Magic 101

"You're kidding right?" Henry asked. Both he and James looked at Miss Kalieta in disbelief. They knew that Miss Kalieta wasn't the type of person to lie, but this was ridiculous. "Do you really expect us to believe that magic exists?"

"Not really," she responded happily. "But if you did, then I wouldn't of invited you here. It seems like a demonstration is in order, Sofia." Sofia stood up and walked to the door, turning with her right arm up, palm towards the trio. "A bit close there, you sure you can catch it?" asked Miss Kalieta, a hint of worry in her voice.

"I've been practising more lately," responded Sofia with a slight smile.

"What did you mean by catching it?" asked Henry.

"Just watch," responded Miss Kalieta. As soon as she finished talking, she pulled the gun out of her shoulder holster, pointed it at Sofia and fired of a single shot. James expected a loud explosion from the gun in this enclosed room, but it was nothing like that. Instead, three distinct feelings washed over him. They were much more substantial than his previous feelings, more defined.

The first came just before the shot. It felt like a sudden shift, as if someone had shoved him from behind.

The second and third came almost at the same time and only a fraction of a second after the first. The second had the feeling of the abrupt stop of something hitting the ground after a long drop, while the third felt like holding an impossibly heavy pebble in your hand.

With his eyes, he watched as the bullet didn't fly directly into Sofia, but stopped dead in front of her hand. Her other hand had moved up under the bullet, like she intended to catch it, but it didn't fall. It hovered there for a several seconds before slowly floating through the air back towards Miss Kalieta who plucked it out of the air.

"Your control's gotten a lot better," Miss Kalieta praised, inspecting the bullet. "You managed to leave the bullet undamaged this time."

"Like I said, I've been practicing," Sofia replied before sitting back down in the chair. James and Henry were still speechless in front of the demonstration. Neither of them could think of ways that it could of been faked. James could still feel the remnants of that final act of magic, the floating movement of the bullet. It felt like a weaker combination of the push and hold feelings.

"What you just witnessed was metallurgy magic," commented Miss Kalieta, knocking the boys out of their contemplation of the events.

"Metallurgy? Like the study of metals?" asked Henry.

"Correct. This style of magic is the control, manipulation, and creation of metals and metal objects," Miss Kalieta showed the gun that she had fired moments before, "This, for example, is a weapon I created using magic." She placed it down on the table and James immediately moved close to inspect it. The gun resembled the revolvers he had seen in the cowboy movies he had watched as a kid. It was pure black, with a barrel that James estimated to be about 12cm. There were notches in the handle, that, while a bit uncomfortable for him, seemed to be perfectly fitted for Miss Kalieta. There was one thing though, that James immediately noted.

"I don't know much about guns," he commented while still looking over it, "but shouldn't this have a trigger?"

"Well that's because it's not really a gun," James looked up confused at Miss Kalieta as she pulled another gun out of a hip holster. She placed it next to the other 'not' gun. James could immediately see the difference. The second was a more standard revolver, with a silver coloured barrel and a non metal grip. It also had a trigger and hammer.

"A traditional gun works by basically making a mini explosion inside the cartridge of a bullet, causing it to fire forward," she said. She then opened the cylinder of the magic gun and took out a bullet.

"For the magic ones we use a similar technique. We do a quick but powerful push on the metal," she held the bullet in her fist and held it towards the wall on her left. There was a dart board on the wall and it looked like she was aiming at it. That same pushing feeling pressed into James as the bullet flew from Miss Kalieta's hand towards the board. There was a loud crash as the bullet impacted with the wall. James looked over to see that the bullet had dug into the concrete wall half a meter to the left of the target.

"We use the gun as a way to aim the bullet," she picked up the magic gun and fired at the target. This time the bullet hitting the middle of the target, splitting it in half and causing it to fall to the floor. "Probably should've done that at the firing range," she muttered. She turned back towards the group.

"Any questions?" she asked.

Before James or Henry could decide which of the numerous questions they should ask, Sofia jumped in, "Why are these guys even here? I didn't think we hired kids who break into our bases."

"The fact that these kids were able to break in in the first place is why they're here," replied Miss Kalieta. "And from what they've told me and what I've seen, they have a talent for magic."

Sofia looked just as shocked as James felt. "What do you mean we've got talent?" asked James, jumping out of his chair in excitement.

"That feeling that you get around magic, everyone I've seen who has it becomes one of the best magicians known to us," she responded before looking at Henry. "You were able to use magic without knowing of it's existence, that shows a good innate understanding of magic. Normally it takes a few months of training to even become passable, let alone combat ready. You two have a much higher start point." She re-holstered the guns before walking towards the door. "Speaking of start points, I'm going to introduce you to our resident trainer. Ask me any other questions on the way."

James eagerly followed behind, many questions on his mind. He was about to ask his first as he stepped out of the room, but he stopped in his tracks. He felt someone bump into his back, but he didn't move. As soon as he stepped out of the doorway, he felt a deep and uncomfortable feeling wash over him. He frowned, he couldn't quite understand what the feeling was. There were so many conflicting ideas, pushing and pulling, up and down, existence and non-existence. The feeling only lasted an instant, but it left James feeling uneasy, like he had just seen a spider disappear behind a box.

"You alright man?" Henry placed a hand on James' shoulder. James nodded before responding.

"Yeah I'm good, just had another weird feeling," James gave a small smile.

"Probably just someone using magic nearby. The private training rooms are near here," commented Miss Kalieta.

"Yeah, probably," James said, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than normal magic. He started walking after Miss Kalieta who had started moving after she saw that James was ok.

"So what is it that you actually do here?" asked James as they turned into a new corridor with a blue stripe joining the red. James looked into a room that they passed and saw multiple people sparring with what looked like metal poles.

"Do you mean here specifically, or as an organisation in general?" asked Miss Kalieta.

"Both I guess."

"Area 51 as an organisation is tasked with the study and containment of magic," Miss Kalieta began. "I can't tell you much as you are still recruits, but we first discovered magic in the 1950's. Governments around the world attempted to control and develop new methods of magic. We were formed after an event involving magic went awry in the 70's."

They passed another open area that contained a dozen people shooting both conventional and magic weapons at moving targets. "Over the past fifty years we have been attempting to keep magic out of the hands of governments, average people, and private groups attempting to gain access to it.

This site was built to study and contain a magical object underneath the Blue Lake. I can't say much more about it, just know that it is the reason why the magic that most people in this region use is metallurgy."

They started approaching a hallway that ended in two large, open doors. Looking in they saw a gymnasium style room, about 40 to 50 meters long and wide with the tallest ceiling that James had seen in the compound so far.

In the middle of the gym was a group of about 20 people sitting cross legged on the ground, with another person walking between them. James' group entered the gym, the man they were approaching had his back to them.

He was quite short, only coming up to James' shoulder. He was quite well built, but not as overly muscled as a body builder. He had short cut blond hair and lightly tanned skin. He must have heard Miss Kalieta's shoes clacking on the floor as he turned to face her.

James couldn't help but be shocked as he saw the face of the man. There was a scar covering the entirety of the left side of his face. His left eye was closed, the scaring around it indicating he was blind in that eye. The other eye was a simple brown. He looked around middle aged, but the scar made it hard to be more specific. He let out a large smile that didn't seem to be affected by the scar.

"Ah Anabelle, I wasn't expecting you here today," he said in a surprisingly soft voice.

"I've told you to stop calling me Anabelle at work dad," Miss Kalieta sighed.

The man gave a small chuckle, "So who are these boys, Director?" he asked, putting an extra emphasis on the last word.

Miss Kalieta gave him a quick disapproving look, before turning towards James and Henry.

"These are two new recruits, Henry Moore and James Heffron. You should use the accelerated programme with them," she said.

"The accelerated programme huh?" the man looked over the two boys before sticking his hand out towards Henry. "Dave Kalieta, practical magic director."

Henry shook his hand, "Nice to meet you sir." Dave released Henry's hand and showed it to James. James reached his hand out but stopped before he could shake Dave's hand. His head snapped to the wall on his right. The same sense from when he stepped out of Miss Kalieta's room came back, but this time there was a clear direction, and he could feel it getting closer.

"Get down!" he yelled before grabbing Henry and pulling him to the floor.

Then the wall exploded.