Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (25 page)

“As near as I can tell, Daneel’s maturing at one hundred
times the normal human rate,” Paul argued. “He doesn’t sleep much anymore. By
my calculations, he will only be out about fifteen minutes. We can afford to
wait that long.” He swung back to Daneel. “Whenever you are ready, son.”

“We have to save Mom. I’m ready now.”

With a deep breath, Paul found a clear spot on the ground
and sat down, settling himself into a comfortable position. “I’m coming in,
Daneel.” Paul glanced over at Merlin, still hovering nearby. “Care to join me?”

“Of course!” Merlin cackled in a loud voice. “I wouldn’t
miss this!”

Paul took a breath. “In the name of
Matrix
,
VR.5
and
Avalon
, may we be able to see inside the RAM of this computer.”

Inside the Scottie, Paul took a moment to look around. The
space was cavernous. Well, 1.2 Petabytes was a
lot
of memory space.

In front of him was the image of Daneel, wearing the same
clothes that he had on in his monitor display.

“How do you feel, young man?” Merlin asked him.

“Just fine,” Daneel assured him. “Dad, will this hurt much?”

“No, son, it won’t,” Paul promised him. “It might put you to
sleep for a while, but acquiring magical powers will not have any other effect
on you,” he told the youngster.

“Okay,” Daneel mumbled.

Turning toward Merlin, Paul motioned over to the center of
the space, where a very large number of multi-stringed lights were merrily
dancing in a highly intricate pattern. “These are his programming algorithms.
These are what we have come to change.”

They moved a little closer to the light display with Daneel
following along slowly behind them. Paul studied the various colored strings
closely.

“Over here,” he pointed out. “This complex of various red
lights. Study it carefully. Notice there are some dark strings inter-mixed,
strings that hardly move. These are configured almost identical to the ones I
saw in my own mind, except mine were all active.”

Merlin and Daneel examined them, Daneel meticulously so. “Okay,
so what do we do next?” Merlin asked.

“Let me hold your hands,” Paul asked of the other two. With Daneel
on his left and Merlin on his right, Paul focused on the light strings.

“In the name of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Egon Spengler,
let the restrictions on this section of programming be removed, that magical
abilities inherent in the coding be allowed to function as normally here as in
a human wizard. So it is said; so shall it be.”

At first, nothing seemed to happen. But then a blue halo of
light engulfed that section of the light strings, expanding rapidly until it
filled all of near space around them.

Daneel gasped loudly in surprise. “Oh, my!” he wheezed, just
as the eyes in his head rolled upward and he started to fall.

Paul released his grip on Daneel’s hand and caught him,
slowly lowering him to the ‘floor.’

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Paul asked, anxious for his
son.

“Yes, of course,” Merlin replied. “The magic has control
right now. He’s just asleep, probably for a few minutes, like you said.”

“Good,” Paul said, nodding in the direction of the lights. “See
that section of coding lights now?”

Merlin gazed over his shoulder at the strings. Moments ago,
the bundle in question had been mostly red, some strands not lit at all. Now,
they were all the brightly lit colors of the entire rainbow, shifting around in
highly intricate complex patterns.

“Pretty,” Merlin observed, a mysterious smile on his face.

• • • •

Back outside, Paul settled down to wait for Daneel to
reawaken. The night air was turning even colder. He turned up the heat around himself.

“We could leave him a note,” offered Merlin mischievously.

Paul shook his head. “He’s getting his electrical power
courtesy of a spell I’m casting. I can’t leave him on his own until he can cast
his own electrical spell.”

“Ah, of course,” muttered the old wizard. “Modern
technology.”

Paul ignored him, settling in to watch Daneel, with the
occasional gaze at the castle.

Thirty minutes crept by and Paul started to get worried.

But then Daneel popped back up on his monitor, his body
swaying slightly back and forth, his eyes blinking unsteadily. His clothes
looked disheveled, as if he’d actually slept in them.

“Hi ya, Pops,” he said, his voice slurred. “‘Uh…had a slight
weapons malfunction, but everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine.
We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?’”

Paul turned a laugh into a snort, recognizing the Han Solo
quote from
Star Wars
. “Are you okay, son?” he asked. “You appear to be
drunk.”

On the computer screen, Daneel waved a hand back and forth.
“Think you I so drunk am am I not as,” he responded.

“Okay, if you say so,” Paul answered, puzzling out what
Daneel had just said, concerned for his son’s well-being. “Daneel, what’s going
on?”

The automaton made a serious effort to get control of
himself. “Coding change…affected bus transfer rates…time
distortion…RAM…psychedelic…effect. Can’t…fix.” Then he relaxed, the image on
the display smiling again.

“So’kay,” he said. “Think as good as I’m goin’ to get.
Readee for the power now, Pops! Let ‘er rip!”

Paul double checked the seven talismans plugged into the USB
ports.

“You’ve got seven talismans. Try casting a spell.”

“Right, Pops!” And the boy’s face turned red as he grimaced
with the effort. Then he sighed. “Nope. Busted!”

“Try again,” Paul urged him hopefully.

“Sure thing, Pops!” Another squinty eyed look appeared on
the Scottie’s face.

This time, a bright ball of white light flashed into
existence in midair several feet away. It quickly coalesced into a life sized
image of Capie, dressed in a beautiful long white dress.

Paul stared at it in total amazement. The holographic image
of his wife winked at them and smiled, before fading from sight.

“Did it!” shouted Daneel, no one more amazed at his power
than he himself.

“Not bad,” Merlin observed. “For a machine. Congratulations,
Paul. You’ve just made history. The first mechanical wizard. Most impressive.”

But Paul shrugged it off. “The credit belongs to Daneel, not
me. Daneel, this next part is very important. I want you to stay here while
Merlin and I sneak into the castle to rescue Mom. That means that you need to
cast a spell to maintain your own electrical power. Can you sense the spell
that I am using for that?”

Daneel closed his eyes in concentration, swaying as he did
so. “Yep, I see it! Weird’o, man! Not file or packet. Wow! How’s that work,
Pops?”

Paul gave him a brief nod. “There are many things you will
learn about magic, Daneel. But right now I need you to concentrate on that
spell. Create your own power, okay? Can you do it?”

“Bang, eh? Stir it up, yep! Here’s a go, Pops!” Once more,
Daneel closed his eyes, his face showing the strain of casting another spell.

Paul could sense more electrical power present, feeding the
power supplies to the quantum computer’s hardware.

“Good, Daneel, excellent. Your spell is working. You need a
bit more. Sixty hertz, not fifty. That’s it. Keep it coming. Now, can you
maintain it?”

“No sweaty! Got it smothered, Pops!”

But Paul could see the strain on the youth’s face. “It’s
very important, Daneel. Keep it going until I can come back. Wait here and try
not to use too much magical energy. But if we’re not back in two hours, then I
want you to create a distraction. Lots of lights and loud noise. Understand?”

“Target pocked, Pop! Get Mom, soonliest! Break an egg! Fin’r
than frog’s dair here!”

The Scottie’s slurred speech worried Paul, but there was
precious little that he could do about it at the moment.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can, Daneel. I promise,” he
declared with conviction, reaching out to touch the side of the monitor
display. “Remember, two hours, create a huge light and sound show.”

“Yeah. Go fastliest!”

Paul smiled grimly and nodded. “Let’s go, Merlin. Please
follow me and be careful.”

Merlin raised an eyebrow. “I was sneaking up on people
before your ancestors learned to say ‘ugh’!” he snapped. “Let’s go.”

Paul squared his shoulders and gritted his teeth. He set off
at a brisk jog toward the castle. It was time to rescue his wife and he was
determined to do all he could to accomplish that task.

“Merlin, here is the plan,” Paul whispered. “I’m going up to
the roof and scan the floors below me for the plutonium 190. When I find the
room that she is in, I’ll cast a spell to let my molecules slide through the
ceiling, down to her location. Then I’ll take her with me, into the ground, if
need be and escape that way.”

Merlin nodded. “Good thinking, young man. That trick you use
going through walls. Just pop in, grab her in your arms and then pop out. Should
work just fine. Simple and straightforward, as I always say.”

Paul nodded, his palms suddenly sweaty, a twinge of the fear
of the unknown—and Transylvania, for crying out loud—running up his spine.
“Hopefully. If it doesn’t, Daneel is plan B. Since I don’t know how much longer
he can hold it together, I hope we won’t need him. Frankly, I hate having to
use him this way at all, but I don’t see a choice. Nor can I afford to wait any
longer to go to Capie’s rescue.”

They reached the edge of the moat.

Count Dracula’s Castle

Mount Izvorul Câlimanului

Transylvania, Romania

September

Friday 11:21 p.m. EEST

P
aul
couldn’t see any way to get into the castle without using magical powers. He
certainly had no intention of swimming the moat! Not that he expected it to be
filled with alligators, but it might have sharpened stakes or such planted in
the water to deal with unwary intruders. It was what he would have done if he
lived here as an
Errabêlu
agent.

Using an absolute minimum amount of energy, Paul floated
slowly up to the peak of the steeply pitched roof of the south wing and cast a
spell on his eyes to extend their range far into the infrared. Then he looked
down ‘through’ the roof. The vague outlines of the rooms below him appeared,
but there were no heat sources of any kind, including any bodies. Carefully, he
began walking the length of the roof. In less than fifteen feet, it finally
dawned on him what her exact location would turn out to be.

In the castle’s single tower, of course, in the southeast
corner. Probably in the top most room too! Dah!

This would make a terrible movie.

The tower was topped with an even steeper pitched roof. Paul
continued onward until he made it to the east end of the building. To reach the
tower, he would have to go part way down the south wing roof and then lean over
to reach the tower roof. Simple. As long as he didn’t slip and fall off the
roof entirely and into the moat. Gee, what fun.

He sat and shimmied his way down the slick slope of tile on
his fanny. His pants were taking a beating but he could always replace them
later. Reaching the valley between the two roofs, Paul leaned over against the
tower. With a spell to encapsulate himself, he poked his head through for a
peek.

The space was circular and unfurnished, the floor seven feet
below him. Four small shuttered windows could be seen. To his right, a wooden
staircase spiraled downward to the next floor. Through that staircase came the
little light that was in the room. There was no one in sight and no evidence
that this room had recently been used.

So okay, she wasn’t here in the top tower room after all.
That theory was busted. But he sensed the plutonium 190 on the floor below him.

Pulling the rest of his body through the roof, Paul dropped
soundlessly to the floor, careful to keep the wooded floor boards from creaking
beneath him. He moved toward the center of the room, feeling his way to stand
directly in the center, and then used his infrared vision to look down.

Yes, indeed, there were several people in the room directly
beneath his feet. Scratch that. Two people
and
a few Oni, judging from
their brighter heat signatures.

His breath caught in his throat. One of the humans was
female! And she was laid out horizontally. Moreover, her heat signature was
decidedly odd, dimmer and fuzzier, the difference obvious but not the reasons
why.

Capie was in trouble and that was indisputable. Paul took
two small steps to line up over her position. Taking a couple of deep breaths,
he enclosed himself in a space-time bubble spell and dropped vertically through
the floor to the room below.

With his arms spread wide, Paul intended to grab Capie as he
fell, but an invisible barrier knocked him aside, shoving him backward to crash
awkwardly to the floor. Stunned, Paul cast a spell to get back up—

—and had both of his arms seized by steel grips, his
talisman yanked off of his arm and away from him by an irresistible force. He
fought back, but he might as well have tried struggling with two gorillas.

“Ah, there you are, Sayyid Armstead!” said an accented
Arabic voice behind him. “At last you have arrived and in such a dramatic way!
I’m most impressed. The madam did tell me you would try to rescue her and,
Sayyid, the lady was indeed right. Sayyid Armstead, allow me to welcome you to
Mount Izvorul Câlimanului in the Kelemen Alps, to the headquarters of the
Errabêlu
organization itself! Welcome, Sayyid, we have much to discuss! And, of course,
you will want to visit with your wife.”

Paul knew without looking that the two gorillas locked onto
his arms were Oni. The pungent smell of their breath was a dead give-away.
However, the Arabic voice was one Paul had never heard before.

Directly in front of him lay Capie, on a raised platform,
her body lying inside a rectangular, silver-tinted, transparent cover of some
type (glass? diamond? transparent aluminum?) that glowed a pale yellow light.
Paul saw no movement at all from Capie; she didn’t even appear to be breathing.

“Oh do relax, Sayyid Armstead,” the voice urged him. “Your
woman is perfectly sound inside that stasis spell. So do not fret. Oh, Ailig,
Eòin, turn him around. I want to see his face.”

Roughly, the Oni thrust Paul around, away from Capie. Now he
could see the other half of the room.

There were six Oni in all, counting the two holding him and
the grinning Oni standing a few feet away with Paul’s talisman in hand. The
other three stood behind a twenty-something looking young man, thin of build,
with black hair, hawkish eyes and a beak for a nose. Dressed in a smoking
jacket, white shirt and khaki pants, he was sitting in a provincial French
chair, his legs crossed, his elbows on the chair arms, and his hands folded
across his chest. McDougall’s talisman was in his lap.

The room was sparsely furnished with only one other chair
and two end tables with lamps. A small unlit fireplace was in the far wall, and
there was a large gold-framed mirror hanging on a section of stone wall behind
the French chair.

“So you are Paul Armstead, in the flesh,” the man said,
smiling. “You don’t look like your pictures at all. Much younger, taller,
better built and distinctly better looking. Definite improvements, all. Much
like your woman has done to herself.” As the man glanced at the grinning Oni,
Paul’s talisman floated through the air and into his waiting hands. “So there
were two of you. A surprise that! It explains so much, of course.” He shook his
head in amazement.

“By the by, my name is Akbar Hamadi, and I am the
Errabêlu
leader in the area that is now called Syria.” He snorted. “But my land has been
called many other names in the past.” He waved an indifferent hand. “But you
care for none of that. Let’s talk of you. You’ve been quite a problem, the two
of you.” And then he smiled. “And now you’re in my hands! It’s simply
wonderful. And I have the privilege of being your captor!”

Sick at the pit of his stomach, Paul kept his mouth shut.
Obviously, this wizard of
Errabêlu
had been waiting for him. But how he
known that Paul was coming? This Hamadi guy implied Capie had told him. But she
was under a—stasis spell? Paul was familiar with the concept, used in several
science fiction movies and books, particularly by the noted author Larry Niven.
Inside the field, time was suspended. Was that really possible? Paul hadn’t
tried to do anything like that himself.

How was he going to get out of this situation? Should he use
his deuterium fusion spell? No, that didn’t seem advisable, at least not yet.
The room was too small, the bad guys all too close to him and to Capie. There
was too great a chance at killing everyone in the room, including his wife.

At the moment, it seemed their fate might be left in
Daneel’s hands, so to speak. Assuming the Scottie was able to hold himself
together. Yeah, right. That suddenly seemed less likely than before. How had
Han Solo put it in
The Empire Strikes Back
? ‘Never tell me the odds.’

Hamadi stood up, leaving Paul’s and McDougall’s talismans on
the seat of the chair and coming closer to Paul. “Capturing your woman was
quite the battle, it was. She’s quite the fighter. You’d be proud of her, the
way she fought back. But, in the end, she is ours, as you see. And she’s been
quite helpful, under the influence of our little Truth Mirror.” The wizard held
out a hand and a small portal appeared, through which a small object floated
into the room.

Paul took a moment to study the item as it drifted into the
hand of the other wizard. It was black and round, perhaps six inches in
diameter, with a handle attached. The oval portion held an ordinary looking
mirror. The handle was an inch wide and a quarter of an inch thick, marked with
a series of lines and scrolls in a repeating pattern. At the top of the mirror,
Paul could see a tiny golden emblem of a medieval shield with crossed swords.

Hamadi frowned. “But she wasn’t able to tell us all of your
secrets, even under the spell of the mirror. Apparently, she knew not all of
your magic! But she did know you would come to rescue her. With a little urging
on our part, she told us how to send a cry of help to you. And here you are!”

So the panicked message Paul had gotten in Haifa had not
been Capie screaming for help. That part was a fake. However, it didn’t matter
how the message arrived, Capie was certainly in danger. And now Paul was as
well.

“Oh, just to let you know, the missus told us that you put a
wizard and a few Oni down on Flint Island in the Pacific Ocean. I will arrange
to have them picked up. A smart idea, to hide them but not kill them.”

The other wizard leaned forward, gently holding out the
mirror, positioning it to one side of Paul’s head. The mirror misted over for a
few moments and then an image of Paul appeared therein. Except that it wasn’t a
true reflection but instead was an image of Paul as he had looked in
California. Older, balder, and heavier.

He tried to fight back but one of the Oni grabbed his hair
to force him to be still.

“Not to worry, Sayyid,” Hamadi assured him. “It’s painless.
You will now answer my questions, truthfully and fully. For instance, have you
given magical powers to any other Normies?”

A numbing sensation settled on Paul, spreading downward from
his head until it filled his entire body. All independent thought ceased and
only the echo of the other’s voice rang in Paul’s mind.

“No,” Paul heard and saw his older image in the mirror say,
“No. No other Normals.”

“But you know how to do so?” Hamadi inquired.

“Yes, many others,” the likeness abstractedly answered.

The questions continued, covering topics from the genie to
Paul’s dealings with Celeste and Ruggiero. Hamadi asked how Paul had given
Capie magical powers. Many of the questions centered on the mental barrier
involved in the Normal-wizard conversion process, a procedure that seemed to
fascinate Hamadi. He also seemed interested in the construction of the
super-talismans that Paul intended to fabricate but dropped that line of
questioning rather quickly when it became obvious that he didn’t understand
Paul’s answers. He did not ask any details on how to create a fusion spell or
how to make his atoms pass through solid objects or any other scientifically
advanced spells.

• • • •

“Olly olly oxen free, POPS!!”

Daneel emerged from a stupor with a start, completely disoriented,
as he levitated into the air and stared around him. The last thing that he
clearly remembered, Dad had been speaking to him, asking him to do something
in, ah, two hours. What had he asked Daneel to do?”

“Magic powers are AWESOME!” he exclaimed. “So
fab-flipping-tastic! Hey, Pops?! Where are you, Pops?”

Daneel fuzzily remembered the conversation with his father.
Oh, right, Dad was going to rescue Mom! She was in trouble. And he was supposed
to wait two hours and then, ah, do something.

But what? Had it been two hours yet? He couldn’t remember
when Dad had left. He wasn’t even sure what time it was now.

So, what was he supposed to do? And when?

• • • •

The questions went on for quite a while. Paul’s body was
drenched in a sweat as a result of the ordeal.

Finally, the
Errabêlu
wizard seemed satisfied and
withdrew the Truth Mirror.

“That’s enough for now,” Hamadi said, with a smile as the
numbness in Paul’s body started to slowly fade. “The Truth Mirror is not
painful, no, but there is a certain draining effect.” He grinned at Paul as he
placed the mirror on the arm of his chair, picking up McDougall’s talisman in
the process. “We’ll talk more about your secrets later. I’m sure we will get
into the nitty-gritty, as you Americans say.”

He studied Paul nonchalantly. “Such innovation, your magic!
My compliments to you both! Seems a real shame to liquidate such talent as
yours. Too bad. But there seems little choice though. Indeed, none at all. It
is a shame.”

He waved at one of the Oni. “Put him to sleep and guard him
well. We will continue the questions tomorrow.”

The two Oni hefted Paul up enough that his feet left the
floor. They were just starting to move toward the doorway when a loud boom
resounded through the room.

Startled, Hamadi glanced around. “Seriousness?! What was
that?” he demanded to know.

But another even louder boom was his only answer.

Paul shook his head in surprise. Daneel. It had to be Daneel
and his distraction! Had it been two hours? Paul’s head was still fuzzy from
the influence of the Truth Mirror. Struggling to think clearly, he tried to
come up with some way to take advantage of the situation, to use Daneel’s
distraction to good effect.

A third louder boom resounded in the room. Paul looked up
sharply to his left. From the sound, Daneel was apparently knocking down walls,
working his way through the castle’s interior towards them!

The west wall suddenly disintegrated, the blast hurling rock
and brick in all directions. All of the room’s occupants, including the Oni,
were thrown violently to the floor, smoke instantly filling the chamber. One
piece of block struck Hamadi in the head and he fell to the floor, his hands
gripping his injured head, moaning.