Chapter 55: What They Became
Daniel Harper stood in front of the unresponsive door for a second longer than he probably needed to. His hand hovering just above the panel before he let it drop with a quiet breath of frustration, because this wasn't the first time this had happened to him. He had the clearance according to the documents he was issued this morning. He had the knowledge necessary for the task assigned to him and he had been working in this section for weeks.
But the door to this particular lab stayed closed to him and a few of the less magically inclined residents.
That's when someone passed behind him. It was a young witch, that was just passing through the corridor on her way to greenhouse 5, slid past him and the door that wouldn't move even an inch for him just simply slid open for her without hesitation.
Daniel didn't say anything as he stood there looking at the now open door before he turned and headed for the transport.
He found Mr. Granger in one of the mid-level corridors, crouched beside an open panel with a toolkit laid out beside him.
"Mr. Granger," Daniel said.
The older man looked up, pushing his glasses up his nose as he straightened. "Is something wrong Daniel?"
Daniel hesitated, then nodded toward the corridor behind him. "A few of us have noticed that the city doesn't respond to us properly."
Mr. Granger frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I can access terminals, check systems and interact with anything here through touch." He paused briefly, as if choosing his next words carefully. "But anything that... reacts with a mental connection, like certain doors, environmental controls, or localized systems to certain labs... they don't register that I am even there. Even if I have been given the proper clearance from Arcanis Primus Snape."
Mr. Granger was quiet for a moment.
Then he let out a small breath. "Right, yes... That would be a problem."
Daniel huffed a faint laugh. "That's one way to put it."
Mr. Granger reached for his tools, already packing them away. "Come on. Let's go find Hermione."
Hermione didn't dismiss the issue at hand, but truly listened to Daniel explain what was happening to the less magically inclined population all over the city.
By the time he finished, she was already thinking three steps ahead.
"It's not an access problem," she said, mostly to herself. "It's an issue with the interface."
Mr. Granger folded his arms. "Meaning?"
Hermione glanced at him. "The city at times responds to your intent projected from our thoughts. Not just physical input."
Daniel frowned. "And I don't have that."
"No," she said. "Not in the way it expects. You don't have access to your magical core so you have no way to project your thoughts through Legilimency. This means you have no way to tell the city what you need from her when physical input isn't enough."
She turned on her heel and waved her hand as she walked towards her lab. "Give me a day."
Hermione delved into her research and emerged in no time flat.
By the time Daniel was called back, the lab looked like something had been taken apart and reassembled twice.
Hermione stood at the center of the chaos with her sleeves pushed up, and her hair pulled back in a way that suggested she had done it without thinking. Nicolas Flamel stood nearby, watching her with interest and the soft smile of a proud grandfather. Remus was leaning against one of the worktables, quietly observing the mess and the haggard girl as she put the finishing touches on her masterpiece.
Severus stood off to the side with his signature scowl, arms crossed over his chest, saying nothing.
Hermione with a accomplished smile held a ring out to them.
It was simple at a glance, though everyone in the room could see the faint etchings along the band, the subtle glint of metal that wasn't quite like anything he recognized.
"Try it," she said.
Daniel took it carefully, turning it once between his fingers before sliding it onto his hand.
"What do I..."
"Twist it," Hermione said. "To the left first."
He did.
Nothing happened at first but then there was a faint shift in the air.
"Now," she said, watching him closely, "tell it what you need."
Daniel hesitated, then glanced toward the door.
"Open."
The door slid open.
He blinked.
Hermione let a proud smile grace her face because she was proud that she had managed to solve this issue for everyone.
"It translates your spoken words into a format that the city can understand." she said. "You can't project intent the way the system expects you to be able to, even though you have the genome needed to operate within the city. Think of it like you needed a signal booster to help the information flow. The ring does that for you."
Mr. Granger looked between them, then down at the ring. "And it understands that?"
"It's like a hardware update. I basically just coded the ring to be a physical antenna for those who can't project their thoughts," Hermione corrected. "It's nothing grand and we can make them genetic specific so no one else can use them."
Severus shifted slightly. "It's crude. But effective, well done Ms. Granger."
Hermione shot him a look. "It works and that's what's important."
"That," he allowed, "is true I suppose."
It didn't take long for the rings to spread throughout the city.
It wasn't a complicated process to make them and they worked remarkably well easing the lives of certain residents within the city.
What no one expected was the inspiration that the rings existence would give to their resident alchemy master Nicolas Flamel.
Hyacinth found him two days later in one of the fabrication spaces, turning one of the rings over in his hands.
"It's clever," he said, almost to himself.
Hyacinth stepped closer. "You sound like you're about to do something that could be very interesting."
Flamel smiled faintly. "If this idea works the way I think it will, this will be very interesting."
He set the ring down and gestured toward the worktable behind him.
There on the table laid a wider band. It was made of a type of metal, darker than steel, threaded through with something warmer beneath the surface.
"Wands," he said, almost thoughtfully, "Should evolve with us as we move forward."
Hyacinth crossed her arms. "They're is going to be push back especially from the conservatists."
"Yes," he said. "And that kind of thinking is limiting our innovation."
The first armband didn't work the way we had hoped.
The second was smoother in execution but it responded too slowly.
The third on however was much better. In fact it was almost perfect.
Hyacinth watched as Filius Flitwick adjusted the band on his forearm, fingers hovering just above the etched runes.
"Don't overthink it," Flamel said.
Flitwick huffed. "That's not helpful advice."
"It's actually the best advice. Magic is instinctual to us. The wand was just a tool to help us channel it. This armband is no different."
Flitwick muttered something under his breath, then focused.
His fingers moved tracing the same movements he'd used for years with his wand.
The magic followed just like always much to his surprise.
A fractured section of wall nearby pulled itself back together, stone aligning as if it had never been broken.
Flitwick blinked once, then let out a quiet breath. "That's... smoother."
"It doesn't take nearly as much concentration to channel the magic through this focus as your traditional wand does." Flamel said. "The Thaleran is very conducive to channeling large masses of energy."
Severus, from the far side of the room, nodded once. "That is definitely more efficient."
Hyacinth didn't say anything to the full grown men who were at this very moment ogling an arm band with wrapped fervor.
She didn't need to.
She could see where this was going. They were switching to the armbands, and if she was being honest with herself, she liked the idea of not having to worry about snapping or losing her wand anymore either.
Even with the armbands new existence, wands didn't disappear overnight.
Some people kept them some due to nostalgia or habit and others due to stubbornness and the unwillingness to change.
There were probably some trust issues sprinkled in as well. With the armbands being new technology.
But as time moved forward, more and more people began to switch over to the armbands. The ease at which they allowed the magic to flow more freely than a wand, and the added bonus of being hands free finally won over the stubborn masses.
With their new foci the mages were able to speed up reconstruction of the broken city. Even those with no active magic were able to help with the previously underutilized, discarded nanites.
They were discovered by Severus when he was clearing out a previously underwater lab on the outskirts of pier 2.
At first when he found them he was warry and that caution proved to be well warranted after they learned about the creation of the Asurans from the Lantean database. But after weeks of diagnostics run by him, Hyacinth and Nicolas Flamel they were able to ascertain that the nanites left in the city were not a threat.
They were basically programed to help with repairs around the city, and had strict control codes that kept them from causing issues.
With the nanites now in play those who had no active magic with the help of the control rings were now able to actively take part in fixing up the city.
While repairs in previously unused parts of the city picked up another issue cropped up. The life support systems were having to work harder in certain areas during the construction.
Neville was the one who noticed it first. Or rather he noticed what wasn't happening in the greenhouse dedicated areas of pier 1.
"The life support system's not working as hard in this part of the city." he said, frowning slightly as he checked the greenhouse readings.
Pomona Sprout leaned over his shoulder. "I don't see how that's an issue dear."
"It's not an issue per-say it's just unusual," Neville said.
She went still for a moment.
Then straightened. "I have been working with plants my whole life and I have noticed that the air is always cleaner inside the greenhouse. Maybe that has something to do with our little anomaly?"
After looking into it carefully, double checking the system readouts and by taking their own measurements they came to the conclusion that she was right it was because of the plants.
But not just because of the plants. The main source of the oxygen rich clean air was due to a new hybrid plant.
Something Neville and Mrs. Sprout had developed from a mix of Earth-based species and dormant Atlantean flora, They had found them planted in various pots that were scattered throughout the city when they got here.
And this plant wasn't just growing. It was thriving and had a massive impact on the air quality in it's immediate vicinity.
Hyacinth walked into the greenhouse later that day, after receiving Neville's report and paused.
The air felt... cleaner.
She drew in a slow breath.
"That's new."
Neville looked up, a little distracted. "We think it's acting like a air scrubber."
Sprout nodded once. "It's only able to supply supplemental support at the moment. But it's very effective within a 2 meter radius."
Hyacinth glanced around the space, taking it in.
"How long will it take you to be able to produce more of them?"
Neville's expression shifted. "Not long now that we know what we're doing."
Hyacinth nodded because these plants will significantly ease the load of power consumption on the life support systems.
Neville was right it didn't take long.
With the help of the house elves and everyone who studied magical and muggle plants they had mass produced the new tree, that Neville so lovingly named the Bubble Air Tree.
Within days, the new Bubble Air Tree began appearing throughout the city.
corridors
living spaces
common areas
And in the Portus Room.
Things had almost settled into a new normal, when Sirius in all his paranoid glory looked deeper into the reasons why the nanites led to the creation of the Asurans. Which of course led him to the discovery of the wraith.
He found it buried in a set of archived logs he had been reviewing between system checks.
He didn't call a meeting immediately because he needed to have all the information in front of him.
So he read and re-read the logs until he felt like he had all the information he could gather from behind a terminal.
Hyacinth knew something had changed the moment she saw him.
"What did you find?"
Sirius didn't answer right away.
He handed her the data pad instead.
Two names sat at the top of the file.
The Asurans which she already had a vague knowledge about due to her nanite experiments with Severus and the Wraith. Which was a completely new term for her.
She read them once out of curiosity.
Then again because she was having trouble grasping the full severity of their new foes.
Behind her, the other council members gathered.
No one spoke at first.
They didn't need to.
"And these Wraith are they active right now? Because we haven't seen anything like that since we got here." Hermione said finally, scanning the data.
"It says here that they sunk the city to hide from the Wraith's on slot," Draco added.
Severus's gaze didn't leave the screen. "That doesn't mean anything. Apparently these Wraith vastly outnumbered our ancestors. From what I can gather they are like dementors but I don't think a patronus would have much effect on them."
Luna tilted her head slightly. "We will be fine though, I see issues with the Wraith and the Asurans once the humans from Earth get here. We should try to handle at least the Asurans before the Earth soldiers get here."
Sirius huffed. "That's comforting."
Remus exhaled slowly. "Alright that's enough. Sirius you should work out a plan with Cinthy and Severus to handle the Asurans issue then we can plan out what to do next."
Hyacinth looked at the data one last time.
Then set it down.
"Thank you Uncle Remus," she said. "Dad, Uncle Sev, how about we get this party started?"
No one argued because getting in her way now just sounded stupid.