Morgan's Genie Ch. 01

Morgan frowned a bit. "Who are you?"

"My name is Thomas," he told her. His voice was soft, gentle. "I am your servant." He saw her frown deepen. "I apologize," he continued. "I have many things for which to apologize at the moment. I did not think to meet you like this and I am very much out of sorts. The world is nothing as I remember it. So while there is much to tell you, you have been through a great deal. The last thing I wish to do is harm you or cause you alarm."

Morgan's head turned to look out the door. "They check on you every few minutes. There are a great many people here very concerned for you. I do not understand what is going on in this land, but it appears that you are safe from your enemies."

"Ah. Gotcha. But I'm I safe from you, right?" Morgan asked skeptically. "You're like the happy friendly kind of weirdo guy?"

"I would not and cannot harm you," Thomas said, bowing his head somewhat. "As I said, I am your servant."

"Right," Morgan nodded. "So you're like Murdock from the A-Team crazy and not like Hannibal Lecter here to eat my spleen crazy."

Thomas frowned. "No, I'm not here to eat your...erm. Anything of yours."

"You're a weirdo. I must be really stoned."

"I don't believe anyone threw rocks at you. Certainly not that I saw. Though your battle must have been quite the struggle. The wreckage was impressive."

It was Morgan's turn to frown. This was one hell of an hallucination. "Why are you here?"

"I am what is called a djinn, or a genie," Thomas told her with a simple shrug, "though I have learned that the legends of such are quite different from the reality."

"Genie."

"Yes."

"Okay. Done being stoned now." She looked around her bed.

"What can I do for you?"

"Get me someone normal to talk to," she said. "There's a buzzer here. There's supposed to be a buzzer to call a nurse or whatever. Isn't there? Ugh," Morgan groaned. "Y'know, if you really are a genie, I wish my head would clear."

Thomas promptly rose and reached out to place two fingers on her forehead. A moment later, all the cobwebs and the throbbing headache disappeared. Amazingly, her wounds hurt much less. She looked up at him in shock. "What the hell did you just do?"

Thomas raised a hand to caution her. "You are safe," he said, "but you should know that no one else will see me. Not unless you specifically instruct me otherwise."

It stopped her. She didn't know whether to call for rescue from the crazy person or not, but she certainly didn't think this could be a prank. You simply didn't pull pranks on people in the infirmary the moment they woke up after combat injuries. And where in the hell would anyone get chain mail in the middle of Baghdad?

"I wish for a million dollars," she said flatly.

Thomas paused. An awkward, embarrassed look crossed his face. After a moment he explained, "I don't know what dollars are."

"Seriously?"

"I have learned your language, but most of the references make no sense to me yet. I was only released from my vessel a few hours ago."

"Oh whatever," Morgan frowned. "Y'know what? Fine. Gold. You know what gold is, right? Give me a gold brick. No no no, wait. I wish for a gold brick."

He nodded, then looked down at her bed. He reached down his hand beside hers, and then under her fingers was a solid gold bar.

Morgan blinked. It was real, it certainly looked like gold, and it was way too heavy to have been dropped there by sleight of hand. "Holy shit!" she blurted.

"Staff Sergeant Anderson?" a voice asked. Without thinking, Morgan quickly pulled the blanket up over the gold bar. An orderly poked his head in through the doorway. "You're awake," he said with a smile, coming into the room and turning on the lights.

She winced. "Ugh. Yeah, yeah, I'm awake," Morgan smiled awkwardly. "What happened? Is everyone okay? I remember someone telling me everyone was okay." If there was one thing she had learned to do in counterintelligence, it was how to pretend something wasn't going on. The best thing was to shift attention to a new topic, preferably one of genuine importance.

"Well, there are a couple more people from the ambush here besides you, but we think everyone will pull through okay. How are you feeling?" The orderly's nametag said identified him as Nguyen.

"Like I just got shot up and beat to hell. What's wrong with my eye?"

"Just some swelling. It should be fine in a day or so. Your left foot and ankle aren't too good, but they did a real job on it when you were brought in. There will probably be some rehab, but you aren't going to lose it or anything. Right leg was pretty clean tissue damage as gunshots go. You lost a lot of blood, but we've already got you on the mend there. And you've probably got bruised ribs from the hit you took in the back, but your body armor saved you from anything worse."

"Thank God," she breathed out.

Thomas was still standing there. As he had warned, Nguyen didn't seem to notice the strange man in chain mail at all. Nguyen came over to go through the routine of checking her vitals. Then the medic pulled the usual pen-light-in-the-eyes thing. "I suppose there's no need to ask if you know your name or where you are," he mused as he put the light away.

"I'm Madonna and we're all in Disneyland, right?" Morgan answered. "But I gotta tell you, the rides here suck balls."

"Yeah, but what I wouldn't give for dinner at the Blue Bayou right now," Nguyen smiled. "We thought for sure you had a major concussion on top of everything else, but I guess that was a rush to judgment. You seem pretty lucid, even with the painkillers."

"Huh. How 'bout that," Morgan mumbled.

"Well, there are people who wanted to know when you were awake. Do you need anything before I go off to spread the good news?"

"Just some water," she said. "And can I sit up in this thing at all?"

He smiled and passed her the control for the bed. "You lucked out and got one of the powered beds," Nguyen told her. "I'll be back with some water in a moment."

Morgan got the bed moving up as Nguyen left. She realized then that Thomas was holding out a wooden cup. "I would think his appearance odd," Thomas said, "but then I am staring at a bed that moves on its own, and you were brought here in a cart that had no horses. And something flew in the sky with people inside of it."

She looked up at him curiously. "He's Vietnamese, the 'cart' is called a car, and you probably saw a helicopter." She took the cup from his hands and took a gulp. Then it was time to go back to being suspicious. "Thank you. Okay, two questions. Where are you from?"

"Normandy."

"Right, sorry. I meant when? When are you supposed to be from?"

Thomas thought for a moment on how to answer. "I went on the Crusade called by the Pope to free the Holy Land from the Saracens," he explained slowly. "It was summer, and we had just taken Antioch. That was when I was bound into the vessel that held me until you freed me."

"What vessel? What are you talking about?"

Thomas reached down for something in the chair. He showed her the bottle that she had grabbed in the store with all the intricate line patterns. It was barely recognizable as a bottle any longer, what with all the dents and cracks. "This was to hold me until some worthy soul figured out how to get it open. A test of wisdom as well as worth. Many had tried, but...no one ever considered simply breaking it open on a man's head before now," he explained with a wry smirk.

"Are you still bound to that thing?" Morgan asked. It didn't look like it could hold much of anything anymore.

"No," Thomas answered. "I am bound to you."

"Okay, that's a little creepy."

"I will do all that I can to make this easy for you. I do not wish to cause you discomfort."

Morgan grumbled. Interviewing people was a major aspect of her job. She handled both Iraqi subjects and American and allied servicemen. She handled the liars. She handled the nutjobs. She watched for body language, for inconsistencies, for tells. Her training and experience had made her very good at sniffing out lies.

For all his wild claims, Thomas struck her as completely genuine. And then there was the gold brick, the instant pain relief, the way Nguyen didn't see him at all...which led to her other concern. "So how do I know that I'm not just crazy and imagining all this?" she asked.

Again, Thomas paused before he answered. "How would anyone ever know for certain that the world was real, and not of their own imagining?"

"Guess you've got a point there," Morgan sighed.

"I saw men in a flying metal cart today," Thomas reminded her with a touch of humor in his voice. "I could ask you much the same question. Have I heard correctly that we are in Baghdad?"

"Yeah," Morgan nodded. What the hell, she figured. If I've gone this far off the deep end this suddenly, at least my delusions are kind of cute. "It's, uh...it's the year 2009, and we're in Baghdad. But you should be careful talking about the Crusades around here. That was nine hundred years ago and people here are still pretty pissed about it."

"You are yourself part of a foreign army here then, yes?"

"We're from the United States. That's, um. That's a land that hadn't even been discovered yet when you were born. But my country invaded Iraq. Baghdad. About six years ago. And the people here are still pretty pissed about it," she added wryly.

"I would imagine," Thomas nodded. "I have many questions, if you would be willing to indulge me."

"Yeah. Probably not right away, though. We're not gonna be alone long."

"No," Thomas agreed. "Your name is Lady Anderson?"

"Morgan," she corrected. "Call me Morgan. No 'lady' business."

"You don't wish me to call you mistress or something more formal?"

"Hell no," Morgan chuckled. "That'd be weird. Kinky. Maybe later, but not right now. I mean you're cute and all, but..." she paused, watching him look away for a moment. "You can really do whatever I ask for?"

"There are limitations. I have never used these abilities before, and am only learning them now. Witnesses will complicate anything that I might do and make magic unreliable. We will both have to learn as we go."

"Can you get rid of the beard? The mustache?" she asked. A moment later, his facial hair vanished as if he had a fresh shave. "Fix your teeth? Make them nice and straight and healthy?" Thomas blinked, reaching up to his mouth for a moment, and then when his fingers fell away and he offered a soft smile, Morgan smiled back. "Definitely handsome," she decided.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"You're gonna need different clothes, too. That chain mail is freakin' me out. Can you give yourself clothes like the other guys out there wear? A uniform?"

Thomas cracked his knuckles. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and soon he seemed to fade for a moment until he was wearing standard desert BDUs. The nametag said "Anderson," and his insignia were identical to those she wore on her own uniform.

"Well, you can get rid of the shirt," Morgan smirked. "A black t-shirt would look good on you. Like the guys out there wear under their uniform shirts, but black."

A moment later, Thomas was dressed exactly as she wanted. Morgan's grin had his face reddening. "You're blushing," she observed.

"This is a bit awkward," he admitted.

"I'm sorry," Morgan shrugged. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

Thomas shook his head. "I will be fine. Do not concern yourself. I am your servant. It would not be so if you were not worthy of my power or my trust. There are...worse things than to have a woman such as you tell me that I am handsome."

"Such as me?" she smirked.

"You may be bruised, but I can still see that you are very beautiful."

"Hah!" Morgan laughed, and then coughed. "You're just sayin' that 'cause I've got all my teeth and I don't have any scars from the pox!"

"These are no small things."

"They are where I'm from," she replied dryly. "I've been told I'm pretty before, but...well. Thank you."

"You're quite welcome."

"Can you fix what's wrong with me? My foot and stuff?"

He nodded. "Again, witnesses make magic somewhat unreliable, but if they arrive after the work is done, there is no issue. Since it seemed clear that you would survive, I did not want to take action without your leave."

"Probably for the best. God knows I wouldn't be able to answer those questions." She thought for a moment. "You're really a genie and you're really going to serve me?"

"Yes."

"And I'm not limited to just three wishes?"

"Why would there be a limit?"

"Nevermind. And you're not going to try to twist my wishes around to fuck me over with them? Or fuck over someone else?"

He paused to consider her strange phrases. "Why would I do any of that?"

"Alright. Just keep quiet, then. We have to play this subtle until I figure out what to do with you. And you'd better get rid of this," she added, tapping the gold bar. A moment later, it vanished into thin air.

They both fell silent for a moment. Morgan listened for activity outside her door as she thought. "What did you mean, 'worthy?'"

"I took up the sword for Christ, but found myself serving only cruel, greedy men," Thomas answered with a touch of guilt in his voice. "Men who would slaughter one another for Saracen plunder, to say nothing of what they did to the Saracens. It was folly. All of it. Good people on both sides died for no good reason. When I...I was as good as dead when I was offered the chance to become what I am. I agreed, but only if I might serve someone who was of good and just heart. My conditions were met," Thomas finished with a shrug. "You look sad," he observed.

"So do you."

"It is a sad story."

She reached out to touch his hand. There were voices coming down the hall, voices she recognized. "Maybe you'll get a happy ending out of it." They looked at one another, and then she released his hand as the voices grew near. He took it as his cue to step into a corner.

"Besides," she added with a grin, "you're really hot."

Nguyen returned. Thomas, confused, raised his hand to his head to see if he was feverish, but soon others in the room distracted him from such concerns.

Among the people with Nguyen, one stood out among the rest. He was a big man, dark-skinned and completely bald, and the authority with which he moved was instantly recognizable even to Thomas. The man had something of a smile playing at his lips. Thomas glanced to Morgan, who inhaled sharply and even tried to sit up. "Colonel Wallace," she began.

"Just relax, Morgan," he said with a deep voice that resonated with a gentleness that seemed somehow out of place to Thomas. He had a hand up to indicate that she should relax. "It's not like there's a regulation for laying in the infirmary at attention."

"Yes sir," Morgan said, sinking back only slightly.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked.

"Please," she answered quietly.

The older man claimed the chair next to Morgan's bed. The other people stayed standing near the doorway. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been better, but I could be a lot worse, sir."

"You had one hell of a day."

"Sir," she simply nodded back. "Is everyone else okay, sir?"

"They're gonna be fine," he smiled softly, "largely thanks to you."

"Gomez was in charge, sir. I just followed his lead."

"Gomez didn't take out an RPG and then pick a grenade up out of his lap and huck it back out the door," Wallace countered. "You saved everyone in your vehicle, and really the one in front of it, too." He paused, then added, "They were going for prisoners, Morgan. That's why they didn't just bomb and run."

It hung there for a moment. There were no illusions about what would have happened to anyone who had been captured. "Gomez saw what you did when they grabbed you, Morgan. He said that move with the grenade was about the gutsiest thing he's ever seen. The guy you pulled it off of survived and told us what you did, too, and let me tell you, he thinks you're nuts. And that other prisoner you took isn't gonna be a happy camper once he recovers from the concussions you gave him." Wallace couldn't help but chuckle. "Jesus, Morgan, what'd you hit him with, anyway?"

"Some old bottle," she said. Morgan was still just enough off her game to glance reflexively at the battered bottle on her nightstand.

Wallace saw it, noticing the bottle for the first time. He picked it up and looked at it oddly. "Now how'd that get in here?" he asked.

The colonel glanced back at Nguyen, who simply shrugged. "I suppose one of the medics who took care of her might've brought it along," he said. "I don't know."

Morgan said nothing. The moment gave her pause. If she really was just hallucinating about Thomas—if she really was crazy—then she had to be pretty far gone to have other people interact consistently with her delusions. As Wallace shrugged and put the bottle back, she glanced to Thomas, who only shrugged with embarrassment.

"I think you and I know what was really impressive about this, though," Wallace went on.

"Sir?"

"Sergeant Randall already came down and retrieved your gear," Wallace explained, "and Morkot's basically okay. The MP's have already rounded up our suspects. Morgan, I don't know how you got that woman to talk, but you did a damn good job today. A damn good job."

"That's good to know, sir," Morgan nodded.

"Captain Smalls wanted me to convey his thanks, too. Hard to do an investigation on your own guys, but once he saw the weight of the evidence he made up his mind pretty quick." Wallace laid his hand on Morgan's and squeezed it.

"I think she'll testify if she has to, sir," Morgan told him.

"Yeah, well, if they have any sense, they'll plead guilty before it comes to that. Otherwise they're gonna have to face both her and you at their court martial, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody after today."

Morgan tried not to blush. It wasn't easy. "Thank you, sir," she said quietly.

He just nodded, then patted her hand, and fell silent for a moment. "So the doctor tells me that you might be laid up for awhile with the leg," he went on. "You'll walk again, he says, but it's going to be some months before you're fit for full duty again—if ever," he added honestly, "and as I recall your enlistment is up before that."

"In March, sir," Morgan nodded. "Right after we're due to rotate back out. Terminal leave has me out in early March."

"Well, then, you've got some things to think about," Wallace told her gently. "I know you weren't seriously considering reenlisting. I'd probably question your sanity if today's festivities changed your mind," he smiled wryly.

"Probably not, sir," she admitted, returning his smile.

"That's too bad. That Purple Heart you just earned counts toward promotions," Wallace winked. Morgan snorted ruefully. "Well, nobody's gonna move you for a couple days at least, and we're going to need to wrap up your current workload in any case. You'll probably have more than a few visitors, and we'll make sure you aren't bored or lonely."

Morgan chuckled. "I'm sure I won't be lonely, sir." She stole a glance at Thomas, who remained quiet and unnoticed in the corner.

"I'm sure."

"She should probably have some rest for now, sir," Nguyen spoke up.

Wallace shared an eyeroll with Morgan. "Medics," he smirked, but stood up as suggested. As he turned to leave, shooing his entourage out of the room, Wallace stole another look at her. "Y'know," he said, "I know six or seven guys right now who are alive thanks to you. There's a whole pack of insurgents who won't be hurting anyone else anymore. Three scumbags are gonna go to Leavenworth for rape, and the woman they hurt is gonna know that. And the next fool who pipes up in Congress or on TV about how women don't belong in combat is gonna hear your name when he gets shut down. That's pretty good for a day's work."