Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (9 page)

The Big Island, Hawaii

Hapuna Beach

July

Tuesday 9:16 a.m. HAST

I
mmediately
after the funeral, Paul took Capie on a worldwide tour, avoiding all of the
capital cities of the planet but visiting a great many tourist traps strung
across the globe. In the process, Paul discovered that there were eighty-eight
nations and territories where English was spoken as a primary or secondary
language. And the newlyweds stopped in quite a few of them.

Paul tried to help Capie deal with her grief not only by
giving her lots of attention, but also by giving her lavish gifts such as
clothing, jewelry, gourmet chocolates, a hardcover set of George RR Martin’s
Song
of Fire and Ice
series, and even a one foot tall jade statuette of Elsa,
the snow queen from the Disney movie
Frozen
. He had personally mined the
jade in Guatemala and the sculpture was a gorgeous deep blue-green with white
flecking.

In addition, he made a special effort to take her to a
multigenre convention, the ConnectiCon, in Hartford Connecticut, one of the
larger such conventions, with over 10,000 in attendance. For three days, they
had immersed themselves in anime, comics, fantasy and science fiction
workshops, panels, contests and even a costume dance. Paul had whipped up a
Captain Marvel outfit while Capie dressed as Firestar. From all Paul could
tell, Capie had seemed to enjoy the convention.

Even after the convention, her mood, overall, seemed to be very
slowly improving. The death of her father had hit her very hard but life moved
on and she appeared to be slowly dealing with the loss and the pain. But deep
inside himself, he still had his doubts. He was very worried about her.

• • • •

Basking in the warm Pacific summer sun, Paul shifted
slightly in his beach chair to a more comfortable position, continuing to
admire the gorgeous view of the vast blue Pacific Ocean and the white sandy
beach of Hawaii. And too, he was getting quite the eyeful of his increasingly
beautiful wife, currently dressed in that tantalizingly small bikini.

The two of them were sunbathing on Hapuna Beach on the Big
Island of Hawaii, the warm summer sun toasting them a deeper shade of brown,
while listening to the hypnotic sound of the surf lapping against the white
sand. In Paul’s humble opinion, the scene was incredibly idyllic. And he hoped
that Capie found it that way too. That was the major reason that they were
here, to help her in her recovery. However, in reality, he wasn’t all that
convinced that his efforts were having the entire desired effect. He could only
guess what Capie was thinking.

He would have been horrified to have known that his
assumptions weren’t even close to being correct.

Three weeks had gone by since the funeral. Three of the most
painful weeks of Capie’s life.

She had managed to move beyond the denial stage now. But what
she currently felt was even worse than that terrible empty loneliness. Now
there was a war in her soul, a war fought with pure raw emotions, a war that
was internally tearing her apart.

On the one hand, she felt an incredible anger and hatred. A
pure hot flame of emotion was intensely focused on murdering the wizards of
Errabêlu.
She wanted nothing more than to kill them, each and every one of them, to get
her hands around their necks and slowly strangle the life out of them. She
could visualize every moment involved, the gasping of their breath, the bulging
of their eyes, the clammy feel of their skin as she slowly increased the
pressure on their throats. And, most of all, she visualized the thrill she
would feel, the intense satisfaction, the anticipation of their deaths as each
wizard succumbed to the lack of oxygen, as life fled their bodies.

But then, on the other side, there was the guilt.

It was the other raw emotion tearing at her, assaulting her
mind with seemingly never ending waves of pain. Her father’s death was her own
fault. There could be little doubt. She could have prevented it. She could have
easily saved him from being killed. There were a thousand things she could have
done to have avoided it. Simple things too. And her imagination proceeded forth
to list the possibilities in minute detail. All the things that in hindsight,
she should have done to have saved his life. All the things that she should
have done, because she owed him a million times over for the type of father
that he was. What a worthless, ungrateful, wretched excuse for a daughter she
was, to have turned away from him at a critical moment, the one time that he
most needed her, choosing that one crucial moment to have run off for selfish
purposes, leaving him alone and defenseless to face the evil wizards of the
world and thereby sealing his fate.

He’d died because of her choices, her greed and selfishness.
A whole host of inner voices screamed this at her, her every moment.

It was bad enough that this internal onslaught of war went
on and on inside her soul during the daylight hours. But it was infinitely
worse at night.

The nightmares plagued her every time she went to bed and
closed her eyes. They inundated her the whole night long, constantly waking
her, tormenting and torturing her. The only way she was able to get any sleep
at all was with a constant magical spell. But even magic could only go so far.

The nightmares differed in detail, but the theme was nearly
universal. Her father would be there, trapped by an unseen danger, his life in
imminent peril. And she had the power to save him. Sometimes, in the clutches
of the nightmare, she was indifferent to his fate and she let him die without
lifting a finger. In other versions, she was racing to save him, fighting
terrible almost insurmountable odds to reach him first but always, without
fail, arriving just a few moments too late to prevent his suffering and death.

Her father had been the bulwark of her life, the foundation
on which everything she trusted and depended on was based. Now he was gone and her
guilt at his loss was destroying her sanity.

Capie really wanted to turn to Paul, to reach out to her new
husband for support and strength. She wanted to lean on him like she had leaned
on her father all of her life. She sensed that Paul had that same inner strength
and that she could depend on him to help her through this tragic event in her
life.

But what if he
couldn’t
help? What if she was wrong
about him and he was too weak to help? Or what if he got tired of comforting
her, helping her with her depression, her fears, her doubts and most of all,
the racking guilt she was experiencing? Where would she go then?

Oh, Capie loved Paul fiercely. She hadn’t exaggerated at all
when she had admitted being in love with him almost from the moment she had first
seen him. He was everything she had ever wanted in a man, going all the way
back to her childhood, when she had first become interested in men.

However, Capie knew that their relationship, as yet, was neither
fully developed nor fully tested. And although she was internally wracked with
guilt and rage, she did her best to hide these emotions from her husband. Instead,
she bent her efforts to pretend as if she were recovering from her emotional
trauma.

Intellectually, Capie understood how anxious Paul was to get
back to work on his Master Plan and to leave Earth. There were a million things
he had to do to get ready for that trip and a billion things to do once they
reached Martian soil. But he wasn’t working on any of them right now. She was
in his way. He was spending every waking moment on her, seeing to her needs and
wants. Yes, she had not a single doubt that Paul was patiently waiting on her to
give the word so that he could resume his work.

She was holding things up for him. Her weaknesses, her
emotional battle, her nightmares, her guilt.

Her.

And every day that she delayed him was another day that the
people who had murdered her father still walked the surface of the planet.
Every day that went by gave them more opportunities to commit murder and
plunder and create more pain and suffering for the Normals. And every day she
held Paul back delayed the day of retribution and vengeance for her father’s
murder.

With a heavy sigh, she decided that it was time to shove aside
her emotions. Time to pretend that her suffering and grief was sufficiently in
the past for them to get on with Paul’s plan.

She looked intensely forward to the day when every other
wizard on Earth was lying dead at her feet.

Capie turned, raised her sunglasses and calmly asked, “When
are we going to go back to work?”

Paul smiled gently, reaching over to lightly squeeze her
arm, and replied, “Not until you are ready.”

She nodded, expecting that answer, idly fingering the
talisman on her arm that she taken from one of the Oni back in Chicago.

“Tomorrow,” she firmly declared. “We will go back to work
tomorrow.”

Silently, Paul breathed a sigh of relief. After three weeks,
he had begun to wonder if she might refuse to participate in the Plan at all.

“We are going to make them pay, right?” she asked him
hesitantly, but a hint of true steel in her voice. “For all the deaths they
have caused?”

“Big time pay,” Paul reassured her. “All of them. They’re going
to regret the day they ever tangled with an engineer and the daughter of a
famous astronomer.” He reached over and squeezed her hand this time. “We’ll go
back to the mainland in the morning.”

“And from there to Mars?” she asked, a slight quaver to her
voice.

Paul shook his head slowly as he gave her an understanding
smile. “No, not for a few months yet. We need to first work on the artificial
intelligence program and maybe even build the first Scottie,” he said,
referring to the Sentient Computerized Optimal Theurgical Talismanic Integrated
Engineer, the creation of which was essential in his operational plan to free
the world from domination by the evil wizards of
Errabêlu
.

“Oh?” Capie asked, letting slip some of the surprise she
felt at his answer.

To which Paul offered another quick smile. “Obviously, we
will be more comfortable here on Earth than on Mars while we are working on the
A.I. program. And also, I intend to consult with some of the leading experts in
the field of artificial intelligence—well, with their avatars, that is, to help
us in the design stage. And too, if we find that we can’t create an A.I., then
it would be pointless to go to Mars. At least, not until we come up with a new
plan.”

“That makes sense,” she responded, her eyes wide and
glowing. “So, if we are not going to Mars next, then where are we going?”

“The place where there are more experts working on
Artificial Intelligence than any other location on the planet,” asserted Paul
with a playful grin. “Silicon Valley.”

“Good!” she declared, leaning forward to grab a large beach
towel. “California, huh? San Jose, right? Much better than Mars. Let’s go
tonight. I want to make things happen as soon as possible. I want to stop those
monsters from murdering more of the innocent people of this planet!”

Rental House

Magdalena Rd

Los Altos Hills, CA

July

Friday 1:51 p.m. PDT

“Y
ou’re
really quite fortunate,” crowed the real estate agent as she followed Capie and
Paul into the master bedroom. “This house just came on the market yesterday. I
didn’t know about it myself until this morning.”

“What a happy coincidence!” muttered Capie with a trace of
sarcasm, as she peered into a spacious walk-in closet.

“The owner has taken a job transfer but doesn’t want to sell
the place just yet, not until the housing market improves a little more,” the
agent babbled on. “It’s really a wonderful place, lots of room and a wonderful
sized lot. Oh, I will need references and to run a credit check and I will need
a copy of your paystub before you sign the lease.”

“No problem,” Paul assured the woman with an artificial
smile. “The five bedrooms are really nice. Which way is the garage?”

“Right down this hallway and through the kitchen,” was the
enthusiastic reply. “Now, some people might think the price is a little steep,
but after all, this is California and you are within commuting distance of the entire
valley. And this place is just wonderful, tucked up in the hills here. Oh, and
you must see the back deck! A wonderful place for parties! Just come this way…”

• • • •

Later that evening found the two of them at the Opal
Nightclub, a local hotspot for dancing with high energy lights, a ten foot LED
video wall, two DJs, and strategically placed video screens mounted around the walls.

The energy in the nightclub was fantastic, more than a
hundred people cutting loose on the dance floor, spotlights swinging back and
forth, their colors rotating through the spectrum, strobes flashing and the
music roaring at high volume. Moreover, folks were dancing, shouting, drinking,
laughing, and obviously have a grand time.

The atmosphere was working on Capie, Paul could tell, the
moment that they stepped through the front doors. And it didn’t take much
convincing to get her out on the dance floor either.

“Thanks for bringing me here, Dom,” she said, using a small
spell to cast her voice directly to his ears, letting Paul hear her over the
volume of the music and the shouts of the crowd. Casually watching two girls
dancing nearby, Capie started imitating their moves, stepping back and forth,
rolling her body and waving her arms in synch with the beat.

“You’re welcome, CB,” he said, using the same audio spell to
carry his words to her. He too took note of the moves of other dancers on the
floor. Since he had not danced in decades, he found the dance steps (if they
could even be labeled as such) that the other men in the room were using to be
quite challenging. However, another spell cast on himself was of enormous
assistance and in seconds, he was doing a tolerable job of fitting into the dance
scene.

Capie had apparently done the same, her style improving so
rapidly, it now seemed quite flawless. “Wow, this place is great! I’ve not
danced since before the accident. This is fantastic!”

He grinned at her then switched to a more difficult dance
step.

She laughed at him and said, “I’m glad that you sold that
extra gold yesterday. We’re going to need it if we stay here very long. It’s nice
here!”

“Not ‘nice.’ It’s ‘wonderful,’ remember?” Paul commented
with a huge grin.

“Yes, well, she did overwork that word just a little bit,
didn’t she?” Capie twittered in laughter. “I bet she says the same thing to all
of her clients!”

“No doubt. Speaking of money, we’re going to need a nice
chunk of change when we move into that house,” Paul declared with conviction. “The
way I see it, it’s going to be a few days before the movers clear out all the
owner’s furniture. By then, we will need our own furniture, a least one vehicle—”

“I’ll do the shopping, thank you, dear,” Capie interrupted
him briskly. “I’ve seen your taste in furniture…or rather the lack thereof.”

Paul clasped one hand to his chest. “Ouch! Direct hit with
that one, CB. Please, be my guest. You may do all the shopping. Well, except
for the tools, the computers, the electronics—”

She held up her hands to admit defeat. “Whoa, big boy. All
the technical stuff is yours, no argument. So, we have a few days before the
place is ours. I want to visit every dance nightclub in the valley!”

• • • •

“Enjoying yourself?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

Kenneth McDougall spun around, desperately searching the
beach behind him.

He had waded a few feet out into the lake, the better to reach
over, cup his hand and drink from it. It didn’t taste very good, but then, it
was lake water. He had more or less gotten accustomed to it over the past few
weeks.

On the sandy beach, not far from the tree line, was a shimmering
holographic image of a man. As McDougall hurriedly splashed back to the shore
to slip his shoes on, he was able to see the image more clearly.

“
You
!” he shouted. “You’re that rogue wizard! Paul
something-or-another! Armstead! Paul Armstead! So you
are
the one
responsible for putting me here!”

The semi-transparent image of Paul smiled and produced a
half bow. “Guilty as charged. But I came bringing gifts.” And he waved a hand toward
a small stack of boxes sitting in the sand a few yards away.

“I demand that you let me go!” screamed McDougall. “And that
you give me back my talisman!”

Paul’s smiled faded. “And I demand that you give me back the
life of my father-in-law.”

McDougall’s eyes narrowed. “Who? Blah, nonsense!” He marched
right up to the hologram, getting nose to nose with it and spat through the
image. “Give me back my talisman!” he screamed.

The image of Paul disappeared, then reappeared thirty feet
away.

“I can see that you are not rational at the moment. Perhaps
tomorrow,” the simulacrum said.

And before McDougall could say anything else, the hologram
disappeared completely.

Around noon the next day, McDougall was slowly munching on a
roasted chicken leg, one of the food items that he had found in the stack of
boxes left behind by that rogue wizard. There were a few other items of food
therein too. Also some seasonings, two sharp knives, some fish hooks, two
containers of worms, a map, a plastic tarp, a pencil, and a blank diary.

He hadn’t known until he had looked at the map just where he
was. Oh, he had explored the area and knew that he was on a relatively small
island, roughly 500 feet wide at its widest and a little over 2000 feet long. And,
from the temperatures at night, he had guessed it was in Canada.

There was nothing to see from the island except to the
southeast. The best he could tell through the haze, there was another, larger
island in that direction. But no structures on it that he could see. And it was
too far to swim to.

However, the map he now held told him that he was on Little
Sandy Island in the middle of Lake Winnipeg in Canada. The other island was Big
Sandy Island. Both, according to the map, were uninhabited. And both of them were
a long long way from any other land. Much further than he could ever hope to
swim.

As he was eating, he flexed his right arm, the one that had
been mysteriously broken the night of the attack in the Chicago hospital.
Though he didn’t have a talisman, he was still able to cast enough of a magical
spell to speed the healing process. For all intents and purposes, it was back
to normal once more.

He was just finishing the chicken leg when the hologram of
Paul Armstead appeared again, several feet in front of him.

For the moment, McDougall just stared at it in contempt.
Then he threw the bone at the image, which sailed straight through.

“Care to talk?” the hologram asked.

“No. Just give me back my talisman,” McDougall snarled
angrily. “In exchange, I promise to make your death swift, clean and painless.”

Paul flinched, but gritted his teeth. “My patience is not
unlimited. I am prepared to pay you in exchange for some information.”

McDougall snickered in scorn. “The smartest thing you could
do is to let me go. Otherwise, I promise to kill you very slowly and in the
most painful way possible.”

The image shook its head again. “Perhaps tomorrow you will
be a little more cooperative.”

And just like that, the hologram was gone again.

The next day, a whole steak dinner arrived first, laid out on
a small card table. There was even a folding metal chair to sit in.

McDougall had not had anything really substantial to eat in
weeks. Nothing except crackers, Ramen noodles, Girl Scout cookies, and the one
box of roast chicken the previous day. Oh, too, there were a few berries he had
found on the island. By contrast, the steak dinner was a virtual feast and he
laid into it with the fervor of a condemned man eating his last meal.

As he finished, another hologram of Paul appeared in front
of him.

What a surprise.

“What is it that you want?” McDougall asked, wiping the back
of his mouth with a dirty sleeve. “And what are you prepared to offer me?
Money? Ha, that would be useless here, don’t you agree?”

“Your sarcasm is noted,” the hologram of Paul replied. “I am
prepared to offer a great many things, other than your freedom.”

“Such as?” sneered McDougall.

“Things like more food, fishing gear, clothing, soap, camping
gear, cooking utensils, building materials for a hut, a variety of tools and
such. If your information is good enough, I will even consider relocating you.”

“What, to another island?! Blah, nonsense!” groused McDougall
scornfully.

“A
tropical
island,” Paul said with a sadistic smile.
“Imagine how much better that might be in, oh, say another four or five
months.”

McDougall said nothing for several moments, choosing to
scowl at Paul instead. But then, his expression morphed into a smile of his own.

“Look here, friend,” the Canadian said, placing both hands
squarely on his hips. “It’s said that you are a Normie lover, right? So, you
need to rethink this whole thing here. Let me go. If you don’t, a lot of
Normies are going to die.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Paul asked, skeptical.

The Canadian crossed his arms over his burly chest and
produced a wintry smile.

“I’ve a great many sources of information,” he arrogantly
told Paul. “One or two other wizards are planning something rather nasty. I’ve
seen this sort of thing a few times before, over the centuries. Now, if you
will hand over my talisman, I’ll see to it that their plans come to naught. Who
knows how many Normies I’ll save that way?”

Paul considered the offer for a few seconds, but then shook
his head.

“Nice try. I tell you what. If your information is good,
I’ll trade you in commodities.”

But McDougall glowered back. “Naw. My freedom or a lot of
Normies are toast. Your choice.”

 With a wave of dismissal, Paul said, “No deal. But let me
make a different offer then. I’m looking for background information only,” he
told his prisoner. “Which I will trade items of value for. I want nothing of
tactical or strategic significance. Just background. If you are not interested,
just say so and I promise to go away and never come back.”

McDougall scowled at the rejection of his offer. For a few
seconds, he mulled over Paul’s proposal. There was little on the island to eat
and little to do. Moreover, he was losing weight on the bland food that he did
have. He would dearly love to get off this island and back to the civilized
world. So perhaps, if he strung this idiot along, an opportunity might arise
that he could take advantage of.

Perhaps.

“What do you want to know?” he asked with another scowl.

• • • •

For nearly a week, it became routine. Every day in the early
morning, a holographic image of Paul would show up, bringing payment for the
information he had received the previous day. Then he would explain what he
wanted to know that day and they would negotiate a price for it. Paul would ask
his questions and McDougall would talk for a while in answering them. The whole
exercise never seemed to take very long, never more than an hour, and
frequently only half that long. And McDougall was already building up quite a
small mountain of supplies in the exchanges.

As on previous days, McDougall greeted Paul on the fifth day
with the usual insincere smile.

“Every day you delay accepting my offer,” he said, “makes it
all the more likely a lot of Normies are going to die.”

By this time, Paul was indifferent to the reminder, which he
had now heard and ignored several times. He rejected the suggestion without a second
thought.

“Not today,” Paul said. “Instead, I want to ask you a
question.”

McDougall shrugged but remained quiet, his face expectant.

“You’re Canadian, right? So what were you doing in the
States? Wouldn’t the
Errabêlu
of America have objected? Would he not
have killed you, if he found you there?”

“You mean Clarke? Humph. Hardly. That question shows just
how little you know about us,” McDougall waved a hand in disdain. “We’re not
trying to kill all of the others. Well, at least
most
of us aren’t. We
have…arrangements. Clarke and I get along, for the most part. Sometimes he’s
busy and he asks me to give him a helping hand. Sometimes I ask him. This time,
it was mutually beneficial to both of us to track down a rogue wizard traipsing
around America.” He paused and grinned at Paul. “Meaning you, of course.”

“That makes sense,” Paul admitted. “You can’t be at war all
the time with all of your neighbors. Earth’s history has been full of…alliances.”

“Exactly. Anything else?”