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

by Glenn Michaels

  “You want to give me magical powers? Now?” Daneel squeaked.

  “Yes. I won’t kid you, Daneel. It will be dangerous. What do you say?” Paul asked, torn by the necessity to ask the youth to risk himself to save Capie.

  “And if a Scottie doesn’t work? Or if you can’t give him magical powers?” Merlin asked.

  Paul gulped. “Then I will have to try a more desperate plan.”

  Merlin’s gave him a lopsided smile. “It’s hard to imagine a more desperate plan.”

  “I’m ready. I’ll do it,” Daneel announced without fear.

  Paul finished wiring a USB cable to the Oni talisman. “I wish I had McDougall’s talisman. It is so much more powerful. Instead, I’m going to wire up seven of these Oni talismans and plug them into your USB ports. That will have to be enough.”

  “That only leaves you one talisman,” Merlin pointed out, with a dubious tone of voice.

  “Yeah. This is all guess work. I’m making it up as I go along.”

  “Obviously.”

  It didn’t take long. The solder had barely cooled as Paul took an Oni talisman for himself and plugged the other seven newly cabled talismans to the remaining open USB ports on Daneel’s motherboard. Then, using the duct tape, he secured the seven talismans physically to Daneel’s frame. The end result was crude but serviceable.

  “MacGyver would be proud. Okay, I’m ready,” he announced. “Let’s go.”

  “A suggestion, if you please. Let us not go directly there,” Merlin recommended. “We can use portals to get reasonably close and then we can fly the remainder of the way. Less chance of being seen that way.”

  “Agreed,” snapped Paul, laying his fingertips on as many of Daneel’s talismans as possible and opening a portal. “First stop, eastern tip of the island of Cyprus, then Afsin, Turkey, then the Turkish north coast. Final destination is somewhere in eastern Romania. Here we come!”

  • • • •

  On the eastern tip of the island of Cyprus, Paul emerged from a portal in front of the Apostolos Andreas Monastery, a long low rectangular building of grey stone blocks. It was early evening here, the sun practically sitting on the horizon. Maybe it was for the best, Paul mused as he created his next portal, to arrive at his destination sometime after dark. A rescue after sunset might be easier to pull off. Right. And what sort of odds would Vegas quote on that possibility?

  Even though he was in the eastern Mediterranean, where Errabêlu was far more likely to have a presence in this part of the world than others, he was careful to keep his portals well away from the capital cities along his path, like Beirut, Nicosia, and Ankara. Moreover, his portal jumps were of necessity short, and he used every trick to disguise the energy involved as much as possible.

  Once across Turkey, their path turned west-northwest across the Black Sea and in the general direction of Constanta, Romania.

  “Romania. That seems like a strange place to take her,” Merlin announced with a measured frown, glancing over at Paul.

  Paul nodded, the darkening night making it difficult to study the shore of the Romanian coast line to the west of them. “In eastern Romania, huh.” Then, at that moment, Paul realized with a groan, just where they were headed. “Transylvania! We’re headed for Transylvania! I can’t believe it! Transylvania!”

  Not understanding what Paul was grumbling about, Merlin merely shrugged.

  With an impatient frown, Paul performed another scan for the platinum 190 and was gratified to find it on his heads-up display, at a range of just over 300 miles, in a northwesterly direction. Thank God, she was there!

  Paul studied the terrain ahead of them. “Can we portal in closer?”

  “That we can,” Merlin admitted. “Shorter jumps though.”

  In fifty mile increments at first, followed by thirty and then twenty, they portaled into the Romanian countryside to a small town known as Toplita, high up in the Kelemen Alps, where the last portal dropped them off just outside the town’s outer limits, in the center of a darkened road. As soon as he had stepped clear of the portal, Paul shivered in the chilly night air. It wasn’t far above freezing. With a snap of his fingers, he created a bubble of warm air around himself.

  “You’ve done this before. From here we should fly the last twenty miles,” Merlin recommended, “flying the distance at low altitude and at a low speed, lest the energy of a portal give us away.”

  Paul studied the skyline around him. There was a moon, yes, but less than quarter phase and it would be setting pretty soon. It was of very little help.

  “When are you going to give me magical powers, Dad?” Daneel anxiously asked.

  “Let’s wait until we get closer, son,” Paul answered. “I would rather rescue Mom without risking you, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  • • • •

  They had been flying in the nippy night air for what seemed like hours but was probably a much shorter period of time.

  “I sense a mountain range over there, to the northwest,” Merlin pointed out. “We need to find a nice deserted spot to land in when we get closer, perhaps in a forest clearing some place. Something a mile or so from the target area would be nice.”

  “There should be a ridgeline we can follow,” suggested Paul. “It should go up higher into the mountains. Then we can look for a suitable clearing, like you suggested. Let’s go.”

  He waved a hand, altering course, now flying a northwesterly course.

  “Transylvania,” Paul muttered beneath his breath. “Of all the places she could be, why does it have to be Transylvania?”

  Despite the moonless night, Paul’s spell for enhanced night vision allowed him to see a mountain valley, a small stream running off to the north. Turning to the right, they followed the stream bed higher into the mountains.

  The stream took them up the gentle slope of a mountain, curving gradually to the northwest again. Eventually, Paul pointed into the tree line and they left the stream behind, maneuvering carefully at treetop level above a thick forest.

  “Ah,” murmured Merlin. “According to those coordinates I saw, we should be very close now. Yes, I should have known. She’s in that castle yonder, isn’t she?”

  Merlin was right. Quite suddenly, there were some lights up ahead and Paul could see a very large castle through a break in the trees. He blinked in surprise. Just a few moments ago, he would have sworn that there were no lights and no man-made structures in view but now, there the castle was, big as life and impossible to miss.

  He grimaced in distaste. Yes, of course she had to be in a castle! Where else would the damsel-in-distress be kept? He sighed heavily and shook his head grimly, not the least bit amused. No one would dare to put this in a Hollywood film, not even in B-movies as bad as Brain Robbers from Outer Space or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians! Geez, the castle even had a moat, for crying out loud!

  Paul pointed down at a dirt road on the west side of the castle property. “Let’s try landing over there.”

  It may have been a dirt road but it was otherwise well maintained. Paul studied the castle through the break in the trees, noting that the drawbridges were on the north and east sides of the castle. The west side had no such access.

  Occasional snowflakes drifted through the air now.

  “In there, huh?” Paul asked, with a stony expression.

  “Those are the coordinates, yes,” Merlin confirmed.

  Paul’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, I see no choice. Daneel, we will have to give you magical powers.”

  Merlin appeared surprised by that. “We’re going to do it here? But that took you and Capie a day to recover from.”

  “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 M
om. 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.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Count Dracula’s Castle

  Mount Izvorul Câlimanului

  Transylvania, Romania

  September

  Friday 11:21 p.m. EEST

  Paul 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.