The Wiz Biz II: Cursed & Consulted (66 page)

Up on the screen flashed an organizational chart of the Supreme Soviet.

"Now this," Wiz said, gesturing with his pointer, "is your present structure. I'm sure all of you can see the inefficiencies and conflict potential implied here so I won't dwell on them. Next slide," he commanded before anyone could object.

Up on the screen flashed the current Miss July, blond, pneumatic and airbrushed to perfection.

Wiz closed his jaw with an audible snap. "Uh, that was just to make sure you were awake. Next slide."

Up came an even more baroque organizational chart. Glancing at the legend Wiz saw it was for General Motors circa 1965.

"Here is my recommendation. A more modern, teaming approach to today's challenges. Rather than concentrating the burdens, it spreads them throughout the organization to make management more effective.

"As you can see, this emphasizes creative teaming to empower all the members of the council to make the crucial decisions needed to create tomorrow. By establishing internal task forces, the Office of the Mayor can be freed from the day-to-day detail of running operations to concentrate on developing an action-directed migration plan to create tomorrow. These teams will prioritize opportunities for infrastructure enhancements using the new revenue stream as it comes on-line." That got a stir of approval as the council members considered the opportunities for graft. "Naturally, every council member will have several team assignments to fully tap into the organization's creative resources. I won't bore you with the details of these teams,"
mainly because I didn't have time to work them out
, "but I would like to point out the compensation committee, which will determine remuneration for the council members."

"You mean we'll get paid for sitting on the council?" someone asked.

"It seems only fair," Wiz said blandly.

"And just who's going to be on this compensation committee?" demanded a voice from the side of the room.

Wiz tapped the image at random with his pointer. "That is up to the personnel committee, here."

"And who's on the personnel committee?"

"That is the responsibility of the organizational committee. As a consultant it would be unethical of me to advise you on the makeup of these committees. I'm sure you will be able to work out these details among yourselves."

A quick glance from the mayor to Dieter to Rolf showed them all deep in thought. Rolf was smiling benignly, Dieter was looking sideways at the other two and the mayor was rubbing his chin and nodding.

"Gentlemen, the tide has turned." Up came a tidal chart for New Bedford, MA. "Opportunity awaits us. Fortune favors the brave."

Up came the GM organizational chart once more.

"More importantly we must team together to form an empowerment matrix which will reinvent the corporation, uh, organization, in an entrepreneurial model to reach beyond the present to grasp the opportunities of the future!"

They didn't quite give him a standing ovation, but there were one or two tentative claps from the back of the room.

Wiz let out his breath with what he hoped was a not-too-audible sigh. "Very well. Are there any questions?"

"Can we go back to that last-but-two slide?" came a tremulous voice from the back of the room.

Malkin didn't have much to say on the way home. That was fine with Wiz. He was weak with relief and completely exhausted from everything that had happened in the last three days. What he wanted now was sleep, not conversation.

However, Malkin did have one observation. "I don't know if you're the greatest wizard I've ever met," she told him as soon as they came through the front door, "but you are sure the luckiest." With that she turned and went up the stairs.

Wiz started to reply, but then he realized that she was right and that left him with nothing to say.

After a minute he also realized he was hungry. He vaguely remembered eating something after the sheriff's men got through searching the house, but he wasn't sure if he'd had anything since then. Rather than going upstairs to bed, he went downstairs to the kitchen.

Down in the kitchen his assistant wizard was enchanting his maid.

" . . . so we escaped before the bandits even realized what had happened."

"That's so exciting," Anna breathed.

Llewllyn waved a hand dismissively. "Oh tut. All in a day's work for a journeying wizard."

He had a wonderful rich voice and talked enchantingly with hand gestures, smiles and just the right amount of eye contact. If you treated the content as some kind of fairy tale, it was great.

Anna obviously thought it was great. She sat at the table with her chin in both hands, her pale blue eyes fastened rapturously on his face. He didn't have his arm around her waist yet but things were definitely moving in that direction.

Wiz cleared his throat. Both of them started and turned toward the door. Anna blushed and for an instant Llewllyn looked flustered. "Ah, My Lord, how was the meeting with the Council?" he asked before Wiz could say anything.

"Productive. Very productive." Produced more confusion than anything I've seen since the last Total Quality Management seminar. "Can I see you upstairs Llewllyn?"

The young man turned and bowed to the still-blushing Anna. "Forgive me My Lady, but duty calls."

"Okay," Wiz said as soon as they were in the front room, "the council's going to be reorganizing following a proposal I presented to them. Since you're the one in the office most of the time they'll probably be coming to you with questions. Refer any and all questions to me. Don't try to answer them yourself. The situation's kind of, ah, delicate."

Llewllyn smiled knowingly. "Am I to be permitted to know the nature of this plan?"

"Malkin's got copies of the materials I gave the council. You can get one from her."

"Very good, My Lord. Is there aught else?"

"Yes. One other thing." Wiz thrust his face very close to Llewllyn's. "If you mistreat Anna in any way I will personally break you in two."

The younger man's eyes widened. "By magic?"

Wiz flexed his muscles. "That wouldn't be nearly as much fun."

"And you think that I . . . ? For shame."

"Spare me the speeches. Just don't, okay?"

With that he turned on his heel and went upstairs to his workroom.

Wiz ran into Malkin in the upstairs hall. "Our favorite house pest was in the kitchen," Wiz told her. "I filled him in and he's probably going to ask you for a copy of that presentation. Give it to him, but don't let him get any ideas about doing anything on his own, especially answering questions."

The tall woman nodded.

"Oh yeah, one other thing. Llewllyn seems to be making a play for Anna."

Malkin snorted. "You finally noticed that did you? You may," she said, stressing the word may, "be a mighty wizard, but you're still blind as any other man. Well, you have nothing to worry about on that score."

"I know," Wiz said. "I told him I'd break him in two if I caught him messing with Anna."

Malkin grinned nastily. "I told him I'd have his balls for earrings and do it with a dull butter knife." The grin got broader and nastier. "Slowly. With a red-hot butter knife."

Looking at her expression, Wiz felt a certain tightness in a very sensitive spot. "Oh," he said in a very small voice.

Networking is a vitally important part of the
consultant's craft. Never lose touch with former clients or colleagues.

—The Consultants' Handbook 
 

Danny swore a particularly sulfurous oath just as Moira walked into the programmers' workroom.

"I'm sorry, My Lords," she said and turned to go.

Jerry looked up. "Oh, hi Moira. No, that's all right. We weren't swearing at you. We were swearing at the system."

"More problems?" she asked in the resigned voice Jerry and Danny had come to know all too well since the search for Wiz started.

"I'm afraid so. We've been checking the sites on that wacko routing path of Wiz's and checking them regularly. But now we keep pinging and we keep getting nonsense."

Danny went over the routing list item by item. Then he stopped dead. "Wait a minute! According to this he's going through
shark.vax
."

"That's the North Australia Oceanographic Institute. So?"

"So
shark.vax
is down. They had a typhoon or something. There was a message about it on the net."

"Let me see that!" Jerry grabbed the tablet from Danny's hand. He traced down it and frowned. The frown grew deeper as he compared the tablet to the screen.

"Ping
shark.vax
." Danny nodded and typed frantically.

"What is it?" Moira demanded, pressing close.

"I think . . ." Jerry began, but Danny cut him off. "See.
shark.vax
isn't there. But how is he using it if it's not there?"

"Magic?" Moira suggested.

Jerry slammed his hand down on the table so hard a pile of manuscripts slid onto the floor. "No, a gimmicked router table! He got into one of those routers and redid the table."

"Slick. No wonder we couldn't find him."

"Does this help?"

"Yes, it helps a lot. All we've got to do now is find the router he tricked and see where the entries in the table really lead. With that we can find the switch he's using and from there we can trace him back to this world."

"But not quickly?"

Jerry forced a smile. "Oh, it's not automatic, but we'll find him. He can't keep hiding like this for much longer."

Good advice is where you find it.

—The Consultants' Handbook 
 

I can't keep going on like this,
Wiz Zumwalt thought wearily. It wasn't just that he had lost another solitaire game. He was stuck on the project and stuck fast. Even if he could keep a lid on things with the town council, which was doubtful, he still hadn't made any real progress on protecting humans from dragons.

In fact, he realized, a lot of what he had done since he came here was in the nature of avoiding work on the problem hoping something would bubble up from his subconscious. But his subconscious was as flat as an open can of Coke left on a programmer's desk over the weekend.

Maybe his subconscious didn't have enough to work on. The truth of the matter was that he didn't know much about dragons and he hadn't really learned much about them since he came here.

"Hey, Malkin," he called over his shoulder, at the same time he clicked his mouse to deal another game.

"What?" came a voice in his ear.

Wiz jumped. There was Malkin at his shoulder.

"I wish you wouldn't sneak up on me like that when I'm working."

The tall thief shrugged. "I'm not sneaking. It's my normal way of walking. Kind of a professional asset, you might say."

"You might say sneaking, too," Wiz retorted. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you about dragons."

"Why ask me? You're supposed to be the expert."

"Yeah, but I've noticed the people around here don't talk much about dragons, or even seem to know very much about them."

"They don't know because they don't want to know. As far as most folks hereabouts are concerned the time you learn anything about dragons is usually when someone gets eaten."

"Still, there must be someone."

"Well now, since you mention it, there is one fellow who probably knows more than most."

"I wonder if I can talk to him."

Malkin shrugged. "Easy enough. If you're up for a little walk."

When they left the house they turned away from the main square and the town hall and headed downhill, toward the river. Wiz, who hadn't been this way much, looked around with interest.

"There's a lot I don't understand about the way humans and dragons relate to each other here," he told her.

"It's simple enough. Dragons eat humans when they feel like it."

"Yeah, but beyond that. For instance why haven't the dragons attacked the town?"

In answer Malkin pointed to a stretch of the street before them. The paving bricks were rougher, darker and shinier. Vitrified, Wiz saw, as if fired at too high a heat. Looking further he realized there was more than one such patch on the street or on the sides of buildings.

"Folks salvage what they can when they rebuild," Malkin told him. "Usually there's only bricks and not too many of them."

The tall woman led him further down into the city. Soon he could smell the river and the mud flats that lined it. They must be almost to the end of the town, Wiz thought.

The river flowed under the bridge between mud banks that took up most of the bed. In spring it must be a torrent, but now, in late summer, there was only enough water to fill a narrow channel.

In the failing light Wiz could see that the earth the town sat on wasn't ordinary dirt at all. It was heavily mixed with bits of brick, old paving stones and rubble. Here and there vitrified pieces glinted dully in the light of the setting sun.

Wiz realized the entire hill the town sat on was composed of the remains of earlier towns, like ancient Troy. Except here it wasn't earthquakes and human enemies who had laid down layer after layer of debris to serve as the base for the builders, it was dragons.

"Malkin, look at that."

"What?"

"The river banks. That's not dirt. That's rubble from older towns."

"So?"

"So this place has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times."

Malkin shrugged and kept walking, unconcerned by her hometown's history.

How many times had the town been destroyed by dragon fire? Wiz wondered as they proceeded across the bridge. How many times had the survivors returned to try to rebuild?

Yet Malkin didn't seem to care. To her it was just a fact of life, even though it could happen again at any time.

That, Wiz decided, was the scariest thing of all.

The stone bridge was wide enough for two wagons abreast, and well-maintained. The town on the other side of it wasn't. Almost as soon as they stepped off the bridge the streets narrowed into muddy lanes and began to twist like the tracks of a herd of drunken cows. The aroma told Wiz they weren't cleaned regularly either. The smell of sun-warmed garbage and ripe raw sewage held a compost-like overtone that suggested they hadn't ever been cleaned.