If I could call my coworker I would, but unfortunately for wizards, a side effect of being a weaver of the power that holds the “land” is that radio signals get jumbled up. If I were to stand next to a radio and turn it to a station, I’d be hearing eldritch noises of human or radera speech. It’s not static that will be heard, the radio waves don’t get set back to the original background white-noise of the big bang, but the information carried by the radio waves get mixed and jumbled. Think of a recording, then snip it into thousands of bits, each one a syllable, silence, inflection, or anything else you can think of, now scramble those bits. Imagine that some of those bits get pitched up or down, sped up or slowed down, or even reversed, then think about changing reverberation too; that’s what happens to radio waves.
I can’t call my friend, so I have to go back to the mechanic shop where we both work. I say we’re coworkers, but in reality, we’re co-founders. Avarez Galieta Workshop, fix it like it’s magic. And the translation to Goktoga, one of the many languages of the radera, just like us.
If you’ve never been to a human city on the planet, then you’d be surprised by the inequality of the place. It isn’t because of discrimination against radera, humans are elitists by nature. No matter where you come from, if you have money you’re fine, but if you’re lacking it, then you’ll be having a rough time. The economy has never been fine. Inflation increases considerably every year, the amount of virtual money needed to be created increases by a hundredfold every year.
This would probably be a cause for economic destruction. But banks manage to change the value of the currency worldwide as the only currency used currently is the same everywhere you go. I’ve yet to understand how this works, but I’m not a man of numbers or money. All I want and care about is more money so I can live by.
If I said I didn’t love our civilization I’d be lying, but I am annoyed at our economics. However, there’s nothing we can do about it. We live in dystopian times and there’s a job to be done.
Ironically, I don’t have a vehicle to drive to work. I take public transportation.
There are many things I don’t like about our way of living, one of which is economics. Another is public transportation. Getting on a collective transport is like throwing dice, you don’t know what you’re going to get. Let’s see, today we have… no floor. Waiting for the next bus would mean spending an uncertain amount of time, so I decide to pay my passage by swiping my wrist to the scanning terminal. The scanners can record your genetic identity, find your bank account and send a request for payment.
“Accept,” I said to the machine. Before anything happens I quickly move away from the machine. In order for payment to get through the machine has to send the information to the bank by using radio waves. If I don’t move away the radio waves will show gibberish to my bank and the payment won’t get through. It’s a hassle to deal, because the bank has to check for payments, the fact that they ask you to go to the station and get a file that shows that you actually paid, then get back to the bank and wait for them to check your history and payments.
I jump from frame to frame until I get to my seat. A third thing I don’t like about the way we live is… interactions. Dealing with others is also a throw of the dice. The lady sitting next to me could assault me, but to her, I could be assaulting her any minute. The best thing to do is don’t speak and don’t look at each other. That’s what being polite is nowadays, when before -- maybe decades ago, probably a century or two -- people could happily smile at each other and wish each other a great day.
But lastly, the one other thing I hate about the way we live in --
The transport stops. There is no such thing as flying cars. Instead, the vehicles are electric and they hover over a metal place that also supplies them with electricity. There are no drivers, the vehicles drive themselves -- well there are drivers, but they are few that would rather do it themselves. So when there’s an obstacle, the vehicles stop automatically.
I forgot to mention there are no doors to this “bus,” so when a man climbs in he doesn’t have to force anything open. And when said man is holding a knife you know very well what’s going on. To be fair, everyone on the bus already knew what was going to happen they didn’t need to see a knife to understand.
Voice of displeasure rather than fear started aloud.
“Shut up,” said the robber. “And show me your wrists.” He said while a second man with a scanner climbed up and a third behind him with a gun.
“This again! It’s my third time this week!” said an old lady. “I won’t pay anything, I have barely any money left.”
I don’t know if I should say that this is one thing I like about the way we live, but at the very least it’s not such an extreme thing. I say this because the man with the knife, the apparent leader, said to leave the old lady alone. “She’s suffered enough already,” he said. There’s some kind of compassion when robbing. They know we are all struggling. I guess I shouldn’t like it; this is as bad as it gets. That your robbers can take the luxury of letting you keep your money because maybe you have it worse than them. Yes, maybe, I don’t like it after all.
As they move from person to person I can read on the screen that they are taking from each person a thousand treys. That’s essentially nothing, but anything more than that, and authorities and the banks would begin an investigation and a hunt. They are, after all, taking money from the banks. The money you put in banks is, in some ways, not your money. It’s like you’re investing your money in them, and if you want to withdraw from them, you’re just asking them to give back part of your investment. Banks didn’t necessarily always work like that… not anymore. If a bank goes down, the money goes down with it. And you won’t be taking your money back because it was an investment.
I’m a wizard, I could probably threaten these guys, but I also could end up hurting people with my magic. Like I said before: brawn and brains.
I lift my arm and pull my sleeve from it, I don’t even want to watch the guys as they take my money. So I decided to look forward, and as they come close I look down. Man, am I looking so pitiful, right now, but I like thinking that at least I keep some dignity.
As they take my arm I see the glimpse of metal shinning to my left. I know very well what it is, so I don’t move my head, instead, I just move my eyes and spot a gun below the woman’s purse. Holy Merlin, she’s going to shoot them. Now’s not the time to panic, but my body and brain can’t handle the sudden surge in adrenaline. I began to get hot and sweaty.
“Relax, this will be over soon,” said the man with the scanner.
I don’t normally care for being robbed, the scanner uses radio waves, it will never work and they will never be taking my money. But the woman next to me seems to care quite a lot about it. If I don’t do something, this won’t end well for anybody here.
I move to look at the man and said: “it won’t work on me. No matter how much you take it won’t pass.”
“Are you refusing us?” said the leader. The gunman looks at me and being gripping his gun tighter. I don’t think they really want any trouble.
“No,” I said calmly, giving them time to relax. “I mean, even if I accept it, the scanner won’t send a message to the bank. The bank will not know that you’re asking for my money, and the request in your scan will fail.”
“Just say you accept the transfer,” said the leader.
“Whatever you say, but when the scanner won’t work don’t fault me.” The scanner read my identity and I pronounce accept. The request, as expected, doesn’t get through. “Told you.” I need to stall for a bit more, make them uncomfortable. “You could try again, here,” I said while swiping my wrist to the scanner's reading plate and the repeat accept again. The same error message comes out. “If you want to try it, Mr. Leader.”
“Why doesn’t it work on you? You’re on the bus.”
“Well, if you want any money from me, you’ll have to run away from me fast, otherwise you won’t get any money.”
“Is that a threat?” said the gunman.
Uh oh. Not good, that guy does not like being in this situation. He might be nervous, but he might be capable of shooting. And the woman is getting nervous, too.
I unconsciously look behind me. The moment I do, the woman pulls the gun and opens fire on the gunman. The gun fires right next to my right ear. From then on I can no longer hear anything from the right side. I squint and cover my ear in agony. My eardrums might have burst.
In the confusion, I catch a glimpse of the gunman falling through the bottom of the bus, his gun with him. The leader quickly snaps at the woman, taking the gun in his hand and pointing it up. The gun fires five more times before the leader decides to strike at her with his knife but quickly loses balance and falls on top of me.
Something that you should know about wizards is that sometimes their imagination becomes a reality. I was so angry I could even say I was burning, but it wouldn’t be just a ‘saying’ when I was literally on fire. My whole body began producing flames and the man on top of me began screaming as the fire burned him and all of a sudden he started catching on fire. The woman, now behind me, yelp as she burned herself, too, with my fire. The gun misfired with the direct heat and she dropped the gun, falling through the bottom.
The leader pulled off his jacket in time, before losing stability and falling halfway through the bottom. I was furious. First the torviela, then the assault, then the gun firing next to my face, and then a knife fight on top of me.
Something else you should know about wizards is that the use of emotions power out magic. When we’re not fighting we try to be stoic, but because we use emotions to power our spells during battle, we easily get emotional. Anger, fury, is the most used emotion. That is why sometimes they say wizards are easy to anger, hard to control, and crazy.
I was crazy. I stood up from my seat and looked at the two men still alive.
“GET OFF THE BUS!” I screamed with all my power. My anger swelled a released, my body, already cover in flames, burst out bigger flames. I could hear screams from everyone on the bus. Every single person, including the robbers, ran away.
As my anger subsided, I could hear the small cries of a woman behind me. They weren’t desperate. They sounded like someone who had accepted their fate. I turned to see her whimpering face, it was covered in black lines streaking from her eyes. She thought she was dead, and her burned arm was hidden under her other.
My flames disappeared and I took a deep breath. “Calm down,” I told her. “I got a little angry. No one’s going to hurt you know.” I moved off the seat and carefully into the beams at the bottom of the bus. The bus started moving, I lost my balance and I almost fell. “Woah.” I held onto the seats and shouted: “Stop!” the woman behind me yelp quietly. The bus began to slow down. “See, I’m stepping out.” I took my wallet and pulled out a card, then placed it in my seat. “Go to the hospital and get treated. Call that number and I’ll pay for the expenses. Sorry I burned you.”
I may be cynical sometimes, but at the very least I know when I have to take responsibility for the problems I cause, especially when it involves the health of others. That was why I didn’t strike preemptively at the robbers before. Too many people would be hurt.
I stepped out of the bus and walked to the corner of the street to wait for the next bus. It probably took an hour before the next one stopped by where I was.
Next stop, Avarez Galieta Worksop. Hopefully.
