CHAPTER 82: 82

They turned the lights off in the auditorium a good ten minutes before the presentation started, but it didn’t bother Bran since he’d been herded backstage by Morgan and the woman with the big headset. The lighting there, while not great, let him see enough to know that this event was a big deal, much bigger than he’d even imagined.

Not including all the people filing in with pamphlets and lanyards (with presumably their names on them) there had to be at least a hundred photographers and videographers babysitting giant cameras on tripods and darting around with much smaller ones on handheld gimbles.

Just the amount of people would have already made Bran want to take a nap, but the noise was something else and it made him want to go touch all the equipment he could find just to cancel the whole thing.

Why was he even here?

He spotted Morgan talking to a few lanyarded up people so he took the opportunity to glare at him while fiddling with the energy sapping band around his wrist. He’d tried covertly cutting it with the box cutter during a bathroom break earlier, but either the band was made of something special (it probably was) or the box cutter was just that bad (also probably true).

Bran let his gaze roam elsewhere to see if any potential escape routes had opened. Nope. At every exit were discrete security guards and he knew from personal experience that they could recognise him on sight and had been told to not let him leave.

Bran sighed. It was going to be a long day.

But not as long as he thought.

Almost as soon as he’d resigned himself to spending the rest of the day (and maybe even a few days) in boredom, the lights at the edge of the stage out front suddenly lit up and the whole auditorium buzzed louder.

Bran sat up on his folding stool and looked around for some indication on what was going on and as he did, he noticed that, perhaps to not distract from the main event, the lighting backstage had been turned down. Perhaps this was his chance to slip away and get lost in the crowd and maybe make his way out when everyone left later.

Quietly, he slipped his shoes off - they were white and he was wearing socks anyway - then got up, and ducked around the dark, thick curtains. The stairs down the side of the stage, the ones that were for people to get on and off stealthily, was lined with metal edges that thankfully glinted in the dark and let Bran make his way down without accident.

When he’d reached the main floor of the auditorium, he sneaked a glance back and saw, with a little excitement, that no one was following him. Good.

He skirted around the edge of the hall, working hard to avoid any eye contact and was about to reach the small flight of stairs that led up to the higher seats when everyone around him started to clap. He jumped then looked back at the stage and saw that the show had finally begun.

"Please take a seat," said a terse voice and Bran turned back to find an usher urging him toward one of the few free chairs.

Above and a few metres away near the closest exist was a security guard so Bran let himself be led to the seat and apologised meekly before taking a seat. Once the show got started, he’d have more opportunities to escape, he told himself though he couldn’t help eyeing the security guard. The guy was tall, much taller than Bran, and broader too. Perhaps if Bran could create some kind of distraction...

"What if you woke up one morning and you were able to use magic? What would you do?"

A polite laughter filtered through the seated audience. The amplified voice came through the large speakers that lined the walls making its owner sound omniscient though the man himself appeared tiny on the stage, his bald head reflecting no small amount of light.

Arthur Penn.

Bran slouched down in his seat, hoping to make himself less noticeable. There was no way the man would be able to see him from this distance yet Bran couldn’t help trying to avoid those sharp eyes.

"For me, I’d grow myself a whole head of hair," said Arthur.

The audience laughed more genuinely this time. Bran rolled his eyes and started observing the movements of the staff and guards.

"Today, ladies and gentlemen, I want to talk to you about magic. Now, don’t go taking our your phones and checking your social media feeds just yet. What I want to talk about isn’t some pie-in-the-sky marketing schtick, it’s about the future. Not some glimpse into the future, but the actual future brought here, to the present."

Arthur was wearing a black semi-formal suit and black shirt and had the usual presentation clicker in hand which he now used. Behind him the dark backdrop of the stage suddenly became a screen displaying a sea of stars - the Milky Way.

"Every time a new product or service has revolutionised our lives, what has it that they’ve been selling?" The stars swirled to form an object. "The camera? A smartphone?" The amorphous object dissipated leaving the screen black. "No, it was magic."

The screen behind Arthur flashed to white and colours exploded across it forming beautiful fractal patterns and mandalas. The light from it all bathed the audience and Bran looked around and found, to his surprise, that the audience was rapt with attention. To be fair to him, he hadn’t had any contact with any tech talks or product conferences for the last decade, and so hadn’t learned the lingo, but it was still disconcerting.

If anything, it was like there was a spell being weaved, one that Bran desperately wanted to get away from. He looked for the staff and guards and slowly got up from his seat when he saw them look away.

Bran had just taken a step away from the crowd and toward the exit when a spotlight suddenly snapped on above him, fixing him with light.

Then a hand gripped his shoulder and Arthur was right next to him with an arm over his shoulder like a friendly uncle.

"Wha-!" Bran instinctively tried to get away from him but the man’s fingers dug hard into his shoulder, fixing him in place.

"Some say," went on Arthur, "that magic is merely science that can’t yet be understood, but what I want to show to you today is that we, here at The Unity, have discovered that science can deliver the promise of magic."

There was a whoosh and Bran’s stomache flipped over and suddenly he was standing on that light bathed stage next to Arthur. He’d just been teleported.

The crowd, only now realising what had happened, suddenly burst into chatter and applause.

Arthur raised a hand to quieten them, though he kept his other firmly on Bran’s shoulder. Not that he needed to. The poor boy was blinded by the lights and absolutely terrified. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move. All he could do was try to cower away from the strength of that claw on his shoulder.

"Teleportation," said Arthur with a broad smile. "The epitome of travel. Just imagine being able to instantly move from your home to your workplace and the savings you’d make on time. Now, most of you must be thinking that just then was a simple parlour trick, just some special sizzle for the cameras, but I can assure you, it’s not just real, but possible for every one of you. Now, how about flight?"

Arthur turned and steered Bran to the very centre of the stage, close enough to the edge that, even with the glare of the stage lights, Bran could see the cameras pointed at them.

"Isn’t flight one of the longest held dreams of man? What if I told you that it is completely possible?" He gripped Bran’s wrist, the one with the dampening band on it. "Don’t believe me? Let my friend here demonstrate it to you."

Arthur seamlessly slid the band off of Bran’s wrist then pressed something cold to the nape of his neck.

Bran gasped as heat burned up from his abdomen, flooding his mind and senses.

Flames burst from his back and the first few rows of audience members screamed and scrambled backward as the pair of wings stretched out on either side of him.

He turned slightly and stared at the sparking wings, uncomprehending and mind completely blank.

Arthur stepped out in front of Bran and raised both his hands to calm the audience once again. Once they were convinced there was no danger and had returned to their seats, he addressed them again.

"What you see here seems supernatural, beyond science, beyond nature, but let me assure you that this is merely a remembering of knowledge that was once commonplace."

He held up a hand revealing the crystal in it.

"Physical computing," he said. "With the right set of instructions and the right medium, anyone can change the world as they see fit."