problems distinguishing the spell from just... me talking so I'll play a little tone at the start and end of the spell. And there's a link to the documentation below. If you're looking to make your own documentation there's a link to my old videos about using Latex and reading linguistic notation there are well. All right, let's get right to it."

There was a tone and then the narrator began to speak. After nearly forty-five seconds a small portion of the air on the table solidified into a small metal disk.

"Okay, now there