Medical Magic

Skylar - the Summoner

“Code Blue! Code Blue! Clear the way!” 

Skylar watched another victim of the highway collapse head into the emergency wing. The Samaritan EMS had been bringing them in for the past hour since the hospital closest to the scene hit capacity. She flattened herself against the wall to make way for the trauma team with heavy rifles and body armor pushing a stretcher. Before she worked here, she only saw the Samaritans in action on the street: weapons out, securing the scene, and getting the patient into their armored hovercraft ambulance.

The person on the stretcher wasn’t her responsibility right now. Skylar’s patient was already in the ER, barely alive thanks to her magical treatment. Now she had to deal with the worst part of her job. As she entered the waiting room, she heard a chime from her company issued palmtop computer. The AR display in her contact lenses showed a timer tracking her interaction time in the waiting room. If she stayed too long, it would get reported to the corporation as unpaid socialization time.

On the other side of the pastel waiting room, Skylar saw the person her computer displayed as the next of kin for her patient. As Skylar approached, she removed her magical focus, a brown fur masque from the top of her face. Then she lowered a surgical mask, revealing her blue face, sharp cheekbones, and aquamarine eyes. Combined with her short white hair, Skylar was a striking example of the ice-touched Glacier species.

“Mrs. Mendez, we need to talk.”

Mrs. Mendez stood up from her chair, with a worried look on her stone face. Her disheveled, dark hair was pouring out over a pair of rock-like horns that framed her ears. Like many other earth-touched Crags, her clothes were frayed where her skin had cut through the cloth. The little boy next to her stood up and clutched her hand with both of his. He was still in his pajamas. Skylar guessed he was around ten, too young to discover if the wild magic affected his genetics. Both of them looked worried and exhausted.

“What’s happened to Michael?” Mrs. Mendez demanded. “They wouldn’t tell me anything except that he’d been in an accident. The net reported about the highway, some rogue mage blew up a bridge. I don’t understand why we allow any magic inside the city in the first place. It can’t be used or controlled, only stopped.” She let the words hang between them for a moment, then she realizes something. “But Michael doesn’t drive so… he must have been...”

Skylar tried not to wince at the generalized accusation and ignored the glare of Mrs. Mendez. Skylar started speaking by rote, choosing her words carefully. “That’s right. He was under the bridge when it collapsed. As I’m sure you know, Ashen like him are particularly prone to broken bones. The debris crushed his entire right side. The arm, leg, lung, some ribs, and part of his skull are all fractured or broken. We’ve managed to stabilize him, but he’s still unconscious.”

Mrs. Mendez gasped in surprise that didn’t reach her eyes. “Daddy! No!” the little boy cried, hugging his mother’s leg as tears burst from his eyes.

Mrs. Mendez crouched down to hug her little boy, her voice becoming several shades softer. “Now Luis, baby. It sounds scary, but Daddy is gonna get all fixed up by the doctors. He’ll be home soon, and he’ll have all kinds of new shiny parts. Just like Uncle Lorenzo, okay?” Little Luis took a few steadying breaths before nodding and wiping his eyes.

Mrs. Mendez stood back up to address Skylar, “That sounds utterly horrible,” she said, “but if he’s still alive, he can be fixed with augmentations. We have health insurance from his night job, and…”

Skylar put up an icy blue hand to interrupt, “That’s why I’m here talking to you, Mrs. Mendez. It seems that your insurance expired weeks ago when Michael lost his job at Reclamations, Inc. You’re right--if it were active, your plan may have allowed us to replace the damaged areas with cybernetics, or restore him with magic. Without insurance, we don’t have his prior consent -- or a method of payment -- so we need you to decide for him.”

Mrs. Mendez’s face flashed from confusion, to fear, to anger, “HE WHAT!!??!!” When she stomped her foot, the chairs shook. “Weeks ago!!! If he didn’t have a job, what was he doing every night?!?” Skylar took a half-step back, unable to answer. Mrs. Mendez clenched her teeth, “Without that insurance, we’ll never be able to afford so much work.”

Skylar sighed as she read the corporate script, “Geoponics Biotechnology has work programs in place to allow you to pay your bills over time...”

“You mean slavery!” She said it loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the waiting room.

Skylar looked away, unable to argue for the detestable corporate policies. The poor woman didn’t have many options, all the hospitals belonged to Geo Bio. This all reminded Skylar of her short-lived music career. Of what her manager tried to get her to do out of fear of losing her contract. She ended up blacklisted by a megacorp and couldn’t sing for a living anymore. So she started a new one in nursing, and she was trying to keep her head down this time.

Skylar’s AR display reminded her that their time allowance was slipping away. Mrs. Mendez needed to make a decision soon, but she was busy researching options on her own palmtop computer. She was obviously still angry. She was muttering under her breath and jabbing the screen with her stony fingers. She was close to breaking the tiny computer.

Skylar glanced nervously at the receptionist desk, framed with mini-cameras keeping track of their engagement. 

Skylar felt a tug on her hand, and turned around. She found the little boy, Luis, petting the synthetic fur of her magical masque in Skylar’s hand. It looked like the face of a brown bear from the forehead to cheekbones, including a protruding black nose. Skylar bent down and offered it to him, “Have you not seen one of these before?”

Luis kept looking at the bear masque, “Yeah, but yours is fuzzy. It reminds me of my stuffy, Buttons. He’s a bear too. The other masques I’ve seen had shapes, colors, or pictures on them.”

Skylar gave a weak smile. “I have some of those too,” she said. “I wear this one when I work because of kids like you.”

“It lets you do magic, right?”

Skylar nodded.

“How?”

Skylar rocked back a little at the rudimentary question that she now had to break down into something he could understand.

Skylar blew out a cloud of frost before starting to explain. “There are lots of theories about that, and the experts are still trying to figure out the whole thing. But I’ll tell you my favorite way to look at it, okay?” Luis nodded immediately, his eyes still shining from the tears from a minute ago.

“Imagine you’re in a huge room filled with people. They’re all talking at once, so it’s really noisy, right? That’s the wild magic outside the walls, constant uncontrolled potential. Anything could happen, such as the river suddenly catching on fire. The walls reduce the volume of the noise, but everyone is still talking.” Skylar used her slender blue hands to make little mouths chatter at each other.

“Now, Shards, they use crystals to tune out the noise and amplify a particular sound. When that sound becomes loud and clear, it causes the effect the Shard wants. They have to be very fast and precise to pull this off. Lots of folks can learn to do this, which is why most of the magical things you find in stores were made by them. On the other hand, Whispers don’t try to be louder than anyone else, they blend in with the noise, listening to certain voices. Their magic only affects them, but that makes them less of a risk to everyone else.”

Luis looked down at the mention of the dangers of practicing magic in the city. He looked like he was about to cry again.

Skylar changed the topic, “Masques, like me, we tell stories. These stories make the other voices stop talking and listen, and that focus makes the magic happen. These stories don’t have to be old, but they have old truths in them. These iconic truths are easiest to understand as characters in a story that share certain aspects. I follow the Path of the Guardian, so I tell stories about protecting people, making people feel better when they’re hurt, and keeping their homes safe. Wearing the masque makes us a symbol of characters and themes, which goes beyond language and into something deeper. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Luis said. He touched his collar with one little hand. A thin chain was tucked underneath his shirt, some kind of religious symbol just out of sight. People often confused the two, Skylar thought, they didn’t realize religions are a popular subset of the stories that could be used. It’s the elements of the story that give it iconic power. The actions done, the results achieved, the lessons learned. A story about a saint healing the sick works just as well as a wise woman or kind doctor doing the same.

“Does that mean you can help my dad?” Luis asked with hope in his voice. He looked up at Skylar with big, pleading eyes.

Skylar blinked as the question snapped her back to the present, her training faltering for just a second, “I could… but your mom has to give me permission first.”

“That’s right!” Mrs. Mendez glared down at the two of them. “It’s my call, and I’m not consenting to you using your unreliable magic on Michael. He may have lied about his job, but it was a spellslinger that brought down the bridge. Magic brought nothing but pain to this world.”

Skylar straightened up, all business again, “Mrs. Mendez, there are many people who feel that way. However, in this situation, it would save you a lot of money to allow me to restore Michael. In addition to the reduced material cost, the recovery time is much faster, which means less time paying for inpatient care.”

Mrs. Mendez crossed her arms, “No. Magic. I’d rather he be left untreated and manage things myself than allow him to be altered by you.”

Skylar let out a slow breath through her nose. It crystallized in the air, giving her a draconic aspect. “You’ve made your decision then?”

Mrs. Mendez faltered, glancing back to her palmtop, “Not just yet. I’m waiting for the bank to transfer some funds. I think we can afford at least some bionics or grafts. The Network is lagging with all the emergency services. Or maybe Michael didn’t tell me about paying our service bill. Is there somewhere I can find a Netdrop to plug into?”

Skylar pointed over to a crowded kiosk in the corner of the waiting room. It was clearly marked ‘Network Access’ with the Geoponics Biotechnology corporate logo right above the price list. Mrs. Mendez stormed over, looking like she was ready to toss people out of her way.

Luis watched her go but stayed there with Skylar. “She lost her parents last year when the Tempest got real bad. They worked in the Fulcrum, near the land. I don’t wanna lose my dad, and I don’t care if it takes magic to do it.”

Skylar bent down again to look Luis straight in the eyes. “I understand. But even that would take a lot of money. I can’t just do it because I want to. I would get fired, and they’d never let me help anyone else. Anywhere. Ever again. If I did, they could throw me in jail for practicing without a license.”

The boy looked over at his mother, arguing with someone at the kiosk. He looked down in thought. “You said the walls were keeping out the noise. The potential?” he asked.

“Uncontrolled potential, that’s right. The walls reduce it a lot,” Skylar replied.

He looked up, looking her in the eyes for the first time, “How do we know it’s not reducing ours too?”

Skylar’s mouth opened, then closed. As she stood up, her AR informed her that the interaction limit had expired. She looked over her shoulder to the front desk and the cameras watching her. The face of her old manager flashed before her eyes again, reminding her of the last time she felt this powerless. She may have sacrificed everything to escape him, but she made sure he couldn’t do it to anyone else.

Skylar stormed out of the waiting room and headed back to the ER, pulling her medical mask back on as she went. After slamming the doors open, she brought her masque to her face, magically attaching to her aura. Unconsciously, Skylar began to hunch as she walked with determination through the hospital. The rest of the staff stopped and stared at the bear-faced woman stalk through the crowd. Even the armored Samaritans gave her the right of way.

When she arrived at Michael Mendez’s room, she latched the door behind her. As she approached the bed, she looked up into another camera with the Geoponics Biotechnology logo staring back at her. She took out her palmtop computer and displayed it for the camera. For the second time in her young life, Skylar ruined her career.

“I QUIT!”

Skylar threw the computer at the camera, shattering both of them. She turned to Michael and laid her hands upon his bandaged head, and her hands began to glow a warm, yellow light.

“Once upon a time…”