Puzzling Choices and Surprising Revelations

“I’m not sure what to do next.” I paced restlessly back and forth, the wooden floorboards of the Professor’s library creaking under my weight. “Do we focus on putting Dick Arnold and his shell companies out of business, or concentrate on the An’girasii like Drake wants me to do? I don’t like how things are shaping up.”

Jim was comfortably resting in his worn leather easy chair, a half-full 2 liter bottle of Diet Pepsi in hand. His eyes followed me as I paced, but his thoughts were clearly distant.

“Has Agent Wilson reported any more killings that look like the ones you dealt with in South Beach?”

I stopped briefly, looked back at him and shook my head. “No. Nothing is showing up as that glaring just yet, but there are a couple of historical cases where she is getting the old files on. She said she’d let me know when they arrived.”

He took a swig from the bottle before setting it down. “Well if there is anything to be found, she’ll find it. She was one of Ravyn’s best students. We were sorry to see her go, but at least we have a reliable contact at the Bureau again.”

“What, I’m not reliable enough for you?”

Jim laughed. “Well, you don’t actually spend much time down at Quantico, do you? Besides Ravyn’s not wrong when she points out how clueless you can be when it comes to dealing with people.”

“Hey now, that’s not fair. Do you know how hard it is to get people to open up and talk to you when you got a face like this? Even FBI agents turn around and walk the other way when they see me coming.”

Jim held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just agreeing with Ravyn. I’m not much of a small talker either. But you have to admit, Jennifer has an easier time talking her way into gossip and secrets than you do!”

I nodded. “Well it also helps that she has the Talents she does to read people and profile people. I certainly don’t have the people skills that she does, or the cute smile either.”

He smiled at that. “Right. Now back to the issue at hand. I’ve heard some troubling rumors from number of non-ORC Casters who’ve told me about a recruiting campaign that has been taking place.”

“Who is being recruited and who’s doing the recruiting?”

Jim got up from his chair and walked over to the window, looking out on his unnaturally green backyard for a late December day. “The Casters that are being recruited are the ones that we ORC’s have always been mindful of, the unsavory, unethical types who use their special talents solely for personal gain, usually at the expense of clueless, defenseless innocent people with no inherent Talent themselves.”

He turned back from the window, reached into a pocket in his jeans to pull out a small, transparent orb. He stared down into it briefly before he looked up and tossed it in my direction. “Catch!”

I bobbled the small, egg sized orb before securing it with both hands. I brought it up to closer to my face with my right hand, holding it firmly between thumb and index finger.

“What’s this?”

Jim settled back down into his easy chair, chuckling as he did so. “You catch about as well as our poor Tiger’s pitchers. Perhaps Jim Leyland should include you in that special fielding practice that he’s got ready for our pitchers this spring. That orb contains the entire field report from one of our moles. That will give you a very good idea of who is doing this recruiting.”

“Wait a minute…we have moles? How big of an organization do we actually have here? And how come I was never told about us having our own moles and spies?”

Jim glanced up at me through the wire-rimmed glasses that had slid down his nose and sighed. “Rusty, even with everything that we have been through together over the last year and a half, you have only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as this organization goes. Part of the reason for that has been happenstance, but the main reason has been by design. It has only been recently that we could be absolutely certain that you weren’t an agent of Drake’s trying to infiltrate our organization. There was simply too much at stake to risk revealing our entire organization and its resources to a person as dangerous as Drake and too someone as dangerous as you had become.”

That last sentence staggered me. “You were worried about me?”

He nodded. “We had to be.”

“It was John Red Bear who sought me out, not the other way around you know.”

“I know. It was also John’s advice that we were following to limit our exposure with you. Even he was worried that you could either be a double agent, or that you would fall prey to forces beyond your ability to control. That’s why you’ve dealt with a relatively small number of us to date. We’ve had to keep our exposure limited to Ravyn’s Phoenix Clan and her associate members such as the Frau, Cerrydwen and myself, plus Herne and Moira and a few folks that you met in Vegas.”

“How damn big is this organization?”

His expression was completely blank as he replied. “Big enough.”

“What, don’t you trust me yet?”

“It’s not merely a matter of trust, Rusty. It’s a matter of a need to know. Right now you don’t really have a need to know details that are really unimportant right now.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Jim. After all of the shit we’ve been through together, you’re pulling this on me? What the Hell do I have to do for you guys to fully trust me and treat me as an equal?”

Now he smiled. “I thought you’d never ask. Rusty, would you like to become a fully vested member of the Organization of Responsible Casters?”

I shook my head, but couldn’t keep from smiling myself. “Yeah, I would. So what do I need to do?”

Jim got up out of the chair again. As he moved towards me, he held out his right hand which held another small crystal orb. This orb will give you some details about the induction ceremony and what all it entails. Take some time to review the information in both orbs, while I make the necessary arrangements for your formal induction.”

“One question, how do I get the information out of these things?”

He chuckled again as he passed me. “Hold the one you want to view clasped in your right hand and just state the password. The images will begin playing in your head. The password for each stone is ‘Betsy.’ I would sit down when you are watching the images. It can be very disorienting. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some arrangements to make.”

I sat down in easy chair, looked at the orb in each hand and tried to decide which one to view first.