“Sorry, Mr. Stuyvesant. There is one hypothetical answer to your question. Fuller produced a pencil and a notepad from his coat. “The Power is made up of thousands of individual geometric constructs.” He quickly scribbled a complex design onto the paper. “This is what yours, as a Mover, looks like.”
Francis took the pad. It was the design for a spell, only much more complex than anything the Society had cobbled together in the Rune Arcanium. This was closer to some of the things that Sullivan was playing with. He had never seen what his own looked like before. It was strangely familiar, like a half-remembered dream. “Where’d you learn this?”
“Learn it?”
“Who taught you this spell?”
“I’m looking at it right now,” Fuller explained. “I can see the Power. I can always see magic and its many complex connections. That was how I was able to design the spheroid’s repellent omnialternative correlation for the nullifier.”
That blew him away. “You can see the Power? All the time?”
“Why, yes. Of course.”
However much money Chandler had spent to pick this guy up was well worth it. Sullivan’s few minutes dead and hanging around the Power had given them several new spells, and Fuller could see everything right now! Francis was going to be rich… well, richer. “Wow. I really wish I had more time. Back to the business of beating your nullifier..”
“In my travels I’ve come across two types of connections to the Power: those that are chosen by the Power directly, and those that man has created through his own experimentation. Their appearance is drastically different, as if the original was created by a master sculptor and the others are a copy done in chalk on a bumpy sidewalk by a fat-fingered child. The nullifier will repel either. However.. ” Fuller took back the notepad and flipped to a new page. This drawing was much more complicated. It was shape on top of shape, using various points as starting areas for new lines and circles, until half the page was filled with a garbled mess. “This is the one Power-related geometry that not only resists the repulsion of the nullifier, but will actually destroy the omnialternative correlation.”
“So if this spell comes close to a nullifier?”
“A catastrophic release of energy,” Fuller answered. “Far greater than the interaccommodative housing can-”
“Boom?”
Fuller sighed like he was talking to a particularly idiotic subject. “Yes. Boom.”
“Big or little? We talking hand grenade or Peace Ray?”
“Well… maybe grenade. Probably smaller than that. I would assume more like a very large firecracker… except perhaps for Dymaxion Nullifier Number One, which would be roughly equivalent to ten pounds of TNT.”
That could ruin someone’s day. Francis took the notepad. “Can I have this?”
“You have paid me a sum of money sufficient to guarantee the financial freedom necessary to pursue my life’s work.”
“So… yeah?”
“Yes, Mr. Stuyvesant. You may have my notepad.”
The spell would be remarkably hard to get right. “Where did you see this one?”
“Only once. Several years ago I was taking the train to Chicago. A young man boarded and rode for a time. This particular geometry was bonded to him. I have not seen its like since, and I have seen many Actives.”
Francis put the sheet representing his Mover abilities next to the mystery Power. The new one had ten times the lines. He had no idea how that translated into real world use, but he sure hoped that guy was on their side. “What does it do?”
“I have no idea. Are you familiar with the principles relating to the creation of a geometry on a solid plane of-”
“Yeah, I can spellbind.”
“Spellbind… Spellbound…” Fuller smiled. “An interesting portmanteau. Would you mind terribly if I were to use that?”
“Why not? You seem to like sticking words together. So if I create this near a nullifier, it’ll blow it up?”
“It is the one geometry that I am aware of which, in theory, would do so. However, I have never attempted to activate this particular geometry myself in order to see what would happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Mr. Stuyvesant. That spell frightens me. I can extrapolate no possible explanation of what it may do. It is beyond my comprehension and has troubled my sleep at night.” There was a sudden chill wind as the door opened. “I would urge the utmost caution in its creation.”
There was a sudden shout from the bar. “Hey, watch it, jerk!” It was Chandler.
Francis looked up to see what the commotion was. His accountant had gotten up and shoved the construction worker. The big man was getting up with a look on his face that suggested Chandler was about to get pasted. “What in the world is he doing?” And then Francis realized that there were two men standing in the doorway, hands in their coat pockets, with a look that just screamed G-men.
“What’s your deal?”
“That’s right! I said your wife’s fat and ugly!” Chandler raised his fists in an exaggeratedly drunken manner, then blundered backwards into the new arrivals, distracting them. One G-man shoved Chandler, who then slugged the construction worker in the mouth. The big man hit a table and took down a pair of dockworkers. Several other toughs took the opportunity to jump in. The UBF vice president of finance began shouting, “Raid! Raid!” Which caused everyone else in the place to stand up to see what was going on. The construction worker got up, charged Chandler, missed and took one of the feds to the ground.
Most of the patrons who were sober enough to not want to get arrested ran for it. Francis stashed the notebook. “Come on, Fuller.” He got up, grabbed the Cog by the arm, and dragged him straight for the back. These places always had multiple exits in case of a police raid. The whole front of the bar had descended into a free-for- all. Francis looked back just long enough to make eye contact with Chandler, who winked, and then hit a sailor with a chair.
The speakeasy was in a basement. There was a brick hallway that went past the toilets, up some old metal stairs, and ended at a wooden door. Francis pushed hard and hit somebody with the door. The alley was even darker than the bar. Before his eyes could adjust, the man he’d struck took hold of Francis’ sleeve. “Stop in the name of the law!”
Francis threw out a wild surge of Power. The G-man was slammed back off of his feet, and from the racket, into a bunch of trash cans. Still pulling Fuller along, Francis ran toward the light of the street. More bar patrons were coming out behind them and there was enough noise now that the downed G-man wouldn’t be able to pick them out of the crowd. Francis turned right on the busy sidewalk and slowed to a walk.
Fuller seemed really excited. “That was interesting.”
“You’ve never seen me. You’ve never met me. You weren’t here. They’re after me, got it? And they can’t know we’ve talked. It’s for your own safety. Go home. Understand?” Fuller nodded. “Good. Keep on walking like everything is normal. I’ll be in touch.” Francis veered to the side, saw a break in traffic, and ran across two lanes of traffic. It was an obvious move, but he couldn’t let the OCI know that he’d met the man building their Dymaxions.
Sure enough, he was spotted. There was a shout as someone gave chase, then the squeal of brakes and the honking of a horn. An OCI man went sliding across the hood of a cab. Reaching the other side, Francis picked out a nearby restaurant and ran for the door. He collided with some customers that were leaving and knocked a well- dressed lady on her ass. “Sorry!” Then he was through the doors, past the surprised hostess, and running between the tables of startled diners.
There was more shouting as the OCI men followed. “There he is!”
Francis spotted the swinging doors of the kitchen and barged through. Food was sizzling and fire leapt from around a pan. Several members of the staff looked at him. “Hey, you can’t be in here,” a man in a white apron shouted.
“Where’s the back door?” Francis asked.
The cook picked up a meat cleaver and pointed it at him. “Beat it!”
