Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard (40 page)

Then he thumbed the connection closed.

“That was Assistant Director Hawken of the FBI,” the
professor informed them slowly. “I guess Connor is out of the loop. Hawken says
that they have agents at your house right now, Capie. And they’ve seen how many
of your things are missing.”

Paul’s throat was suddenly dry. “Does Connor know where you
are, Professor Kingsley?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Chris answered slowly. “Why do you…are you
thinking that they will go to my house next?”

“I’m sure that they are already on their way.”

Chris nodded. “I didn’t make it a secret that I would be
here tonight. It won’t take them long to track me down.”

“Paul,” interrupted Jaret. “I am detecting high energy
portals to the south of us, perhaps five miles or so away.”

“Portals?” Chris asked. “For teleportation? Five miles south
of us is Levi Hall, the University of Chicago Admin Building. I was there
earlier this afternoon at the Budget Director’s Office.”

Paul rubbed the back of his neck and swallowed hard.
“They’re too close. If we use a portal to leave, they’ll detect it.” He looked
up sharply. “And if they find that we’ve been here and seen you, Professor,
then it greatly increases your danger. You must leave, now, get as far from
here in the next few minutes as you can.”

Chris Kingsley immediately turned to his daughter. “I beg
you, Princess, please come with me. We’ll get through this, I promise.”

Her chin trembling and a tear in each eye, Capie got back to
her feet, leaned forward and hugged her father tightly. “You haven’t called me
Princess in years. If you won’t come with us, then you be careful, Dad. They’re
killers. Don’t tell them you saw us tonight, for your own safety. Please?”

He hugged her back. “I can take care of myself.”

In sympathy, Paul laid a hand on his future father-in-law’s
shoulder. “I promise you that I’ll keep your daughter safe. And I also promise
that I will bring her back. But you must go. If they catch you here, with us,
your life is in great danger.”

“And how will you escape from here, if you can’t use a
portal?” Chris asked, breaking away from his daughter’s arms.

Paul smiled. “I have a plan, but the less you know, the
better.”

Chris’s shoulders slumped and he stared mournfully at his
daughter. “Take care, Princess. I’m going to miss you terribly.”

“Goodbye, Daddy,” she sobbed quietly through her tears.

And with that, Professor Christopher Kingsley turned and
shuffled slowly toward the front door, his shoulders hunched, his head down.

“We must leave,” Jaret hissed. “They are closer now! And I
can’t help you this time!”

Paul wrung his hands. “Yes, I know. I have a contingency
plan, one that I prepared a few weeks ago. It will probably work in this
situation.”

“Probably?” squeaked Capie. “You don’t know?”

Paul smiled sheepishly. “It’s not actually been tested.”

Jaret laughed and slapped his back. “Then by all means, let
us test it now.”

Paul grinned bravely and gave Capie a wink. “Let’s go then.”
A snap of this fingers and a small ball of white light appeared, floating six
feet off the ground. And with a wave of his hand, a portal opened.

Jaret blinked and then shouted. “A portal?! But the energy…!”

“Trust me!” Paul shouted as he pressed Capie down into her
wheelchair, and with another wave of his hand, magically pushed it and her
through the portal. Paul then leapt through too, the globe of light and the
luggage practically on his heels.

“Coming?” Paul’s voice echoed through the portal.

Jaret glanced anxiously around. “You’re a crazy wizard,
Paul,” he muttered. “Entertaining but crazy. An intoxicating combination
indeed.” And then, louder, “Coming!”

Under Lake Michigan

20 miles east of Chicago, Illinois

June

Thursday 8:58 p.m. CST

T
hey
found themselves in a semi-lit, cramped wet cavern hardly large enough to hold
the three of them and the luggage. The walls and ceiling were composed of
blackened earth literally dripping with water. Two inches of liquid covered the
ground beneath their feet.

“Yuck!” Capie grunted in alarm, staring at all the dirt and
mud around them, revealed by the glow of the hovering ball of light. She wiped
some of the dripping water off her face and lifted her feet from the wheelchair
footpads to keep them from getting wet. “Where are we?”

“Sixty feet under Lake Michigan and twenty miles east of
Chicago,” Paul absently replied, doing a quick sweep of the room and verifying
it wasn’t on the verge on sudden collapse.

“Hey! My suitcases are getting wet!” Capie protested
vehemently.

Paul waved a hand and the three bags levitated two feet into
the air. A holographic umbrella snapped into existence above them.

“Did you create this place? Why did you bring us here?”
Jaret asked with a frown, doing his best not to touch the walls.

“‘At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do,’” Paul
quipped, quoting Sarek in a
Star Trek
episode. “I created this place a
couple of weeks ago. Since there is only sixty feet of dirt and mud between us
and Lake Michigan, there’s just barely enough earth to keep the lake out. On
its own, eventually this room will either collapse or fill up with water.”

“I still don’t understand,” Jaret said. “And what is that
thing there, in the corner?”

“Oh, the basketball-sized object?” Paul responded, leaning
down to wipe the surface of the spherical object in question. When he wiped a
thin layer of mud and water away, the surface glistened with a dull gray-silver
sheen.

“That, my friends, is a large ball of solder, the largest I
could put here.”

“Solder?” Capie asked, incredulously.

“It’s part of my contingency escape plan. The solder will
let me cast a more powerful spell.”

With a snap of his fingers, Paul created a large portal in
front of Capie. Nothing could be seen through the portal opening. There was no
light on the other side.

“You’ll see,” Paul replied, using a magical spell again to
push the wheelchair forward. “Enough questions for now. We don’t know how close
the bad guys are. Let’s get out of this place.”

 “By all means!” thundered Jaret, as he and the luggage followed
Paul through the opening.

• • • •

The light from the glowing ball now showed that they were
standing on a concrete pathway. Off to each side, there were a few rocks
visible and then bodies of black water. Off in the distance, the bright lights
of a cityscape beckoned. There was a chill in the air and, this far from
Chicago, the stars shone brilliantly in the night sky above them.

 “What city is that? And is this still Lake Michigan?” Capie
asked.

“To quote Teal’c, ‘Indeed,’” Paul answered with a hurried
motion. “We are standing on the breakwater barrier just off shore of Michigan
City, Indiana.”

“I don’t see the purpose of the chamber under the lake,”
Jaret said. “They’ll just follow us through that place to here.”

Paul gave a wicked grin. “No, they won’t.”

Kneeling, he laid one hand on the concrete and opened a
small portal, no more than a half an inch in diameter, back to the cave under
the lake. “I’m going to take care of that right now. Let’s see how fast I can
do this,” he said. With a spell, he reached through the small portal, concentrating
on several drops of water on the far wall of the underground room. Stripping their
deuterium atoms, Paul forced the nuclei to come together, fusing them into
helium nuclei. As the blast wave roared inside the cavern, he scrambled to get
the portal closed.

A small blast of super hot air shot through the rapidly
closing aperture, pushing him backwards and singing the sleeve of his shirt.

“What was that?” Capie cried in alarm.

“I guess I should have made that cave just a little bit bigger
after all,” he mused, slapping at his smoking sleeve, using a spell to
extinguish the burning threads. When the fire appeared to be out, he got back
to his feet and closely examined the damaged area.

“Ah, I see,” Capie said, her eyes showing understanding. “You
destroyed the room with that spell, didn’t you? I guess they will have trouble
getting under the lake, now that the nasty little place is gone.”

“Yes, by the time they could dig their way down there, the
portal spells your fiancé used to bring us here will have dissipated
completely,” Jaret added, nodding at Paul with a smile. “I watched him make
those preparations and didn’t have a clue what he was up to. Brilliant. Simply
brilliant.”

Paul bowed. “Thank you, kind sir.” He sighed, again feeling
relieved that they had escaped without getting hurt in the process. “Now we
need to discuss what comes next.”

Capie suddenly looked thoughtful. “Say, that does raise an
interesting question….” she said, giving Jaret a canny gaze.

Paul raised a hand. “We’ve already worked out a deal,
sweetheart. He gets the secret of isotopes. You get to be a wizard.”

“YES!” squealed Capie, jumping straight up out of her
wheelchair to latch onto Jaret and giving him a tight hug. “Thank you!”

Surprised at the sudden embrace, Jaret stammered a quick reply.

“Okay,” Paul said, swallowing laughter at Capie’s antics. “I
guess before we do that, I need to retrieve a box of cash, ID and credit cards
that I stashed in Danville, Illinois. Then we need to find a place where we can
stay for a day, where we can give Capie her powers. We can’t go back to Chicago.
And we certainly cannot go to Los Angeles or any place in Southern California,”
Paul said, thinking out loud. “I think we should go to New York City next. A
nice, dense, heavily populated city,” he proposed. “To make it harder for them
to find us.”

“That sounds dreadful,” Jaret declared. “I recommend someplace
with wonderful scenery instead,” he suggested, as Capie resumed her seat in the
wheelchair. “That mountaintop where I gave you your powers is good.”

Paul shook his head. “Wrong time zone right now. It’ll be
dark there.”

“Whoa, there!” Capie said, interrupting their planning
session. “Just hold up a cotton pickin’ minute!”

Paul blinked in surprise. “Cotton pickin’? Where did you
learn that sort of talk?”

“Too many years of watching westerns, I suppose,” she
admitted but without a hint of remorse. She turned to Jaret. “I think I ought
to have a say in all this. I know just the place. Lake Tahoe.”

“Tahoe?” Paul asked, surprised by her choice.

“I was there, once, on a vacation,” she divulged with an
airy wave of her hand. “Harvey’s, on the Nevada side of the lake. Gorgeous
views, especially from the restaurant on the top floor.” Her smile grew even
more impish. “And while we are in Nevada….”

Paul snorted in laughter. “Of course! The perfect place to
go. As soon as you get your powers, we can get married!”

Jaret lit up like a Christmas tree. “A wedding? Fantastic!
Can I be the best man? Or can I give the bride away? Perhaps both? Yes, a grand
idea. Let’s go to this Lake Tahoe place. I absolutely adore weddings.”

Paul reached out to open a portal but Jaret stopped him.

“Allow me,” he said with a wide grin. “I can get us there
faster.”

Harvey’s

19 Kitchen and Bar

South Lake Tahoe

Nevada side of the state line

June

Thursday 7:29 p.m. PST

“
A
nd
what do you think of the view?” asked Paul.

The three of them were sitting in the 19
^th
floor
restaurant at a table next to a large window. Jaret was looking toward the
west, across the lake to the snow capped mountains on the west side. They could
see Phipps Peak and the mountain range on both sides.

Jaret nodded, his lips puffed. “It’s gorgeous, as you said.
The lake and the trees add to the view. I must include this location on my list
of favorite places to visit in the future.”

Paul cut and bit into his filet mignon steak, savoring the
flavor. Capie was nervously eating a small salad.

“Jaret, are you ready for the exchange of information we
talked about earlier?” Paul asked the other wizard, as he cut another slice of
steak.

“No, I am not,” the other solemnly declared.

“What?” both Capie and Paul exclaimed simultaneously in
surprise. At a nearby table, a couple of other patrons glanced in their
direction at their outburst.

“Why not?” Capie asked, as calmly as she could manage.

“Don’t worry; I will help you become a wizard, yes,” Jaret
assured her. “But I have reconsidered my circumstances and I no longer wish to
know the secret of the isotopes.”

“You don’t want to make a super-talisman for yourself?” Paul
asked him, puzzled by the other’s sudden change of heart.

“Paul, I can’t carry around a talisman with that kind of
power!” the ex-genie protested. “It would make me the target of every wizard on
the face of the Earth! I didn’t understand that until I saw how many of those
magical monsters and wizards were trying to capture and kill you in Chicago.”

“I thought you wanted a powerful talisman,” Paul reminded
him.

“Not like the one you are planning to make! It’s much too
risky,” the other wizard objected firmly.

Paul rubbed his jaw. “Okay, so when I teach you the basics,
you can make your own talisman less powerful, to whatever level you desire.
Half the power of mine, if you want.”

The former genie shook his head. “Ten percent, maybe.”

Paul smiled slyly. “Forty percent.”

“No, no, no! Fifteen percent is as high as I will go!”

Paul’s smile grew to a chuckle. “Thirty percent!” he
insisted.

“Twenty and that is my final offer,” Jaret said, chin in the
air, his arms folded across his chest.

“Well, if that is your final offer, so be it,” Paul grinned.
“Twenty percent.”

“‘Now, if you’ve finished hosing down the decks with
testosterone?’” Capie observed, quoting Maureen Robinson from the
Lost in
Space
movie
.
“Can we get on with this? I am on pins and needles
here. Can we talk about my magical powers now?”

“Yes, we can, my lady,” Jaret said, with a polite half bow.
Then he faced Paul again. “The secret to giving other people magical powers is
simple. You cannot give what they already have.”

“Huh? Say that again, slowly,” Paul said, frowning, laying
his fork down.

“You cannot give people magical powers,” Jaret repeated. “They
already have them.”

“You are not making any sense,” Paul objected. “I didn’t
have magical powers before you gave them to me. And Capie doesn’t have them
now.”

Jaret grinned from ear to ear. “Yes, you did. And yes, she
does. That’s the secret. Everyone is born with magical powers but they are also
born with a mind-block that prevents them from using those powers.”

“A mind-block?” Paul echoed, thoroughly confused.

“Isn’t it delicious? All those centuries, the wizards of the
world have been desperately trying to give people something that they already
have when they should be trying to take something away instead! I find it quite
amusing,” Jaret laughed.

“Quite,” Paul said, narrowing his eyes, still feeling
confused. “I don’t remember you doing that in the spell you cast on me.”

“Oh, I did it after I put you to sleep,” Jaret confessed. “A
wizard has to keep some secrets, after all.”

Paul nodded, chagrined that the other man had fooled him so
completely. “So how do you remove the mind block?”

“Just visualize yourself inside the other persons head.
Picture a levee or barricade. Then just remove it. Simple!”

“Would you mind guiding me through it with Capie?” Paul
implored him. “I don’t want to make a mistake.”

“I would feel better about it too,” Capie added.

Jaret glanced around. “We will need a more private place
than this.”

Paul whipped out a credit card and motioned for one of the
waitresses.

“We’ll rent a room here, in the name of Wesley Farrell. If
you two are ready, we’ll go take care of this now.”

• • • •

It only took a few minutes for them to go down to the lobby,
pay for a room and use the elevator to take them to Room 408. The suitcases
subserviently following them moved into a corner of the room, stacking
themselves out of the way.

Jaret glanced around the up-scale hotel room before stepping
over to a window and again nodding at the view. “I like this place.” He
indicated the bed. “Whenever you are ready, my lady.”

Capie took a deep breath to compose herself. “I’m ready now.”

Paul reached forward and gave her a comforting hug. “I
promise, this won’t hurt a bit.” Then with a grin and a deep voice, he said,
“Remember, the Force will be with you…always,’” quoting from
Star Wars: A
New Hope
.

Capie produced a weak smile but did not otherwise reply.

With a wave of his hand, Paul cast a spell, levitating her
up and out of the wheelchair and over to the bed where she was gradually lowered
to the level of the mattress. She stretched out fully, getting comfortable. And
closed her eyes.

Paul reached out his hand, closing his eyes as well, and
projected himself into her thoughts. He could suddenly see images and hear
sounds but they made no sense to him. Then, ahead, Paul could sense a large
blockage in the path.

Jaret appeared beside him, his image wavering back and
forth, the sound of his voice tinny, as if it came from a very old phonograph
record.

“That is the barrier of which I spoke,” he assured Paul. “Remove
it carefully. There is a great deal of pressure behind it.”

Paul reached out and grasped a handful of the barrier. It
pulled like sticky taffy. After several seconds of tearing at the barrier, it
began to give way.

The former genie was right about the pressure. Without
warning, the entire structure broke loose and Paul was swamped in Capie’s
thoughts and memories. He backed off as quickly as possible.

“That’s all there is to it,” Jaret said, as his image faded
away.

Paul opened his eyes to see Capie asleep and Jaret with a
huge grin leaning against the small desk in the room.

“That’s why you can never make a wizard a normal person
again,” Jaret whispered. “The barrier cannot be put back into place, once it is
removed. She will sleep now, for a day or so.”

Paul smiled at Capie, so beautiful as she slept. He reached
out and gently swept a lock of hair from her forehead, to keep it out of her
eyes. “Rest easy, dear. We will be here.”

Then Paul turned to Jaret.

“Before we talk about improved talismans, may I ask a
question?” Paul asked.

Jaret bowed slightly. “Certainly.”

“If everyone is born with a barrier and the only way to
exercise magical powers is for another wizard to remove that barrier, then how
did the other wizards of Earth come into being?” Paul paused as another
question popped into his thoughts. “And why do they claim that they can’t turn
Normals into wizards when clearly, sometime in the past, somebody must have
been able to do so?”

Jaret grinned widely at him. “That is two questions, Paul.
Please remember that I have only been a wizard for a very short period of time
and so I am not privy to their long history. But I have a theory. Would you
like to hear it?”

“By all means,” Paul told him in encouragement. “Fire away.”

“Fire away? Ah, another one of those modern expressions.
Very good, that one.” Jaret chuckled. “My theory: Sometime in the past, there
must have been at least one person who was born without the barrier, or at
least, with a weakened barrier. A person who also experimented with magical
powers. I believe that the first wizards did a lot of experiments, to find
spells that would work, to test their limits of power. The modern wizards, not
so much. Arrogant snobs, are they not? They seem to think they know everything.
Such conceit. Humph!”

“And?” Paul asked.

“I think that the first wizards kept their secrets close to
their hearts, never revealing them unless they had to. I think that one of the
early wizards must have discovered how to turn humans into wizards too, but I
think he kept the secret to himself, never sharing it with the other wizards.”

Paul could almost see it happening. “So, over time, perhaps
a few centuries, he turned a few hundred other Normals into wizards. And then,
what? He died?”

“Without sharing the secret,” Jaret said, with a nod. “And
it is such a clever little secret that none of the other wizards guessed how to
do it, even though he had done it to them.” Jaret grinned even wider. “Just
like you did not guess how I did it to you.”

Paul chuckled in amusement. Yes, it was ironic. “Touché.”

“And now, let us go find a more appropriate place for the
lessons on isotopes. I am now the pupil and you the master,” Jaret said with a
bow.

Raising a hand, Paul protested, “Hold on a moment. I can’t
leave Capie! Can’t we have this conversation here?”

Jaret shook his head. “I like a good mountain top. And this
Phipps Peak sounds interesting.”

Paul glanced at his sleeping fiancée. “I won’t leave her
alone.”

Jaret shrugged. “No problem. We will just take her with us.”

The portal took the three of them along with the queen sized
bed Capie was sleeping on to a ledge near the top of Phipps Peak.

“What a wonderful view,” Jaret observed as he scanned the
horizon toward the east. “We won’t be interrupted here. This seems like a good
place for a classroom, don’t you agree?” Jaret asked before taking a deep
breath. “Ah, fresh air.”

“Ah, this makes me a little nervous,” Paul admitted, looking
at the precipice and the ground so far below. What was it with this guy and
mountain heights, anyway? Paul glanced over at the sleeping form of his fiancée.
Capie was still sound asleep, seemingly undisturbed by their little jaunt, her
bed tucked up tight against a granite wall.

Clasping his hands in front of him, Jaret looked at Paul
expectantly. “Now, tell me the secret.”

Paul nodded, pulling his thoughts together, preparing his
version of a classroom lecture. “Okay, as I promised, let’s talk quantum
mechanics. It starts with four very small particles, known as neutrons,
protons, electrons and photons. Memorize those names.”

“Alright.”

“There are other small particles but these four are the most
important to our discussion….”