Off to Be the Wizard - 2 - Spell or High Water (24 page)

Miller shouted, “You haven’t altered reality! I’m not stupid. All you altered was a bank record.”

“By changing a plain text file that has nothing to do with online banking, on a server that belongs to a gaming company?” Jimmy asked, calmly.

“Don’t give me that,” Miller said. “I don’t care where this
stupid
file of yours is. It’s computers. They’re all tied in together these days. You and your buddies just found a back door or something. That’s all.”

Jimmy’s smile remained in place, but it did become a bit less genuine looking. “Okay, Agent Miller, say that’s true. What about my magnetic field, then?”

“It’s a trick!” Miller whined. He turned to his partner. “Murph, you’ve gotta see that this is some kind of trick!”

Jimmy turned to Murphy asked said, “How? How could I have made any integrated circuit that got within fifteen feet of me stop working?”

Agent Murphy asked Agent Miller, “That’s a good point. How did he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Agent Miller cried. “Maybe he keistered an electromagnet!”

Jimmy said, “Really now, how likely does that sound?”

“A lot more likely that you getting God-like powers out of a government-issue Dell.”

They both turned to Murphy, who had somehow assumed the role of judge in their group dynamic. Murphy thought for a while, then said in an even tone, “I’m sorry. I just don’t buy it. If he’d keistered an electromagnet, he’d have stuck to the side of the boxcar.”

Jimmy put up his hands and said, “Look. This is a lot to take in, I understand. And you’re right that all you’ve seen me do is change a number on this computer and have it change a number on another computer. I can show you the fancier stuff.”

Miller bared his teeth and said, “I think you’d better do that then.”

Jimmy said, “Okay.” He turned to the computer and typed in a command.

At first, nothing happened. Then, more nothing happened. Agent Miller scowled. Jimmy held up a finger and said, “I’m sorry, one second.” He turned back to the computer, looked at the script he’d been writing, muttering to himself. The two agents shared a look that would not have made Jimmy feel safe.

Jimmy said, “Ah, there it is. I tell you, you miss one slash . . .”

He stood up again, and said, “Sorry about that, guys. It should work this time.” He typed the command, hit enter, and disappeared.

The two agents blinked in disbelief. They looked at the space where Jimmy had stood, then they looked at each other, then they looked around the warehouse to see where Jimmy had gone.

They didn’t see him anywhere.

Murphy quickly turned to the computer. Miller saw his partner’s head turn and followed suit, just in time to see the screen go black. He looked at Murphy, whose face had gone white.

“What happened?”

Murphy said, “The last thing I saw was ‘reformat C drive.’”

“What’s that mean?”

A distant voice shouted, “It means the memory has been erased.”

The agents looked to the chair and telescope at the far end of the warehouse, and saw Jimmy, wearing a beautifully tailored suit. He had shaved, gotten a haircut, and was holding a tablet computer. “Of course,” Jimmy continued, “a good data recovery specialist could get it all back, but by then I’ll have password protected the file anyway, so there’s really no point.”

Jimmy reached down to the chair, picked up the notebook that contained Todd’s instructions, and said, “Just came back for this. Thanks for your assistance, gentlemen.”

The two agents started running as fast as they could toward Jimmy, who said, “Keep the five million. Consider it a tip. You can use it to pay for anger management classes.”

Jimmy poked at the tablet screen and disappeared.

24.

Louiza had been a surgeon in Sao Paulo before getting
sidetracked
into the medical technology field, then eventually finding the file and emigrating to Atlantis. When people arrived in the past, they eventually realized that they still had to do something, and what the people who already lived in the past were doing, such as struggling to find food and shelter, was not in their case
necessary
, nor was it fun. Most time travelers ended up doing pretty much the same thing they did in their original time, and for Louiza, that meant setting up a medical clinic. It passed the time, she was helping the community, and it allowed her to explore the medical applications of the file.

Her facilities were beautiful, clean, and modern. Her waiting room was comfortable, spacious, and attractive, and her receptionist was a large, muscular man who knew how to look at her in just the perfect way to put butterflies in her stomach.

He was sitting at his desk filing his fingernails when Phillip and Brit materialized in the waiting room. Brit was clearly in great distress, and Phillip was holding Nik, who had an arrow sticking out of his side.

Brit shouted, “We need Louiza, now!”

The receptionist scarcely had time to stand before Martin and Gwen appeared. Martin immediately helped Phillip support Nik, who was moaning and clutching at the arrow. Martin could see that Nik also had deep cuts on his arms.

The receptionist hit a button which was not technically
connected
to anything, but which still alerted Louiza whenever it was pressed.

Martin asked, “What happened?!”

Brit answered, “We were being silly and Nik was dragging me out of the apartment. As soon as we got out the door, a bunch of arrows flew at me from both ends of the hall.”

Gwen said, “And poor Nik got in the way.”

“No,” Brit said. “They bounced off me and hit him.”

Louiza materialized. She took a second to survey the scene then leapt into action. Within moments she and her receptionist had Nik on a gurney that hovered in midair and whisked him away to the examination rooms. They instructed the others to remain in the waiting room. Five minutes later, Louiza came out to tell them what was happening.

“Luckily, the arrow didn’t penetrate very far into his
abdomen
. I’m going to have to do surgery, but he should pull through just fine.”

Brit asked, “Is he in pain?”

“No,” Louiza said. “I froze him in time. He’s not even aware that anything’s happening.”

“And you can perform surgery on him that way?” Phillip asked.

“Close. I can’t do it with time stopped. With time frozen, he’s essentially a statue, but I can slow time to a crawl for him while I do the surgery. I’ll have the whole thing done before he has time to flinch.”

Brit asked, “And he won’t feel any pain?”

“Oh, he’ll feel a tremendous amount of pain, but only for half a second, from his point of view.”

Brit said, “I don’t want him to feel any pain.”

Louiza said, “He was in pain when you brought him in. He’ll be in pain after the surgery, no matter what I do. We could put him under general anesthetic, I’d have to train someone to
monitor
his vitals and make sure he doesn’t die. We’d have to intubate him. He’d take a long time to wake up, and he’d be groggy and disoriented when he did. Or, we can do it my way, and get the same result, only I can have it done safely all by myself, and we’ll be done in a half hour.”

Phillip said, “You make a convincing argument.”

“Also,” Louiza continued, “the slow-motion facial reaction to the surgery is usually hilarious.”

They left Nik in Louiza’s capable hands. She promised to repair the damage, keep him comfortable after the procedure, and record his reactions for them to enjoy later, when they were in the mood.

They walked to the summit. They weren’t concerned about a new attack because the killer or killers seemed to need time to regroup after each failed attempt on Brit’s life. Besides, they wanted time to talk.

Gwen asked, “How many arrows was it this time?”

Brit said, “I didn’t take the time to count, but at least ten.”

Martin said, “If one arrow doesn’t do it, maybe ten will. I mean, whoever’s doing this, they’re either stubborn or stupid, right? It’s like ‘one statue didn’t do it. Let’s try a different statue. No? Maybe an arrow? No? How about a bunch of arrows?’ What will it be next time, a hundred? Poor Nik getting hit is bad enough, but there could be serious collateral damage if this keeps up. We have to figure out who’s doing this.”

“Yes, thank you,” Phillip said. “That hadn’t occurred to the rest of us.”

“Well then, let’s hear some ideas,” Martin said. “We need some suspects.”

Phillip asked, “Well, what are your ideas, Martin? Or does realizing that we need an idea count as your idea?”

Martin knew Phillip was on edge, so he didn’t return the snotty tone when he replied, “I don’t know the possible suspects nearly as well as Brit and Gwen, but I’ll say again that we need to look at who has the most to gain from Brit being out of the picture.”

Gwen put her hand on Martin’s shoulder. “Martin, we’ve been through this. Nobody has anything to gain. Anybody who has enough knowledge of magic to make the attempt will know that they can’t possibly succeed.”

Martin shifted to face Gwen, and in doing so, pulled his shoulder out from under her hand. “Then there has to be something we’re missing,” he said. “Brit, think about it. Let’s forget motive for a minute. Has anybody been acting weird around you lately?”

Brit said, “No, but they wouldn’t, would they? If they were trying to kill me, they’d make a point of not tipping their hand.”

Martin said, “What about those two dandies, Fauntleroy and Fancy Pants? You know, the guys in the tuxedos. They were pretty rude to you yesterday.”

Brit said, “No, as I remember it, they were rude to you.”

“Okay, you’re right. But they were rude
near
you; that’s a start.”

Gwen said, “Martin, your problem is that you’re trying to figure this out with logic. You can’t. It’s illogical. They’re
trying
to kill someone who can’t be killed. You can’t make sense of
something
that’s senseless.”

Martin glowered, and said, “Everything’s senseless until someone makes sense of it. Life doesn’t explain itself.”

“Be that as it may,” Phillip said, “we do have to stop these attacks. Not just because of collateral damage, but for Brit. I don’t think her fate is tied to Brit the Elder’s. I’m absolutely sure that she can be killed.”

Brit the Younger took Phillip by the arm, and said, “Isn’t he sweet?”

Gwen smiled, and glanced at Martin, but he wasn’t looking at her.

They arrived late at the summit and attempted to enter
quietly
during the morning session. Their attempt was foiled by Brit the Elder, who was making some announcements as they entered. She smoothly, as if waiting for her cue, announced, “Both members of the Medieval England delegation and one member of the Atlantis delegation have arrived. As I informed you all this
morning
as the day’s deliberations commenced, there was another attempt on my life, which, of course, failed, but did result in the injury of a servant, who will make a full recovery.”

Instead of slinking unnoticed into their seats as they had planned, they slunk into their seats with everyone in the room watching them.

The morning’s program involved discussion of various
methods
of testing whether a person who found the file was well versed enough in its use to be allowed to remain. A man of Indian descent who identified himself as Vikram explained his group’s method, which involved making a new recruit
publicly
perform with a deadly cobra. If the recruit understood the uses of the file well enough to make himself impervious to the cobra’s venom, then he had enough mastery to remain. Martin looked to his left and noticed that one member of the delegation of traveling faith healers from the 1940s was furiously taking notes.

After a couple of hours it was time for a break, and the four of them just naturally congregated together to continue
discussing
the problem.

Brit told the other three, “Look, I think we all agree that we have to put an end to this, and I think we all agree that we don’t really have any good suspects. What if instead of hunting them down, we trap them instead? That way they identify themselves.”

Gwen, Phillip, and Martin agreed that it sounded like a good idea, so she continued.

“We’ve been looking at the fact that all of these delegates are here doing magic as if it’s complicating things, but I was looking at them and I realized that the only reason they can all do magic here is that we’ve got copies of their interfaces and shell programs running on a local machine in this time, and all of the users are registered with the various programs. I figure I can write another program that will monitor all of those, and the Atlantis Interface. Next time someone tries to kill me, we’ll be able to see exactly who did it.”

Martin said, “That sounds like a good idea.”

A voice that sounded exactly like Brit’s said, “I agree. It does sound like a good idea.”

They all turned to see Brit the Elder standing behind them. Martin asked, “Will it work?” Phillip didn’t ask because he wasn’t convinced her answer was trustworthy. Brit the Younger and Gwen didn’t ask because they knew not to bother.

Brit the Elder said, “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Martin said, “That didn’t really answer the question.”

Brit the Elder replied, “It tells you all you need to know though, doesn’t it?”

Martin scowled and said, “Now you’re just being evasive.”

Brit the Younger said, “Maddening, isn’t it?”

Brit the Elder held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t want to upset anybody. I just wanted to come over and touch base with everyone. I know the last day or so has been . . .
eventful
.” She looked straight at Phillip as she said this, and smiled a knowing smile.

Phillip said, “We’re fine.”

Brit the Elder said, “I’m sure you are.” Her smile got wider, and more knowing. Phillip smirked, in spite of himself. Brit the Elder nodded, now beaming. Phillip blushed a bit, then chuckled. Brit the Elder laughed as well. They both looked at the ground, laughing softly, and peeking up at each other and blushing.

Phillip glanced to his side, and saw that Brit the Younger was also turning red, but she didn’t look embarrassed. She
gritted
her teeth, turned silently, and walked away at high speed.
Phillip
exhaled sharply, shot Brit the Elder an irritated look, and
followed
the Younger.

Gwen said, “That wasn’t very nice, Brit.”

Brit the Elder said, “No, it wasn’t, but eventually, I was able to forgive myself.”

Gwen watched Phillip’s back as he disappeared through the crowd and down the hall. She leaned toward Martin and said, “You’d think a love triangle would be less complicated if it only had two people in it.”

Gwen heard no answer, so she turned, and only then saw that Martin had walked away. Judging by his distance, he clearly had left immediately after Phillip.

Brit the Elder said, “When it comes to romance, two people are more than complicated enough, wouldn’t you agree?”