Mana in the Modern World non illustrated version (2 page)

“That old sergeant was a tough old bird. E’
managed to stick Rodney good before the sleep shot worked
completely. Rodney be dead soon. Was starting to scream too loud so
I had to tape his hands and mouth to keep him quiet less some
passerby hears,” replies Bob. “Well, leave him for now and let’s
get the cage down. Look how the altar and that tall stone are
pulsating. He’s waiting for me! Hurry!” Jill almost screams.

Bob yells “You, Taylor, finish taping all the
soldiers tight and the rest of you get over here on the cage. HE
awaits and our Mistress commands to hurry.” The deep seated cage
anchors are quickly cut and cage then lifted away from the now
brightly glowing altar. In a chanting sing-song manner Jill starts
reading from a very old book, flips her cowl back and approaches
the altar.

She looks to be about 35 or so. Closing the
small book with a snap she slides the small book into a pocket.
Then raised both arms and calls out in a loud voice, “I conjure
thee to appear and do my bidding.” As she starts to place both
hands on the altar the pulsing glow brightens slightly, then dims
as her hands touch the altar and the now faint pulsating glow.
Nothing happens. Angrily slapping both her hands again and again
onto the altar further dims the pulsating light and still nothing
happens.

Looking at Bob she says, “All this and it is
a fake?” “But the thumping Mistress; how can that be fake?” “What
thumping Bob? I hear nothing.” “Will I do,” says Bob as he reaches
to place his hands on the altar. As his hands decent toward the
altar two red sparks leap to his hands and seem to pull both his
hands onto the altar.

The altar’s red glow flares brighter and
begins flowing up Bobs arms and then on to cover his entire body.
Bob is arched back, mouth open wide as if screaming, but no sound
is heard. Suddenly a large red spark jumps from the glowing tall
stone to hit Bob in the chest with the sound of a large thunder
clap. Bob is knocked back onto the ground; the altar and tall
stone’s glow’s are gone.

Mistress Jill rolls Bob over and checks his
neck for a pulse, nothing, and then a faint pulse. Bob groans as he
sets up, suddenly his eyes open wide, rolling around in his head,
he begins jerking and thrashing about. He starts flailing about,
shouting gibberish, then shouting, “Get out, Get OUT of me!” He
suddenly goes rigid and falls back.

After a minute or two one of the men reaches
over to also check for a pulse. Bob raises his arm, pointing a
finger at the man and says some gibberish. A bright white spark
leaps from Bob’s finger and knocks the man back several feet back
in a smoldering heap; his chest blackened as if struck by
lightning. All except Jill back some distance away.

“Bob, what’s happening? Speak to me.” Bob
stares at her and, haltingly but with a very strange accent says,
“Alive, I am alive again.” “You’re not Bob are you? Are you the
being that was imprisoned in the altar by the Druids?” Getting to
his feet and speaking in a less halting fashion he replies, “Yes I
am…. Not Bob. Much time seems to have passed. What are Druids?” “I
am Mistress Jill, leader of the Irish Fighting Force, the one who
rescued you from your prison and I will call you NB. You must now
do as I command,” says Jill.

Laughter from the Not Bob erupts in Jill’s
face. “You? You think you command ME? None command me! But I may
have some use for you and,” pointing to the men staying well back;
“those groveling fools. But NEVER think you or anyone commands ME!”
Jill turns to her men and shouts, “For now we need to remove
ourselves before the army gets here. Someone may have heard the
ruckus. Tully, take another man and load Rodney and Clyde’s bodies
on back of the truck so we can leave.”

“Why do you bring dead men with us?” asks Not
Bob. “To prevent anyone identifying them and leading the coppers to
us,” answered Jill. “What are coppers? Ah yes, I see the
information now. It will take some time to know all his knowledge,
even limited as it appears to be.” “Yeah, Bob was not the sharpest
tack around,” comments Jill.

“Very well, have them place the bodies on the
altar and stand well back. I will dispose of them,” NB said. He
then turned to face the bodies; starts speaking gibberish while
waving his arms and hands in a precise manner. A streak of bright
white light jumps from his hands toward the bodies. Striking the
bodies with a loud ‘Frump’; both bodies are quickly alight, flames
burning a unnatural dark red, then with white hot heat and a loud
roar. “They will burn until only ashes are left. Ah, to have more
power again,” says NB as he holds up and looks at his hands.

“Ye Gods!” shouts Jill. “That will bring
everyone here faster! Let’s go – NOW PEOPLE!” “Please NB do not do
something like that again, you’ll get us all killed!” NB looks at
her with a smile, “Nonsense, I cannot be killed again. Foolish
female, do you think I would allow that to happen?”

During the trip back to the safe house Jill
answers Not Bob’s questions and fills him in on some of the IFF’s
struggles. Between her explanations and NB ‘remembering’ things
from Bob’s memories the two hour trip passes quickly. “Many wonders
have happened during my enforced stay in the other world,” states
NB. “I believe I will enjoy this new world and making a portion of
it mine. You….. Jill, what wealth do you have? From his memories
Bob believes your organization’s wealth is on a shoestring,
whatever that is.”

“Yes, this operation to free you has cost
almost all our funds. Looks like it is time to maybe rob a bank or
someplace with lots of cash,” says Jill. “I will help with that as
we will need much more money to grow and defeat this ‘England’ that
Bob seems to truly hate. In truth I feel the Mana is stronger
again, things will be much easier now as I learned much while on
the other side.” Jill looks like she wants to ask about ‘The Other
World’ but quickly decides to keep mum for now.

“We will do some smaller robberies to build
up funds to get more and better weapons before anything large. This
will also allow more time to acquaint myself with Bob’s memories of
this time. What is this internet and adult sites I find plentiful
in his memories?” asks NB.

When the relief arrives the next morning the
scene causes quite a stir. The old Sergeant loosely remembers
fighting a masked raider and is sure he managed to knife him at
least once. A faint trail of blood, not the sergeants, led from the
tent to a larger blood pool and then to the Altar and where the
bodies were burned. Forensic techs could not understand what could
cause such a hot fire to actually burn the bodies, including the
bones and blood on the ground, to ash.

Ty Heppner wanted to be out celebrating his
29th birthday today. But O no, here he was, stuck on the evening
shift, at the convenience store and gas station, almost in the
middle of Deadsville, Arizona. Besides he was broke, …again. “Hell
of a way to spend my birthday. My head feeling full to bursting
ain’t helping neither. Sure hope nothing was wrong with that weed I
smoked like maybe it was laced with a bit of LSD. Gave me a good
buzz tho. Maybe that is why out of the corner of my eyes I keep
seeing small things moving. Spookier than shit too, stuff sometimes
seeming to be moving toward me like that.”

Ty starts getting really irritated thinking
about the mess the last customer made and that he had to clean it
up and for only slightly more than minimum wage! He begins
muttering to himself, “I been here almost three years and had only
two raises and those together amounted to only total 35 cents an
hour! And today that idiot spilled two gallons of gas filling up a
one gallon container! Then refuses to pay for what he spilled until
the cop came by! People like that should be SHOT!”

A sharp pain in his head almost dropped him
to the floor as a loud ‘slap’ sounded behind him on the counter.
Quickly spinning around he sees there no one is there! Not even in
the store or outside. But there is a gun magazine on the counter.
“What the fuck, over!” No cameras to check as the cheapskate owner
only put in fakes. “Easy Ty, there has to be an explanation. Think
man think.” Looking at the magazine with the pistol on the cover he
continues, “I was pissed and thinking about shooting those kind of
people. I was wanting a gun real bad and that pain in the
head?”

The pain was now fading, ‘I wonder’… he tried
‘wanting’, visualizing the girly magazine in the rack to be on the
counter. Another sharp pain in the head and slap… the magazine
appeared on the counter! Suddenly feeling very sick to his stomach
and quite weak he set, almost collapsed, onto his stool. A customer
came in a couple minutes later so, being there was only 45 minutes
left on his shift, he decides to think about this more on this at
home. Besides his head was hurting a lot worst.

By shifts end Ty’s headache had receded to a
fading dull throb. Once home he quickly found that the headaches
got worse and he felt more tired when he did several ‘grabs’ close
together. Finally he had to stop and rest as he was getting bad
sick to his stomach. He crawled into bed and into an exhausted
sleep.

Next morning he called in sick and started
experimenting again. After some time he realized that, as long as
he could see the lite weight item, he could also visualize a place
for the item to appear. The headaches were lessening and he still
felt a small ‘jolt’ when the item transferred tho that seemed less
painful also. So far the maximum distance was about 50 feet or so
and the further away the item was the more the ‘jolt’ hurt and
tired it made him.

“OK Ty, time to try this out.” Going to a
small local mall with a bank, he stands at the center counter where
he can see inside the vault and some stacks of money. He focused on
a single bundle of bills on top of a stack. Then he visualized it
in the backpack he was wearing. A sharp pain and thump from the
pack seemed to indicate success. Realizing he had better be
elsewhere he grabs a couple of forms from the counter and heads for
his truck, a bit tired but excited.

Setting in his truck he looks in the
backpack. “Eureka!” shouts Ty quickly glancing around to make sure
he did not attract any attention. Inside the backpack is a ‘bundle’
of $50 bills, $5,000! Laughing’ Ty heads home to call the store
owner and quit his shitty job and then to make plans for a brighter
future!

On second thought he makes a stop to get a
bigger screen TV! Once the new TV is up and running he grabs the
Williams phone book and turns to the yellow pages. ‘Might as well
see if there are some topless clubs close by too! But it may
probably be best if I go out of town or better yet out of the state
to do any more takes from banks. Maybe Flagstaff or further east?
Around here people might recognize me and start to wonder.’

Pinyin, setting at her desk in a small
office, suddenly straightens up. It had been a long time since she
had last felt that Mana energy spike, even feeble as it was. ‘Now,
how to locate that person?’ thinks Pinyin. ‘He or she must be close
by for me to feel it. Hmm, could be of help in my organization ….or
maybe a excellent transfer sometime in the future. Might even be
able to move up my timetable in buying up the rest of Little Cayman
island in the Caymans. It is probably about time to visit my other
island Bangalla too. The UN have finally recognized it as a
separate country with full diplomatic rights. Maybe I will build a
small embassy here and in England.

Wait;… something seems to be happening to the
Mana energy flow! Could it actually be increasing? Should I risk
doing a stronger spell with stored Mana to check? Now which is
safest and best to try? Nothing too potent and wasteful of the
energy but what? Yes, a detection spell requires little energy and
is prefect, especially as it should also indicate the current
energy level.’ She tries the detect on the Artifact and finds it’s
Mana is indeed stronger! “Yes, finally!” she exclaims.

“Time to find an apprentice with the Mana
returning. Once I find the spike person maybe he or she can take
Wilma’s place. She does excellent work but I have about had enough
of her trying to subvert some of my organization’s people to turn
on me. So in time I will have her taken to my transfer room in the
Utah compound and kept alive till needed. After the transfer then
her body can be burned and dumped with the others! That compound
has proved best for getting rid of them, profitable too tho the
leader there is getting erratic. Now; how to locate the spike
producer? He or she could make a better replacement leader for the
Utah compound than take Wilma’s place; at least for now.”

Previously the IFF had learned that an
armored car frequently took old currency in for destruction after
being exchanged for new. They also learned that the only copies,
digital and print, of the old currency’s serial numbers will also
be in the truck which, if destroyed, will make it impossible to
spot the old currency being used once again.

However it is always guarded by two vans
equipped with extra Kevlar shielding and five CO19 personal in
each. The IFF had thought that was too much to be able to handle.
However NB saw no problem and demonstrated what a lightning bolt
could do and made several members invisible. The invisibility would
only last for about 15 minutes which would be sufficient to kill
the troopers with minimum casualties to the IFF.

The ambush spot chosen is six miles from the
burn facility where the old currency was to be delivered for
destruction. The IFF set small explosives to cause poles and trees
to fall and block the convoy. The CO19 people in the vans would
respond quickly, dismounting the vans with their practiced
dispersal plan. Included in the information the IFF had on the
planned delivery were complete details on CO19’s planned response
to any ambush.