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And yet, in spite of the caution in much of the magical community, the stories kept coming. Every day, there would be a new post or two on the anti-magic blogs, showing what they believed to be proof of magic. Even knowing what I knew, I didn’t think it looked like proof of anything. I didn’t recognize any of the alleged magic users, and the pictures didn’t look anything like any real spells I’d ever seen cast.
Bringing Owen pictures of alleged spells became part of my daily routine. “What about this batch?” I asked one afternoon about a week later as I dropped a stack of printouts on his desk, on top of the ancient tome he was studying. “Any real magic here?”
He bent over, squinting, then shook his head. “It’s hard to tell from a still photo. It could have caught a transitional moment, but I don’t think any of these gestures are actually part of any spell I’m aware of.” Looking up at me, he added, “That’s good, right? If they’re having to make stuff up, that means they aren’t really on to anything, and it’s bound to hurt their credibility.”
“I’m not sure the truth is likely to slow any of these true believers down much,” I said, “especially since they’re actually right.”
“Not about us ruling the world. We aren’t allowed to go into politics.”
“What about economics? You use your prescience to play the stock market.”
“Only a little,” he said. “Probably no more than most people who have solid instincts, and I back it up with research. I’m also not using magic to manipulate the market.”
“I’m not sure these people would see the difference. To them, it’s enough that you have advantages other people don’t have and can never have.”
“They haven’t started posting pictures of known magic users, have they?”
“Not other than these pictures of magic allegedly in use. You’re sure you don’t recognize any of them?”
“I don’t know every wizard.”
“But surely if we pooled the knowledge of everyone in this company, that’s bound to cover the majority of magical people in the city, whether as friends, family, or customers.” I picked up the photos. “I think I’ll see if Rod can distribute them and learn anything.”
“He’s probably a better bet than I am. He’s much more social.”
Rod put together an internal site and sent out another memo. By the end of the day, only one person had been identified. I got one of the computer wizards—in this case, the term was meant literally—to try to trace back the sources of the reports. Trish was in my office when I got the call that the computer wizards had made no headway on identifying the sources of reports or comments.
I ran my hands through my hair and groaned. “I don’t get it,” I said. “I can’t tell whether we’re dealing with people who hate magic and want it exposed or who use magic and want it exposed.”
“Doesn’t it kind of work out the same way?” Trish asked.
“Yeah, but we need to fight it in different ways. You deal with people afraid of magic in a totally different way than you deal with people who want to be able to use magic openly, so they’re forcing the issue.”
She frowned. “You’re really taking this personally, aren’t you?”
“Huh?”
“The magical people are getting a bit paranoid, but you’re acting like you’re on a one-woman crusade, and it doesn’t even affect you directly.”
“Well, the Council did go after Owen about being near the public magic use. And what happens to him and so many of my other friends if this gets out?”
“I think it’s going to take a lot more than a floating Audi to make the general public and the government believe in magic. Hey, do you think there’s an X-files section in the FBI, only about magic instead of aliens?”
“Apparently, there is a secret division in the government that deals with magical matters.”
“So the government already knows about it. Don’t you think they’ll try to squash this little crusade?”
“I think the thing is, I relate to these magic watchdog people,” I said. “I remember how I felt when I was seeing strange things around town that no one else seemed to notice. There were times when I thought I was going crazy. At other times, I felt like a hick who wasn’t cut out for living in New York because I was all agog over things New Yorkers just ignored. It made such a huge difference to me when I learned that magic was real, and I was immune to it. It explained everything. The universe made sense again. Some of these people may be dealing with the same thing in their own way, and I feel bad if someone is taking advantage of them.”
“That could be what’s going on here,” she said, nodding. “What do you bet that one of the people behind the magic watchdog group is a magical immune who got tired of feeling crazy or being treated like he or she was crazy when no one else saw what he or she saw? I definitely recognize the impulse. You want to grab everyone around you and say, ‘Hey, did you see that?’ It didn’t cross my mind to start a blog, but it’s not an irrational response to reach out to other people who might see things so you can validate each other. And then maybe there’s someone else out there using them. They may not know they’re being used, or they could be in on it.”
“I think there’s something to finding out who’s behind this and what their motive is,” I said. “I know the person I talked to at the bridal sale wasn’t an immune, but maybe she wasn’t the boss. She may have just been passing out cards. If it is an immune trying to validate her experiences, we may be able to deal with it all a different way, and that would stop any magical activist from using them.”
“And we might get a new recruit in the process. Are you thinking undercover mission?”
“We are pretty ideally suited for this work, being immune and able to validate what this person is seeing. It wouldn’t be too hard for us to find magic to report on to earn trust, since we work for a magical company.”
“Do you think the boss will go for it?”
