Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard (36 page)

“How did you find me?” Paul insisted on knowing.

Jaret appeared to be momentarily embarrassed. “Well, I, uh…
you see… when I put you to sleep to give you your magical powers…I, uh, sort of
‘marked’ you, in a way that would let me find you again.”

Paul stared at the image floating beside him. “
Marked
me? How?”

Jaret shrugged. “It’s not all that important. Do you really
want to discuss that right now? I mean, considering the situation? It did let
me find you, after all.”

With a start, Paul realized that the other man was right.
Although the subject was far from over.

“Genie… uh, Jaret!” Paul urgently hissed. “Can you get me
out of here?”

The other wizard’s embarrassed smile faded to a frown.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he responded. “I can’t take you from
this machine.”

Paul stared at him. “Why not? Just open a portal for us and
we can go.”

“No, I can’t do that,” Jaret said, with a sad expression. “I
can’t interfere, at least not directly. It’s… complicated. If you escape, it
must appear as if you did it on your own, without any outside assistance. So
far, the only magic I’ve used is something you could have done. But if you
leave this plane in mid-air without a talisman, that will not be explainable.”

Paul’s mouth fell open as he realized that Jaret was
prepared to abandon him. “So you can’t help me?”

“Little spells, yes. Major ones, no.”

With a frantic nod in their direction, Paul asked Jaret,
“Did you put those Oni to sleep?”

The genie turned wizard snickered mischievously and nodded. “It
wasn’t too hard to trick both him and his partner to fall asleep. And the
humans see and hear only what I want them to see and hear.”

“Thanks,” Paul muttered, now anxiously trying to think of a
way out of his predicament while pure panic hovered at the outskirts, chomping
at the bit to turn him into a howling raving manic, totally out of control. How
was he going to get out of here and back to Capie, if Jaret wasn’t going to
help him? How?!

“Jaret, you have to help me get off this plane,” Paul
implored him. “They’ve taken my fiancée and are holding her hostage. I have to
free her!”

Jaret’s smile returned. “You are engaged to be married now?
Congratulations! May Allah bless you with many fine sons!”

“Jaret! Please?” Paul begged desperately.

The disembodied head gave Paul a contrite shake of his head.
“I’ve done all I can do. I apologize.” His image started to fade.

“Wait, Jaret! Please? Just hold on one moment, I beg of
you!” Paul beseeched him.

The other’s image re-intensified. “Yes?”

Paul’s thoughts surged and spun as he frantically tried to
think of some way to get off the plane, some method that Jaret would agree to
assist with, even if only in a small way. He glanced wildly around him, at the
plane, the soldiers and the Oni.

And then it came to him. The Oni. Of course, the Oni! They
were the solution!

“Okay,” Paul mused, trying to calm his racing heart as he
quickly examined his idea from all sides. “I have an idea. Can you keep the Oni
asleep for a few more minutes, please?”

Jaret shrugged indifferently. “If you wish, I can do that
much.”

Paul nodded. “Thanks. And one other thing. I want you to
take the spell off the Normals. Don’t let them see you but let them see
everything else, especially the Oni as they
really
are and not the
disguise spells that the Oni use. Can you do that?”

Jaret grinned in sudden appreciation of the request. “It’ll
scare the devil out of them.”

That was the whole idea. “Yes, it will. Please, go ahead.”

“I don’t know what you are planning but I hope it works.” Jaret
vanished.

One of the Normals — by his name tag, a Sergeant Haworth —
was looking in Paul’s direction. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, eyes going
wide, head turning to face the Oni on the couch first, then the other Oni in
the swivel seat.

“Lord Almighty! Colston! Look!” he shouted in astonishment.

The other soldier swung around and froze in shock, staring
at the two Oni.

“Pruitt! And Quimby! What happened to them?!” Sergeant Colston
yelled.

Paul decided it was time to see how gullible the two
soldiers were.

“They are in Stage Three,” he answered in a haughty tone of
voice, as calmly as he could manage. “They’re terminal now. And no, I wouldn’t
recommend touching them. In this stage, the victims are highly contagious.”

Colston jerked around to look at him. “Hey, the prisoner is
awake! They told us to keep him unconscious. I’ll get the spray.”

“No, wait,” interrupted Haworth. He turned back to Paul. “What
do you mean, they’re terminal? What’s this stage three stuff?”

Paul feigned a degree of arrogance that he didn’t feel in
the slightest. “Oh? They didn’t tell you?” he asked, with a superior air. “Well,
that’s just like the Army. Put troops at risk and not tell them about the
dangers involved. Too bad for you guys.” Paul added with only half a
sympathetic manner.

Haworth stepped closer, his face growing angry. “Answer me!
What are you talking about?”

“The disease,” Paul said, in a conceited patronizing tone. “How
else do you think that happened?” He nodded at the closest Oni. “One minute,
they are human and the next moment the disease turns its victims into hideous
monsters.”

“A disease?” Colston asked, his face turning pale.

Paul could see that they were both buying his act. Hey,
maybe he had missed his calling. Perhaps he could have been an actor… okay,
maybe not.

“Yes,” he answered, snobbishly. “A highly contagious and
always fatal disease. Rigelian Phage.” Paul said, combining two diseases named
in different
Star Trek
series. “And they are in Stage Three now. Too
late for the antidote to work now, poor devils,” he said, feigning a sad sigh.

“There’s an antidote?” Haworth asked.

“Of course there’s an antidote,” Paul said, in a superior scoffing
voice. “Which the Army obviously didn’t give to them. Say, that raises a
question. Did they give it to you gentlemen?”

Both of the sergeants turned white as a sheet.

“This… this disease,” stuttered Colston. “You say it’s
always fatal?”

“100% fatal, no exceptions,” Paul replied nonchalantly while
he stared out the nearest window. “It can be transmitted by air as well as by
touch. And it has a short incubation period. You’ve been exposed now. Depending
on how healthy the two of you are, you have maybe ten minutes before Stage Two
hits and then maybe thirty minutes later to Stage Three. So, in less than an hour,
you need the antidote. Or… well, I think you get the idea.”

Both Army men collapsed weakly into their seats.

“Less than an hour?” Colston echoed faintly, his eyes wide
in fear. “But we’re at least an hour out from Andrews…!”

Haworth leaned forward, suspicion written on his face. “How
do you know so much about this disease?”

Ah, he was the tougher of the two men, and only half-sold on
Paul’s act so far. Under other circumstances, Paul might have been tempted to
enjoy spoofing them with his little charade, but the stakes of this small drama
were exceedingly high. He reminded himself of his goal here. To escape and
rescue Capie. Everything else here was unimportant.

“Who do you think helped develop it?” he asked in a lofty
arrogant manner. “And the antidote too, of course. That’s the reason they want
me so badly back in Washington. I threatened to go public, to warn the American
people how dangerous this disease is and this is how they treat me,” Paul said,
shaking the handcuffs behind him.

“You’ve had the antidote?” Colson asked.

“Naturally. Say, do you guys have families? Is there
anything in particular I can tell them after — well, you know. Anything special
I should tell them when I attend your closed casket funerals?”

“Funerals?” weakly gasped Colston, his hand grasping his
throat. “Closed casket?”

Paul shook his head condescendingly. “Sorry, guys. Unless
you get this plane on the ground pronto and get the antidote, the two of you
are dead men.” He inclined his head toward the front of the plane. “And the
pilots too, of course. You know, you really ought to consider passing the word
onto them as well. They might want to know too about their impending deaths. Perhaps
they might have time to write their loved ones a last message. It’s really the
considerate thing to do, you know.”

Both of the soldiers turned and rushed the cockpit. Paul sat
back and grinned.

“Nicely done,” complimented Jaret, as his head reappeared. “But
what will they do now?”

Paul chortled. “That’s the beauty of it. The pilots will
come back here, to see for themselves, of course. Then they’ll get on the radio
and scream their heads off. Their chain of command will have no clue what they
are talking about, naturally. And these guys will assume that it is all part of
some cover-up. In three or four minutes, we’ll be on our way down. Maybe in
fifteen minutes, we’ll be on the ground at the nearest military airstrip.”

Jaret chuckled. “And you didn’t even have to cast a single
spell. Again, my compliments.”

One of the pilots darted through the cockpit door and
scooted to a stop six feet from Pruitt and Quimby, his eyes wide open, his jaw
dropped. Without a word, he frantically scrambled back to the cockpit. Ten
seconds later, the other pilot came rushing back. One good look sent him
scurrying for the cockpit too.

Paul waited impatiently. Two minutes later, the plane did a
sudden steep bank to the left, descending rapidly.

“It’s time to be out of these handcuffs,” he declared.
Closing his eyes, Paul concentrated on the left handcuff, mentally feeling the
internal locking mechanism. With a slight nudge, he slid the latch to one side
and the cuff snapped open. Ten seconds later, the right cuff opened too.

The plane reversed direction, banking sharply to the right.

“What a fun ride,” Jaret sarcastically noted.

“It won’t be long now,” Paul predicted confidently as he
glanced out his window, watching the ground as it came up from below them.

A little more waiting and he heard the landing gear doors as
they opened, the gear hydraulically descending into place. Up ahead, Paul could
see a stretch of roads and what appeared to be the edge of an airport runway.
It grew closer.

Haworth and Colston emerged from the cockpit.

“We better spray him,” Haworth said, nodding in his direction.

“But—”

“He’s in no danger,” Haworth snapped. “He’s had the
antidote.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Colston responded.

Paul let them get six feet from him and then, using the
handcuffs as an amulet, cast a spell that put them both into a light trance. They
slowly curled up on the floor and were fast asleep in seconds.

Standing up was a somewhat painful exercise for Paul. Every
muscle and bone in his body protested his movements. The wheels touched down on
the runway, the pilots standing on the brakes, the plane jerking hard. Paul was
nearly thrown forward to the floor but managed to stay vertical. In seconds,
the plane slowed to a taxi speed and abruptly pulled off the runway onto a
concrete taxi-way. Then it screeched to a stop, the engines spooling down.

One of the pilots popped out of the cockpit and, in
surprise, looked down at the two Army sergeants on the floor.

“What happened to them?” he asked, his voice faltering.

“Stage Two,” Paul answered, grimly and dispassionately shaking
his head.

Without a word, the pilot scrambled for the hatch door,
furiously working the handle. The hatch slammed open and then he was gone, no
doubt running pell-mell for the terminal building. The other pilot came out as
well, took one look at Colston and Haworth and was out the hatch in a flash.

“Would you mind sticking with me for a while? I have a few
questions,” Paul told Jaret.

“Not at all. If I could do anything to help, please ask,” he
responded.

“If you could keep those Oni asleep another minute or two,
that would be great,” Paul suggested. “In the meantime, let’s go.”

Descending the steps built into the hatch, Paul stepped down
to the taxiway. In the distance, he could see emergency vehicles heading their way
from the terminal buildings, their sirens making a forlorn wail. The two pilots
were still dashing pell-mell in that direction. Paul walked over to the center
of the taxiway and reached down to touch the concrete.

“What are you doing?” Jaret asked, taken aback.

“Going to rescue Capie, my fiancée. Are you ready?”

“You’re going to use this pavement for an amulet? Can that
be done?” the other wizard asked incredulously.

“Watch me.”

• • • •

Paul cast a small spell, using it to determine his location
to be at the Rickenbacker Air Force Base at Columbus, Ohio. Via a series of
portals, touching the concrete in bridges and over-passes, Paul followed I-70
west to Indianapolis, then I-65 northwestward up to Chicago. His last jump put
him under the overpass of Interstate 88 at Freedom Drive. At this spot, he was
less than a mile from the rental house on East Bauer Road.

Jaret, now as a complete person, dressed in the same brown
shirt and gray pants that he wore on the mountain top so long ago, watched as Paul
used a magical spell to create a small portal and extract his block of tantalum
from the underground cavity where he had stashed it earlier.

“What’s that?” Jaret asked, pointing at the tantalum.

“This is my version of the story that’s too long to explain
right now,” Paul replied. “We’ll do that later, after Capie is free.”

“You came here for that shiny gray brick?”

Paul held it out to him. “Touch it.”

Jaret shrugged and reached out to stroke it with his finger
tips… and jerked his hand back as if he had been electrically shocked, his eyes
bulging. “In the name of all that’s holy, what is that stuff?” he asked,
reaching out to gently touch it again. “By Allah, it’s at least five times more
potent than gold!”