Along with Carstairs came Domingo Chavez, who had also just made the shuttle-flight up to the orbital. Chavez, like Carstairs, made no secret of his dislike for visiting the orbital, but the dislike was well-founded. Chavez was a mage, a man with a talent for shaping the magical energies of the Awakened world. It was a power that had changed the face of the Earth since the Awakening in 2011, and the megacorporations knew magic as a powerful tool to be used and respected, which had put magicians like Chavez in positions of power among them.