Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard (30 page)

Paul leaned back uncomfortably in his seat. “Capie did not
tell me about that.”

The professor leaned forward, a glint of ugliness in his eye.
“I would do anything to protect Capie from harm. Anything. If I thought someone—anyone
at all—intended to hurt her, I would do my best to hammer that person into the
ground.” He paused for a moment. “Is my meaning clear?”

“Crystal clear,” Paul replied, the mental image of the
professor whaling away at him with bare-knuckled fists more than a bit
unsettling. “I have grown to appreciate how special of a person she is too. And
if someone did try to harm her...I would hold that person down for you while
you hammered on them.”

Capie’s father blinked in surprise. “You would? That would
be most considerate of you. But what if you were the person that was trying to
hurt her?”

Paul stared into space behind the other man, not really
seeing anything at all. This conversation was every bit as disturbing as he
feared it might be. “I swear to you, sir, I would never do anything to harm her
and would fight anyone who tried.”

“I see,” Chris said, though Paul could easily tell from the
tone of the other man’s voice that he greatly doubted that assertion.

Capie chose that moment to reappear.

“Hello, boys,” she said cheerfully as she propelled her
wheelchair back across the room. “Sorry to take so long. Have you been talking
about me?”

Professor Kingsley smiled generously at his daughter.
“Hardly, dear. Mr. Kaufman was just getting ready to tell me why he enjoys
Chicago’s weather so much. Weren’t you, Mr. Kaufman?”

• • • •

Paul’s time that evening at the professor’s home in Williams
Bay was equally uncomfortable. Chris doted on his daughter but was barely civil
toward Paul. After a restless night in the guest room, Paul joined Capie the
next morning for a continental breakfast in the kitchen nook. By 9 a.m., he was
champing at the bit to climb into Capie’s van and escape.

On the long drive back, the two of them were quiet. It
wasn’t until they were on the Tri-State Tollway bypass that Capie finally
sighed and looked sadly over at him.

“I apologize for my father,” she began. “I had no idea he
was going to be so....”

“Protective?” Paul suggested diplomatically.

“That’s the right word,” she gloomily admitted. “I don’t
know what he said to you, but he gave me quite the earful.”

Paul sighed in sympathetic agreement. He had strongly
suspected what Chris’s reaction to him was going to be. He should have done
more to avert the whole situation. But he was loath to admit that to Capie.

Instead, he quietly said, “You are the only family that he
has left, so it is quite natural that he feels very protective of you. I would
feel the same in his position.”

“Look, don’t take it personally,” she stated with a touch of
grimness in her voice. “I’ll talk to him and explain things to him. As soon as
he gets to know you better, I’m sure he’ll come around.”

“Capie, I....” Paul closed his mouth. He almost told her
that they should stop seeing each other, for her own good. A deep bottomless
pit yawed wide open before him, making him nauseous at the very idea of saying
those words. He just couldn’t force himself to do so.

“I know he’ll come around in good time,” she repeated even
more firmly, then turned to smile enchantingly at Paul. “You’re a good man,
Henry Kaufman. I can tell. He’ll eventually learn to like you. You will see.”

Naperville, Illinois

East Bauer Road

Two-bedroom rental house

May

Wednesday, 10:29 a.m. CST

I
t
hadn’t taken long for Paul to complete his move from South Lawndale to
Naperville. For one thing, he didn’t own all that much in the way of furniture.
And for another, his magical powers made lifting and toting a virtual breeze.
He had spent far more time arranging for the switch of his utilities to his new
rental home than he had hauling all his stuff there.

And of course, the new residence was much closer to Capie’s
house, currently a mere three miles away. Paul was now able to use a constant
healing spell on her, by way of a microportal, with very little energy involved
and very little chance of detection. To make the holding of the constant spells
easier on himself, at Merlin’s suggestion, Paul whipped up a holographic
assistant, a hunched backed mute wearing an old lab coat, which he named Igor.

• • • •

There were still a great many things left to do. Just two
days before, he had finally finished the tantalum conversion process to isotope
180m. Successfully, too. The block of tantalum was just as potent as he had
hoped it would be.

And the last few times he had worked on the conversion of
the tantalum, he had simultaneously started on the chemical alteration of the
bertrandite (which he had purchased) into one large emerald. Bertrandite’s
chemical formula was Be
₄
SiO
₇
(OH)
₂
,
while
emeralds had a very similar chemical formula of Be
₃
Al
₂
(SiO
₃
)
₆
.
Therefore, with a little bit of magical power and a roll of aluminum foil
purchased at the grocery store, Paul had already begun the synthesis process.
Thus far, he had a small 2-carat emerald to show for his troubles. However, his
end goal was a bit more ambitious—eventually turning the small emerald into a
10,000-carat stone, to weigh 4
⅓
pounds. It would take a little time to accomplish that, of course, and Paul
fully understood the task he had set for himself.

The conversion of the bertrandite was just one of a number
of tasks on his list to accomplish. Once the emerald was made, he would also have
to convert its beryllium from
⁹
Be to
¹⁰
Be, the
²⁸
Si
to
²⁹
Si, and the
¹⁶
O to
¹⁷
O. According to his
calculations, this would raise the magical quotient of the emerald almost 340%.
The downside of these operations was that they too would take a great deal of
time to perform, more than twice as long as the conversion of the tantalum.

After that, he still needed to find suitable specimens of
pallasite and komatiite and tackle their conversion as well. That would be
followed by the actual ceremony for the assembly of the components into a
talisman. In addition, there were other projects that he had in mind. And on
top of all of that, there were his efforts to heal Capie’s injury.

All those tasks were sandwiched between the time he was
spending with her on dates and little outings. Indeed, he was seeing her nearly
two or three hours a day. The constant efforts and demands on his time were
beginning to wear on him.

He sat in the living room in the metal folding chair at a
card table, deep in thought. There were times when he just didn’t see how all of
this was going to come together.

“Uncle Sam?” Paul broodingly asked.

The image of the distinguished gentleman appeared, pulled up
his typical imaginary chair, and dropped his hat on the floor.

“How may I help?” he asked Paul civilly.

“I’m feeling overwhelmed,” Paul morosely admitted to him. “It’s
going to take months to finish getting the materials ready for the talisman
ceremony.”

Uncle Sam grunted but did not comment.

Paul hung his head low, putting both of his palms to his
forehead. “And to top everything off, I’ve got to do something about Capie now.
One way or the other.”

“I see. Why is that?” Uncle Sam asked.

With a heavy sigh, Paul gloomily said, “Because yesterday,
Capie told me about a dream she had. She dreamed that feeling was returning to
her legs.”

Uncle Sam cocked his head to one side, looking a bit
puzzled. “And is this not what you wanted? To cure her paralysis?”

“Yes, of course, it is,” Paul admitted dolefully. “But how
will she react when she realizes that she is on the mend? I mean, she has been
told by a score of doctors that she will never walk again. And then, suddenly,
she will start regaining sensation in the lower half of her body, followed by
an ability to move her legs and feet again. How will that be explained?”

The strategist perceptibly raised both of his eyebrows.
“There is something you are not saying here.”

Paul nodded, dejected. “I am in love with her.”

“I see,” the man replied. “That’s normally a cause for
celebration, yet you look as sad as an old goat with no boot to chew on.
Please, continue.”

Paul glanced around the room without actually seeing it, his
gaze focused inward instead. “I kept telling myself to walk away from her. I knew
what was going to happen. I’ve been down this road before. And yet, I wanted to
help her, to cure her. That was part of the reason I told myself to keep seeing
her.” Paul picked up the emerald and casually studied it before laying it back
on the table. “But I didn’t find a cure in time. Now, it is too late. I love
her, and I can’t walk away.”

“You are afraid of how this will impact the Master Plan. Am I
correct?” the hologram guessed.

Paul was more than a bit peeved by the question. Uncle Sam
was supposedly the super intelligence here! He should already know all of this.
“Yes, of course, it impacts The Plan. Don’t you see? I don’t know where to go
from here! I don’t want to abandon The Plan, especially if it might actually
work! But the risk is just too high to involve Capie! If I fail, it will mean
her death too if she is too close to me. I can’t really abandon The Plan, not
even if I wanted to. Because they are still out there looking for me. I don’t
want to live my life on the run, especially if Capie is with me!”

“Penalized either way,” Uncle Sam observed. “To go on with The
Plan or not, that is your question?”

Finally! It appeared that the man had it now. “Yes, that’s
right. You are the strategist. What should I do?”

“You are making an assumption here that may not be valid,” Uncle
Sam replied. “You are assuming that Capie loves you in return. Do you know that
for a fact?”

Paul had to admit it; the man did have a point. “Well...no,
not really. But from the way she acts and all the dates we’ve been on over the
last couple of weeks, I think she does.”

Uncle Sam nodded sagely. “Possibly. But will she still love
you when she finds out the truth about you?”

Uh, yet another good question. “You mean about my identity?”

Uncle Sam speared Paul with a look. “More than that. You
have lied to her repeatedly. About your name, where you came from, and your
job. Also, you have failed to tell her about your magical powers. For some
women, a major omission of fact such as that is as bad as a lie. And you have
failed to tell her that you are casting magical spells on her body.” The
strategist shook his head slowly. “Before you can take your relationship to the
next level, you must tell her the truth, all of it. And when you do,
she
might walk out on
you
!”

Meekly, Paul hung his head, now even more depressed than
before. “Yes, she just might. She does have a bit of a temper.”

“And if she does leave you, then your question about The
Plan will be answered,” the specter pointed out. “You can proceed from there.”

Paul squirmed in his chair. “But what if she doesn’t dump
me?”

“Then you must work with her, as couples do, make joint
decisions, and face the situation together,” the other answered. “However, in
that regard, you should be concerned about one more factor, before you make
your decision.”

“What’s that?” Paul cautiously asked.

“You have magical powers, yes. She does not.” Uncle Sam lifted
his hat and picked some lint off the hatband. “Any relationship between a man
and a woman must be between equals in order to be successful. Therefore, you
must give her the same powers.”

“I planned to—” Paul started to say.

The icon held up a hand, anticipating what Paul was about to
say. “That’s not my concern. It’s what those powers might do to her, how they
will change her, that you must think about. Do you not remember the genie’s apprehension
about how you might use your powers? Well, now, you must make the same judgment
about another person. How will Capie use that power? You cannot deny that your
powers have changed you. They will certainly change her as well. But in what
way? Think about it. And put it into context with The Plan. If she becomes a
wizard too, then you will need to create another enhanced talisman, one for
her. And if you are successful, if The Plan works, she could become one of the
two most powerful people on the planet. Some cannot handle that large of a
change in their lives. Can she?”

Uncle Sam was correct. Paul had not considered that aspect
of the situation at all. Okay, maybe the fellow really was superintelligent.

From experience, Paul knew that love could blind a person to
the realities of the one they loved. He believed Capie to be a decent, honest, and
caring person, but was his assessment correct? Or was he just seeing in her
what he wanted to see?

And even if his current judgment of her was correct, was
Uncle Sam right? Might she change in the future? Like Gary Mitchell in the
Star
Trek
episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” when he acquired almost
godlike powers?

Paul needed to do some serious thinking and to be as
brutally honest about things as possible.

“Are you saying that I shouldn’t take the risk? That I
shouldn’t tell her the truth?” he tentatively asked Uncle Sam.

“Not at all,” the personality replied. “In love as well as
in war, you cannot succeed without risk. But the risk must be carefully evaluated
and balanced against the chance of success. Too much risk can be disastrous,
yes, so you must be careful. However, don’t let the risk paralyze you, either.”

Paul pondered the advice for a minute.

“What would you do?” he asked Uncle Sam. “If you were in my position,
what choice would you make?”

“I really can’t answer that question for you,” the other candidly
replied. “But consider this as well. From time immemorial, men have tried their
best to protect the women they love. But women are not weak. They have been
known to fight alongside their husbands in war. It was that way in the Boer War
and that way in the American West. They are strong in many uncounted ways as
well. Don’t discount their strengths.

“And one more thing,” he said, putting his hat on and
standing up. “I like Capie. She could have quit after her accident. She could
have gone home to Daddy and been an invalid for the rest of her life. Instead,
she lives on her own, has a good job, and is successful in her life. She’s a
fighter. You should take that into consideration, too, when you make a
decision.”

He faded from sight.

Paul’s ears burned. The strategist was right. He did indeed
have a good deal to think about.