The TV-screen flickered on as Vladimir entered his room for lunch. He had used magic to press down the button on the remote control, doing simple things like that happened from time to time now, but rarely unless he concentrated on it. This time he had decided to start the TV using a weave, and it had worked. If he would do that all the time, someday it would be normal to him. He was not a psychologist like, he had never been much interested in that, only waves and some biology. He had just had an interesting discussion with Isaia. It seemed the man had discovered a new element to supplement the four they had already found. He called it soul, mind or spirit, he hadn't made up his mind yeth. Vladimir supposed Isaia had discovered it days ago, keeping it to himself to gain an advantage. For a while that is, everybody had to tell everyone what they had discovered sooner or later, a fact that Isara reluctantly had to agree with. Of course a few days couldn't hurt, to get an advantage over everyone else. He had convinced Isaia that, or was it the other way around. It was kind of foggy, Vladimir pondered at how someone could be so cold and heartless while making someone do something that they didn't realize themselves even. Anyway they had decided to keep their discovery a secret for a few days, or maybe a few weeks even. Maybe not.

Vladimir though on how much he agreed more and more with the man since the incident two days ago. The two "counter-revolutionaries" had not been killed, or even put in prison. Well not in the normal sense of prison anyhow, they had instead been classified as "Experiment Subjects" , to be studied on what weaves could do to a human. His room hadn't had a computer when he moved in, and with the paper-war bureaucracy it had taken six days before he had a computer terminal installed in his room. The first thing he had checked out, pure curiosity he told himself, was what they had been checked in for kinds of studies. The mother had a full list with "Feel enhancing studies", while the girl's list was empty except for one mark by Dr. Juri "Frankenstein" Nikolaiov. It read "Field medication testing" . He didn't really care what that meant, but was intrigued by what the "Feel enhancing studies" meant, until a new recruit told him it was the official term for rape. Didn't matter he concluded.

As he started eating his officers' meal consisting of meat, potatoes and some salad, the TV, showing CNN started showing World Report after the several boring commercials. "Hello. This is World Report with George Croft and Laura Smith. Our headlines for today are; A Week since the "Magicians Wave", what has changed, what are the governments doing, what are they; New Terror in West Germany, two-hundred people killed in a small German village just south of Braunschweig, the police suspects the same killer as a week ago in Ramstein; A strong economic recovery after the stocks plummeted last week following the "Magicians Wave" and finally, the USSR reports that Norwegian terrorists were caught trying to blow up a powerplant in the Kola peninsula. All that just after these commercials."

Hmm, so that's what the KGB has been doing. Five days ago I told them that the origin of the wave was in Mageroya, Norway. They told me that Norway would never allow the Soviet Union to build a base of any kind on their soil, they are a part of NATO after all. They just told me to wait and do some other work while the KGB would start a campaign to give us an excuse to invade them. Damn me for starting to argue about it just today with Isaia, Vladimir thought. He had had a long and angry argument with Isaia about how necessary it was to get to the origin. He had lost the argument, painfully.

Some worthless commercials had gone by on the TV, but then one caught Vladimir's notice. A man and a woman, both young and good looking stood on a white background while some sparkles of fire flew on. Their dresses also flew in a wind, and than a voice started talking "Are you one like these? Can you cast spells? Do you want to learn more? Are you from the US or Canada? If yes, join the United States Casters Guild. Remember, your government needs you, and only we can help you control this skill of yours. Join the USCG, make a difference, whoever you are."

So that was how the Americans were doing it. Figures, they were always so focused on TV, they would recruit that way too, Vladimir chuckled inside himself. Soon the commercials ended and Vladimir started concentrating on the news again, laughing a bit at the irony.

"It has been now seven days since the "Magicians Wave" hit us, leaving death and destruction in it's way. Governments have so far been unable to determine the origin and cause of the wave, but almost all working governments have started up a group for these magicians. The US and Canada have joined together to form USCG or the United States Channelers Guild. The EU has created the Casters Ministry and China is showing off with its Peoples Magicians Guild. Russia hasn't reported anything officially yet, but we have received information that they are creating a group called the Peoples Casters Union. No other information about them has been given to the public, but the almost all governments are complaining about how few people are willing to join. Some are even afraid. A recruitment post for the Casters Ministry in the EU has been burned to the ground." . The program continued of course, but Vladimir had already eaten all his food, and he was in a hurry to get back to work. There was always so much work, and much of it was paper work. The only one who didn't do paperwork was Isaia, but he was member of the Politburo after all.

As he was walking trough the underground tunnels, one of the casters came up to him, Dr. Juri "Frankenstein" Nikolaiov. The man had been a doctor in medicine once, but he had been imprisoned because of his experiments to the subjects. When he channelled in the prison and learned of the Union, he joined immediately. Not the most popular man in the base, actually he was the least popular one, but he was still one of them, and a quite strong one at that. Not even half the strength of himself or Isaia ,Vladimir though, but a strong one none-the-less.

"Hello Commander. I will be continuing with my experiment on field medication using the source. I had my first attempt yesterday, a failed one at that, but I think I have a better idea on what to do now. It's a very complex weave, using even three of the powers, and I was hoping you could comment on it. I have understood that no one else at this base has used three or more elements in a weave at once? No matter, I am quite proud of this on myself. Come and look."

What was the man talking about field medication, Vladimir wondered. He would rather just do something else, almost anything, but a weave using three powers would be magnificent to watch. He had devised a small trick to see the weaves more clearly, it would come useful now. The man would be hopefully be disposed of later. But not now.

After a walk trough the underground tunnels to the holding area, Vladimir listened to the man explaining what he was doing. He had instructed Juri to keep the discussion to how he used three powers at once, without telling anything about his experiments. Vladimir realized he didn't want to know. Juri seemed unhappy at being unable to tell, but he was used to no one liking what he did.

As they reached the study room, Vladimir finally realized what Juri had meant. In the room the small girl from two days ago was sitting. Or if you could call it sitting, she was missing one of her legs. Juri explained something about how he needed to create a usual field trauma, and with those words, he closed a weave of air around the surviving leg, and another one around the girl herself. Then he separated the two weaves, ripping the girls leg off. Vladimir expected the girl to shout high enough to be heard at the other side of the base, but it seemed that a ball of air had closed, or opened depending on which way you looked at it, the mouth of her. Not a flicker came out of her mouth, but tears did flow. Several of them in fact.

Juri began speaking up "See commander, a normal field trauma, a missing leg. Of course they will not be cut of this nicely, but we need to start it simple, don't you think. Now watch while I try to put it back together again." and he used a weave to put the leg on it's original location, while using earth and fire to put it back and using some water to make it colder. The entire process took maybe two minutes, using fire, earth and water all at once. It wasn't until the full weaving was finished that Vladimir realized he had only though of the girl as a subject. And it had felt good too. That he would have to continue doing.

The leg was fastened in place, but he noticed it was as useful as a piece of meat. When he tried picking on it with a small weave, he noticed that blood didn't flow in its veins. The weave had been good, but useless. Pity for the subject, but she was unimportant. He said to Juri "You have done good. But the leg doesn't work. It's just a piece of meat now. Just cut it off again, then think of what you may have done wrong, and continue with the arms. Tell me if you have any success." and begun to walk towards the door. He heard a small rip before the door started closing, which was probably the leg coming off again he though. As he walked trough the red and grey half-lit corridors, he could do nothing but smile at how much easier it was now than it had been just five days ago. Yes, better.

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