Free Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) by Glenn Michaels Page A

captive.
    As she neared the landing on the second floor, there was an
Oni waiting.
    Oh, no! Her heart beat faster and the feeling of
satisfaction she had been experiencing was instantly replaced by trepidation.
    The Oni was visually scanning the Normals as they went past.
She didn’t know what it was looking for. Perhaps for another Oni or maybe for
her or Paul. But she still had the airsoft rifle, tucked up tightly against her
side, the pistol in the shoulder holster and in her right hand she held the talisman
she had taken. Sure, if there were a place to dump them, she could probably have
walked past the Oni, head held high, and it wouldn’t have known any better. But
here in the stairwell, there was no such place.
    Edging out of the flow of Normals, she spun around to climb
the stairs, her movements slow and deliberate, in contrast to the beating of
her heart.
    However, there just weren’t enough people to hide her
movements. The Oni spotted her immediately. And it saw the airsoft rifle.
    “Hey there! Stop!” it shouted, advancing toward her.
    With a spell, she levitated upward, bypassing the handrails
and corkscrewing up the stairwell, just as fast as she could go.
    There were cries of alarm from the Normals as they ducked
away from her.
    As she rapidly negotiated another tight turn, a bolt of
plasma streaked past, singeing the right side of her face. It impacted on a
concrete wall, eliciting screams of panic and near hysteria from the Normals.
Suddenly, everyone on the stairwell was stampeding for the exits.
    Capie couldn’t let it continue. She dove through the top of
the doorframe at the fourth floor, dodging quickly to the left, narrowly
averting being hit by another plasma bolt.
    She ducked and weaved in flight, heading toward the connecting
corridor with the south wing of the hospital. What neither she nor the pursuing
Oni noticed was a fire extinguisher tearing itself out of its glass door
cubbyhole and flying out after them.
    “ Paul !” she screamed into the headset. “Paul, I need
your help!”

FIVE
     
    Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital
    5841 S Maryland Ave.
    Chicago, IL
    June
    Monday 9:21 p.m. CDT
     
    U sing
his elevator door trick, Paul ducked down to the fifth floor and through the
maze of labs there. He wasn’t sure, but thought that the Oni was still in
pursuit.
    And then he heard his wife’s cry for help.
    “ Paul !” her voice screamed. “Paul, I need your help!”
    “I’m being chased by an Oni!” he cried. “I’ll be there as
soon as I can. Where are you?”
    “Fourth floor, south west wing!” she screamed. “ Hurry !”
    The whole plan, so close to success, was unraveling on them.
Capie was in trouble and needed his help but he had to deal with the Oni on his
tail first. Muscles trembling in near panic, Paul ducked into an office and
behind a desk. He forced himself to be still, to lie in wait.
    It didn’t take long. He could hear noises in the corridor
and some muttered obscenities from the Oni. There was a loud bang, apparently
from a door being smashed open. It was searching for him.
    And it would find him here, there was no doubt.
    Paul hefted the talisman in his hand. It was equal to what
the Oni in the corridor was carrying. And he had the vacuum permittivity spell
he could use.
    Still, the Oni was faster and on guard.
    If only Paul had X-ray vision, then he could see the Oni
through the wall and hit him through it.
    An idea came to him. Ah, maybe there was a way! An article
he had read in Wikipedia a few weeks ago.
    “In the name of Wilhelm Röntgen, Superman, and Geordi La
Forge, may a display appear in front of me showing the Wi-Fi reflections in the
corridor on the other side of this wall.”
    Like most public buildings these days, Paul knew that the hospital
had Wi-Fi capability and, from Wikipedia, that the IEEE 802.11ac standard
operated at 5 GHz. That put it above most radar operating frequencies.
    The display appeared, showing a purplish background hue,
quite a bit