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The FBI special agent in charge stepped up to the bank of hastily taped-togetherfor the agency, and introduced Lewis by na that he ith "a special branch of the United Nations known as the Wardens" That was it He got out of the way, ignoring the shouted avalanche of questions

Lewis took a deep breath and stepped up He was tall, i, and had the kind of personal aura that ned to use it He used it now I saw ripples of quiet h the crowd, and reporters lean forward to catch every word he had to say

"Earlier today so sides in a conflict," he said "As you reported, there were casualties on both sides I’m here to explain to you what that conflict is, what it’s about, and how you can help"

I expected a torrent of questions, but the crowd stayed still in the pause Maybe they were stunned that they were actually going to be given information Or maybe Lewis had sneakily exerted some Earth Warden influence on the pulse and get myself ready for the inevitable

"The Wardens are part of the United Nations," Lewis said, "in the sense that we are a ide organization, independent of govern in cooperation with them whenever possible There is a world around you, a world you see every day without knowing the truth behind it At its most basic level, the forces at work in the universe, or at least on this planet, are real and tangible" He paused again and took the leap "We are the ones who help control and shape that world Without the Wardens, the disasters you report on, the floods and hurricanes, forest fires and earthquakes - all these things would be far, far worse"

Sorew in a ripple through the crowd "You’re kidding This is what you have to tell us?" soht "Where’s Gandalf?"

That was pretty h I would have preferred Galadriel I stepped forward The FBI had furnished e of wardrobe - not my normal style, but workable It included a navy blue pencil skirt, a severely cut jacket, a white shirt and serviceable granny pue of competence and authority, sexy-schoolteacher style

I pointed up at the sky, which was full of lightly scudding altocu out of the ordinary for Mia the to happen We’d agreed that it needed to be big, spectacular, and easily captured on videotape

I slowed the progress of the clouds and began packing energy into the system, careful to balance the forces as I went I knew the Ma’at were standing by in case I screwed it up, but it was a point of pride not to need thee, froray as the moisture condensed Altocumulus

Then nimbocumulus

Once I had the syste in control, I opened bothsentience in the clouds above, as the energy accuranted it soer

What I was about to do was dangerous, and not just to , there could be a lot of collateral dae

Easy, I heard David whisper on the aetheric I’ capital of the US With the daily, constant interaction of wind, water, sandy soil, and marshland, every reporter in the crowd had probably seen close lightning strikes

None of them had ever seen this

The bolt streaked down out of the clouds, long and purple, crackling with energy, and broke into two jagged prongs It hitsecond, I kept it there as the video caraphers docuether, and the lightning vanished Thunder rolled loud enough to rattle s, but there was no other visible da onto the bare e a visible demonstration - about forty kiloamperes

But damn, it ached inside me I kept my s too hts

Lewis said, in the same dry, calm tone, "This is Joanne Baldwin She is a Weather Warden The demonstration you’ve just seen is one of several we’ll conduct for you over the next few days The rest will be under controlled conditions, and you can provide your own scientific experts if you’d care to do so, to document and question the experi to find that e’re telling you is the real thing We can control the weather We can control the land We can control fire The probleht back"

Nobody seemed to knohat kind of questions to ask, exactly Already, they were scraical explanation for what they’d seen - soic trick would be the most likely one they’d land on I was sure whoever was thein to debunk what I’d already done

But what gave it weight was the silent presence of the FBI behind overn

Eventually, soh sense to voice "How do you control the weather? Is it some kind of machine, or?" He sounded as if he couldn’t quite believe he was even asking the question I understood that, too An entire street full of very logical people had just been tipped over the edge of a cliff, and were still trying to figure out which as up

"That’s the other part of the story," Lewis said "The siic The more complicated answer is that the world around you is not how you ier than you know For uarded humanity, and we’ve done it in silence, in secret But it’s time to come out in the open, because noe have a very serious threat to deal with"

"What kind of threat? Does this have anything to do hat happened at the motel?"

I wondered if the question was a plant Leasn’t exactly above that kind of thing, bless his soul He wasn’t particularly worried about our ie

"Let me tell you," Lewis said, "about the Djinn, and the Sentinels"

David and his strike teaht in front of the carab the world stage, and we did The feverish speculation occupied every news channel, every broadcast on the local level Experts talked about a icians explained how all we’d shown on television could have been done by mirrors and illusion

But it didn’t matter We’d taken the Sentinels by surprise They’d expected us to hide, and eren’t hiding Instead, we’d thrown their naiven the I knew they didn’t want: notoriety

I was the lucky one Exhausted by the efforts of the day, not to ement of the storm I’d leveled over Miami, I collapsed on a cot and slept for six hours of blissfully ignorant darkness Lewis didn’t sleep at all When I woke up, he’d already issued three more press statements, and a whole packet of inforraph