“So, to summarize… the purpose of ley lines in an enchantment structure is to circulate and regulate the flow of Domain mana, ensuring that…”

  An analog clock slowly ticked by in the back of the lecture hall above Lucy’s head as she listened to the instructor drone on. Just barely stifling a yawn, an empty notebook lay on the desk in front of her as she rolled a pencil in between her index finger and thumb out of boredom. Lab classes were absolutely the worst time sinks.

  And, unfortunately, one that they all would have to grin and bear with for the time being. Every other option that had been handed off to them was worse still by far. Some of the nastier alternatives had included expulsion, remuneration, and even legal action. With options such as those, none of them had even looked twice, and jumped into line to start working on their remedial courses immediately. And even, then, that option hadn’t been available without a few choice words in their favor.

  Did they need to take this course? From a practical standpoint, absolutely not. They’d already learned everything that Introduction to Enchantment Structure had to offer them by actively testing it in the field… for better or for worse.

  But, on paper…

  ...They all still needed the lab credits to pass the term. The ones they had been promised for their work in Professor Smith’s lab had been rescinded, which left… this.

  “In this way, an enchantment is not dissimilar to an electrical current. Mana enters the system, provides energy to the effects, and is expended in the process. However, it should be noted that there are several key differences, such as…”

  Ffion wasn’t quite so reserved about yawning. She even let out a big stretch to go with hers, too, probably blocking the view of the projector for at least a few people behind her. Leaning over to whisper conspiratorially in her ear, the tall elf bemoaned their situation for the umpteenth time.

  “This is all sooooo boring… Konstantin’s lucky he already took this class last year…”

  Lucy shot a look her way that was supposed to read please not right now, but unfortunately it seemed that the message didn’t get across. Ffion continued with her griping like nothing had happened.

  “C’mon, Luce… Are you sure we can’t just ask the Professor for another shot at it? He seemed pretty interested in that radio hypothesis last week, I thought. Maybe we ask now that things have died down a bit?”

  She let out a huff of frustration, glancing back at her roommate to address her while trying not to miss too much of the lecture.

  “Dr. Smith’s good word is the only thing keeping us enrolled at this point. You really think he has any good favor left to send our way?”

  “Oh, come on, I’m sure it’s not that bad!”

  “Are you kidding me?! We-”

  Lucy realized her voice was a bit more animated than she’d originally intended. Nearby peers were sneaking looks in their direction, and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. The lecturer, either because they didn’t notice or didn’t care, continued talking in the same monotone he had been using for the past hour.

  “We accidentally took out power to a whole city, Ffion,” she finished in a much more hushed tone. “That’s not the sort of thing that gets swept under the rug easily.”

  With a weary sigh, the elf conceded the point. For today, at least. This conversation had been going on and off for the whole week of cram classes already.

  After what felt like days of their time listening to terms and principles they already knew by heart, the bell decided to be merciful and let them escape. Lucy was pretty sure she’d never gotten out of a seat so quickly before.

  The two of them made their way towards the exit of the lecture hall, meeting up with Konstantin along the way. Since the undergraduate lab courses were all in the same building, it worked out so that he only had to wait around a little bit after his own class finished to meet up with them, and with him and Ffion starting to go steady it had apparently been an easy decision for him. Together, the three of them would chat, commiserate and just generally unwind after an uneventful day.

  Naturally, the conversation drifted back to their old work on trying to crack the exclusion zone. It seemed it always did, one way or another. What was surprising, however, was that Lucy found it was her feeling the need to ask about it first.

  “Dr. Smith hasn’t said anything to you by any chance, has he, Konstantin?” There was a bit of a nervous quaver in her voice that she just barely was unable to hide. As much as she hated to admit it, she still got a little shaky at the memory of her brainchild going up in smoke.

  “Eh, that man has been quiet as a mouse lately,” he conceded. “Is okay, I tell him to take time as necessary, so wait is my fault mostly.”

  “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself, love,” Ffion interjected as they pushed open the double doors leading out onto the streets just outside campus. “I’m sure that he’s just busy taking care of the rest of his responsibilities for the week. Right Luce?”

  “I suppose…”

  Lucy agreed with the line of reasoning hesitantly. Though the statement was technically true, it was highly likely that there might be more going on out of the view of prying eyes. From what the professor had hinted at before, he at least had a boss to answer to-

  Her train of thought was interrupted by the loud rumble of a… sports car engine tearing down the road in their direction. A mundane, internal combustion engine, no less.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  All three of them turned in the direction of the oncoming vehicle, equally confused by both the sudden appearance of a flashy vehicle, and the strange choice in hardware it was loudly boasting.

  ...Who still held onto a fossil burner in 2004? Basically every car still left on the street was either a new model running an enchanted engine, or an old one that had been converted to accept one. Practically the whole world was switched over to the alchemized variant of petrol, already, to the point where it was almost impossible to get your hands on the regular stuff anymore. And why would you want it, anyway? The alternative offered less fumes, better mileage, much less noise…

  This car was none of those things.

  “Did some rich kid get a new car from their parents?”, Ffion wondered aloud.

  Lucy quirked an eyebrow. “I dunno… aren’t you the expert there?”

  “Wh-? Come on, you know I’d never want something like that! It’s too tacky, and… American!”

  “Riight,” she continued sarcastically. “You’d never get something as flashy as that.”

  “Nnnope! No way.”

  “Uh-huh. Remind me, when did you get the state-of-the-art espresso machine in our dorm, and for how much?”

  “T-that’s totally different! And you use it too!”

  Their conversation was cut short as the driver of the obnoxious vehicle in question slammed on the brakes just as they were about to pass them by. Tires squealed on the pavement, causing the trio to wince at the noise as it came to a screeching halt.

  “Ghk- Okay, just what’s this all supposed to be about?!”, Lucy asked bewildered. The smell of burnt rubber invaded her nostrils, causing her to cover her nose and hold her breath until the smoke cleared. “Whose bright idea was it to go joyriding in an antique?!”

  The window on the car rolled down, revealing the face of a familiar famous professor, decked out in aviators and leaning out over the side.

  “I’ll ignore that rude remark for now,” Professor Smith chided. He slapped the side panel of the door twice, jerking his head towards the seats in the back. “Get in, all three of you. We’re going on a field trip.”

  “What?!”, Ffion blurted out. “N-now? Where?!”

  Konstantin’s face lit up in recognition.

  “London.”

  < -|- -|- >

  The giant volume of dark gray fog was even more ominous in real life than it had been in pictures. Driving down had been mostly uneventful – Dr. Smith had insisted on keeping quiet about what exactly they were doing, for whatever reason – but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind where they were headed off to once they got in.

  At first, the hazy cloud had appeared as a small blip in the distance. Then as they got closer, that blip had only continued to grow larger and larger in their vision. As the day pushed towards sundown by the time they finally pulled off the main highways that once led straight into London City, the dark, inky blob cast a looming shadow on the orange sky, like a hole in the fabric of the heavens.

  It was… breathtaking. In a terrible, dreadful sense of the word.

  The rumble of the engine died down, and Dr. Smith took the keys out of the ignition. He’d pulled them into a rest stop just near the outskirts, a generic, cookie-cutter spot to get long-distance traffic off the road for a night. For their end destination, it didn’t really seem like a… destination.

  “Um… Professor?”, Ffion asked with a hint of uncertainty. “I appreciate taking us all the way to see the real deal, but… why are we here? There’s no one else around for miles. I don’t even think there’s anyone waiting inside.”

  “Well, you’re wrong, but in this case that’s not really your fault,” the old man said, unbuckling his seat and placing a hand on the door handle. “They’re just really good at hiding, is all.”

  “They? Who’s they?!”

  “You’ll see. Konstantin, if you will?”

  The Russian exchange student nodded, his usual relaxed regard on edge as he stepped out of the vehicle alongside.

  “Wait here,” was all Dr. Smith said before the two of them moved with purpose towards the entrance to the rest stop. Lucy and Ffion were left to wait in confusion.

  “Can’t he just tell us what’s going on? And what did he need Konstantin for, anyway?”

  Lucy shrugged, speculating on the professor’s strange behavior herself. Their relation was strictly business, but even considering that… he’d never been this secretive before. Exactly who was he trying to hide this from…?

  One minute turned into five. Just as they began to wonder if the two had gotten lost, they returned with three crisply dressed men in black suits in tow.

  “Ffion, don’t tell me…”

  “Is that what it looks like to you? Because it looks like that to me, too.”

  One appeared to be just a normal person for now, but the other two had clearly had an encounter with Ghost of Tolkien, even from this distance. Flanking either side of the haggard middle-aged man that appeared to be their handler, a somewhat effeminate elf man with loose, pure-white bangs strode with poise and precise movements to the left, while an orc whose physique made him look to the whole world like a gorilla pressed into a suit plodded along on his right. All three wore sunglasses and earpieces, following the lead of Dr. Smith and Konstantin, who was looking a touch nervous at the moment.

  They approached the car, and the professor started making introductions all around, cutting off any line of questioning there might have been from the two girls.

  “Alright, now that we’re all in the same place and not looking to swipe my top students… Let’s take this from the top. Girls, in front of you are three very important representatives who represent the interests of certain individuals who see promise in your research, despite its recent… setbacks. From the left, that’s Agent Blackthorne, from the U.S., Agent Jansman, who represents the European Union, and Agent Elefterov from the Russian Federation.”

  Blackthorne gave a slight bow, while Elefterov just grunted.

  “Now, you three probably know more about my students than they know themselves,” Dr. Smith continued with a hint of frostiness, “But… well, you’ve already met Konstantin here. There’s Ffion, our other engineer, and back there is Lucy, the one who crunched out all the theory work on the back end. They are all incredibly important to the success of this project, so I’d very much prefer if no one tried poaching them again?”

  There was a flinty look in the professor’s eyes that made her think that that was exactly what had happened inside. The gaze was directed mostly at Elefterov, but if the burly orc noticed, he made no indication of it.

  “It’s okay. You know who you are,” he continued when none of them made a move. “Though I’m warning you all now, try anything and you’ll be getting tossed across the room at bare minimum. Yes, even you, big guy. Magic doesn’t discriminate, but that’s not saying it’s fair either.”

  Another grunt. Not very talkative, the lot of them.

  “Anyways… you three kids are probably a bit confused as to why I dragged you out here by now.”

  “Well… yeah… I’m missing classes because of this…” Lucy grumbled halfheartedly.

  It was a lot to take in all at once. Three countries were interested in their work? More, actually. The EU was a continental organization, though the size of the other two superpowers in the room made that easy to ignore sometimes.

  Was this what going into shock was like? Her head buzzed loudly in her ears as she felt the eyes of the agents bore into her from behind the black tinted lenses.

  Dr. Smith snapped her out of it.

  “Figured that might be the case. You’ve probably put two and two together by now, but… I took your case up the chain to some… lets call them friends of mine worth talking to. All of whom have a vested interest in seeing this London issue resolved, for good.”

  Behind him, the light bending around a small posse of cargo trucks snapped back into place, the intricate Day and Tech enchantments dimming down as the supply of mana they were receiving dropped with a dramatic flourish.

  “While these three get you briefed and situated, your new workshop will be set up by those fine gentleman back there. Their job will be to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible, but if you’re worried about another power grid scenario, don’t. Even if they hadn’t prepared for that in advance, these guys are willing to eat a few costs for progress.”

  This is…

  Next to Lucy, Ffion was visibly stunned, practically reeling from the sudden turn of events.

  “Wh-What is happening? What’s going on here?!” she stammered, trying to process everything that had happened in the past minute and coming just a bit short.

  “Isn’t it obvious? You’re a government asset now. Welcome to the club.”

  I've decided to finally start doing shoutout swaps. Here's one from a fellow Writathon winner, CervineComedy!