Chapter 6 Chapter 5

Tyler had always been close to his friends. To gems. He instinctively knew which gem did what, even before he knew their names. Since as far back as he could remember. As a child, he had foraged in abandoned places no one else cared to enter, bringing strange, colored stones home to his mother’s small room.

The stones ‘spoke’ to him sometimes, and when they did, he would ‘talk’ back, and they would glow, become hot, or very cold. Sometimes, they would get very light in weight or extremely heavy.

He would show his mother his finds, and she would stroke his cheek with tears in her eyes, and tell him he was doing good, but that he should never show anyone except her what he did with his toys.

‘Toys’ was her code for the gems her son kept discovering.

It was his mother who had taught him how to keep his ‘toys’ safe; to hide them inside other objects. To the young Tyler, it had been a game only the two of them shared.

He recalled the first Junster he had ever found. It had been in an abandoned mine across the border, in the city where his university was located. Almost nine years ago.

It had fetched him quite a bit on the black market. A half-inch gem could blow up a 50-meter radius. If activated with the right radiation – if using technology, or spell – if using magic.

Military nations stocked it. No arsenal in the world did not have it. And Tyler Esteil had become a millionaire in a matter of months when he had discovered a vein in an ‘abandoned’ mine.

Which was still under his control. For over nine years.

As for the piece he was refining, he had plans for it. And, he didn’t need tech to execute it. He could use magic.

Not the magic of the masses. Alchemic magic. The power to transform objects.

No one, except Tyler and his deceased mother, knew that Mud-Face was an alchemist.

It was something his mother had never been able to explain for most of his life. Until she was near death’s door, and he had been called back from his university. Even then, she had told him only what she could bear to say in the time they had left.

Tyler closed his eyes, steadying himself, pulling his mind back to the task at hand. He never thought about his university days.

He couldn’t deal with it.

Focus, Tyler, he admonished himself. We don’t have time. We are too close to the start to become emotional. About anything. Or anyone.

He opened his fist and gazed at his friend. Last one, he noted.

He pulled on his bottom desk drawer, took out a small box ten inches long, four inches wide, and two inches deep, and dropped the activated Junster into the radiation-proof box.

It clattered on the others, also already charged.

Tyler closed the box and stared at it.

Payment complete, he mused. Once this is delivered, the show will begin, he thought to himself.

Lord Edward Kramer… It’s going to be a very exciting year for you. Your fiftieth birthday will mark the beginning of you and your family’s end.

==========

About the same time, Lord Kramer was busy with his assistants in his home office.

“Attacks are growing at our locations,” Sandy, his lead P.A., reported tightly as he stood before his Master.

“What are they using?” Lord Edward Kramer rumbled.

“Junster, Sir. Untraceable,” his second P.A. chimed in. Ruben. The quietest of his three closest aides.

“How can that be?” Lord Kramer snapped, his blue eyes moving between the two men.

“No one has reported any missing stock, and the shards we find are too small for any real analysis,” Ruben continued evenly.

“So, it's black-market goods,” the Master shot back, his eyes widening. It was not a question.

“Yes, Sir,” Ruben, the quiet one, responded.

Edward’s brow furrowed as his gaze fixed on Sandy.

“Why now?!” he complained, his voice getting more heated.

“Maybe it’s because we’re so close on the deal with our foreign friends. But it will all die down once we sign the contract.”

This time, Sandy replied. Taking the hint from his Master’s intense stare.

“How long has it been going on?” Edward all but snarled.

“About a month now,” Sandy replied steadily.

Lord Kramer gritted his teeth.

“And there is no pattern?” Edward rumbled.

“None, Sir. From Ashrone to the end of the continent, we’ve had a total of fifty attacks in the past month. It grows more aggressive, like their stock of Junster keeps increasing,” Sandy explained, his eyes shifting from his Master to a hand-held device containing the information the P.A. was sharing.

“Damn it!” Edward barked.

“Sir, we should focus on increasing security at our most important mining sites,” Ruben stated, taking over from the lightly perspiring Sandy.

“What of the damages? The impact on our production numbers?” Lord Kramer shot at Ruben.

“I have that here, Sir,” Lance, his third P.A., said smoothly, handing his Master an electronic file.

“And the workers?” Lord Kramer asked distractedly as he took the device.

“Sir, these locations are fully automated. Tech only,” Lance continued, taking over from his colleagues whose faces had become drawn, even as their voices remained calm and clear.

“So, it’s the humanist fascist movement? On MY sites?” Edward stated incredulously as he read the data in his hands.

“No, Sir, it’s not them. They don’t use violence,” Lance replied confidently.

“Then terrorists? Attacking Kramer property?” Edward shot back, his eyes snapping to Lance and narrowing.

“The hits are too clean, Sir, and there is no chatter in the shadows about who could be doing it or why,” Lance, his key aide on the more clandestine activities of Kramer businesses.

“Then why don’t the three of you prove your worth and tell me what the hell is going on at my plants?!” Lord Kramer bellowed, rising from his large chair and throwing the device Lance had given him on the table.

It held firm. It was a fortified device. Lord Edward Kramer, however, was also fortified. He punched the device with his ringed fist, and it exploded into pieces.

Lord Kramer, like almost every noble in Ashrone, wore a ‘protection’ gem; for attack, defense, or both, as the user required.

Lord Kramer channeled power to his strike, and his gem did the rest.

All his P.A.s fell silent.

Edward glowered at them. “We have three weeks. Three. To seal this contract. I won’t lose it. I won’t allow months of work to go down the drain. And you,” he growled, a long finger pointing round at the younger men standing before his desk, heads bowed, and jaws clenched, “will make sure this ant is caught and squashed. Have I made myself clear?!”

“Yes, Sir!” all three aides replied in unison.

“Get out of my sight!” he snarled. The men bowed hurriedly and disappeared.

“You know they can’t do anything about it,” a deep voice rumbled from a blank screen.

Edward tapped a button, and a face appeared.