There I stood, framed in my door. What had I just walked in on? Closer inspection revealed the statue to be a magical hologram of a baseball player floating in the air over a large shining disc on the floor. I inquired, “What is that thing?”

My roommates all stood and Rave walked over to me, “You didn’t see anything. Trust me. It’s better this way.”

Joe heaved a sigh and said, “He’s going to be our dorm mate all semester long. We might as well not hide anything.”

Rundell turned off the hologram and added, “It’s not evil or anything like that. Not really.”

I walked around the couch to stare at the mirrored disc on the floor, “What does it do?”

Joe ran his hand over his bald head, the light gleaming off of his ebony skin, “That’s difficult to explain. I invented a projector that sort of works like a hologram. It projects the likeness of something going on somewhere else in the world.”

Nodding thoughtfully, I said, “That makes sense. So you made a magical television?”

Rave laughed, shoving me down into an easy chair, “Sure, it’s a television if you don’t need cameras to broadcast the video in the first place. The V-Grabber-5000 works more like a magic mirror, showing you what you want to see when you want to see it. Just imagine the girl’s locker room…”

Joe cut him off, “We all agreed that you wouldn’t be doing that. Don’t make me install parental locks.”

Rave sighed and Rundell added, “We were just watching the baseball game. The Dodgers are playing the Padres.”

The boy known as Rave seemed to be the wild one. He quickly started talking again, “We got these nifty dolls from a shaman that lets us control the players. We were just about to make Guy Randall strike out when you interrupted us.”

Joe growled at the boy, “TMI man. Don’t make me kick you out again.”

Rave’s voice changed when he whined, “Aw, come on Joe. You were the one that said not to hide anything. I was just going with what you said.”

It appeared that Joe was the leader of the group. He turned to Rave and sighed, “You need to learn to read between the lines, man. All he needs to know is how we are watching the game.”

Before the argument could continue, I asked Joe, “Why did you want to make that Guy guy strike out?”

Rave laughed and Joe socked him in the shoulder, causing him to cry out, “Hey. Why did you do that? He said Guy guy. It was funny.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I sort of liked Rave. Joe coughed and said, “We just get tired of the Dodgers always beating our team so we decided to give the Padres a little help. You know, use magic to make the competition choke?”

Sitting next to Joe, I glanced at the magic disc, “Isn’t that cheating though?”

Run placed his hand on the disc and it began to hum. He muttered, “Cheating is the garbage we have to put up with the modern salary caps. Owners just pay more money to win pennants. That’s why we never win?”

Rave laughed and added his mana, “Hence the reason we cheat. See, it makes sense. Want to join us?”

Deciding I could stay up for a little while, I asked, “Do you mind if I just watch?”

Joe took his seat next to the disc and said, “Sure. Just please don’t tell anybody about our projects.”

With his added mana, the image of the baseball player flickered back to life. We all sat in silence for a few minutes and watched him stand in the batter’s box. Once he was satisfied, Joe manipulated his mana and the scene zoomed out so that we could see the entire infield in the hologram.

We watched a few batters have their turns before the boys did anything. When a burly player with a dark complexion made his way to the plate, Rave looked at Run and asked, “That’s one of ours, right?”

Run turned to look at me and grinned, “Yup. Watch this.”

He rummaged in a pile of straw dolls behind him until he found the one he was looking for. It had the initials JP written on its face. Joe narrated as they worked, “We can only hex a player if we have their essence. Fortunately, you can buy those on eBay.”

The idea of buying someone’s essence reminded me of flavored mana, so I asked, “What exactly did you buy on eBay?”

Rave chuckled as he replied, “Used jerseys, of course. They never wash them properly. We bought a jockstrap once but that was gross. Never again.”

Joe glowered at Rave, “We agreed not to talk about that.”

Using sweat as an essence slightly nauseated me. My eyes were glued to Run when he squeezed the doll’s head right when the ball was pitched. The batter swung and missed the ball. It was hard to tell if the hex had any effect.

“You aren’t hurting him, are you?”, I asked in shock, looking at the doll’s head flattened between Run’s fingers.

Joe shook his head and explained, “No. It just disorients them. We did it to each other to practice. Pinching the head makes you a little dizzy. No lasting damage.”

I frowned at the hologram, “Isn’t something like this illegal though?”

Rave turned his attention to me, a fire in his eyes, “It’s sort of frowned upon to mess with the unawakened. You aren’t going to tell on us, are you? I mean, we aren’t hurting anyone.”

Sighing, I continued to watch the three boys attempt to manipulate a few more players. More often than not, the players that they were hexing got hits anyway. Run sighed after the third one and said, “I don’t think it’s working.”

Rave flapped his arms in protest, “It worked when we used it on each other.”

Joe yawned and pointed out, “We were all in the same room though, not fifty miles away.”

I turned to joe and asked, “Does this let you see anything besides the baseball game?”

The boy stretched his arms above his head and explained, “You can see any place on Earth but only if you’ve been there before. The farther away you want to project, the more mana you need to make it work. Your mana forms a connection with the area, allowing you to project an image in real-time. I invented it.”

That reminded me that Joe was the technomancer. I didn’t know how the class worked but it must have meant that he could invent magical tech.

Getting a sudden idea, I asked, “Do you guys mind if I try it?”

The image shuddered and vanished when the three of them removed their hands from the surface. Joe nodded and explained, “Sure. Just get a clear picture in your head of the place you want to see and place your hand on the surface. The grabber will take your mana and do the rest. Depending on what you want to see we might have to help you with the mana cost. One warning though, if you try to see naked people, I’m turning it off.”

I laughed and blurted out, “You mean like that book you guys were reading the last time I saw you?”

Joe glared at Rave and muttered, “That was all him. I’m serious though. No perverted stuff. I didn’t make this so we can invade people’s privacy.”

His warning was irrelevant. There was only one person I needed to see. Getting a clear picture in my head, I placed my hands on the surface of the disc, and an image formed in my mind.

Joe’s creation sprang to life and demanded my mana. It already had an abundance in its technological core. Joe must have put a lot of mana and effort into its creation. I allowed the device to access my channels and gave it a steady flow even after it signaled that the cost was met.

My mana flowed through the device into a thin line that appeared to jump out of the building. I followed it and my consciousness went on a journey at the speed of magic as it honed in on its goal.

Before I knew it, I was looking at my mom who was sitting in the living room or our tiny apartment eating a cheap frozen dinner. While I was sure that a hologram was playing in my dorm room back in Los Angeles, my mind’s eye was floating in front of my mom attached to a very long mana tether.

If only I could speak through the connection. I tried, “Mom. Can you hear me? It’s me, Melvin.”

Joe answered first, “Melvin, she can’t hear…”

My mom shocked him into silence by replying, “Melvin, is that you? I can hear you.”

Feeling my heart swell, I cursed myself for not calling her before this. I had only been gone for a week, but she was my mom. She was all alone without me. I cried out, “How are you doing mom? I miss you.”

She smiled at the wall, “I miss you too. How are you liking magic school? Is it like Hogwarts?”

I laughed at her joke, “No. The school is located under a newspaper. The classes are neat though. I took a wind class. Oh, and I summoned a really big tiger guardian.”

Mom replied to me with her usual support, “That’s nice dear. I’m sure your tiger is bigger than all of the other kid’s animals.”

“He really is. Byakko is a special…”, I began before it dawned on me that I accidentally left the Guardian of the West in Little Tokyo.

My mother was worried that we got cut off, “Melvin, are you there? I think I have a bad connection.”

I wanted to laugh at my mom for thinking magic was like a cell phone but I had bigger things to worry about, “Mom, I gotta go. I accidentally left Byakko at the book store.”

She laughed gently and replied, “Okay, honey. Say hi to Kalli for me. I love you. Live your best life over there. I’ll try to visit you soon.”

When mom spoke, it felt like I could do anything. “I will. I love you too, mom.”

Bursting out of the dorms with my three roommates chasing after me, I made my way to the elevator. Joe asked as he ran beside me, “How did you do that? You aren’t supposed to be able to talk to the person in the grabber. That connection is supposed to be one way.”

“I don’t know”, I huffed as I made my way to the elevator.

Run kept up with us easily as he was the fittest of the group, “Where are we going by the way?”

Mashing the button for the elevator, I grumbled, “I left my tiger in a book store.”

Joe grabbed my shoulders to calm me down, “Why do you have a tiger?”

“I summoned him”, I muttered under my breath.

A muted ding announced the arrival of the elevator along with the heavy grinding of the cargo doors sliding open. We all stepped in and I realized that one boy was missing, “Hey, wheres Rave?”

Run laughed, “We outran him. He probably went back to the dorm.”

I looked at the two boys. Run was very short with a long braided ponytail running down his back. Joe was taller than me and even scrawnier. I asked, “Do you guys think the bus runs this late?”

Joe replied, “The bus runs until midnight.”

I chatted with my dorm mates on the quick journey back to Little Tokyo. When the bus let us out, I sprinted into the plaza. The sight of my glowing tiger cub curled up by the book store made me heave a sigh of relief.

Joe followed my gaze and laughed, “Well, you really do have a tiger. I thought you were joking though I shouldn’t be surprised after I watched you talk to your mom through my grabber.”

Byakko padded over to us, “It took you long enough to come for me. Quick, lend me your mana so I can teach that mortal a lesson.”

I knelt in front of the cub and scritched behind his ears causing him to calm down, “I thought you liked the old man at the library.”

The cub growled menacingly, “He put me out like a common house cat. He must pay for his insolence.”

Joe gaped at Byakko, “This tiger speaks.”

Byakko chuffed as he sniffed my friends, “Who are these mortals? They smell familiar.”

Rolling my eyes, I explained, “These guys live in our dorm. I thought you were supposed to return to my tattoo when I left the mall.”

Byakko let out a sigh that sounded like a cat hissing, “Apparently, I underestimated the range of your mana.”

After talking Byakko down, he returned to my tattoo and we made our way back to the dorm. After changing clothes and climbing into bed, I checked in on Kalli. Even though she seemed to be asleep, I whispered her name in my mind.

Kalli, are you asleep?

Did she just snore in my head? That was odd. I fell asleep missing the sound of her voice.