Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard

by Glenn Michaels

  If one squinted real hard, it resembled a broom with wings. Well, sort of.

  Jorge looked at it again and shook his head. Paul closely examined the welds for the third time and nodded in satisfaction.

  Digging out a roll of bills from his pocket, Paul peeled off 2,000 pesos and handed them over. Rodrigo pocketed his half at lightning speed. Jorge took his reluctantly and held it in his hand.

  “Fine work,” Paul said loudly and appreciatively. “Very fine.”

  He slipped on the aviator cap and then the aviator goggles.

  Jorge blinked, further confused by the idiocy of the gringo’s actions. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s time to test this and see if it works,” Paul explained, still feeling pretty smug with his “invention.”

  “If what works? It’s just conduit, metal, and a piece of wood. There are no moving parts,” Jorge protested, scowling.

  “It doesn’t need any,” Paul replied confidently.

  He grabbed the conduit with one hand and dragged it out the door of the shop into the open air. The other two men followed him, watching in curiosity.

  Leaning the conduit forward at a forty-five degree angle, Paul straddled it, placing his rump up against the piece of 2×6.

  “Oh, Rodrigo, would you get me a paper cup of water, please?” Paul politely asked.

  Rodrigo shrugged and retreated back into the building, emerging with a small paper cup brimming with water.

  In the meantime, Paul took out his roll of solder and carefully wrapped some of its length a few times around the conduit about a foot down from the funnel and tied the roll into place against the conduit. This task only took a minute. Then he gratefully took the cup of water from Rodrigo and sipped a little of it.

  “Jorge, Rodrigo, it has truly been a great pleasure to know you,” Paul said. “I have three pieces of advice. First, in an hour or so, the police will come here. They will ask a lot of stupid questions, and they will be very rude. If you tell them I was here, they will take you downtown and ask many more stupid questions. Worse, they will take all your money from you, every last peso I gave you. If I were you, before they get here, I would hide the money and I would hide it so carefully that your own mothers couldn’t find it! Second piece of advice. Don’t tell them I was here at all!”

  Jorge frowned at the gringo. “You are wanted by the police?”

  Paul nodded and grinned again.

  Rodrigo was starting to look a bit nervous. “What is the third thing?”

  Paul beamed and then leaned forward to pour the remaining contents of the paper cup into the funnel. A small pool of water formed at the back end, streaming out the eight-inch pipe.

  “I suggest you stand back,” the wizard answered, smirking.

  Gripping the solder, Paul closed his eyes and concentrated. His contraption levitated into the air, taking him along with it. Jorge and Rodrigo scrambled backward in surprise, their eyes wide and jaws dropping.

  “‘Thrusters ahead full, Mr. Sulu!’” Paul shouted at the top of his voice.

  Inside, at the end of the conduit, where it was threaded to the steel plate, there were still a few drops of water left from the cup. Paul triggered compression on a tiny fraction of one drop of water, squeezing down the deuterium atoms, forcing their electrons into the nuclei and then squeezing the deuterium together, just as he had done when he had escaped from Ruggiero. And as the deuterium fused together to form helium, it released a great deal of energy.

  A ball of fire erupted out the end of the eight-inch pipe, and Paul’s contraption leapt forward, nearly throwing him off, with him barely managing to hang on for dear life.

  “YEE HAW!!”

  Humid air flowed down through the mouth of the funnel and down the length of the conduit, where Paul continued to squeeze the water molecules into the fusion reaction, the thrust accelerating him forward at an increasing rate of speed.

  The first nuclear fusion powered “broom” in history successfully roared into the daytime sky, making its maiden flight.

  NINETEEN

  Tampico, Mexico

  Airborne

  January

  Tuesday, 1:24 p.m. CST

  Leveling off at 150 feet, Paul throttled back to maintain a speed of 60 mph. The air rushing past him was stinging the skin on his hand and face, forcing him to keep his speed low.

  There were a couple of items of business to be taken care of.

  “In the name of HAL 9000, Robby the Robot, and Jarvis, let a portion of my mind be compartmentalized to control the spells needed for the fusion process.”

  Instantly, Paul felt his mind freed of that task.

  “In the name of Romulan warbirds, F22 fighters, and Minbari WarCruisers, let my image not reflect radar on any frequency band.”

  There! Paul would be harder to detect and follow now.

  He grinned like a possum at his new invention. Hmm, by all rights, it needed a proper name.

  “I hereby dub thee the Broom.”

  He noted with concern that it was harder to maintain proper balance on the Broom than it had been on the flying blanket. The seating was not nearly as comfortable, either. Nevertheless, he felt a greater sense of power with the Broom.

  He needed some distance from Tampico, from any possible pursuit, so he banked left, to an easterly course, and almost immediately went “feet wet,” passing the beach beneath him. Ahead, he could see a freighter sailing away from the city. And people on the ship could see him, too, apparently. As he passed it, he could hear wild screaming from the figures on board and see arms waving, bodies jumping up and down. He waved back with the stump of his left arm.

  He realized that he could go faster if the air pressure was less.

  Raising his angle of attack and throttling up the Broom’s thrust to compensate, Paul watched the sea below him fall away.

  Throttling a little more, he swung his course gently toward the north. Hopefully, he was now far enough out at sea that his use of magic could not be detected. Since there were only a thousand or so joules involved in all his spells combined (the thrust was provided by fusion power, not magic), Paul felt confident that he was undetectable. Well, reasonably so.

  The Broom took him onward.

  Paul understood that eventually, the heat of the fusion drive would prove to be too much for the carbon steel of the eight-inch pipe and the piece of ship’s plate that formed the thrust chamber. They would melt or crack apart. So far, the metal was holding, but the thrust temperature was running pretty hot. The question would be what would happen first? That Paul reached the United States or that the Broom died?

  He would have to keep an eye on the steel. If it looked like it was getting ready to fail, he would head back to the coastline, even if he was still on the Mexican side of the border.

  • • • •

  At roughly 20,000 foot altitude, his speed was nearly 200 mph. But he was growing tired, his arm muscles sore, his rear-end aching from pressing against the 2×6, and he had only been at it for a little over an hour. He calculated that he would need to stay airborne for at least another hour, maybe an hour and a half, to reach Texas and even more if he wanted to shoot for Louisiana or some point farther east.

  Merlin’s disembodied head snapped into existence in front of him, floating effortlessly through the air.

  “‘She can’t take it anymore, Captain!’” the old wizard quipped loudly in a Scottish accent. “‘If we keep this speed, we’ll blow up any minute now!’”

  Paul eased back on the thrust, cutting it a good 25%. Then he used a spell to “feel” the temperatures of the makeshift thrust chamber. Merlin was right, it was on the edge of melting.

  “Thanks, Merlin,” Paul shouted loud enough for him to hear over the roar of the wind. Naturally, he recognized—and appreciated—Merlin’s quote from a Star Trek episode. “Nice quote, too.”

  Merlin grinned, gave Paul a quick nod, and then disappeared.

  Now the flight northward would tak
e longer.

  Gently, Paul changed his course a little more to the north. If the steel failed, he would need to be closer to the shore. Without the solder, he wouldn’t have the power to make a gentle landing, but he couldn’t exactly unwrap the solder now, not in midflight!

  So he took a deep breath and made a decision. Since he couldn’t fly fast anymore, it wasn’t necessary for him to fly so high.

  Angling down the nose, the Broom began a slow, but steady descent back toward Earth.

  At 4,000 feet, Paul leveled off again and flew onward. The day was slowly marching forward, the sun now in the western quadrant of the sky. He tried to concentrate on staying alert.

  Ahead and a little to the left, on the far horizon, Paul could see a bit of white. Land! Good! Was it Mexico or Texas? He’d ask Merlin when he got closer.

  He cast a small spell to check the status of the thrust chamber again. The results worried him. It did not look good. Tiny cracks were developing in the steel of both the pipe and the plate. The conduit was also suffering. Paul began to seriously doubt if his makeshift flying machine would be able to go the distance.

  He lowered the throttle setting again, dropping his speed still further but also lowering the temperature in the thrust chamber. This was a balancing act now. Lowering the thrust also lowered the stress on the metals, but in addition, it lengthened the time it would need to operate to get him to shore.

  The shoreline came progressively closer.

  “Merlin, where are we? Is that Mexico or Texas?” Paul yelled above the noise of the wind.

  Merlin’s image appeared in front of him.

  “Still Mexico, but the border is coming up soon. I suggest you alter course five degrees to port.”

  Paul pursed his lips but made no reply, changing his heading even further to the left.

  Another few minutes and the land slid by on the port side. Largely, it was sand dunes, brush, small ponds, and marsh. There were no roads or any other sign of civilization. Up ahead, Paul saw a small river cutting through the sand dunes.

  “That’s the mighty Rio Grande,” Merlin confirmed for him. “Beyond that is the United States. But there really isn’t much on the other side either until you get to South Padre Island. If you don’t make it to the island, you will have to walk quite a long way before you reach civilization.”

  Paul nodded. He didn’t have the strength to spend a few hours walking in the heat of the day. His right pinky started to twitch again.

  Past the river, there were more sand dunes. Now he could see a few roads and an occasional house. He sensed an end to his voyage coming soon and was much relieved.

  Up ahead, there was a jetty thrusting out into the gulf.

  “That’s the channel. South Padre Island is on the other side,” Merlin shouted at him.

  Paul was still a mile or so offshore but angling closer. He altered heading a little more to the left. All he needed was five more minutes to reach a nice landing spot on the island. Just five minutes.

  Then the back end of the Broom exploded, metal spewing forth like shrapnel.

  Despite the fact that Paul was halfway expecting it, the explosion jarred him hard, sending a spike of fear through him. Here he was, 4,000 feet up in the air, and his transport had just become an anchor.

  Instantly, Paul shut off the fusion drive.

  Great. Just great. He gulped in terror as his speed dropped and he started arching downward. He had only thought he was prepared for this situation. Now that it was upon him, he was suddenly a lot less sure of himself.

  His heart racing, Paul attempted to unwrap the solder, fumbling to get it untied. The Broom was gathering downward momentum now.

  Paul only got part of the solder off before it snapped, the spool of it escaping from his flailing fingertips. He watched the roll plunge rapidly downward toward the water. He groaned in disgust and fear. Now all that he had a good grip on was a few feet of the solder.

  Kicking loose from the Broom, which really was an anchor now, Paul began to free fall, and he held his arms and feet out like a skydiver.

  Would he survive the next couple of minutes or not? He gulped, trying to keep his heart from bursting out of his chest. He had to try a magical spell. He had to!

  “In the name of Voyager 1, Wright Flyer 1, and a Goa’uld Death Glider, may I glide through the air toward the island!”

  The few feet of solder was a considerable help, and he could feel the spell kick in. He was now heading toward the far side of the channel, where another jetty could be seen sticking out from the shore. There wasn’t enough power in the solder to keep him from falling. The best that he would be able to manage was a controlled crash-landing. It was going to be close.

  Gripping the solder harder, Paul fell through the air, angling for the water beyond the rocks, the wind whipping his clothes about, the water coming closer by the second.

  Details on the beach were becoming clearer, too. Paul saw lots of pretty white sand and people strolling about. Farther up the beach, there appeared to be several motels and a small city.

  His flight path carried him over the rocks at the southern tip of the island by a good one hundred feet, but short of the beach itself. With another small spell, Paul spun in the air so that he would hit feet first. As he neared the water, his heartbeat raced like a machine gun.

  And then he plowed into the water, hard enough to momentarily knock the breath out of himself. In the process, he lost his goggles, the aviator’s cap, and the solder.

  Stunned, Paul weakly thrashed around in the water. With desperate effort, he forced himself to stop thrashing and to start swimming instead. Despite his frantic exertions, his upward progress seemed incredibly slow. His chest was on fire, his lungs threatening to burst. Screaming in anguish, he finally broke the surface and gasped for breath, taking in several deep droughts of air, the salt water stinging his eyes. With more effort, he focused his energies on swimming for the beach.

  Normally, Paul was a pretty good swimmer, but he was tired from the flight and it was also hard to swim one-handed. He could barely make headway. Fortunately, the tide was rolling in, and that helped him a great deal.

  When his feet finally touched the bottom, Paul almost started crying in relief. Bouncing off the bottom produced better progress. The push of the surf also helped propel him forward.

  From that point onward, Paul waded slowly toward the shore. Drained, he struggled to stay upright in the surf.

  But then he stopped.

  On the beach, there were a couple of dozen people, all gathered together, staring at him. Apparently, they were having some sort of social outing and had seen him fall from the sky.

  A small boy clung to a woman’s leg as he pointed at Paul, asking her a question.

  Paul smiled and bowed, just as he had done in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The group on the beach gave no response, so he tried waving and bowing again, but it was obviously of no use. So with a shrug of defeat, he angled northward, going around them, the waves plunging past his legs, the only sound being that of the surf.

  • • • •

  As Paul walked up the beach, he wandered past a few other people. Apparently, this was a decent vacation spot, even in January. He didn’t see anyone swimming, but walking and jogging seemed to be popular enough activities.

  His wet clothes began to chafe him and he was very cold, but he had nothing to help him cast a spell for drying off or to warm him up. He patiently and forlornly endured the discomfort.

  A mile up the beach, Paul reached the first motel, the sign announcing it to be the Pearl South Padre. Mind numb with exhaustion, he walked up the white sidewalk past the very long pool and entered the double wide glass doors, finding himself in the air-conditioned interior of a large lobby. For several seconds, he simply stood there, just inside the door, his eyes closed as he tried to organize his thoughts. He had concentrated so hard on reaching a place like this that he hadn’t considered what he would do once he actually arrived.

 
; Opening his eyes again, a part of his brain noted the floor paved with large ceramic tiles and the white plaster columns lifting high toward the ceiling. Oh, and toward the center of the room, there were several off-white, overstuffed chairs. Paul stumbled over to one of them and collapsed into its soft embrace.

  He rested for several minutes, gradually getting some of his strength back, his mind firing on a few more cylinders. Digging through his pants pockets, he wearily pulled out the soaked roll of cash. There were also a few pesos, which he knew contained small amounts of silver, tin, aluminum, and copper. Touching them and using them as an amulet, he altered his visual appearance to that of a business executive by the name of Armand Gerow, complete with a dark suit, white shirt, and briefcase. Then he wearily levered himself out of the chair and approached the front counter. A very efficient desk clerk smiled and quickly checked him in.

  The elevator took him to room 408. Once the door was locked behind him, he stripped out of his damp, salty clothing and took a long, hot shower.

  Since he was starving, he ordered a large pepperoni pizza and a jumbo diet drink from room service, then retreated to the bathroom to wash his clothes in the tub. He had just finished hanging them up on the shower rod when there was a knock at the door.

  With a towel around him, he cracked the door open and took the pizza box and drink, thanking the waiter and giving him a twenty dollar tip.

  Eating slowly in bed, he turned the TV on with the remote control. While he was scanning the channels, he suddenly spotted an image of his own face on the screen, behind that of a news anchor. He quickly turned up the sound.

  “...And again, let me repeat. The top story tonight—this man, Paul Armstead, is an American wanted for the murder of two Mexican police officers at the Benito Juarez International Airport. Authorities believe that he may have crossed the border into South Texas. He is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous. If you see him, do not approach him but report his location immediately to the local authorities.”