Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (35 page)

McDougall seemed not to notice, watching the light in the
room reflect off his talisman.

“Assemble all the Oni,” he ordered sternly. “We’re going to
break them into teams, each team with a gemstone. I’ll provide the energy signature
that they need to look for my medallion talisman. We’ll start in the eastern
United States and also near Chicago and sweep outward from those two places. If
Paul Armstead is in the United States using my talisman, it will be a short
search. If he is not, it might take a bit longer, but we will find it and we
will find him.” McDougall snapped his attention to the Oni. “He is not to be
harmed by any Oni, only located, understand? It will be my privilege to kill
Paul Armstead, slowly and in the most painful way possible. That will be my privilege.
Understood?”

And what could Aduir say to that other than an enthusiastic
“Yes, sir.”

• • • •

At the large workbench in Warehouse 13, with Daneel watching
over his shoulder, Paul performed a series of checks on the latest CPU, designated
as Mark#4. It powered up fine and everything Paul could check with his magical
instruments said it was operating up to spec. But that was only the preliminary
checks. Unit#3 had performed as well but was rejected for other, more subtle
performance problems.

Daneel spoke up.

“It’s time for me to connect to it and check it out, Dad,”
he told him. “‘I’ll bet any quantum mechanic in the service would give the rest
of his life to fool around with this gadget.’”

Paul grinned. “Chief Engineer Quinn,
Forbidden Planet
.”
And then he chuckled a bit. It was an appropriate quote. He just wished he had
thought of it first. “You know the drill. This is just a checkout. Don’t risk
your programming code. I don’t want to chance losing you if we have made a
mistake and this doesn’t work out right.”

“Agreed. I’m ready when you are,” Daneel announced. “If you would
connect the cable to the LAN switch, I can do the additional functionality
checks.”

Paul fished a Cat 6 cable from a pile of cables on the
workbench and made the connections.

He waited patiently for several minutes. Daneel’s image
popped back up on his monitor screen.

“There’s good news and bad,” the young man announced. “Dad,
this unit is the closest yet. Memory checks are good and all the quantum
processors ran diagnostic checks with no errors. All the Arithmetic Logic Units
performed the bit tests correctly too. And the heat values are marginally
better than Unit#3.”

“And now the bad news,” Paul muttered with a frown.

Daneel’s boyish face on the monitor screen nodded. “The
residual transfer rates are still out of synch, even after the bus
modifications and re-routing. It is improved, roughly 20% better. But still out
of tolerance. Maybe if we gate synch the outputs of IC 16.”

“Maybe,” Paul muttered as he studied the electrical
schematic in the display in front of him. “Let’s simulate that and see what we
get.”

Room 208

York Hotel

Hannan Street

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

October

Tuesday 12:14 a.m. AWST

L
ife
in Kalgoorlie for the Neumanns finally reached the impossible stage. It was
almost as if the entire city was caught up in the fever to be involved, in one
capacity or another, with the production of the ‘science-fiction move’ that the
Neumanns were making.

For their part, Capie and Paul were using disguise spells to
prevent themselves from being recognized, using portals to and from their room
and ordering fast foods for their meals instead of eating at restaurants.

The final straw came at just past midnight when someone
began, at first, knocking on their hotel room door and a minute later, pounding
fiercely on it.

Leaping out of bed, Paul quickly grew so angry that he was
halfway through a spell to drop the offender at the door through a portal onto
the dry lakebed of Lake Lefroy forty miles south of Kalgoorlie. But Capie
grabbed her husband, preventing him from completing the spell.

Instead, Paul snatched open the door, only to discover that
the guilty party was the local reporter, the same one that had apparently grown
tired of waiting for the Neumanns to respond to his thirteen messages and phone
calls that he had left for them at the front desk.

The reporter looked up, startled, as if he really hadn’t
expected that anyone would answer the door. Then he grinned like a Cheshire
Cat.

“Well, hello!” the man said, putting on the charm. “Mr. Neumann,
I presume. I hope that I haven’t disturbed you, but my editor insisted. I’m
afraid that I’m can’t leave until you’ve answered a few questions. It won’t
take but a few moments.” And he pushed past Paul into the room.

With a wicked grin, Capie, with a snap of her fingers, put the
jackass to sleep in mid-stride whereupon she then levitated him up and over,
dumping him onto the bed. Then she started changing her clothes and throwing
things into her suitcases. When Paul realized what she was doing, he jumped in
to help.

Once their bags were fully packed, he popped open a small
portal, leaving an envelope with a substantial packet of money on the desk
clerk’s countertop next to the cash register. Then he whipped up another much
larger portal, taking them to the front door of the Comfort Inn Bay of Isles in
Esperance, Western Australia. Despite the late hour, the desk clerk at the
Comfort Bay seemed delighted to rent a room to two young but somewhat rumpled
and lethargic American tourists.

• • • •

Aduir bit its tongue against a fresh urge to turn and flee. If
there had been even a remote chance that flight might have been possible, then
it would have tried it. But no, it knew that there was no chance, so it forced
itself to ease open the door instead and inch into the room.

McDougall was pacing back and forth in front of the open
hearth of the fireplace, his hands behind his back, his head tilted downward,
deep in thought.

“So the monster is not in North America, heh?” McDougall announced
with an angry snarl. “That’s what you came to tell me, heh?”

“Yes, sir,” mumbled Aduir almost inaudibly. Inside, it was
vastly relieved that his master already knew the bad news. There were times,
especially in service to
this
master, when the messenger really did get shot,
and not just figuratively either. But apparently, not this time.

“Well, okay, so he was smart enough to hide somewhere else
on the planet,” McDougall muttered in even greater anger. “We’ll just have to
expand the search. And I’ll have to contact some of the other wizards to get
their permission to search for Armstead, just like that idiot Ruggiero had to
do in Mexico and in the United States.” He paced a few more steps before
stopping in front of the den’s single bay window. “I’m on speaking terms with the
wizards in Argentina, Spain, Greece, and India. I’ll start with them. And we
don’t need permission to search some countries from the open seas. I’ll work up
a schedule for each of the teams. If we have to scour the whole planet, we will
find him and my talisman. Heaven help the scum then.”

• • • •

CPU Mark#7 was the latest and apparently the last version,
performing up to all specifications in every way it was tested. The delta
difference in quantum processor transfer rates for the subroutines involving
the use of magic was finally resolved, the maximum difference now less than
0.7%. Close enough for government work, as they used to say at Edwards Air
Force Base about a dozen times a day.

After conducting all the tests and checks that they could
think of running, Daneel had moved into the new quantum computer, declaring it
superior to the old one in several different ways. However, just to be sure,
Paul had him run several additional benchmark tests.

“Everything’s great, Dad!” Daneel declared. “I’ve run her
around the block several times now and she purrs like a kitten.”

“Mixed metaphor there, son,” Paul noted with a touch of
irony. “Have you checked the software patch against the hardware mods?”

“Yep, a dozen times so far. Every run was well within
tolerance. Dad, I’m ready to try the warp drive now. If you and Merlin would do
the honors, I’d really like to get my magical powers now, pretty please?’

Paul frowned and scratched an ear. “I can’t think of a
reason not to, I guess. Before we do, I want you to make two backups of
yourself, okay?”

“No sweat. Give me a few minutes and I’ll have it right as
rain.”

“Go easy on the clichés, son, if you please. While you are
working on the backups, I’ll call on Merlin and brief him on what we want.”

“Paul?”

He turned around and found Capie emerging from a portal
looking very distraught.

“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked, suddenly very concerned.

“Paul, I…” was all she could say. With a snap of her
fingers, a display appeared in midair. A blond haired reporter in a long white
sleeve shirt with dust and soot on his face was talking.

“It’s hard to say how many dead there are here, Michelle,” he
was saying, microphone in hand. “As you know, Yom Kippur is one of their most
sacred holidays here in Israel. Lots of people in the synagogues. So far, there
have been confirmed reports of attacks on at least twelve of those synagogues,
seven in Jerusalem, three in Tel Aviv, one in Haifa. In one case, there was a
report of an SUV driving down the street with bombs being thrown out the
windows at people entering a neighborhood synagogue. The situation here in
Jerusalem is one of total confusion, mostly because of the holiday. The death
toll might well be in the thousands, certainly in the hundreds. We won’t know what
the final count will be, Michelle, until the Israeli government gains control
of the situation here.”

Capie waved away the display. “Paul, we just have to do
something
.”

Paul nodded. “We’re working as fast as we can. In another few
hours or so, we will have Daneel up and running as a Scottie. In a little over
a week we will finish the work on the
Sirius Effort
. And in the same week,
you’ll have conversions done on all the isotopes, and we’ll be ready to hold
the chutzpah ceremony.”

“A week!”

“It would have taken even longer than that without your work
on improving the conversion process, making it both more efficient and faster.”

“I hear what you are saying but…”

He drew her into his arms. “We can only do what we can do.
Our magical powers do not make us gods.”

“If Israel still exists in a week…” she muttered.

“Dad,” Daneel interrupted quietly. “I’m ready whenever you
are.”

“Merlin?” Paul said, pulling back from Capie. “We need you.”

• • • •

“Care for a drop of Bundy?” Patrick McNamee asked, holding
forth a tall dark bottle with a red label.

“Thanks,” replied McDougall, watching as Patrick poured half
a small glass with rum and then levitated the tumbler through the air over to
his ‘guest.’

They were sitting in a magnificently furnished library in
Patrick’s mansion not far from Canberra, Australia.

McDougall used a small spell to chill the liquid in the
glass to his favorite temperature of 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Swirling the dark
liquid in circles, he watched the dance of the reflections from the room lights
twinkle on its surface.

Then he took a sip.

“Good stuff,” he commented with appreciation as he leaned
back in his seat.

Patrick grinned and poured himself a glass of the dark
liquor as well. “So the rumor is true blue, aye? There’s a new wizard running
around, a cheeky bloke and as cunning as a dunny rat. And he cadged your
talisman and he’s back of beyond, somewhere here in Oz.”

“A little east of Perth, we think,” answered McDougall,
after another sip of his drink. “I don’t know what he is up to out in the
outback, but he’s using a lot of magical energy to move things around and
perform a few spells I don’t understand. But there’s no denying that he is
there.” McDougall looked up at his host. “With the levels he using, I’m a
little surprised that you didn’t notice.”

Patrick shrugged nonchalantly. “You know how it is. The
Normies here are dongos. I’ve been as busy here in Canberra as Bourke Street
during the rush hour keeping them under control.” He glared down into his
glass. “And Perth is over 3,100 kilometers distant. Australia’s a mite big to
watch everything all the time.” After a brief pause, he continued. “What do you
need from me, other than my permission? And at least a half dozen Oni to help
you, of course.”

McDougall smiled. “To help keep me honest, you mean, while
I’m in your territory.” But he held up a hand to forestall any objections.
“I’ll take them, of course. This will be short and sweet. We will move in fast,
surround Armstead and take him captive. A few hours at best and I’ll be out of
your hair.”

Patrick held up his now empty glass. “Let’s have another and
toast your success.”

• • • •

Very early Friday morning in the Gulf of Hormuz, an hour
before sunrise, Iran raised the stakes of the game, firing two anti-ship
Kowsar
medium range missiles from Lesser Tunb Island just west of the Strait. The
first missile scored a direct hit amid-ships of an escort—the one hundred and
ten foot Island Class Patrol Boat, the US Coast Guard Cutter
Monomoy
—which
sank within two minutes. The second one hit the 1,243 foot long Belgium
registered Very Large Crude Carrier
Ti Europe
, carrying nearly 3.2
million barrels of oil. Impact was on the tanker’s starboard stern quarter.
Leaking and on fire, her captain turned her south southeast in an effort to
make Dubai.

She nearly made it, the crew abandoning ship to be picked up
by three corvettes of the United Arab Emirates Navy two hours after sunrise.

Of the crew of the
Monomoy
, fourteen died and two
survived, but the survivors were picked up by an Iranian patrol boat.

Mere hours after the attack in the Strait, Hamas and the
Army of Islam in Gaza began firing volleys of
Qassam
rockets into
southern Israel while Hezbollah launched
Katyusha
rockets from Lebanon. And
then Syria and ISIL launched BM-21
Grads
and longer ranged tactical
ballistic
Fateh
-110 missiles at more specific targets in northern
Israel.

The attacks, coordinated by cell phones, went on for more
than half an hour before the launchers scurried for cover from retaliation by
Israeli F-16s.

Guidance systems for all of the rockets and missiles used in
the attacks were notoriously inaccurate (though the
Fateh
-110’s performed
the best). But enough hit a target and killed a sufficient number of civilians
to spread terror and more panic through the Israeli civilian population.

• • • •

Friday evening, Paul and Daneel were waiting in their room
at the Comfort Inn Bay when Capie finished work for the day. She portaled in
and dropped the komatiite rock on the small desk and fell full length backwards
onto her bed.

“Well, what a surprise, to see the two of you home so
early,” she muttered, suppressing a yawn. “I thought the two of you would still
be working on—what version was it? Oh, yeah, number 7. So, how did it go?”

On his monitor display, Daneel laughed. Without warning, a
full sized holographic image of the young man appeared in the middle of the
room between the two beds. Capie’s mouth dropped open in surprise as the image
of the Scottie flashed his arms back and forth, abruptly coming to a halt and holding
up a large manila envelope.

“Nothing up my sleeves,” he proudly boasted, then opened one
end of the envelope and blew into it, hard. The envelope expanded, now forming a
cardboard box roughly an inch thick. Daneel unfolded the top, reached in with one
hand and pulled forth a perfectly round bowling ball, smacking it on one side
to show how substantial and ‘real’ that it was.

He grinned. “I saw this on an episode of “The Carbonaro
Effect.” Pretty good trick, heh?”

Capie was up and off the bed in a single bounce, reaching
out to ‘hug’ the hologram. When that didn’t work, she turned and hugged the LCD
monitor instead.

“You’ve done it!” she shrieked. “You’ve got magical powers
now! Let’s celebrate! Daneel, where would you like to go?”

There wasn’t a moment of hesitation on Daneel’s part.
“Bungee jumping!”

• • • •

Saturday morning arrived. The sun was out, the temperatures
were mild and there was a real feel of spring in the air.

Capie noticed and appreciated the beautiful day since,
according to her best estimate, in the next day or so she would be finished
with the conversions of all the elements in the komatiite rock. The conversions
on the emerald isotopes had been completed over a week ago, that crystal now stored
alongside of the tantalum block at the open pit mine.