Genie and Engineer 1: The Engineer Wizard (24 page)

“What are you saying, exactly?” Paul asked him. “That I should
take on
all
of the wizards of the world?
All at once
? Freakin’
leaping lizards, are you daft? It was all I could do to escape from two of
them! They have all the police and all the armies of the world at their
disposal! I wouldn’t survive five seconds against all of them!!”

Uncle Sam waved an arm. “Paul, I am not suggesting that you
go up against them as you are—”

Paul averted his gaze and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I should
hope not! This is the worst advice I have ever been given, bar none! No, sir! I
feel terrible about how Normals are treated too but it wouldn’t help them to
throw my life away! No, I need some other solution, not suicide! Be gone! Just
leave me alone!”

• • • •

His anger simmered for hours. Never had his magic failed him
before as utterly as it had during that discussion. Uncle Sam’s advice made no
sense to Paul whatsoever. Go up against the whole world! One man, just him? He couldn’t
think of a worse idea than that. Guaranteed instant suicide.

Later in the afternoon, he ventured outside for a walk. The
weather had improved somewhat. At least the snow had stopped falling and the
wind was blowing at less than gale force, though it was still chilly.

Could it really be that there were only two options? Either
hide for the rest of his life or go down swinging? Was there no middle ground?
Some solution that would let him contribute to the good of people everywhere
without endangering his life?

Paul had hoped that Uncle Sam could give him that third
option. After all, the conjured image was supposed to represent the genius of
all military strategy. Did it mean that he too could not see any other
possibilities? Or did it mean that he
did
see them but thought they were
inferior to the goal of starting a revolution to liberate Normals?

Paul shook his head in confusion. Just where did he go from
here?

Moodily, he stared at the leaden sky.

Well, there was time to think about all this. At least
another month or so as he finished regenerating his arm.

• • • •

Two days later, Saturday, was shopping day. The weather
improved dramatically, the temperature actually climbed above 50 degrees
Fahrenheit for the first time in the new year. Paul walked to the nearest
neighborhood grocery store and spent a few dollars on basic supplies and food.

With two bags held snugly in the crook of his right arm, he
made his way back eastward along W 31
^st
street, nearing the corner
of S Kolin Ave, not three blocks from home.

The whole neighborhood around this area was populated mostly
by Hispanics. The majority of the people here were hard working if lowly paid
and while Paul knew he didn’t fit into their culture, nevertheless he wasn’t
uncomfortable in the neighborhood nor with the people he met.

He rounded the corner at Kildare Ave and headed north. His
rental home was only several hundred feet away now.

When he was less than a half a block from home, Paul began
to sense that there was something different. Nothing around him appeared to be unusual
but there just seemed to be something in the air.

Cautiously, he cast a spell up the street, to see what lay
ahead but he detected nothing amiss.

And then, when he drew even with a small walkway between two
houses, a blur of motion leapt from the narrow gap and smashed into Paul. He was
suddenly jerked around full circle by a very strong hand, his groceries flying
everywhere. Wrenched to a stop, Paul came face-to-face with two evil grinning
countenances. But before he could react, one of the men shoved a shank knife into
Paul’s stomach. The pain was stunning and, to Paul’s horror, his strength
instantly fled his body.

And then he was falling, the light fading from his sight.

Chicago, Illinois

Saint Anthony Hospital

West 19
^th
Street

March

Saturday, 3:12 p.m. CST

T
he
ambulance, with its brakes squealing in
protest, came to a halt at the emergency entrance of Saint Anthony Hospital,
its rear doors flying open and an EMT-Paramedic leaping out.

The glass double doors of the hospital sprung open, a
trained orderly and a nurse dashing forth to assist in the removal of the
gurney and its stricken patient from the ambulance. The team raised the gurney
on its scissor-like legs, locked it into place, and launched it through the
open doors to the hospital corridor beyond.

“ER Two!” screamed a nurse, and the gurney shot through the
doorway, coming to a sudden stop in front of a trauma team.

One of the doctors took a fast glance at the blood seeping
through the emergency bandage and shouted, “Plasma, STAT! CBC, CHEM-7, and
cross-matching! Pulse oximeter! And vitals!”

A nurse strapped a cuff around the patient’s right arm.
Another snapped an oximeter onto the patient’s right pinky.

“Tachycardia!” barked a third nurse, her fingers on the neck
of the patient. “Pulse, 130 and weak. Tachypnea too! 32 bpm!”

“Blood pressure, 80 over 55,” grunted the nurse with the
stethoscope and the blood pressure cuff.

The EMT-Paramedic was still in the room. “It was 90 over 60
in the ambulance!”

“No reading on the oximeter!” another voice shouted.

The trauma surgeon ripped open the patient’s shirt, and with
her fingers, she quickly studied the abdomen and the area of the wound.
“Juxtahepatic venous injury penetration of the peritoneum. Probable peritonitis
and retroperitoneal hemorrhaging!” she barked. “He’s in hypovolemic shock,
possible stage 3!”

The other surgeon nodded. “Let’s do a FAST,” he recommended,
using the acronym for Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma.

“No time!” snarled the first surgeon. “He’s exsanguinating now!”
She turned to one of the nurses. “Set up for the Pringle maneuver, STAT! We’re
going in!”

• • • •

Slowly, Paul opened his eyes, becoming aware of a light gray
fog surrounding him. Nothing else was visible, but in the far distance, there
was a murmur of voices.

“...Right thoracoabdominal stab injury penetrating the liver...ascites...possible
laceration of the inferior vena cava....”

Physically, Paul couldn’t feel anything. Emotionally, he
felt confused and perplexed, with no memory of how he had arrived in this
strange and alien place.

He turned and saw below him a brightly lit operating room,
several people dressed in green surgical garb and white masks, their gloves
stained with blood, all frantically working on a patient that was stretched out
on an operating table. The patient’s face was hidden by a large ventilation
mask, which was held in place by the hand of a nurse.

Paul blinked several times, deeply troubled by the image.

“‘Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition
that’s troublesome,’” he sadly muttered, quoting the famed science-fiction
author Isaac Asimov.

“Paul?” asked a very familiar female voice.

He turned, his jaw dropping, his eyes opening wide in shock.

His mother stood before him.

“Mom?
Mom
!” Paul shouted, and then he leapt to her
side, embracing the frail woman in a near bear hug. In return, she put her arms
around him and tightly hugged him back, as any mother would do with her only
child.

“Paul!” she whispered fiercely in his ear. “I’ve missed your
hugs!” And she leaned back a little to give him an affectionate peck on the
cheek.

“Hello, Son,” a baritone voice firmly said.

Paul broke his grip on his mother and turned to face the
newcomer.

“Dad?”

His father, Kenneth “Claw” Armstead, stood there proudly,
dressed in his full Marine Corps Dress Blues, the many stripes signified his
rank as a Master Gunnery Sergeant.

It was the very same uniform he had worn when he was buried,
fifteen—no, sixteen years ago. In fact, now that Paul thought about it—he
turned back to face his mother. Yep, that was the same dress she had been
buried in eight years previously.

“How...?” he began, but his voice failed him.

“Hush, now,” his mother urged him. “It’s not your time yet.”

“You have to go back, Son,” Paul’s father said. “There is
still much you need to do before you can join us.”

Paul’s mother smiled and hugged him again, even more tightly
than before. “Know this, Paul. We have every confidence in you! We will always
be close by, standing beside you, supporting you, urging you onward, praying
for your success. Our love will be with you wherever you go. We will always be
there for you.”

Paul hugged her back fiercely, before he freed himself to
reach over and hug his father too. The tight grip of his father’s arms said all
the things that Paul had not heard from the Marine in his lifetime.

With daggers stabbing at his heart, Paul cried out. “I’ll
never forget you. Either one of you. I love you both!” he managed to stammer
through a veil of tears. Then he was pulled away by an unknown and irresistible
force.

• • • •

“Pulse is now 150 ppm and extremely weak!” a nurse was
shouting.

“Pressure is 60 over 20!” another nurse snapped.

“Pump the blood!” ordered the surgeon, the nurses gently
squeezing the blood bags, forcing the vital liquid into Paul’s veins at a
faster rate.

The surgeon was immersed in a difficult race for time. The
shank knife had indeed reached the inferior vena cava, the largest vein in the
human body, nicking it and releasing a copious amount of blood into the
victim’s abdomen. Unfortunately, the vena cava was behind the liver, making it
a very dangerous proposition for the surgeon to repair the damaged section.

She had successfully completed the first task, namely,
emplacing an atriocaval shunt on the vein. This had slowed the blood loss, yes,
but now the right atrium of the heart had nothing to pump.

The vein had to be repaired quickly. Atrial fibrillation was
imminent, no more than a minute or so away, with death following soon after
that.

And the surgeon knew she was going to lose the race.

• • • •

The pain was incredible, and Paul slipped toward
unconsciousness.

He thought of his mother, his father, and he knew he could
not let them down.

His right hand slowly reached out, gently squeezing the side
of the operating table.

“In the name of Doctors Leonard McCoy, Beverly Crusher, and
Julian Bashir, and in the name of the Emergency Medical Hologram, may my blood
loss cease immediately and my circulatory system be held together until the
surgeon can finish her work.”

With another magical spell, Paul rerouted his blood
internally, forcing his heart to beat slower and his breathing to slow as well.

• • • •

The trauma surgeon’s eyes opened wide in disbelief as the
blood leaking out from the side of the vein suddenly stopped, the laceration
folding itself back into place. In all her years as a practicing surgeon, she
had never seen anything like it, but she thanked whatever deity that had given
her this opportunity and proceeded to suture the vein closed.

“Pulse is now 120! Breathing is better too!” a nurse noted,
a hint of hopefulness in her voice.

“I’m pulling the two shunts now,” the second surgeon
announced. “Vascular integrity has been re-established!”

The team breathed a sigh of relief. The patient was
improving now. It had been close, so terribly close.

Of course, any one of a thousand other things could still go
wrong. Their patient could still die on them. But a major hurdle had been
overcome, and the patient’s prognosis had just gotten substantially better.

• • • •

Paul’s eyes opened to a semi-darkened room. He felt
disoriented for several seconds, but then the memory of the stabbing came back
to him followed by the visit with his parents and the experience in the
operating room. For a while, he lay unmoving, reliving the bittersweet, but too
short time with his parents over and over again.

Finally, he turned his head, taking in his surroundings.

He was lying in a hospital bed, in a semiprivate room with
the curtain drawn across the middle. He could neither see nor hear another
occupant, but that, in and of itself, didn’t mean much. His abdomen felt stiff
and incredibly sore. He lifted the blanket with his right hand and discovered that
his lower chest was wrapped in bandages and white cloth. And he was incredibly
tired.

“Hello, it’s good to see you finally awake,” a male voice
said.

Paul turned his head again.

“Feeling better?” asked Merlin.

He was hovering in midair six feet away, smiling cheerfully
at Paul.

“Yes. I was stabbed, right?” Paul asked, wincing in pain
with every uttered word.

“Two hoodlums stabbed and robbed you,” Merlin replied. “One
of your neighbors called the police, who then called an ambulance. You are
currently in Room 408 of Saint Anthony Hospital. Do you remember any of that?”

Paul shook his head. “Not much, no. But it doesn’t matter.”
With his right hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Merlin, I need to talk
to someone with spiritual connections. My preacher back in Mojave would be
nice. Could you mimic Minister Parsons?”

Merlin morphed into the dapper middle-aged man, wearing
black-rimmed glasses and a three-piece suit.

“Yes, Brother Paul, you needed to talk to me?”

Paul was instantly impressed. This superintelligence stuff
was pretty handy.

“Yes, I do,” he admitted to the hologram.
“I...ah...experienced a near-death vision. I think.”

“You would not be the first,” Minister Parsons said with a
knowing smile.

“My parents came to see me,” Paul said. “They said that I
had to stay on Earth, that I had things to do.”

The specter cocked his head to one side. “And was that all
they said?”

“No, they said that they loved me and had confidence in me.”

Parsons nodded. “Near-death experiences are almost always
short, but very much to the point. If you are asking my opinion, I would treat
the experience as real, and I would do whatever was asked.”

“You would?” Paul asked, his uncertainty evident in his
voice.

With a smile, Parsons replied, “I know you, Paul Armstead.
You are a man of deep, abiding faith, even if you are also a man of science. On
this occasion, listen with your heart and not your head. You won’t regret it.”

Paul lay still, deep in thought, considering the advice
proffered to him.

“I will, Mom, Dad. I will,” he muttered, half to himself.
Then, with effort, he took a deep breath. “Thanks, Minister Parsons. I’d like
to talk to Uncle Sam now.”

Parsons disappeared, morphing into the tall figure of Uncle
Sam, complete with the tri-colored hat and old-style suit.

The image of the white-bearded man said nothing but gazed at
Paul. He doffed his hat and sat in a holographic chair on the other side of the
bed.

Paul cleared his throat while meekly studying the ceiling
tile above his head. “First off, I would like to apologize for my emotional
outburst in our last conversation. I misjudged you. Please forgive me.”

The apparition nodded but remained silent, his expression
giving nothing away.

Paul glanced up at him. “This...having magical powers is not
what I expected at all. I thought...well, I somehow thought that it would open
up a bunch of doors for me. I expected to do great and wonderful things with my
new powers. Instead, I have been nearly killed several times, chased halfway
around the world, and now I am a scared, poverty-stricken refugee huddled in
this...dirty, cold city! Have I mentioned how cold it is here?! Three days ago,
the idea that I could challenge the wizards of
Errabêlu
was too much for me to accept. And I admit it. I’m still having
trouble accepting it.”

“But the people of Earth need you, Paul,” Uncle Sam said,
taking up the dialogue. “You are the only one who can help them. That is what
your mother and father were trying to tell you.”

Paul morosely stared at the hospital room.

“But I’m just one person. What can I do to help the people
of Earth?”

“You can rescue them from the other wizards,” Uncle Sam
declared, frowning into the distance. “The ones that have committed such evil
and destruction, the ones that will keep on committing murder and devastation,
too, unless you stop them.”

Paul studied the other’s face. “You’re serious? Really? Me?
All by myself?”

“You are the only one in history that has had a chance...or
will
ever
have a chance, at stopping those monsters,” Uncle Sam
announced, his jaw muscles clenching. “And you can do it, too, if you will only
have the faith in yourself that your mother and father obviously have in you.”

Paul grimly stared at the man. “Assuming I survive that
long.”

The apparition nodded coldly. “There is that, of course.
Your risk is high, very high. But consider this. As it stands right now, the
Normals of Earth are virtually slaves to the wizards. Unknowing slaves,
perhaps, but still slaves. The future of the Normals is tied to you. To free
yourself, you must free them as well. It’s the same decision your forefathers
had in the Revolutionary War. It’s the same one for Central and South America,
for Israel, France, Scotland, and a host of other countries around the world.
Is the goal worth the risk? Only you can answer that question.”

His words troubled Paul greatly. It still seemed like guaranteed
suicide to him. And then there was the question of arrogance.

Paul decided to ask that question. “Okay. Let’s assume that
somehow, I go up against the other wizards and win, that I free the world from
slavery, as you put it. That seems so...well, arrogant to me. To
single-handedly change the course of the whole planet? That would put me in the
same category as them! Arrogant to the max! If and when the world finds out
what I did, without consulting them, they’ll crucify me!”