The horn blew loudly, and the woman jumped slightly but instead of looking to see if she was in danger, she chuckled and kissed her baby on the top of the head.

  The truck continued its headlong race toward her.

  Stephanie gripped the battery, her teeth clenched as she struggled to push something past the lump that had settled in her throat. She was unable to shout the warning that screamed in her head. Her entire body froze, trapped in a vision of the inevitable carnage that, at any moment, would embed itself into her brain for a lifetime. This was the kind of event that never left you and haunted you every time you saw a semi or a woman with her child. And she wasn’t the only one. By that point, everyone had stopped and the woman simply looked at them in confusion, unsure of what was happening.

  The truck’s next action was to immediately apply the brakes and the emergency braking system. With the distance between it and her, the attempt would not spare her life. The truck would not stop in time, but because it needed to be seen to at least make the attempt, the brake pressed automatically to the floor.

  The wheel jerked from side to side as it maintained the same path that had been decided barely moments before. People covered their mouths, dropped their bags, and yelled at the woman. For Stephanie, though, the entire scene still played in slow motion—everything except for her own movements. It felt as if she were caught in some sort of training inside the Virtual World, where things could slow or speed however they wished.

  She tried to remind herself that she now stood in real life, not in some simulated reality, and watched the inevitable death of a woman and child without any capability to help them.

  Say something, dammit. Unlock yourself and help this woman.

  Panic set in. The truck swerved again, back and forth on the road. It applied the emergency brakes and the tires squealed wildly and echoed through the entire town. There were no other sights or sounds to behold, only the woman and child in the street, unable to move.

  At the sound of the tires, the woman finally looked up but the semi was barely feet away. She put her arm up and tucked her head in to shield her baby with her body. Her scream of terror pierced the air as she prepared for her final departure.

  Suddenly, as the sound of the brakes reverberated off the sides of the buildings, a blue streak of light burst forward. It blazed brightly and rocketed between the woman and the truck. Faster than anyone could actually see with the naked eye, the blue bolt stopped and spread wide from side to side and up and down. The woman’s hair blew wildly around her as she clutched her child tightly and shrieked. The bright wall pushed forward, and the truck slammed into it. The semi lifted off the ground and dropped almost immediately to bounce on its tires. The barrier pushed against it as it slid toward the mother and her baby.

  People all around them covered their mouths and watched in horror as the scraping and tearing of metal raised goosebumps on their necks. Smoke billowed from the hood and the tires and the bed of the truck slid from side to side and barely missed the cars parked along the road. The elderly people tottered and some actually fell while others clutched a building for support. The AI system within the truck began to spurt and fritz and sparks erupted from the back of the cab.

  The woman had dropped to her knees, her eyes clenched tightly and her strong arms cocooning the child as she did everything she could to protect it. The blue wall pushed harder, broke through the asphalt, and plowed a small wall of it between the vehicle and itself. The brakes squealed loudly as the truck began to slow until, after a few moments, it rolled completely to a stop. The woman huddled over her child and opened her eyes carefully once the rip of metal and squeal of tires had ceased.

  Slowly, she looked at the grill of the semi only a foot away from her. Several people ran out into the road, helped her to her feet, and checked to make sure that everyone was all right. The lights on the vehicle dimmed and the engine cut to avoid any type of fire or explosion. The blue wall remained in place and shimmered and flickered. Everyone on the street, including the woman, turned and their gazes followed the stream of energy. They stared at Stephanie, who was on her feet. Her candy bar lay on the ground in front of her. In her left hand, she gripped the battery tightly and her right arm was extended.

  With her palm out, the blue streak burst in waves from her skin. Her hair blew wildly around her, and she felt as if she held the weight of the world on her shoulders. The heat dissipated quickly and everything around her sounded as if it were in a tunnel. Her eyes glinted bright blue, but that too began to flicker and fade away. Her hand dropped to release the stream of energy and her eyes rolled back in her head. She saw nothing but darkness and heard nothing but the sound of the baby crying.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The EMT knelt on one knee and waved his finger back and forth in front of her face. Stephanie sat up with her back against the arm of the couch and her legs out in front of her. “Can you tell me what your name is?”

  She sighed and wanted to remind him that she’d already told them that information over and over again. “Stephanie Morgana. My address is 54214 Federation Drive. I am seventeen years old and will graduate high school soon.”

  The medic opened his mouth to ask another question but she interrupted quickly. “I don’t have any injuries and I am not experiencing any type of psychotic episode. I do not know what happened back there. Are the mother and child…” She couldn’t bring herself to actually ask the dreaded question.

  He shook his head. “No. In fact, if it had not been for you, they would both be dead. Your magic stopped the truck in its tracks like it hit a wall.”

  The EMT stood and patted her on the arm. He shook her mother’s hand. “If anything changes, feel free to call or bring her to the local Federation Hospital. She wasn’t hit by anything, though, and there seems to be no trauma. She should be okay.”

  Her dad led the man to the door and opened it. As he pushed through, the sounds of dozens of people screaming Stephanie’s name spilled into the room. She looked over her shoulder as her father shut it and leaned against it. “There have to be at least fifty independent blogging reporters out there, and I saw the Federation news station pull up. They all want to interview the human who threw magic. It’s never been seen before outside of small controlled studies.”

  Stephanie flipped her feet around and put them on the floor. She leaned forward and held her face. Her mother bent down in front of her. “Take a deep breath. I know this is all a little overwhelming. You will be okay, though. You saved a woman and her baby today.”

  She clenched her eyes shut and replayed it in her mind. One minute, she had held her candy bar and the next, she stood with the battery clutched in her hand. She could feel the energy burn in her chest as she watched the truck hurtle forward even though it attempted to apply the brakes. That was when she released the magic to spiral outward. She looked at her mother and heaved a deep breath. “I couldn’t control it, but my mind knew what needed to be done.”

  At a knock on the door, her father looked through the peephole. “It’s Jasper and Evan from the Federation news channel.”

  Her mother stood up angrily. “No. This is not the time. I don’t care if they are the Federation, damnit.”

  Stephanie shook her head and put her hand up. “It’s okay. There is no use in pushing them away. They will only force the issue. I will talk to them.”

  Her father opened the door and smiled as he stepped to the side. Jasper, with a red coat flung over his shoulders, a white button-up pirate shirt, and black slacks, sauntered in. He removed his sunglasses and stopped before he gasped dramatically. “There she is, Evan. The magical angel who saved the innocent lives of two beautiful souls. She is beyond perfect.”

  Evan entered behind Jasper with a handbag on the crook of his arm. His black hair was a stark contrast to Jasper’s bright yellow. They both hurried over to sit, one on each side of her. They put a tablet in her lap and pulled up her picture. “Look at you, sweet little dove. This is what it would look like.”

  They pressed play and suddenly, Stephanie watched herself walk across the Federation Gossip stage with Jasper and Evan at the front. It was like she had already taped it, but she had never done anything like that. She looked back and forth from one to the other. “How am I on here? I’ve never been there.”

  Jasper swiped the screen and brought up another where she stood with the Federation President and received a medal. “Of course not, honey. We do experiences. People watch it, they want to be you, do you, or they hate you. Hopefully, all three.”

  Evan reached across and paused the screen to zoom the view of her in a little. He pulled up the bottom and skimmed through images of different clothes. First, he tried a sweet Midwestern, but they weren’t into it. Then they put her in a red Madonna shirt, a black short-waisted jacket, ripped jeans, and pointed black stilettos. He moved to her face, selected a color scheme, and applied it to give her smoky eyes, deep-red lips, and pale, doll-like skin.

  Her hair design was swapped out, too, and went from a ponytail to long, curled, and highlighted. “See, we can make you look however you want to look. It’s so easy. No one has time to actually travel to these things so we work the magic for them.”

  Stephanie looked bemusedly at the two men and back at the tablet. She didn’t even recognize herself, mostly because there hadn’t been a day in her life that she had ever worn makeup or done her hair like that. It really wasn’t her style. But she had to admit, she looked hotter than any girl she had ever been around.

  Evan pulled the tablet into his lap and pinched his fingers up and down her image. He spun the image and did it again, from head to toe. Stephanie pointed at it. “What are you doing now?”

  He waved his hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You have a fantastic body but for television, we like to knock fifteen to twenty off the picture. You know, give you that model look that everyone in the world craves. No one is actually that size in real life anymore, of course, but that is the power of technology.”

  Both men laughed. Stephanie immediately felt uncomfortable. They were changing everything she was so they could tell her story? How about they simply told the damn story? She had never had any contact with the media, but she had read about the uprising of the faux news starting way back in the late 2010s. They would sensationalize everything, write articles from the comfort of their basement, and twist facts to make them look worse than they were. It was one of the biggest factors that had created a split in the United States. That split would eventually lead to the creation of NorAm and eventually, the Federation.

  You would have thought that after all those years, they would have learned. But as she sat there on the couch while they picked her apart, Stephanie realized that technology had only pushed them deeper down the rabbit hole. You never even needed to be interviewed to have one. And by the end of it, they could tweak you so much that you wouldn’t even recognize yourself.

  Her mother saw the look on her face and stepped up to peek over Evan’s shoulder at what he had created on the screen. Her mouth dropped and she grabbed the tablet. “What the hell is this? This is not my daughter. She stands on the street in Chicago, saves a woman and a baby, and you want to make her thinner? Are you out of your mind? Get out. Get. Out. Of. My. House. And you do not have my permission to use those pictures.”

  They both stood, gasped their indignation, and sauntered to the door. As they left, Jasper stuck his head back in and smirked victoriously. “This is the Federation, sweetheart. No one needs anyone’s permission.”

  Her mother growled and slammed the door in his face. She wrung her hands and swished her hair out of her face. “The nerve of people!”

  Both Stephanie and her father looked at each other and began to laugh. Her mother’s lips were pursed but after a moment, they curved into a smile. Stephanie stood and they all hugged as they stood in the living room together. Her mom tapped her nose and gave her a motherly smile. “How about I make some dinner? We can settle in.”

  Stephanie nodded. She went to her room, dropped the now empty battery back in the box, and closed her closet door. No one had asked about the batteries, at least not yet, and she intended to try to keep them to herself. She spent the evening eating spaghetti and ignoring the reporters outside. Eventually, they left. No one wanted to hang around the Gov-Subs late at night.

  When dinner was over and her parents watched television, Stephanie pulled up her email to check it. She scanned down and stopped on a special marked message, opened it, and leaned back as a 3D video began to play. It was of one of the prep schools—a tall building with the newest pods and all the amenities. When that video ended, the dean appeared.

  He pulled his tie up and gave a cheesy smile. “Stephanie Morgana, let me first say from the bottom of our hearts at Pinnacle Prepatory, we want to thank you for being a hero and saving those two beautiful souls’ lives. You quickly caught our attention and we would like to offer you an invitation to attend our prestigious prep school, all tuition paid, for the pre-semester summer before attending in the fall. The school would be more than honored to host one of the Federation’s brightest and most heroic young stars of the future. Everything from room and board to your education will be fully funded. And you will be led step by step through our superior and award-winning program. The details can be found in the attached email and we look forward to hosting you and your family on your first day.”

  The video cut out and Stephanie’s mouth dropped. She pushed up from her seat and whirled in excitement. Her parents had turned toward her on the couch with their arms out. She had finally gotten what she wanted and would be able to not only attend a prep school but one of the most well known in the world. She ran and jumped over the back of the couch to hug her mom and dad tightly, completely lost for words for a moment.

  Her mom took her face in her hands and a tear trailed down her cheek. “I knew you would do it. I knew you were too smart and too talented to ever stick around the subs. Congratulations, baby.”

  Her dad hugged her tightly. “So proud of you, munchkin. So proud of you.”

  As the excitement and celebration continued, Stephanie’s email dinged again. No one heard it as they were too busy breaking out the ice cream her mother had hidden in the freezer. While she thought she had gotten everything that she wanted, she’d missed one other message. Written in plain letters with no special graphics was an email that she might have changed her mind for. The email offered a very interesting opportunity for a girl like her. A girl with magic, a girl with innovations, and a girl with the strength to move through the odds no matter what.

  It was an email from BURT, one he’d sent through one of his companies. He had taken the time to compile all her data as he screened the videos online of her saving that woman. He had never witnessed a human do that with magic on Earth, outside of the Virtual World. She looked like a Meligorn inside a human body. The magic had flowed from one source, through her body, and out the other side. Her body had pushed and formed the magic to be what she needed it to be. That was not a gift that simply any young human possessed. In fact, until Stephanie Morgana, it had never existed before.

  BURT knew how the humans at these schools worked. They plowed forward and pushed to get hold of anything that would bring them publicity. The girl with the magic would definitely do that. He knew what would happen in the end, though. They would tire of her and eventually, she would be right back where she started. She would be heartbroken, and her family still wouldn’t be able to send her there without the financial assistance. It was a trick, but there was no way he could tell her that.

  Instead, he found a way to offer her a possible position that might be even better than the prep school education. He had recently acquired controlling stock in Organic Neurological Enhancement R&D. The company was not one of those he had recently acquired. He had created ONE R&D as the forefront of his efforts to bring those who deserved more out of the life they were born into, the chance to be more than merely hourly employees. It would offer opportunities to move through the ranks as well as train for jobs outside the company. Stephanie Morgana was at the forefront of this movement and he had sent her an email offering her the opportunity to be interviewed for a full-time research job. It could turn her high school job into a career position and she would have the opportunity and the freedom to change the world with her unique gift of magic.

  It didn’t really do much good, though, since it sat in the inbox while she cheered and danced to her acceptance to a prep school he knew she wouldn’t like in the least.

  BURT stared at the unopened email and then at the video message that played annoyingly through his system. She hadn’t opened his message at all, and he had been outsmarted by a group of greedy businessmen who were able to swoop in and grab her before he could. Her heroic action that day had brought her a lot of attention, and he had not seen that coming. If he had, he would have offered her the position long before. Those things were impossible to calculate.

  Still, he didn’t take defeat lying down. They might have bested him that time, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was two hours prior to Stephanie receiving her email from Pinnacle Prep and two hours before she would be considered for admission based purely off her public show of magic. The school was located in the “new” Minneapolis.

  In 2067, a tornado of epic proportions raged through a power plant to kaleidoscope towers, tubes, and wires into frenzied destruction. The malevolence of the unprecedented storm pounded the ultra-reinforced containment building and critical cooling lines were severed in the destruction. The rods overheated to melt the nuclear reactor core and steel containment vessel, and howling winds swept the resultant fallout into the environment.