“Good morning, and welcome to today’s edition of Midday Meal Cast here on Weather Link, sponsored by Aperture Systems. I’m Naru Narusegawa, and this is our chief Meteorologist and Weather Control Magic Expert, George Davidson. Broadcasting live to you today from our studios here in Cranagan. Looks like it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day to be outdoors today isn’t it George?”
“Indeed Naru, it looks like things are going to cooperate for lunch today here in the City of Towers. Temperatures are looking to remain in the lower seventies throughout the lunch hour as people head out to hit the major spots on Sinclair Avenue and along Marina Parkway…”
Its funny how many parallels you find when you examine two civilizations that are completely unrelated to one another…
They say that necessity is the mother of invention. And when you look at two civilizations of humans, however separated they may be in terms of history, culture, and dimensional location, the needs remain the same. Thus, it is by no mere coincidence or leap of logic that the exact same ‘inventions’ would be made without any kind of interaction between the two, let alone influence one another.
The Mid-Childan Ocean and Atmospheric Evaluators, or MOAE as they are called, would be one such example. The proverbial parallel to Earth’s NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), they would be responsible for all things pertaining to weather forecasting and the monitoring of meteorological and oceanic events across all of Mid-Childa. An important part of the day for a population in the billions, they prided themselves on accurate and up-to-date weather modeling.
The significance of this however, was pretty much lost on little Vivio as she snacked on an apple slice.
“As you can see from the satellite picture,” George continued. “A strong area of low pressure’s been steaming across the North Ceres Ocean, pulling along a cold front that’s dumped rain as far south as the McGreggor Archipelago. This system is expected to reach us here in Cranagan some time tomorrow morning as the frontal boundary drags onshore, with an increased chance for thunderstorms as the warm moist air ahead of the front gets forced up over the Selumna Range. After which you can expect a mild cool down and steady rains into the evening hours. So don’t make too many plans for the beaches this weekend.”
George Oscar Davidson, the weather expert currently talking on the TV, was not merely a nice person who liked to help people. He was a man to be respected.
It was a tangent memory that stirred in Vivio. But after Jail’s attack on HQ, and her subsequent kidnapping, she’d seen the Doctor watching the weather. Obviously, knowing now after the fact, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to fly a three-kilometer long magical battleship through the middle of a thunderstorm. But that’s not what had been odd.
It was what the serious cyborg girl, Tre, had done. No sooner did George appear on the screen, than Tre seemed to freeze up, duck into a far corner, and ball up on the ground. All while muttering ‘Finger of God’ over and over again as she rocked back and forth.
Despite being frightened of what the doctor was preparing to do, she couldn’t stifle curiosity, and had asked a question.
The Doctor had explained amidst a unnerving chuckle that Tre had been on a ‘mission’ that a storm chasing team had been far too close to, and she had decided to ensure they wouldn’t interfere, or even report her. Unfortunately, what nobody had known was that George, a meteorological expert leading the storm chasing convoy at the time, was also an unregistered weather control mage.
A POWERFUL weather control mage.
George’s intimate knowledge of Meteorology made for an unexpected surprise. Tre could not have known what George was capable of doing. Nobody could have. Davidson was a noted pacifist. However, when his team were suddenly faced down with a combat cyborg and a supporting squadron of drone units, the gloves came off.
The Doctor had loved it. Tre had not. The Meteorologist had taught her the true meaning of the term EF-5 Tornado, and let her and the drones experience the wrath of a mile wide vortex of pure destruction.
The reason of course, that the Doctor had loved it so much, was that someone of such absurdly exceptional power had slipped under the Bureau’s radar for decades, right under their nose. Evaluation of the data Tre had managed to bring back put Davidson easily at Double S strength. And when the Bureau inevitably found out, they wanted to employ him, and he refused. Even after their offers of absurdly high pay ranks, and threats of slapping all kinds of restrictions on his power. He reminded the TSAB that he was a pacifist, and he was there to help people, not hurl lightning bolts in judgement. He would not be doing missions for the TSAB beyond forecasting, and that was Final.
Jail respected Davidson as a man who stuck by his word, no matter what. In a twisted way, a man that was like the Doctor himself, only in a less ‘questionable’ field.
After this of course, every time Tre ever saw George, she’d curl up in a ball, muttering ‘Finger of God… finger of God…’
The Doctor then commented that after the incident, he had forbid anyone from going near MOAE, its offices, or any of their representatives. He said: ‘You could beat mages. You can beat armies. You could even beat the TSAB if you were prepared. But you can’t beat the weather.”
He then pointed out with a laugh, that if you took the first letter from each part of the meteorologist’s name… You spelled G.O.D. And it was no Wonder Tre had been stomped.
It was so funny that Vivio had momentarily forgotten her fear, and hadn’t even realized Scagletti was sedating her.
“And now,” George continued on the screen. “Our Seven on the Sevens. The seven day forecast on the sevens of every hour, followed by the tropical outlook. Stay tuned.”
Random memory aside, Vivio was with Fate-Mama, who was looking into a few different schools in the area to help Nanoha-Mama figure out which one would be the best. Nanoha-Mama had been busy of course with some kind of special morning training, so she couldn’t do it herself today, but she promised that she’d be there for the final decision.
Saint Hildes’ Academy was one of the higher-class schools in the area. Its campus was complete with school levels from primary school all the way to University Level, and was a very strong in the academics, magic, and archeology areas. The archeology department was obviously what got Uncle Scrya to recommend it in the first place. He wouldn’t have bothered otherwise.
It boasted a program that combined the application of knowledge, history, and magical studies to be one of the most well rounded and complete Magical Education complexes on Mid-Childa. Most other schools on Mid-Childa by comparison treated Magic courses as something more like an Athletics Department. Not true with Saint Hildes’. They believed that mages should be well prepared to apply their abilities as intelligently as possible, and often combined classroom lecture with practical training. Many of the mages who graduated from this school were often selected for VERY good positions within the TSAB.
Of such positions included Naval Commanders, such as Admiral Lindy Haralowne, mother to Admiral Chrono Haralowne, and adopted mother of Fate Testarossa Haralowne.
“I grew up in this school,” Lindy remarked. “My homeroom was down that hall and to the right. I took my first flight exam as part of the advanced placement magic course from the roof up the stairs. The courtyard over there is nicknamed Marrow Field because of all the people who broke a limb falling off the roof.”
“Exam failures,” Fate laughed.
“All the time!” the retired Admiral smirked from her spot across from Fate. “I remember Clyde used to get into all kinds of trouble for encouraging them to practice without supervision. The Dean said his name fit so well with all the trouble he got into. I never understood why.”
Fate returned a pleasant smile to her adopted mother. She had a vague idea why, but wouldn’t be able to confirm it without asking Nanoha.
“Then Daedalus would come along and bail him out with overly sophisticated excuses, and spend the rest of the evening calling him all kinds of silly names,” Lindy continued.
“Daedalus?” Fate asked?
“Clyde’s best friend,” Lindy answered. “Those two were about as alike as styrofoam and plate armor, but they were inseparable friends. Clyde would get into trouble, end up with detention or something. Daed would show up and manage to get him out of there with an excuse.”
“Sounds like a good team,” Fate nodded. Lindy suppressed a laugh.
“You didn’t know Daed. The staff did. They knew he was just getting Clyde out of his punishment, but they allowed it because they knew he’d make Clyde pay for it three fold in his own way. He’d make poor Clyde study until daybreak with him without mercy so many times they called him the Shadow of Midnight. Clyde would fall asleep in class and get punished AGAIN. The longest number of times in a row that happened was five days. Clyde practically fell asleep standing up apologizing to me for missing a date.”
Fate suppressed a giggle at mental image of the late Clyde Haralowne, back in his late teens, trying to explain why he was late while actively dozing off at the same time.
“Speaking of which,” the retired Admiral continued. “I heard Shari stayed up all night working on that equipment you brought in?”
Fate nodded, casting a glance at Vivio.
“Yes,” she began. “She pulled an all-nighter. When I checked on her around seven or so this morning, she was still typing away amidst a pile of foam coffee cups. She doesn’t know how it works yet, but she already found something interesting about the pod.”
The elder woman leaned in slightly. “Go on…”
Fate glanced at Vivio again, engrossed in her lunch and staring at some commercial, then returned to her adopted mother.
“The casing’s made of Polystannum Chloride.”
“Plasteel?” Lindy frowned. The material could only be replicated by magical engineering techniques. It was the same chemical structure as Polyvinyl Chloride, but carbon atoms were intermittently replaced with tin, producing a stronger, more metallic material that still felt like mere plastic to the touch. It was light, but several times stronger than conventional plastic for its weight, rivaling many pure metal compounds in the strength-for-weight category. As such it was a favorite to many mages for their devices. In fact, it was light enough that a nine-year-old could pick up a device and handle it with minimal effort, but strong enough to handle the punishment of close combat. The only issue was that Plasteel was inflexible and brittle compared to regular materials, thus, ill suited to large-scale structural engineering.
Still, the use of Plasteel was a disturbing thought. Intelligent devices could restructure themselves and materialize their own alloys. But outside of that, plasteel was not in wide use. It was expensive. Anyone with the resources to spend on magical processes for the creation of plasteel had money, or power to spare. That was not a pleasant thought.
“Plasteel,” Fate nodded. “What’s more, is she found plasteel and graphene in the robot arm we recovered.” That was an even less pleasant thought.
“Definitely the work of someone with resources,” Lindy nodded solemnly. “It makes their attack on Selene all the more suspect. What do you think they were after?”
“I don’t know,” Fate sighed. “Rein had pulled a comprehensive database search. According to survey records she pulled up, the FLMP-8 Facility was built in the former location of a coal fired electrical power plant that was destroyed and buried one hundred and fifty years ago during the war. The cavity I found used to be part of the hopper for the baghouse.”
“That would explain the preliminary results of the forensics team I sent your soil sample to,” the elder Haralowne replied.
“How’s so?” Fate asked.
“Ash,” Lindy stated. “Coal fly ash. The entire room was coated with it.”
Fate screwed her face up trying to wrap her mind around it.
“What would a terrorist group want in a room full of soot?”
“I don’t know,” the retired Admiral admitted. “But I asked the forensics team to analyze it anyway. I reviewed a few other incidents involving Sektor 21 power plant attacks. But this is the only one where they did something like this. Every other facility was a power plant like Selene, a raw mana reactor. What’s more, there’s a large amount of the hillside around the excavation hole that’s missing material.”
“What do you mean?” Fate asked.
“You might have missed it,” Lindy continued. “You were a bit preoccupied from what I read. But I noticed it in the reports from the cleanup crews. There should have been hundreds of tons of earth piled around that hole. It’s like they strip-mined the entire corner around that cooling tower.”
Fate sighed and looked at Vivio again.
“There has to be something we’re missing,” she continued after a second, her face turning into a glare. “Something stupidly obvious!”
“If it were that easy, we’d have caught the masterminds of Sektor 21 years ago,” Lindy responded. However it was obvious by the matching frown on her face that she was thinking along the same lines.
“My dear, such a sour face is unsuited for one with such beauty as yourself.”
Lindy froze... That absurdly flowery pickup line…
“It couldn’t be.”
Turning around, Fate swore the older woman’s face nearly lit up like the sun at the sight of the stranger who had addressed them.
“DAED!”
The man standing before them smiled at the recognition.
“Nice to see I’m not forgotten, Lindy.”
Fate gave him the once over. He was tall, his hair was long, and tied back with a ribbon. The hair itself was silver, showing his age, but his face looked deceptively young. He seemed to put out an air of dandy that was only complemented by the white suit he was wearing to match his hair. In one of his hands, both of which were covered in beautiful white satin dress gloves, he sported a small book on petrography.
As he peered back at her over the top of his spectacles with his light xanthous
eyes, Fate couldn’t help but feel her face flush. He was very handsome.
“And who might this striking young lady be?” he continued, raising an eyebrow.
“This is my daughter, Fate,” Lindy answered.
“One of the famous Aces if I recall,” Daedalus commented as he took Fate’s hand and gave it a peck. “A pleasure.”
“You’re laying on the charm thick as you always used to,” the retired admiral smirked. “If I didn’t know you better than that, I’d have fallen for it.”
“Am I that transparent?” The gentleman responded with a false hurt look.
“Maybe to me,” Lindy answered honestly, then cast a look at Fate, who had turned a darker shade of red. “I don’t think she’s had experience with smooth talking vipers such as yourself though…”
“I apologize,” Daedalus stepped back. “The Sophisticated Romantic act is good for social functions. You know how I like to keep my social weapons sharpened.”
“So why are you here?” Lindy asked, swiftly switching gears.
“Ever to the point as always,” he shrugged. “I work here.”
“Work here?”
Daedalus swept down in an overly flamboyant bow.
“Professor Daedalus Malandra,” he announced with flourish. “Head of the Ancient Belken Studies department. You’re not the only one who’s had a career go well. What about you Lindy? I haven’t heard from you since the incident Clyde passed away.”
“We’re investigating schools for Vivio,” she pointed out the young child still transfixed on the TV, but almost finished with her apple slices. Daedalus glanced at the child, then at Fate, obviously connecting the blond hair.
“I apologize further for my overly familiar attitude,” he stated quickly and without any of the flamboyance of before. “I did not realize I was effectively flirting with a married woman.”
“I’m not married,” Fate flushed again, trying to sidestep the attention. Lindy watched as her old friend’s eyes darted back and forth with calculating speed, his face a mask of puzzled thoughts. Knowing where his train of thought might go next, she decided to defuse the situation before he felt less comfortable. Unlike Clyde, Daed had always fallen apart when he misread someone.
“She’s adopted,” the retired admiral proclaimed. Instantly, Daedalus visibly relaxed and that smile returned.
“I see,” he began. “Still, discussion of such things is not something that makes you frown the way you were a minute ago. I know you better than that. What’s bothering you so badly?”
Lindy sighed, turning back to Fate, who shrugged a ‘Go ahead it’s not secret.’
“This case Fate’s working on right now,” she began. “Sektor Twenty-one stirred up trouble yesterday and got one her best friends hurt.”
“Sektor Twenty-one?” Daed’s eyes narrowed almost to slits. “What did those psychotic morons do this time?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” the elder Haralowne grumbled. “They attacked the Selene power facility-“
“That’s bold even for them,” Daedalus interrupted.
“But it’s just strange,” Lindy continued. “They didn’t destroy the plant at all. Instead, they excavated and made off with hundreds of tons of material from the foundation area around one of the cooling towers.”
Daed reached up and tweaked his spectacles before speaking.
“They wanted DIRT?” he asked at length.
“Well,” Lindy began. “Coal fly ash actually. The hillside around that tower was built up on it and the buried remains of a previous power plant.”
“I see,” he furrowed his brow in thought. “Perhaps you should explain the details to me on the way to my office. There might be something in the archeology database here on campus that might be of use.”
“We already went through archeological and geological survey records for the area and turned up nothing,” Fate commented. “I don’t want to impose on your time for something we’ve already done.”
“Nonsense,” Daed commented, pushing his spectacles up with a finger. “Our database is separate from the TSAB’s record database and contains archeological data that’s three hundred years old. The Infinite Library is about the only place that might have a more complete archeological record than us, but you know how hard it is to find anything, even with Librarian Scrya running the show.”
Lindy opened her mouth to object, but the professor beat her to it.
“You and I both know I’m just as stubborn as you are Lindy,” he stated matter-of-factly. “That’s what it took for us to deal with Clyde. Now come along, I won’t take no for an answer.”
Lindy closed her eyes and sighed under an exasperated smile. Stringing you along before you could get a word in edgewise. Just like old times. With a glance at Fate, who nodded with a ‘might as well’ look, they both got up, checking to make sure Vivio had finished her lunch.