"A friend of Mr. Malý told me about this. There's a place in Poland, beyond Krakow, that both exists and doesn't. It's a strange area containing an entrance to some kind of expanse from a parallel universe. When you drive along the road, you either see it or you don't. You see, either you're lucky and you're invited, enchanted, or you're somehow related to the beings that live there, or you just see fields and forest. We're talking about those two large forests that lie there. Don't worry, you can walk there as you please; nothing threatens an ordinary person except falling trees, unless they come across Baba Yaga, who comes out from there. She's said to be a dark gray person on the heroic spectrum, with a sliver of good in her, but most of the time she behaves selfishly like a villain and without respect for others. Don't worry, if you ever go that way, you're not her main target, unless you tell her she looks like Baba Yaga. She usually chooses her targets far from her home, like once in the Czech Republic. That's when I found out all about it."

"It was mid-October, around eight in the evening. I was called as a regular patrolman to the strange death of a brother and sister. My job was just to keep order and prevent anyone unauthorized from entering. As for the two of them, they were both found fallen from a window. However, it was too strange for a suicide, and without any motive on their part, and for a murder, there were no signs of third-party involvement. Then, a stranger appeared at the scene of the accident. He had long, dark brown, slightly wavy hair all around his head. Large, round glasses with thin frames concealed calculating eyes. A long, black coat with pockets wherever you looked, under which he wore a brown vest. Black trousers were held up by a black belt with a shiny silver buckle."

"When we tried to stop him, telling him there was an investigation going on, he identified himself as being from the BIS. That was strange, I must admit. I didn't believe it and decided to call myself to verify if he was trying anything on us. To my astonishment, they told me that a certain Adam Shaw was indeed one of theirs and the description matched. The ID looked genuine, so I had to let him onto the crime scene, but I accompanied him every step of the way. Adam soon took advantage of this and started talking:"

“'I understand you don't believe me. What I'm wearing isn't quite standard. To help you understand, I'm under the auspices of the BIS, but otherwise, I'm a unit unto myself. They gave me this cover so I could go anywhere and it wouldn't be so strange. I've been quite useful to them, so they're returning the favor.'”

“'So what are you?' I asked him bluntly."

“'Come with me to the room from which you think they fell. It's a delicate matter that's best explained in private. I'll need some space there. I'd appreciate it if everyone could clear out for five minutes. Don't worry, you'll be with me; you'll keep an eye on me, I just don't want anyone else there.'”

“'Alright, but that fancy coat is going into a suit,' I told him. 'Sure,' Shaw replied, and we were both suddenly in white protective suits, so we wouldn't contaminate an undocumented crime scene."

"Then we went upstairs into the house. I told the guys from the criminal investigation, who were taking photos, if they could take a break for a maximum of five minutes, that a new investigator had arrived. They were reluctant, they were almost finished, but they cleared the room for us."

“'Please close the door,' Adam requested as he left. They just sized him up with a glance and said nothing. Nevertheless, they closed the door behind them. Adam didn't look around the room, but he opened his protective suit, reached into one of the coat pockets, and pulled out a small, ornate, golden cube, with a convex lens on each side."

"He shook the cube and mumbled:"

“'Muertuerte tek.' Before I could wonder about anything, the cube flew out of his hand and stopped in mid-air in the middle of the room. To immediately put the whole situation into context, he told me:"

“'Expensive, very expensive it was. And it's still being tested on less serious cases, so you understand.'”

"At that moment, he was just blatantly lying to me, but I didn't know it. I was amazed that something remained levitating in the air. From each side of the cube, a beam of light, something like a laser, came out and began scanning the room from all sides."

“'Shouldn't we disappear, if it's scanning the room now?' I suggested, trying to pretend I wasn't amazed at all."

“'No, it's fine, we'll just step aside and it will finish calculating,' he lured me, and immediately added: 'And don't worry, it won't burn your eyes out if it shines on you.'”

"So we slowly moved closer to the window. Adam looked down, where the two bodies lay, around which other colleagues stood and documented everything."

“'They're lying on their backs,' he started, and I immediately added:"

“'Yeah, suicides don't really like being on their backs,' I admitted, but immediately added, while pointing around the room:"

“'But nothing's out of order here. No rumpled carpet or anything, no marks on the walls, nothing knocked over. Any normal person would fight if someone tried to push them out of the window. At least the second one would fight. They wouldn't both lean out of the window at the same time, and if they did, they'd land differently. On their stomach, or on their back but facing the building, because they'd turn in the air. But these guys are on their backs with their feet towards the building.'”

“'Thanks,' Adam said, even though he probably didn't care about anything I said. Then a beam from his gadget, which was still standing in the air in the middle of the room, ran over me. 'It's okay, nothing to worry about, you won't go blind,' he immediately reassured me."

“'How long is this stupid thing going to keep bothering us?' I asked him."

“'Well, it's about time it finished. If we move again, it'll map the window, and then it should do something,' Adam told me."

“'It's going to do something else?' I didn't understand."

“'Yeah. If it works, it will,' Adam explained. I was starting to lose my temper with this weirdo:"

“'Look, either tell me what else you want to do here with this, or we're going downstairs and I'll have you taken away, before we properly verify who you are at the station. This doesn't seem right to me.'”

"Suddenly, the cube stopped shining."

“'And...' Adam uttered."

"Luminous particles started slowly coming out of the room's walls, accompanied by a subtle, glowing smoke. I stood there with my mouth open. I had never seen anything like it."

“'Can you tell me what this is?' I asked sternly right away."

“Traces of magic. And there was plenty of it here. These walls are so saturated that we might just see exactly what happened.” He said dreamily, and then calmly explained to me professionally:

“Ahem, a more advanced reconstruction.” He let the fine smoke of glowing particles dissipate to create even more smoke, which then began to take shape. Suddenly, an old hag stood before us by the door.

“Wow. Wait!” I started in surprise. Adam, already fully focused, warned me:

“It’s part of the reconstruction. Look, she’s translucent.” I turned to him, puzzled, and then back to the hag. But just a bit in front of us, two more figures appeared. A man and a woman, the ones we found under the house. I recognized them immediately, even though they had their backs to us.

“No, no,” I began, “What kind of magic is this?”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Clarke,” Adam replied. The hag then raised her withered hand and lifted the man into the air, as if she were some kind of witch or something. The young woman tried to rush at them, but she was already in the air too. The hag then forcefully laid them both on their backs in the air, where they couldn’t move at all. She raised her other hand slightly, bowed, and rotated both wrists. Both windows in the room opened, and the hag sent each of them flying out. But they still remained standing in the air. The hag said something, but no sound came, only her lips moved.

“Moment, stop,” Adam said, and the whole image froze. He walked confidently towards the hag. He made a circle in the air with the index finger of his right hand around her mouth. Then he raised his left hand and touched his middle finger with his thumb, then sent his thumb up and began to close the other fingers, making a thumbs-up gesture. He then drew an invisible line in the air from the hag’s mouth with his index finger. As soon as he finished the movement, it suddenly appeared and glowed green. Adam tapped it with his whole palm as if it were a string, and the green string vibrated and began to draw the classic analog sound wave from the hag’s mouth.

“We can. A little back, let’s get the sound,” Adam said. The whole scene rewound a bit, and now it played with sound. The hag said in a creaky voice:

“I’ll show you. I’ll show you how to behave.” By now, they were back in the air beyond the open windows.

“Serving me will teach you manners. Then maybe I’ll send you back to your timeline. Everyone will be relieved, even your friends won’t recognize you. And it will be for the best. You’re just a burden to the world now,” she said and snapped her fingers on both hands. They both fell to the ground, and a double, nasty crack with a slightly wet sound in the background could be heard. Suddenly, a small white firefly, a glowing dot, rose behind one window. The hag stretched out her index and middle fingers towards them and, as if pulling a thread, pulled the two glowing dots towards herself. She reached for the right one with her right hand, the left one with her left. And she grasped both of them with her wide palms, as if catching the air around them too. With force and spread fingers, as if resisting, she began to push them downwards. And then two jars began to materialize under her hands. As soon as the glowing dots were inside, each in one, the jar closed by itself. The hag then grabbed the jars casually and, with a nod, opened the door, leaving no fingerprints. The cube stopped shining and flew back to its owner’s hand.

“Thank you very much for your assistance,” he said to me with a broad smile, put the cube back into his coat pocket, and was about to leave. I rushed up to him and said:

“So what was that?!” He just told me:

“It’ll be better if we go outside now.”

I stopped, and so we went outside. The rest of my colleagues were already waiting behind the door, eager to take photos and have some peace. We took off our suits and walked further and further, away from the house. “So what is it?” I asked. “No,” Adam said. Then we met more of my colleagues, and Tereza, the chief, said to me: “Where are you going?” He answered for me, pulled the cube out of his pocket, and said: “To save and process the data.” “What’s that?” the chief asked. “A new scanner, they send an operator with it. Still in the testing phase,” Adam replied. “He didn’t do anything there,” I assured her. “Alright,” the chief said and let him pass. I kept walking with him, and he didn’t stop. Finally, we reached his car, which was parked completely aside. A black Tesla. “Thanks again for your help. Now it’s up to us,” he said and was about to get in. “NO NO NO, what was that?” I wouldn’t leave him alone. Adam ran his ring finger over the top of his glasses frames, as if adjusting binoculars, and looked at me. Then he took a breath and blew it out. “You won’t believe it, will you?” he said almost certainly. “Depends on what?” I replied. “You’re someone who seeks the truth. But when you find it, you won’t believe it,” he retorted. “Try me,” I said, not understanding him at all. “It’s time-consuming, and you have your own work,” he tried to discourage me again.

“I have nothing now. You can explain it to me in one evening, surely. You’ve shown me some fairytale-like technology, and now I’m supposed to be satisfied with you just driving away? It’s only polite to go for a beer,” I said sternly. “Alright, lead the way.”

So I took him to the nearest pub, we ordered a beer, and I said to him: “So start spilling the information.” The young man contorted his face, but finally reached into an inside pocket of his coat. He pulled out a wooden stick with very fine metalwork at the end and what looked like some electronics. Yeah, I recognize those, those gold connections on a green board. It was attached right at the end and was a small square. To tell the truth, as soon as he took it in his hand, I thought of a magic wand. So he held it in his hand and tapped the tip of it against the half-liter glass, where he still had half a beer. The outside of the glass dewed, and the inside froze. He put the wand down and took the glass, turned it over, and knocked the lump of ice onto the table. “Touch it,” he told me. So I took it in my paw and stared. It was cold, it was ice, and it slowly started to melt in my hand. So I’d rather give it back to him in the glass, so I wouldn’t get all sticky. The guy just took his wand again, and a different little light lit up on the piece of electronics at the bottom. He put it against the glass again, and the ice melted, but not only that. He kept holding it there until the beer started to bubble and slowly almost boil. I was an idiot and said: “Now it won’t be drinkable at all.” He just smiled and said: “Magic, right? Or just removing and adding molecular energy. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time. I work as a scientific magician.”

I just stared at what he was talking about. “The brain is a fascinating thing,” he said, “where all known physics meet. One of the most beautiful is the theory of quantum fields. And someone manages to be born with the ability to manipulate them. Unfortunately, it was a physicist, so he couldn’t resist and started to investigate how it was possible. I still haven’t figured it out completely, but a few interesting devices have already come out of it. Like this one. A magic wand, I guess everyone thinks. But it serves both wizards and ordinary people to a limited extent. I didn’t use my magic now, I let the hardware do it for me. You can try it too.” And he handed it to me with an explanation: “Leave the settings as they are, and you can suck the energy out of your beer. That energy then remains in the wand and can be used for many other things. It depends on the settings.” I was still frozen, and he said:

“Realize that this isn’t really magic. It’ll be easier to accept it that way. A phone isn’t magic to you either, and it works only because it uses quantum tunneling of electrons. Yeah, that means every memory chip in a phone teleports electrons through a solid wall of atoms from one place to another, and it’s not magic, that’s how things are stored in a phone.”