Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard (26 page)

“It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself,
you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies
but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your
enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”

Paul cocked his head to one side in curiosity. “That sounds
like a quote.”

Uncle Sam nodded. “Sun Tzu,
The Art of War
. The problem
here is that you know neither yourself nor your enemy. You don’t have any
weapons, nor do you know what weapons you are capable of building. You have no
tactics yet. You don’t know where your enemy is or how to find him, nor do you
know how to maneuver him to your advantage. You know nothing about his
organization, his leadership, or how he will respond to your attacks.”

“You make it sound hopeless,” Paul pointed out hesitantly.

“As things stand right now, it is,” Uncle Sam agreed with
him. “Therefore, you must change the equation. First you need to do research. A
lot of research. You must develop yourself, get to know your magical
abilities.” He held up a hand. “Yes, I know that the other wizards combined
have many thousands of years of experience with magical spells. But I believe
Sherlock Holmes to be correct. Their magic lacks the influence of modern
science. Exploit this advantage. Turn it into your strength and their weakness.

“Second, you must gather intelligence on them. Find out how
they are organized, learn who their leaders are, and study their battles, their
lines of communication, and their logistical strengths. Probe carefully but
gather all the data you can.”

Paul nodded, understanding what the other was driving at.
“So, research first. And I can guess where I’ll need to start. On a talisman,
right? I can’t be an effective wizard without one.”

Uncle Sam grimly smiled. “Yes, that is a good idea. You’ve
learned from other wizards that your first talisman was inferior. But the
physical sciences have progressed significantly in the last 400 years. I am
sure that modern science can bring many new improvements to the process of
fabricating a talisman. And you will need those advancements. You will need
enough power behind you to withstand a small army of Oni, at least, and to go
up against several wizards—and win.”

“That’s a tall order,” Paul observed dryly.

“Yes.”

“How do I...ah, yes, the Internet, of course,” Paul said,
answering his own question.

“That is a very good place to start,” Uncle Sam agreed.

• • • •

As much as Paul wanted to get out and do something, it just
wasn’t justified yet. No road trips, at least not until his injuries had had more
time to heal.

On the other hand, he was chafing at the bit to do
something. Being cooped up in a small house in South Lawndale could do that to
a guy.

So he sat in his living room, using his gold wristband as an
amulet, creating a virtual display in midair, and started surfing the Internet.

Like Paul had told Uncle Sam earlier, he would start with
the talisman.

Ruggiero had faulted his use of obsidian and the ceremony he
used to create his first talisman. Logically, his research on fabricating a new
talisman should be a two-pronged affair: 1) how to improve on the rarest of
materials from the four special classes and 2) how to enhance the ceremony.

Yes, there were several elements, like tantalum, that were
better than gold. Paul already knew that much. Too bad radioactive materials
were not useable, for obvious reasons.

There seemed to be millions of web pages devoted to the
physical sciences and the relative abundance of elements. Paul surfed through
dozens of such sites, not really knowing what he was looking for, his mood one
of a growing degree of frustration.

Most of an hour was gone when Paul stumbled onto a website
that contained a reference to the element xenon—with nine stable isotopes, one
very long lived isotope, and twenty known radioactive isotopes, the second most
of any element in the periodic table.

Astonished, Paul sat there, frozen in place, staring at the web
page without really seeing it.

There were times when his level of stupidity dumbfounded him.

ISOTOPES
!! Of
course
! How could he be so
dense?!

“‘Only two things are infinite, the universe and human
stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.’ Albert Einstein,” Paul muttered,
deeply annoyed with himself.

He had already made use of an isotope when he employed the
deuterium-fusion spell to escape from Ruggiero. Like a dimwitted idiot, he had
not even considered the idea of using isotopes for enhancing his magic. Not
until now.

In a semi-daze, he nodded and got out of his chair,
wandering into the kitchen for a cup of hot chocolate, his mind ablaze with the
possible implications of his discovery.

Isotopes
!

• • • •

An isotope could be thought of as a sort of a “flavor” of an
element. And every element had at least three “flavors,” in most cases, a great
many more.

By way of example, hydrogen had three naturally occurring
isotopes. By far, the most common of these was
¹
H (sometimes
referred to as protium), which meant that it had one proton in the atom’s
nucleus and one electron in an orbital shell around that nucleus. 99.985% of
all hydrogen atoms were
¹
H.

²
H was otherwise known as deuterium, and it had
one proton and one neutron in the nucleus, with the obligatory electron in an orbital
shell around it. Only 0.015% of all hydrogen atoms on Earth were deuterium.

³
H was known as tritium, with one proton and two
neutrons in the nucleus, and it differed from the other two isotopes in that it
was not stable. It was radioactive and had a half-life. For every 1000 atoms of
tritium, half (500) would decompose spontaneously over a 12.32-year period into
atoms of
³
He (helium). Only the tiniest trace of tritium existed in
nature.

The other elements of the periodic table followed the same
general pattern. Some of them had one stable isotope and a couple of
radioactive isotopes. Others had lots of isotopes, some of them stable, some
semi-stable (with half-lives measured in the thousands or millions of years),
and others that were radioactive with very short half-lives. In general, the
more protons that were in the nucleus (i.e., the greater the atomic number), the
more isotopes the element had, though there were lots of exceptions.

• • • •

When Paul returned to the living room, he absent-mindedly
sipped on his hot chocolate and eased himself into the big easy chair, still
lost in deep thought. And he decided that he needed a little superintelligence
assistance from a physicist.

“In the name of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Leonard
Hofstadter, may a virtual image of a competent nuclear physicist appear.”

A middle-aged man, wearing a traditional white lab coat,
materialized in the middle of the room. Balding, with thick horn-rimmed glasses,
a weak chin, and a thin frame, he frowned at Paul and then looked around.

“I was in the middle of something,” he muttered irritably.
“What do you want?”

“I want to know something about rare isotopes,” Paul stated,
a little annoyed that the conjured physicist was irritated with him. After all,
the physicist was just a hologram. “Do they have a higher magical quotient than
the more common isotopes?”

The apparition sniffed. “I don’t have a clue what you are
talking about.”

Maybe Merlin would have been more helpful with this question.
Or maybe Paul was plowing new ground and the Middle Ages wizard wouldn’t know
either.

Still miffed at the current specter’s attitude, Paul decided
on a new tactic. “Let’s suppose that there is a theory stating that all matter
has magical potency, but that the rarer the element, the more potency it has.
Let’s hypothesize that the rarer the isotope, the more potency it has too. How
do I test that hypothesis?”

The hologram stared at Paul as if he were crazy.

“Ah, the kooks you meet these days,” he mumbled, shaking his
head. “I suppose you are creating some sort of video game, aren’t you? Okay,
you want to test if isotopes have more...magical power? Right? That’s simple.
Take two isotropic samples of the same element: one common, one rare. Make sure
that the samples have the same mass. Then use each one to heat up a beaker of
water. If they heat the water to the same temperature, then there is no magical
difference. But if the rare isotope heats the water to a higher temperature,
then the theory is proven. And if you measure the temperature differential, you
can quantify the difference in magic between the two isotopes. There, are we
done yet?”

But of course, it was so easy! Why didn’t Paul think of it
himself? He chuckled in mirth.

“Not yet,” he replied, holding up a hand to stop the
hologram from disappearing prematurely. “What element would you use to test the
theory? It must be cheap and easy to get hold of. Oh, and safe to work with
too.”

“Humph, now, that’s a challenge. Let’s see. You could use
carbon. That’s a good choice. 98.9% of carbon is isotope
¹²
C, and
1.1% is isotope
¹³
C. And you can buy charcoal to get the carbon. Are
there others? Let’s see. Too many others are toxic and dangerous as pure
elements. Mercury would not be too bad. It has seven stable isotopes, with 30%
as isotope
²⁰²
Hg down to 0.15% as isotope
¹⁹⁶
Hg. It’s a
little expensive, and it is bad for the environment, of course. Let’s see. Oh,
there is one other choice. Tin. That has ten stable isotopes, with 32.6% as
isotope
¹²⁰
Sn down to 0.34% as isotope
¹¹⁵
Sn. I’d
recommend using isotope
¹²⁰
Sn and isotope
¹¹⁶
Sn. Isotope
¹¹⁶
Sn
is only half as abundant as
¹²⁰
Sn. And tin is commonly available in
solder.”

The physicist lowered his glasses with one hand, peering
over the top of them.

“Do you have any experience in working with solder?” he
asked Paul.

• • • •

The next morning, after a brief breakfast at a local fast-food
place, Paul took a short portal trip to RadioShack and picked up the roll of
solder with the highest concentration of tin that was available. Then he took another
portal trip over to West Humboldt Park, to a laboratory supply house there, to
buy three heat-resistant crucibles and a small glass thermometer.

By the time he returned home, it was nearly lunchtime.

Hurriedly, he cleared off the dining-room table to set up his
little experiment. He placed the thermometer in an eight-ounce glass of water
and then set the glass near one edge of the table. Then he set up the three
crucibles in a line and undid three feet of the solder, rolling it into a tight
ball and placing it in the first crucible.

“In the name of Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, and
Victor Bergman, let the solder melt in the first crucible and then let a very
small portal form, connecting the first crucible to the second one. Let only
¹²⁰
Sn
atoms flow through the portal.”

The solder melted, forming a silver pool in the first
crucible. Paul saw the small portal open in the melted solder, and gradually,
another pool formed in the second crucible.

He waved a hand. “Now close the first portal and create a
second one, connecting the first crucible to the third one. Let only atoms of
isotope
¹¹⁶
Sn flow through it.”

He let this process continue for a few minutes, until the
amount of tin in the third crucible seemed to stabilize.

With a wave of the hand, Paul stopped the spell. Now to make
the amounts equal.

Paul took the
¹²⁰
Sn crucible and poured half of
it back into the first one. Now there appeared to be equal amounts of tin in
the second and third crucibles.

“In the name of penguins, polar bears, and a Chicago winter,
may the three crucibles and their contents be chilled until they are once again
at room temperature.”

The liquid metals solidified right before his eyes.

Removing the gold wristband from his right wrist, Paul laid
it on the tabletop. Then, with one finger touching the
¹²⁰
Sn, he looked
over at the glass and concentrated on heating it up, using solely the magical
quotient of the tin at his fingertip. He saw the temperature quickly rise from
68 degrees F to 145 degrees F, taking only a few seconds to make the transition.
Then he stopped, an anticipatory grin on his face. So far, so good.

Using the gold wristband, Paul cast another spell on the
water to return it to room temperature. Then he put a finger on the
¹¹⁶
Sn
and concentrated on reheating the water using the magical quotient of the tin
that was now at his fingertip.

The temperature shot up, the water roiling into a boil, the
glass shattering all over the table and spilling out onto the floor.

Paul jumped back in surprise and then started laughing
uncontrollably, insufferably pleased with himself.

Okay, so, they hadn’t approved of his first talisman but just
wait until they got a look at his second one!

Chicago, Illinois

South Lawndale

South Kildare Avenue

April

Friday, 2:36 p.m. CST

T
he
green front door of his rental home clicked closed behind him, and he twisted
the doorknob to verify that it was securely latched. Satisfied, he then checked
to make sure that the sleeve of his windbreaker sufficiently covered the
three-pound gold amulet on his left wrist. Smiling, he sauntered over to the
curb, to the “new” red 2007 Toyota Camry LE that was parked there. With only
125,000 miles on the odometer, it was, to a certain extent, in better shape
than his old Toyota Corolla had been in. And it certainly provided a much more
comfortable ride as well.

Also on the plus side, it had not cost very much, and it was
cheap on gas. Paul was loath to spend too much money on transportation,
especially when he didn’t know just how long he was going to be in Chicago. In
addition, he didn’t know if he would be able to take the car with him when he
finally did leave the area. He might have to abandon it, like he did his
Corolla in California. Or for all he knew, he might have no further need of any
transportation at all—beyond that of a set of angel wings.

The engine started smoothly, and he pulled away from the
curb. Heading south on South Kildare Avenue, toward the on-ramp for I-55, Paul
switched the radio on and over to his favorite easy-listening station. His
destination was downtown Chicago, to Chicago’s largest convention center,
McCormick Place.

Over the course of the last month, he had thrown himself
into his work with a vengeance, often working late into the evening. He had
consulted with Uncle Sam (among other experts) and immersed himself in endless
hours of Internet research, all in the development of his grand overall plan,
most of which was now formulated and on paper. Sure, there were still plenty of
details to be worked out, but Paul was confident that it was a workable
strategy, giving him the best option of going up against the wizards of
Errabêlu
. No, he wasn’t fool enough to believe
that the odds were very good. But they weren’t near zero anymore, either.

And during the month, he had continued to work on improving
his health. Physically, he was now in wonderful shape, the best shape of his
life, in fact. His arm was completely restored now, with decent muscle tone and
all the small details done, right down to the hairs on the back of his hand.
His stomach wound was now totally healed too, without even a trace of a scar
remaining. And his magic was continuing to work on his age; most people would
now assume him to be in his late thirties.

In addition to repairing his injuries and faults, Paul had
also focused on enhancing his body as well. Hearing, muscle tone and strength,
reflexes, coordination, and speed had all been fine-tuned and considerably
improved.

Admittedly, Paul had included time to alter his facial
structure too, partly to prevent him from being recognized by anyone, but also
to make himself a bit more attractive. Oh, he had no wish to be as good-looking
as some movie star. Vanity was not one of his vices. But anything was an
improvement over his old face. These days, when Paul was shaving, he no longer
felt the need to close his eyes in order to avoid seeing his own reflection in
the mirror.

Feeling confident about his plans for creating his new
talisman, Paul had ordered and received two kilograms of powdered tantalum and
four kilograms of bertrandite ore (containing beryllium, one of the chief
components of emeralds). Getting the other minerals for his talisman would
require some field trips. The rare type of meteorite and the basal rocks that
the talisman required just weren’t sold on the open market. But Paul already
had a general idea of where he might be able to find what he needed.

In contrast, the progress on learning about
Errabêlu
had been slow. They had been quite
successful in covering their tracks, and Paul had needed a lot of expert help
just to make a few deductive conclusions about how they operated and where they
might be located. There was still a lot to do in that department.

In fact, Paul had been working so hard that he finally
decided it was time to take a small break, hence his current trip downtown.

There was a convention in Chicago this week. The Chicago
Comic and Entertainment Expo. Of course, science fiction was more in his line
of interest, but comic books were kissing cousins. Indeed, when Paul was much
younger, he had been quite a fan of comic book superheroes.

And since he had not had a break in a month—not even to see
a movie!—this would be a welcome distraction. He was also looking forward to
later in the year, when another convention, the Chicago Comic Con, would be
held in the first week of August—assuming, that is, that he was still alive and
living in the area at that time.

His Camry took him downtown, all the way to the waterfront,
to McCormick Place, a facility consisting of three huge buildings. The C2E2 was
to be hosted in the West Hall.

The entrance to the facility was well marked, and Paul parked
on the ground floor in Lot C, a 1,900-slot parking garage right on the
lakefront. There was already a sea of cars parked there, with more arriving
every second. He could see quite a flow of people heading toward the stairs and
elevator. This building was connected to the convention center itself by a
covered walkway that crossed over the street between the parking garage and the
West Hall.

Joining in with a knot of other people, Paul casually followed
along but watched his step in the semi-lit facility, the echoing sounds of more
cars idling in the lanes, their drivers searching for an empty slot to park in.

Not far up ahead, there was a woman in an electric
wheelchair between two vehicles in the handicap parking spaces. The van next to
hers wasn’t fairly parked inside the lines, and she was trying to squeeze
between their respective vehicles. And there just didn’t seem to be quite
enough space to allow her passage. She wasn’t happy about it, either, fussing
under her breath and banging away at the joystick on her control panel.

Just as the crowd that Paul was in walked behind her, she
threw the wheelchair violently in reverse, the chair whipping around backward,
colliding with Paul as the left wheel ran over his right foot.

“Ow!” he yelled, pulling the offended limb out of the path
of further danger. Everyone around him quickly skittered several steps away.

Paul’s reaction was immediate, the anger welling up within
his chest, and he felt his face flush red. His foot was already starting to
throb. The level of pain suggested that a toe might even have been broken. It
didn’t seem like his year to avoid injuries!

“Oh, I’m sorry!” the woman apologized loudly. “Please,
forgive me!”

Paul hopped on his other foot and swung around to face her,
fully prepared to yell at her and to tell her that her apologies weren’t wanted.
But then he got a better look at her.

Curly auburn hair, pencil-thin eyebrows, a pert nose, thin
red lips, blue eyes, and a well-formed chin sporting a thin face. Age,
mid-thirties. She was dressed in a light pink pantsuit and had a very large
handbag in her lap. She stared at Paul in concern, looking anxious and a bit
fearful that he might shout obscenities at her.

Which he couldn’t do, of course. Not to a woman who might have
weighed 110 pounds soaking wet and with a brick in each hand. And even though
her dress pants were somewhat baggy, they didn’t hide the emaciated condition
of her legs. This woman had obviously not walked in years. Paul certainly could
not be cruel to anyone in her condition. Life had definitely not been fair to
her. Who was he to add insult to injury?

So he thrust aside his anger and made himself smile at her
instead. “It’s okay, Miss. No harm done,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“Are you sure?” she asked, looking a bit relieved that Paul wasn’t
going to curse at her.

“Yes, it’s no problem, the shoe took most of the weight,” he
mumbled with even less conviction, still convinced that a toe might be broken
.

“Well, I am so sorry. I couldn’t get through the space here,
and...well, sometimes this wheelchair makes me so mad!”

Paul held up a hand. “I understand. My apologies, but I guess
you will have to go around,” he said with forced patience, his words synched to
the beat of his throbbing toe.

She nodded reluctantly. “I guess so. Again, I’m sorry.”

Paul smiled insincerely and hobbled off toward the stairs.

The elevator looked really busy, so the stairs seemed to be
the better choice. However, the pain in his toe was excruciating, made worse
with each step. So he took the time to sit at the curb, twenty feet from the
stairway door. Taking his shoe and sock off, he examined his foot, casting a
small spell to help block the pain.

Merlin’s face appeared. Paul knew from previous experience
that under these conditions, only he could see him, that the image of the
bearded wizard was fed directly to his optic nerves and the voice to his auditory
nerves. Paul also knew that he would have to whisper back to keep anyone nearby
from giving him funny looks.

“Hmm, it’s not your year to avoid injury, I see,” Merlin
noted with dry humor, echoing Paul’s earlier thought. “That heavy battery-powered
wheelchair has indeed cracked your small toe. Would you care to see an x-ray of
it?” he offered helpfully.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Paul replied, still feeling
an echo of his earlier anger and irritation. “I just wanted to make sure it
wasn’t bleeding, and I see that it isn’t.” He put his sock and shoe back on and
then cast another small spell to keep it from swelling.

“You should be careful with those spells,” Merlin admonished
him. “Pain is the body’s warning system. You can do further harm to that foot
if you don’t take care.”

Paul nodded in understanding but said nothing, lest he
should lose control and start shouting in anger instead. With a quick glance,
he noted that the elevator was still unavailable. So he rejoined the line and
went up the stairs slowly, carefully favoring his injured foot.

The walkway was wide and not overly crowded, and Paul limped
along at a snail’s pace, glancing out the windows at the traffic speeding by on
the road underneath him.

And then a commotion in front of him drew his attention.

It was the woman in the wheelchair again. Somehow, she had
managed to catch a ride on the elevator when Paul was examining his foot and
had gotten ahead of him. And now, she was having a problem with her wheelchair.

She was mad—fuming mad—at the uncooperative machine,
flipping switches and pounding away at the control panel. Everyone nearby was
giving her guarded looks and going out of their way to avoid her, likely afraid
that her anger would involve them in some unpleasant situation.

Well, Paul didn’t really want to get involved either. He had
come to see the convention, not to immerse himself in someone else’s problems.
Still, she was a paraplegic and stuck in a bad situation. His heart reached out
to her.

So he shuffled up to the side of her wheelchair.

“‘Don’t bother. I think it’s dead,’” Paul quipped in a soft
voice quoting from the movie
Superman
. He smiled gently too so as not to
antagonize her further.

She spun around in her seat, and for a moment, Paul thought that
she would snap his head off. But he watched as she fought through the anger and
regained her emotional control.

“Oh, it’s you. I’m sorry about your foot. Are you sure it’s
okay?” she asked pleasantly, though Paul could tell that her heart wasn’t in
the question.

He kept smiling in return. “Can
I
help
you
? I know
a little something about electronics.”

A degree of suspicion crept into her eyes, and she gripped
her handbag tighter.

“I’m quite alright. My wheelchair just seems to be on the
fritz, that’s all,” she replied firmly, her tone of voice verging on the
haughty.

Well, okay, he had tried. If she didn’t want his help, who
was he to force it on her?

So he gave her a small bow. “As you wish.” And he turned to
leave, managing to walk away three steps.

“Oh, Mister?!” Paul heard her shout.

He turned back. She still had that look of suspicion in her
eye, but he now saw a note of desperation as well. It took him only a moment to
walk back, dodging around three teens as he went.

“Yes?” Paul asked her, trying to maintain his friendly smile.

“I’ll pay you $50 to push me into the convention hall, where
I can use a payphone. My smartphone died on me a week ago, and I just haven’t
gotten a replacement for it yet,” she told him grumpily.

Merlin popped up in Paul’s view, grinning from ear to ear.

“Your big heart is going to get you in big trouble someday,”
he said, chuckling. “Oh, and be sure to disengage the chair’s drive before you
try to push it.”

• • • •

A few minutes later, they reached the end of the walkway,
and Paul pushed her across the convention lobby toward a payphone.

He leaned forward a little.

“I was serious about the offer to check your wheelchair for
you,” he explained. “Perhaps, if I could fix it, it would save someone a trip
out to get you.”

He sensed her hesitation as she weighed the alternatives.
She obviously didn’t trust him, not even now, but she knew that she had few
options. There were a number of people around, but this crowd had already
proved their reluctance to get involved in anything. If Paul tried something,
such as stealing her purse, they probably weren’t going to help her.

Nevertheless, she relented. Reluctantly so.

“Okay, but please, don’t go to any trouble.”