Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard (4 page)

But there was nothing in that regard. Electrically, the box
and its contents were neutral.

Delicately, Paul placed his right index finger on the object.
It felt vaguely metallic, smooth and cool to the touch. More notes followed
these observations. Then, warily lifting the object out of the box, he rotated
and studied it closely. Roughly teardrop in shape, maybe six inches in diameter
and almost ten tall, it had a small black metal frame holding several smooth
yellow, blue, and red rectangular panes (glass? plastic?) around its
circumference. The entire object glowed with a soft yellow light. One corner of
Paul’s mind noted that the metal frame appeared to be Arabic in design, with tiny
etched swirls and lines that matched those on the outside of the wooden box.
Otherwise, the object was featureless.

He tried to set it down on the workbench, next to the wooden
box, but it refused to stay in place. Instead, the glass/plastic/metal object
floated a full three inches above the bench in a perfectly vertical position.
Startled, Paul gently pushed it down into contact with the wood, but it snapped
back up into a hover as soon as he pulled his hand away.

He studied it, again pushing his eyeglasses up his nose.
“Some sort of magnetic field, perhaps? But the table is made of wood!
Interesting. There doesn’t seem to be a way to open it,” he muttered to himself.

“It doesn’t open,” announced a confident baritone voice
behind him.

Paul froze in surprise and fear for several seconds, his
eyes opened wide. Gradually, he forced himself to turn and face the genie,
which stood tall, perhaps eight feet, not counting the white turban with the
large red ruby in the center. He was a much smaller figure here in the garage
than he had been in the church.

But it was the same image, dressed in the same clothes. The
sight of him was still enough to make Paul’s chin drop and his eyes bug out.
The genie chuckled at the expression on Paul’s face.

Mentally, for several seconds, Paul flailed wildly for
control, wedged between indecision and incomprehension, while the giant in
front of him waited patiently, even cheerfully, for him to recover his wits.

He eventually did, at least partly.

“How do I know you’re really a genie?” he whispered, a part
of him still thinking that this was some sort of trick. How could it possibly
be real?

The genie laughed, his voice booming in the room. “But of
course, Paul! What else would I be, wearing clothes such as these and having an
appearance like this? Perhaps you were expecting someone or something else?
Hmm?”

The image of the genie morphed, stretching in some
directions, contracting in others, and now appeared as a brawny man dressed in
a tight tunic, baggy pants, and leather boots, with a conical felt hat on his
head. A short sword was sheathed at his waist, a crescent shield in one hand
and a long spear in the other.

“Perhaps Xerxes the Great is who you wanted?”

The image transformed a second time. The new figure was
incredibly stout, with bulging muscles on top of muscles. Bare-chested, he wore
a short skirt-like garment. Long black hair and a heavy black beard framed a
manly face that was sporting a wide grin.

“Or Hercules himself?” the figure asked. “Or do your tastes
run more to mythical beings?”

Yet another transmutation. In front of Paul was now a
large...creature of some kind. It possessed the body of a lion, red in color,
and a head that appeared almost human, but with large, dagger-like teeth. And
was that a dragon’s tail?

The sight of the strange beast unnerved Paul. He edged away
from it slowly.

“How about a manticore?” the monster said, showing far more
of the razor-sharp teeth than Paul cared to see.

“Or,” and there was a fourth morphing of the genie’s appearance,
“a peri, perhaps?”

In front of Paul now stood...a very voluptuous feminine
figure in a provocative pose. A dark-haired beauty, wearing a thin facial veil
and a skimpy, lacy garment of silk that barely covered the essentials.

Paul felt his face heat up in embarrassment, and he turned
away.

“Ah, no!” he barked. “I believe you! You’re a genie!”

There was another metamorphosis, and the image of the
original genie was restored. “And what do you wish for? Wine, women, and song?
Riches without end? To live forever? Power? Fame?” He leaned forward a little.
“Maybe a full head of hair and some decent clothes to wear instead of those
rags? Whatever you want. Wish for it and it is yours!”

Various synapses began to fire again in Paul’s brain, like
old spark plugs with the carbon blown out.

“Theoretically speaking, you shouldn’t be here,” Paul
observed lamely, backing up even farther, smack up against the workbench.

The giant figure smirked. “Obviously, this ‘Theoretically’
person knows naught of which he speaks.”

Feeling overwhelmed by the genie’s presence and even a bit
faint, a quote finally popped into Paul’s head. “‘I’ve always found that
sticking your fingers in your ears and humming loudly solves a whole slew of
problems.’ Jack O’Neill,
Stargate SG-1
. I am sorely tempted to try it
this one time.”

The genie grinned widely. “I’ve always valued a master with
a sense of humor.”

Sighing, Paul clenched his teeth and tried to pull his
thoughts together. “Michaels said that you only grant three wishes.”

The genie’s grin was daunting. “Glenn Michaels is correct.
But three wishes should be enough for any man, don’t you think? What shall they
be?”

More synapses fired. “And there are strings attached.”

The huge genie swung his arms out wide and laughed again
loudly. “So he told you that, did he? Yes, it is said that for every action,
there are consequences, good as well as bad.”

Paul’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “He also said that you
answer questions, but that your answers don’t often make much sense.”

For the third time, there was a booming laugh. “Knowledge is
like catching a wild butterfly.”

At first, the genie’s answer seemed to make no sense. Then Paul
realized his implication: Wild butterflies were elusive and difficult to catch.
And when caught, they often lost their luster.

Paul gulped and nodded thoughtfully. “He also said that
questions don’t count as wishes.”

The genie shrugged, those massive arms resuming their
position across his chest. “Conversation is cheap. Ask what you will, wish what
you want. I will answer to both.”

“I see,” Paul replied. Then he remembered something else
from Michaels’s note. “I thought you were only supposed to come out when I use
a certain magical phrase.”

The genie gave a smug smile. “Yes, to be sure, you are
correct. However, the words don’t have to be said out loud. You were thinking
them.”

“Ah, I see. I’ll have to be more careful about my thoughts,”
Paul noted sarcastically. “By the way, did you enjoy scaring all the people in
my church?”

Again, the smug smile and the shrug. “I did as you bid. Like
you said, it is wise to be careful. And now, are you ready to make your first
wish?”

“I...ah...that is...ah, no,” Paul stammered.

“No?” the genie replied in surprise, his smile fading
slowly.

Paul crossed his arms and slid along the workbench, further
from the genie. He realized that he still wasn’t ready to confront the reality
of his situation and that he badly needed time to come to terms with the idea
of a genie granting him three wishes, let alone of making decisions about what,
if anything, he wanted to wish for. No, Paul needed time to analyze the notion
of genies, magic, and wishes and to explore all the potential implications and
ramifications thereof. There was research to do, web searches to make! This
whole situation screamed for an impact study, a fault-tree examination,
boundary assessments—maybe even a fishbone diagram! He was an engineer, blast
it, not an impulsive gambler!

Slowly and deliberately, Paul said, “If I only get three
wishes and those will all have some negative side effects, then I want...that
is to say, I intend to give it considerable thought before making any wishes.”

Most of the genie’s smile returned. “Ah, so you really are a
wise and careful man after all. Very well, Paul. Whenever you want a wish
granted or if you simply want to talk, you know how to summon me.”

Paul nodded in appreciation. “I understand....” But then he
discovered that he didn’t really have anything further that he wanted to say
and that mostly, he was anxious to terminate this disturbing interview—if that
was the right word for it—as rapidly as possible.

“Ati Kispu Du,” he said quickly. The genie faded out of
sight, and Paul was faced with an empty garage again.

For several moments, he leaned against the workbench for
support, his knees weak, as he frowned, mentally trying to deal with his
encounter with the genie. He grimaced at the sight of all his tools, still
neatly arrayed for his use. None of them would really help him with this type
of problem.

He still found himself wondering if he had really even seen
the genie, if what instead he had experienced was yet another delusion, a
mental aberration of some kind, brought on by fatigue and stress. What was
reality anyway? How much of what was seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled
was real, and how much was contrived within his mind? Until that day, Paul would
have sworn that genies had no place in cold, hard reality. Yet he had just
talked to one. Was it his concept of reality that was flawed, his perception of
it, or had delusions seized control of his mind?

Paul shook his head in confusion. What choice did he really
have? According to what he thought he had just seen and heard, he now had three
wishes to think about. Maybe he was deluded. Maybe not. The best he could do
was play the cards he had been dealt.

His knees wobbling, Paul gingerly took the brightly colored
object and carefully put it back in the box, snapping closed the lid.

Home

Mojave, CA

December

Thursday, 10:00 p.m. PST

T
ry
as he might, Paul could not get the genie out of his mind. For four days, he wandered
through life like a man in a dream, wrestling with a thousand variations of
wishes he might make. Nothing he could come up with seemed to be satisfactory.
The more he thought about it, the less sure he was that he had actually seen a
genie at all. And although he used every spare moment to research genies and
magic on the Internet, Paul was also totally uncertain about what he wanted and
how to wish for it. As a result, he became utterly distracted and frustrated.

It didn’t help the situation, either, to be followed around
by that blasted wooden box! It seemed to be everywhere! At home, at work, in
his car, at the stores where he went shopping—everywhere that he went! And the
fact that everyone else noticed it and asked pointed questions about it that
Paul found difficult to answer only compounded the issue, making him feel like
a liar.

His co-workers and neighbors all became very much aware of his
distracted condition as well. Some were concerned but the majority was irritated,
and in a couple of cases were genuinely exasperated with Paul. Only a couple of
people tried to give him some space to work out his problems. Everyone else
pestered Paul with questions or chastised him for being so dysfunctional and
unresponsive to their demands on his time. His stress levels rose dramatically.
He felt despondent and even more isolated and alone.

Thursday night, Paul ended up sleeping on the couch. He
tossed restlessly, unable to fall asleep until well after the mantel clock
chimed 1 a.m.

And then, in his sleep, he dreamed that he was the genie,
trapped in a bottle by an evil master, who only let him out when he wanted some
greedy, twisted wish granted. Paul dreamed that he was the one confined in a
bottle—a horribly small, dank, and dark prison—while the evil, repulsive master,
who totally controlled him, laughed hideously, pointing at Paul with a gnarled,
misshapen finger. It was a ghastly nightmare which woke Paul up with a start. He
came to sitting fully upright on the couch, gasping for breath, his heart
racing, his forehead drenched in a cold sweat, the dream still vividly and
terribly real in his mind. Gradually, he got control of his breathing, calming
himself by degrees, telling himself over and over again that it was only a bad
dream. A glance at the coffee table confirmed the presence of the wooden box,
the faint light in the room reflecting off the scrollwork patterns in the wood.
Feeling miserable and down in the dumps, Paul glanced at the clock on the
mantel. 5 a.m. Though every muscle and joint in his body ached, the idea of
going back to sleep distressed him. Instead, he got up and prepared to go to
work.

Dragging through the morning was pure torture. Paul’s eyes
were gritty, the lids like lead weights. His head throbbed and his body ached with
fatigue.

This was the day of the big test, the day that his whole
company had been working toward for nearly three months. The test program
involved a new fuel mixture for the C-5M cargo plane. The Air Force was
attempting a new fuel combination that would supposedly increase the plane’s
range while at the same time leaving less in the way of pollutants in the
atmosphere. In lab and wind-tunnel tests, the results had been promising. The
task at Edwards AFB was to fly an instrumented test aircraft, complete with a
data acquisition system in the plane and one also on the ground, to monitor the
environmental conditions and the usage of fuel.

Operations were scheduled to start at 9 a.m. with the
takeoff of the C-5M aircraft test bed. As far as the testing team could tell, they
were as ready as they could be, though the new data system, which Paul was
partly responsible for, was still somewhat of an unknown quantity.

The nightmares of the previous evening continued to plague Paul’s
thoughts. He could not seem to concentrate. When he arrived at work, a
co-worker, Ken Rivera, an African-American engineering graduate of Caltech, seemed
to immediately recognize that Paul was in trouble, and he stepped in to help
whenever and wherever he could.

For the ten thousandth time in four days, Paul was tempted
to call upon the genie and wish for the data system to work properly during the
test. But there were two problems with making that wish. First, it would waste
a wish on something that was real important to Paul, but trivial on a
nationwide or global scale, and he was loath to waste any wishes in such a
manner. Second, and even more important, Michaels had made it abundantly clear
that there were strings attached to every wish. If Paul asked for the data
system to work correctly, then something else might go terribly wrong, such as
the C-5M aircraft crashing into the Tehachapi Mountains or a major earthquake
striking the San Andreas Fault nearby. Or any one of a thousand other potential
disasters. No, it was best not to tempt fate in that manner.

The C-5M took off on time, lifting majestically into the
bright, sunny California sky. On the ground, Paul and his team were positioned
to one side of the control room, monitoring the telemetry data streams from the
aircraft. All data channels seemed to be operating normally, the squiggly lines
on the computer monitors showing parameter data from each on-board sensor.

An hour went by, the test crew running their procedures,
preparing for the most important part of the test sequence. And just as the
aircraft switched the on-board fuel sources to the “environmentally-correct”
fuel, all the telemetry channels suddenly dropped out, all of them reading a
perfect 0.0. All the pressures, the temperatures, fuel flows, and everything
else. Absolute flat liners.

“Oh, no!” groaned Ken. Paul too could not believe his eyes,
his jaw dropping open.

The test conductor, Darcy Wilson, standing at her station a
few feet away, spotted the issue on her monitors at virtually the same moment.
“What’s this? Data Ops, what’s going on?
Where’s my data
?”

Paul bit his lip and rapidly flipped through the displays at
his workstation. Nothing was making any sense. How could all the data stop at
the same time? He tried to think it through, but the mental and physical
fatigue was hampering him badly.

“Couldn’t be an antenna problem,” muttered Ken as he too
examined the displays. “We still have IRIG timing synch.”

A quote came to Paul, from the movie
The Andromeda Strain
.
“‘It’s just registering double-zero, double-zero.’”

“Huh? What’s that mean?” Ken asked.

“What’s the problem here?” asked their boss, Adrian
Cantrell, who was standing behind them.

Paul looked up with a start. He had not heard Cantrell’s
approach. With a supreme effort, Paul kept himself from groaning out loud or
otherwise reacting in a bad way. Cantrell was the worst micromanager that Paul
had ever worked for, bar none. The last thing that they needed was to have
Cantrell looking over their shoulders while they worked to resolve the problem
with the data system.

And it was urgent that they solve it. If they didn’t do so
in the next few minutes, then it would seriously impact the performance goals
of the test, perhaps even cause the test to be cancelled. That would be bad,
Paul knew. It would reflect poorly on the company and cost the Air Force a hefty
chunk of money. It might even delay the program past the end of the year.

Ken screwed a hesitant smile onto his face. “It’s just a
glitch in the data system, boss.” He turned to Paul. “I think we should reboot
the telemetry computer. That will probably take care of the problem.”

To Paul’s mind, it seemed like a reasonable suggestion, so
he started to nod in agreement.

And then, in a flash, he understood what the true cause of the
problem was.

“No,” he said slowly. “It’s the telemetry demultiplexer. It’s
lost module lock mode.”

Ken stared at him. “That’s never happened before.”

Paul nodded. “The sales rep told me about it once, right
after they sold us the system. I almost forgot about it. He said if it happened,
it would have these symptoms.”

Cantrell coughed. “How long does it take to fix the
demultiplexer?”

Ken blinked. “We would have to reload a calibration and
setup file. It would take ten, maybe fifteen minutes to run and get back into
acquisition mode.”

Cantrell’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and he gave Paul a
measured look. “And to reboot the telemetry computer?”

“Two, maybe three minutes, tops,” Paul replied with a
sinking feeling in his heart. Knowing Cantrell, he knew what was coming next.

“Do the PC reboot instead. Now,” he ordered Ken.

For a brief moment, Paul considered voicing his objections.
His boss’s decision had been based solely on the time element involved and not
with any technical considerations. Paul knew that the reboot would not solve
the problem and that they would eventually be forced to take the demultiplexer
off-line and reset it anyway.

It was a perfect case of being caught between the devil and
the deep blue sea. If he tried to explain to Cantrell that it was the wrong
decision, then his boss would yell at him. If he let Ken waste time rebooting
the PC, his boss would later be furious at him for not saying anything. Either
choice was bad.

So he folded his arms and said nothing.

• • • •

The workday was finally over, and they were free to go home.
It was like receiving an executive pardon from the governor. Everyone was
locking up their desks, grabbing their coats, and heading toward the door. Paul
managed to make it outside the building and halfway to the parking lot without
collapsing from exhaustion.

“Hey, Paul! Wait up for a moment, will ya?” shouted Ken,
trotting up the sidewalk behind him.

Paul stopped and turned, trying to screw on a “happy face.”
He failed.

“Listen, man! It was my bad! I’m sorry,” Ken apologized
profusely.

Paul shook his head sadly. “That we’ve got a jerk for a
boss? Not your fault. And to tell you the truth, I first thought it was the
computer too.”

“But you were right. You saved the test. It would have taken
me an hour before I tried resetting the demultiplexer. And even though you were
right, you still got yelled at. If I had just kept my big mouth shut....”

Paul managed to shrug indifferently. “We got the data with
only a small impact to the test goals. Cantrell will get over it. I won’t get
any recognition for being right, but I’m not worried about it. So, go home,
rest up, get ready for Christmas. The big test is done, for now.”

“There will be another one early next year,” observed Ken
with a rueful look.

“There always is,” Paul agreed. “It’s our jobs, such as they
are.”

“Yeah. Hey, thanks. I’m just glad you aren’t mad at me,” Ken
said with a thankful smile.

Paul sighed. “Not you, no. Not you.” And then he slowly
plodded off toward his Toyota Corolla. Toward home.

• • • •

He barely managed to stay awake during the drive home. At
the house, he left the car in the driveway and stumbled inside, the genie’s box
loosely gripped under one arm.

He just couldn’t put the genie quandary off any longer. He
was so tired of the stress it was putting him under. And he wasn’t going to
risk having another one of those horrid nightmares. The genie needed to be
dealt with. Right now! Then Paul could get back to living his life in peace.

He trudged into the garage through the kitchen door. Nervously
biting his lip, Paul took the object from the box and set it floating above the
workbench again.

“Ati Kispu Alka,” he babbled feebly.

“You look terrible,
Majeed
(Honorable) Paul,” the
baritone voice rumbled.

Once again, the genie was there in all his power and
splendor. Paul weakly nodded, actually relieved to see the big guy again. For a
fleeting moment, he had feared that he really
had
dreamt the first
encounters. Wobbling somewhat, his knees buckling, Paul lowered himself and sat
on the cold concrete floor, his back to one leg of the workbench.

“At least when I show up, little old ladies aren’t diving
behind pews,” Paul muttered sarcastically.

The genie gave a sly smile. “You look very tired. Perhaps a
nap...?”

“It’s true that I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” Paul
admitted in a louder voice.

The genie grinned merrily. “Too busy thinking of what you
might wish for, no doubt. I can help you out there. Would you like to know what
the All-Time Top Ten Most Requested Wishes are? That is, according to the
latest official Genie Guild charts? I’ll give you a hint. Number one is a shiny,
yellow, soft metal....”

Paul ignored the genie’s smirking and said, “I’d like to ask
you some questions.”

“Of course! What would you like to know?” the huge
apparition asked buoyantly.

“Have you always been a genie?” Paul asked, studying the
genie’s face intently with tired eyes to see how he might react.

The question startled the genie, and he suddenly appeared
troubled by it. “A snow-covered mountain endures forever,” he muttered in a
subdued manner.

Sure it does
, Paul thought in sudden sarcasm. “Do you
enjoy being a genie?”

The genie’s reaction to Paul’s question was totally
unexpected. The grin was gone now. Sweat appeared on his upper brow. The genie
was visibly shrinking, too, right in front of Paul, no longer a tall figure.
Moreover, his clothes had ceased to glow.

“The sun arises in the east each morning and shines on the
earth,” the genie weakly declared with a gulp.

With growing certainty, Paul was beginning to get the feel
of the genie’s answers. The fact that the apparition was now only four feet or
so tall and his clothes had taken on a disreputable appearance told Paul that
he was getting warm.