Oops! I Caught a Genie!

Chapter 22

Waking up was hard to do. I wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't been woken up and told to get ready for the day's training by a middle aged woman dressed in a janitor's outfit. She introduced herself as Janice and forced me into some sort of uniform.

Once I had been escorted to the training hall I shook my head forcefully to rouse myself fully. Shullat was already in the room preparing a set of weights. A treadmill now sat in the corner of the room. A fresh wave of confusion came over me. Why were they training me? Wasn't I technically the enemy?

"Ah, you're here!" Shullat said, "Today your lesson will be academic as well as physical."

"Academic?" I asked.

"History."

I groaned inwardly, my two least favorite subjects. Physical education and history. But at least this history lesson would teach me more about myself hopefully.

 

-----------------------POV switch- Fritz----

 

I groaned in frustration. We had been sitting in the cabin for too long, Nora could be anywhere by now.

"Mangoo, anything?" Mangoo looked up. Our searches had been unsuccessful and we had been trying to make a logical search and rescue plan that wouldn't get us captured or worse for over twenty four hours now.

"We could go to a bar." Mangoo suggested.

"A bar?!" Liana screeched, "Nora's been kidnapped and you are thinking about going out to drink? Are you even legal drinking age!"

"Yes, no, yes." Mangoo deadpanned, "My best sources are usually bum drunks. Even evil scientists have to eat and drink sometimes."

Liana still didn't look pleased but she shut her mouth.

"You go, i'll stay here with Liana," I told him.

"Alright," Mangoo chirped and disappeared.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Liana shifted a little closer to me.

"So you're not a friend of Nora’s family?” She asked.

“Just Nora, I haven’t met her mother.” I said.

“Her father?”

“Yes.”
“Friend?”

“No. He tortured me in a storage garage.”

Her eyes widened and I thought I saw mist behind her lids.

“Its fine. That was twenty years ago.” I said with a small smile.

“H-how old are you?”

“Er-  Like i’ve told Nora, No!”

She looked so much like Nora when she scowled. I was distracted by the thought, until a low rumble outside of the cabin got my attention. We were still in a place known by the enemy, how could I have been so stupid!

“Run!” I hissed at Liana, “They seem to know that one of us at least is here, get out of the hole in the back. I’ll stall.”
“They’ll get you!” Liana scolded me, “Can't we just poof away like your friend did?”

“I’m not capable of taking you with me, I don't have that kind of focus and power. Just go! I hear boots.”

Sending a scowl back my way, she ran for the bookshelf that Mangoo had put in front of the hole in the side of the cabin. I saw her trip over something small and bend to pick it up.

“Don’t stop!”

She pocketed the thing and kept running. She had barely gotten out of the hole when the door was kicked in.

“Ho! That wood is older than all of you! Show some respect!” I crowed, mimicking the elder djinn. Too soon? Maybe.

A bunch of guys in black uniforms poured into the cabin. Aiming guns and sticks that I assumed were magic conductors. I raised my hands above my head and silently opened them in a sign of surrender. They began shouting orders at each other and the guy in back who I assumed was the leader was talking into a radio. I stopped myself from looking back at where Liana had escaped. No sense in us both being caught and I was more likely to be able to escape, or at least I thought so. They may have let her go because she was human, then again, she knew too much. I on the other hand would be tortured but most likely left alive, being a valuable research specimen and all. At least I hoped.

I saw one guy raise a dart gun and the world went out of focus.

 

---------------------Nora POV--------------------------------------------------

 

After the history lesson, Shullat had me run on the treadmill for an hour and lift weights for ten minutes. I was exhausted and when we finally took a break I curled up into a sweaty fetal position on the mats.

There was a commotion in the hallway outside the training room. It sounded like an army tramping through the hallway with steel toed boots.

Shullat produced a shortwave radio from seemingly nowhere and turned the switch.

“What’s the commotion?” He asked.

“We have captured the Red Monkey.” Came the crackly reply, “Taking him to the special cells.”

Red monkey? That sounded famil- Fritz! I looked at Shullat in horror. They had somehow caught my djinn!

Had to reprogram computer. Twice. Laptops... 

What do you think of the POV switches? Should I stop? What do you think of Shullat?
Feel free to tell me! I love feedback.