Chapter 9
A Brief History of Everything
“We'll start at the beginning, or at least as close to it as we can get. You already know that some unknown force defeated our technology and banished us here, to Sanctuary. Or maybe we just hid. It really doesn't make a difference. When Sanctuary was founded, everyone worried about our resources. Would there be enough of anything to go around? Thus, the Legacy houses were born. Persons who had specific knowledge, knowledge that was deemed useful to Sanctuary as a whole, began to guard it jealously. They kept it in the family, teaching their children privately in order to safeguard their place here. To create a legacy for themselves. People scrambled for importance. Over time they developed better ways of guarding their knowledge, and when genetic keys became part of the security used, nearly all research into any field which could compromise their secrets was made illegal. No cloning, no genetic research, nothing that could take away the power that the Legacy houses had accrued.” Mr. Blair laughed sadly at this.
“Needless to say, it has significantly slowed progress, since cooperation requires trust, and we have quite a history of not trusting each other. This system continued for over five hundred years. During this time the space elevator was built and the space station begun. While it was under construction, several rather enterprising individuals looked at the outside world and wondered why we were going to space in the first place. After all, by then the horrors of the Great War seemed nothing more than tall tales, told by great-great grandfathers to frighten children when they were young. And they had come so far. Surely everything would have settled down.” Mr. Blair fixed Ezra with another penetrating look. “This was the beginning of our incursion back into the world.”
“At first, everything seemed fine. Most people outside were eager to lay their hands on what we had to offer. We established trade routes, imported raw materials from all over the world and exported whatever the world wanted. Of course, some people didn't think that trade should ever enter our equations. After all, we had technology, and they didn't. There was adventure to be had and glory to be won, and groups of reckless young upstarts with more brains than were good for them and too much fire in their bellies began setting out to make their fortunes.” Another rather pointed look.
Ezra bristled. He was anything but reckless. Also, what did 'fire in their bellies' even mean? He was about to speak up about it, but Mr. Blair just chuckled again and kept talking.
“They would go out with friends and weapons and take what they wanted. Food, riches, women... no-one out there could stop them, and no-one in here cared enough to do anything about it. That was when things went wrong. People who fought back against us suddenly developed powers. Control over the elements. Practically overnight, individuals who had resisted us gained supernatural abilities that more than leveled the playing field. Or maybe they always had them, and just never used them until we went too far. I doubt we'll ever know.”
“Powers? What do you mean, 'supernatural abilities'?”
“Complete mastery over nature,” Blair clarified. “The earth bowed to their will. They would call fire or lightning and it would jump to obey. Wind and water rose up at their hands, turning the skies and seas against us wherever we went. For every one elementalist struck down, four more seemed to spring up. We fought and were beaten. Horrible defeats, over and over, until we had been pushed back to Sanctuary, where we trembled in fear and waited for the final blow. But the end did not come. They established strongholds to watch us, and left us alone. History as you know it came into being and the dash to leave the planet began in earnest. The space station became a top priority, and a substantial bounty was put in place for the first person to achieve faster than light travel.”
There was a knock at the door, and Mr. Blair rose to answer. Ezra took the time to consider what he had been told.
Magic! Well, maybe he hadn't called it that, but it certainly seemed pretty clear to Ezra that, somehow, the people outside who had given up their technology had replaced it with magic. If he could just find out how... the possibilities were endless! Calling lightning at a whim? He could remotely power a wormhole for days! He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the girl from earlier in the evening, dressed much more conservatively now, enter the room. She stood directly in front of him, playful little smile gracing her lips, and cleared her throat, snapping him out of his reverie.
“You!” Ezra jumped up and away from her. “You electrocuted me!”
She rolled her eyes. “Only a little. You were about to do something stupid. I told you to follow instructions.”
“And... and you tricked me! You...” Ezra's face flushed and he stammered on in an embarrassed voice, “you flirted with me.”
The girl tapped her chin with one finger. “Yes. Yes I believe I did.” She sat down, kicked her feet up onto the table and crossed her legs as a languid smile spread over her face. “And you loved every second of it.”
Ezra stammered out a few more incomprehensible syllables, then looked up to glare at Mr. Blair, who was massaging the bridge of his nose, eyes closed in a look of annoyance. “Please,” the man said in a dry monotone, “don't stop on my account. Go on, this is fascinating.”
The girl let out a merry peal of laughter.
Ezra pointed an accusatory finger at her. “You didn't even know who I was or what I was doing until you stole my camera!”
“It was my night off. And if I'd been sober I would have had you begging to turn yourself in before you knew what was going on.” She gave him another wicked smile. “And you would have loved that too.”
Ezra blushed even harder. If that was possible.
“Agent Doe, please stop tormenting Mr. Hawkins.” Mr. Blair sighed, “He is ill-equipped to handle it.”
“Yes sir,” She drawled lazily, eyes never leaving Ezra, a slight pout on her lips. “But I do so under protest.”
“Noted,” Mr. Blair had apparently come down with a sudden headache, as he was now rubbing his temples. He walked over to the table and picked up his sunglasses. “Now, where were we... ah, yes, we were beaten and we ran. Roughly twenty years later, one of our remaining satellites picked up something. A huge conflagration, clearly visible from space, suddenly flared to life at the northern end of South America and spread rapidly through Central America, finally coming to a stop in North America. It burned for four months. We watched as hundreds of thousands of people died horribly in the fires. A covert team was dispatched to find out what had happened, what it meant for us. Apparently, in the twenty years that we spent hiding, a group of people who could control fire, called the fire-kissed, had risen to political power. Nearly every person of significant power in any government was a fire-kissed, and the devastation that we witnessed was the result of a disagreement between two rivals groups within their ranks.”
“I've seen some of the footage,” Doe interjected, her voice very serious, almost pained, “it was horrible. The normal people, the ones who didn't have any special powers... they were slaughtered in the fighting. They weren't part of the dispute. They never had a chance.”
“That,” Mr. Blair continued, fierce pride in his eyes, “marked the beginning of our organization. We asked ourselves who could stand up for the have-nots of the world, the ones who lived on the outside with the monsters who had defeated us, the ones who could not stand up for themselves? And the answer was obvious.” He placed a hand on agent Doe's shoulder. “We could do it. We would do it. We are the shield of the helpless. We are the sword of the righteous. We are the world's great equalizer. When elementalists abuse their powers, we are the ones who stand up for the wronged, the ones who avenge the victims.”
“And you want me to join?” Ezra asked, awed by the passion and pride of the two people sitting in front of him.
Mr. Blair bowed slightly. “It is my pleasure to invite you.”
Ezra swallowed down the lump in his throat. “All right,” he said, voice sounding much more stable th
en he felt, “I'm in.”
“Pay up,” Agent Doe said, hand extended up and behind her. A smile was forming on Mr. Blair's face as he handed over the sunglasses. She put them on and leaned back in her chair. The glasses looked ridiculous on her. She looked smug.
The smile continued to grow until it covered Mr. Blair's face, transforming it from something unimpressive to something extraordinary. “Welcome, Ezra James Hawkins, to the Guild of Sundry.”