Jack helped Elaine set the table. He smiled as he moved around. The models were
good enough to build from, but he did need to check to see if he was going to dig
down into an underground maze.
The last thing he wanted was a giant hydra bursting through his floor while he and
Elaine were enjoying their private time.
“Do you think you can do the changes tonight?,” asked Josie.
“Do you want me to?,” asked Jack. “It would mean some work and getting used to
while we have Lois as our guest.”
“She will be able to have a bigger guest room to herself if you can do it,” said Josie.
“What do you think, Lois?,” asked Jack.
“I think that if Care is going to live here even temporarily, she might not want to
sleep on a couch,” said the Queen.
“We’ll have to hold off on the door too,” said Josie. “She might be the type to try to
sneak time with Case while we are supposed to be watching her.”
“What human female hasn’t done that?,” said Aviras. They had cut his meal up for
him so he could snag pieces of meat and vegetables off his plate without struggling
to cut it himself.
“I didn’t,” said Josie, and Elaine, at the same time.
“Jinx,” said Josie.
“Two exceptions don’t break the rule,” said the dragon.
Jack looked at Beatrice. She had her face down, looking at her plate with
concentration. This was a conversation she didn’t want to have after Todd.
“I don’t remember you ever having a boyfriend to sneak around with, Jo,” said Jack.
“I met a couple of guys,” said Josie. “They didn’t last long.”
“Wore them out?,” he said.
“They didn’t want to date one woman,” said Josie. “And I am not into friends with
benefits.”
“Friends with benefits?,” asked Matilda.
“I’ll explain the concept when you’re fifty,” said Josie.
“That’s forty two years away,” said Matilda.
“Then you have something to look forward to when you’re older,” said Josie.
“Bah,” said Matilda, carrying the same tone as her dragon.
“Do you guys want to give this new look a tryout?,” said Jack. “I don’t know if
different is better, but it will be different.”
“I would like for the guest quarters to be above a public office, but sealed off,” said
Josie. “In case we have to meet Hent, or go over things with Eric and Jane, I would
like for this space to be our public conference area, and the space upstairs where mine
and Beatrice’s rooms are changed to where we can have guests stay.”
“You’re promising us our own rooms?,” asked Laura.
“Maybe,” said Jack. “I’m not willing to promise anything.”
“Can you put everything back if you screw it up?,” asked Josie.
“Maybe,” said Jack.
“Do you girls want to try it out?,” asked Josie.
“Kitchen and supplies?,” asked Angelica.
“I will transport them across the space and I will have a thing called an oven that you
can use to cook,” said Jack. “It will be experimental, but it should work fine enough.”
“I don’t think I have seen one of those before,” asked Angelica.
“Probably not,” said Jack. “Let’s finish eating and then we’ll start with the Hangar.
I’ll do the guest quarters for the Queen, and then we can get ready for tomorrow.”
“Will this be like the quinjet?,” asked Laura.
“The motivation will be the same,” said Jack. “If you girls want anything specific, tell
the model. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Archery range,” said Alicia.
“Already put it in,” said Jack. “It’s next to the practice room, and the weight room.”
“The weight room?,” said Melanie.
“If you want arms and legs like Juni, you have to lift weights for hours in a day,” said
Jack. “The muscles will tear down and grow back bigger to take the stress.”
“She does have blacksmith arms,” said Matilda.
“That’s what blacksmiths do,” said Jack. “They lift heavy metal to shape it, and
pound on it for hours. It helps if they were big to start off with.”
“Are we pulling the quinjet down to the Hangar, or leaving it on the Enterprise,” said
Josie.
“I think at some point we are going to have to split up to do the next quests,” said
Jack. “One of us might need another fast transport. Plus I already planned to use it for
our fishing expedition.”
“So we bring it down and put it back in place,” said Josie.
“Unless you want to launch from the Enterprise every time we have to split up,” said
Jack.
“Tell me about the book reader,” said Matilda. “How does that work?”
“The same as any book reader,” said Jack. He grinned at her. “I’m thinking about
using it to build a search base. It’s just a toy at this stage.”
“Tell her how it works, Jack,” said Josie. “We don’t want her staying up all night
figuring it out.”
“You place a book in the right hand circle, it sends the information to the imager, the
left hand circle, and the box remembers what was sent,” said Jack. “Then you can ask
the imager to search for the relevant thing you want.”
“That doesn’t seem that useful,” said Melanie.
“It’s only useful to search for things if you don’t have the time to read the book
itself,” said Jack. “I used June’s book for the Door of Tern for my sample.”
“And?,” asked Matilda.
“The search engine can show me everything I can ask about from June’s point of
view,” said Jack.
“I think they need a demonstration,” said Elaine.
“All right,” said Jack. He pushed his plate back from the edge where he was sitting
and got up. He went into the living room and came back with his machine. He
plopped it down on the table. “Juniper Lee’s report on the Door of Tern.”
An image appeared in one of the rings. It resembled the notebook June had put
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.together before they had gone north to find her a house.
“Red dragon boat,” said Jack.
Three tabs appeared, the page numbers in the top corner. He asked for one page
number to open. A passage marking how June’s boat had been left at the top of the
cliff appeared for them to read.
“See?,” said Jack. “I thought about raiding a bookstore and getting all the historical
stuff I could and loading it up. Then connecting this to the Enterprise so we have a
sorter to figure out what was relevant, and what wasn’t while we were on the job.”
“So you wouldn’t have to read any of this?,” asked Melanie.
“Only the stuff relevant to your search,” said Jack. “It won’t give you a synopsis
unless I add that on to the reading ring.”
“Which means we still have to finish reading our books and write the report,” said
Beatrice.
“It would be cheating if you tried to use the engine to skim everything,” said Jack.
“And none of you are cheaters.”
He grinned at them. He figured all of them would cheat in some way if they could,
except for Alicia. She was a grinder. She kept on whatever job she was given with a
determination and will that was frightening in an eleven year old.
“Do we want to try this new layout?,” asked Josie. “It would be a big change in the
middle of taking on Caroline and Case. Can we handle it?”
“Can we look at the models again?,” asked Melanie.
Josie nodded.
The girls got up from the table and headed for the living room. They held a mild
debate about what they wanted as they went.
“Can you actually do what you say?,” asked the Queen.
“Some of it will be easy,” said Jack. “Rearranging the Hole in the Wall should be a
snap. The upstairs are already living quarters with Josie’s and Bea’s rooms up there.
I just need to pull the office down here, erase the staircase so people will have to dig
through the ceiling to get up to any guest we might have, then move the living
arrangement to where the gate is and seal that. Digging down under the Hangar might
be harder but I can use the rock and stone I excavate to build walls and supports as
I go.”
“The main problem is if there is anything under the Hangar when we dig down,” said
Josie. “That might open a ton of surprises that we don’t want to open.”
“Josie’s right about that,” said Jack. “Mister Warner stated that the goblins live
underground in the south, and three of our quests have been about things being buried
coming back up to the surface. So I will have to inspect the ground to make sure
nothing can get into the Hangar from the bottom, or sides.”
“Do you have a plan for the search engine?,” asked Josie.
“I want to send the girls out to get me all the historical books and maps that they can
so we can load it to the Enterprise,” said Jack. “Then the Enterprise can help plan
solutions to our problems and give us better estimates on what we are doing, and
facing. It’s good to shoot phasers at something, but sometimes you need better
information to help figure out what is actually going on.”
“If we build a library on the ground first, then we check to see if we can load it up to
the Enterprise,” said Josie. “I don’t want a living machine running around.”
“I guess that’s fair,” said Jack. He sat back in his chair. “That could be a problem with
the magic floating around.”
“Exactly,” said Josie. “We don’t need a giant Terminator capable of making more
Terminators and dropping them to the ground since that is counter to what we are
supposed to be doing.”
The girls came back into the dining room.
“Aviras would like his own space,” said Matilda.
“Didn’t I give him one,” said Jack. “Wait. I might have just assumed he would want
to bunk in with you. My fault. I can add a room for you, buddy. It should be a snap
with all the rest of the stuff I am going to be doing.”
“Thank you very much,” said Aviras.
“So we’re going to do this?,” asked Jack. He looked at the serious faces around him.
“No danger rooms,” said Josie.
“But those are the best parts,” said Jack.
“It might be great for Bea and Laura, maybe Alicia,” said Josie. “But Matilda would
get murdered and Angelica and Melanie don’t have the right skillsets for it. No
danger room.”
“All right,” said Jack. He grinned. He hadn’t planned on a danger room, but this made
him look more dangerous than if he had actually been trying.
“Thank you, missus,” said Angelica. “Put that down with singing cakes.”
“Are you guys ready?,” said Jack. “We can ease into things before I just rebuild the
whole enchilada.”
He looked around the room. The expressions he got showed him that he might be
teasing too much.
“I can build things in stages,” he said.
“Let’s get this done,” said Josie. “I will help you with Zatanna. The work should be
done twice as fast.”
Jack put his hand over his watch.
“Should we have one guestroom, or two?,” he asked.
“Two,” said Josie. “So if Lois and Rickard want to visit while we are taking care of
Caroline, then we have space for them too.”
“Thank you for your consideration,” said Lois. “That would be splendid in my
opinion.”
“Let’s head out to the Hangar,” said Josie. “The faster we get this done, the faster the
kids can do their lessons, and then we can all sleep. Lois, you are welcome to stay for
our goodbye dinner for June and Mister Warner. They have to fix things back home
before they can settle here so we plan to give them a good sendoff.”
“Good point about the Hangar,” said Jack. “That is the bigger job. Beatrice, if you
and Laura, can grab the models, we’ll get this started.”
The group grabbed the rings with the new version of the Hangar glowing inside of it.
Jack grabbed the search engine. It was going to be at the center of their new library.
They used the gate to cross over to the Hangar. Jack put the search engine down on
the ground. He directed the girls to hold the models in front of them.
“We’re in a mana charger,” said Jack. “That should boost up our magicians like that
thing you use when you call your birds.”
“All right,” said Josie. “We’re going to need to dig straight down, and we’re going
to need to make sure nothing can get through the walls from the dirt side of things.”
“Should be a cinch,” said Jack.
He called on the Vision and scanned the ground under the floor. He made sure to
make several observations before ending his survey.
“I didn’t see anything within range of my power,” said Jack after he reverted back.
The mana charger sped his watch back to full power. “It looks clear to me.”
“All right,” said Josie. “Everybody stay close, and don’t move until we’re ready to
go.”
“Power up,” said Jack. He grinned as he pushed the button for the Magik name and
became exotic formulas resembling a human body.
Josie called on Zatanna, dressed in her black suit, and top hat. She checked her watch,
nodding as the charger started replacing the charge she was using up as her other self.
“All right,” said Jack. “Let me get started, and you can fill in whatever you think we
need with your wish magic.”
“Go ahead,” said Josie. “A job this big will run our watches out before we’re done if
we don’t hurry.”
Jack grinned as he formed a ring to push out beyond the charger. That ring began to
sink into the ground, carving out the space they needed while fortifying the walls and
putting separate floors.
Josie sat and flung out birds like she had to fix up June’s place. They whipped
through the excavation adding personal touches to the proceedings. She lost power
as the birds did their jobs and vanished. She took a deep breath as she waited for her
watch to recharge.
Jack remained in his persona for a bit longer. He reverted back, and nodded to
himself. It was a job well done in his opinion.
“Let’s take the tour and see what happened,” said Jack. He doubted his magic had
played him wrong. It had always filled in the gaps before, and Josie’s birds should
have been okay to run alongside his ring.
The guest rooms for June and Boim were gone. The wall had been sealed up. The
gates had been merged into one gate. Getting to the Hole in the Wall, or the Village,
was a few key strokes away.
A small ready room sat next to the gate. They could come back from a meeting, and
pause there before going downstairs.
Jack pointed out the elevator. They needed to go down to see what the rest of the
structure looked like. It stood next to the ready room. He opened it and pushed the
button for the next floor.
The next floor held the kitchen/dining room/living room/library/gym area that he had
envisioned. He nodded as he walked around. The pool had an automatic cleaner for
the water from the looks of things.
“Why do we have a giant bath here?,” asked Melanie.
“It’s for swimming,” said Jack. “It has a small diving board on one end. That’s for
jumping and diving into the water.”
“What is this path around the inside?,” asked Laura.
“It’s for running when you don’t want to go outside,” said Jack.
“The kitchen?,” asked Angelica.
They walked over to the kitchen and food supply space that had been paired with the
dining area. Angelica went over the icebox, and cabinets. She nodded that they
had the same supplies from the apartments.
“This is the stove and oven I was telling you about,” said Jack. “The dials on the top
are for cooking on these circles. The oven dial is for cooking inside the thing. I’ll
show you how to do all that. You might need to practice for a bit before you can get
it down just right.
“Let’s go down and you can look at your rooms,” said Jack.
Everyone looked overwhelmed at this point. The space was already much bigger
than the Hole in the Wall.
The next floor had the girls’ personal spaces around the rim of a small living room
area. Each door was marked with their personal symbol. A smaller door was blue and
marked with the flame of Aviras.
“No more listening to Alicia snore,” said Melanie.
“You girls take a look around while I take Josie downstairs to look at her space,”
said Jack. He waved them off.
“This is incredible,” said the Queen. “You could change the kingdom’s building
projects in a second.”
“If I started doing that, the Society would get someone like Mister Warner to handle
their jobs,” said Jack. “And if that happened, only what they wanted would get done,
and all the other stuff we have been dealing with would be allowed to fester until a
hot lance had to be applied to the boil.”
“Care would have been rescued, maybe healed,” said the Queen. “But Rustam would
still be trying to take over the kingdom and fomenting war with the other kingdoms.”
“Unless his name came up in the lottery,” said Jack. “How likely is that?”
“I see your point,” said the Queen.
“All right, Jo,” said Jack. “Let’s let you look at your space, and then I’ll talk to Elaine
about any changes she wants to ours, and then we do the Hole in the Wall.”
“This is some fancy work,” said Josie. “This is a good job.”
“Thanks,” said Jack.