"Don’t drag that!" Widder Hackett yelled. "You’ll gouge the floor."
The sudden noise made Wiz drop the table. One leg landed on his foot and the other hit the floor with a resounding thump. The scream of outrage in his ear almost made him forget the pain in his foot. "You ninny! Look what you’ve done. That mark will never come out! Oh, my beautiful floor."
It was amazing, Wiz thought, that even when he was hopping around holding one foot the ghost’s voice seemed to stay right in his ear.
Finally Widder Hackett ran down and the pain in Wiz’s foot subsided to a dull throb. Gingerly, favoring his injured foot, Wiz took the table in the middle and heaved it clear of the floor. He delicately staggered across the room and gently lowered it before the window, bending over in a position that put his lower back in dire peril. He straightened to ease the protesting back muscles and reached out to push the table up against the wall. A sharp sound from Widder Hackett stopped him and he ended up carefully lifting the end to slide it into position.
"And be sure you carry the chair too!" the old lady’s ghost added.
With the chair and table in place, Wiz sat down to rest his aching foot and to try to get some work done. Even though setting up his magical workstation went smoothly it still wasn’t easy. Every couple of minutes Widder Hackett would be back to complain about another outrage to her beloved house and Wiz’s lack of action, not to mention morals, character and general deportment. Since the ghost’s voice combined the worst features of a foghorn, a screech owl and a table saw ripping lumber full of nails, Wiz was quickly developing a semi-permanent twitch. He had always pictured ghosts as having high, reedy voices that were just on the edge of audibility. Apparently it took more than dying to modulate Widder Hackett’s tones.
"I’m surprised they didn’t let me out of jail just to give me the house," he muttered as he leaned back to examine the fruits of several hours of not-very-productive work.
"Don’t put your feet on the table!" Widder Hackett roared. Wiz jerked his feet back to the floor. "And sit up in that chair. You’re putting weight on it wrong and you’ll break it like as not."
Wiz had gone to public schools, but he had Catholic friends who had gone to parochial schools. From what they had told him Widder Hackett had a lot in common with the nuns.
Bobo sauntered through the door and jumped up on the table to sniff at Wiz’s magical spells. He decided that fiery letters probably weren’t good to eat. Then he decided he needed petting and Wiz’s hand was just lying on the table not doing anything so Bobo butted his head against it until he got a response.
Wiz sighed and scratched the cat under the chin. "I don’t know, Bubba. What do you think I ought to do?"
The cat gazed deep into Wiz’s eyes. "Feed me." The thought came crystal sharp into Wiz’s mind. Wiz sighed again.
"You know, it’s probably a good thing cat lovers don’t know what their cats are thinking."
"Feed me now," Bobo’s thought came clear again. There was no response except some distracted petting. The cat gave Wiz a look that clearly indicated he thought Wiz was mentally retarded for not getting the message. Then he jumped down from the table and stalked out the door, tail high.
"And just when are you going to do something about the disgraceful condition of the front parlor?" demanded a now-familiar voice beside his ear.
Wiz sighed again. He had a feeling it was going to be a long, long day.
Eight: Calling Home
The problem with being a miracle worker is that everyone expects you to work miracles.
Two hours later Wiz started his latest creation running and then let out a long, whooshing sigh.
"You all right?" Malkin asked in a voice that showed more curiosity than compassion.
"Yeah, fine. But if I’m going to get anything done around here I’m going to have to hire a housekeeper."
Malkin crossed her arms over her chest. "Good luck. Not many as will want to work for a strange wizard in a haunted house."
"Well put an ad in the paper will you? Or have the town crier announce it or whatever you do here."
"I’ll take the news to the market." She looked over at the rapidly scrolling letters of golden fire above his desk under the window. "Meanwhile, what’s that?"
"It’s a workstation. I just built it."
Malkin looked at the gray box and keyboard sitting on the table and the letters of golden fire hanging above it.
"Built it out of what?"
"Well, actually it’s a program, a spell you’d call it. See, we’ve found that in this world a sufficiently complex program, or spell, produces a physical manifestation, what you’d call a demon."
Malkin regarded the things on the desk. "Don’t look like no demon I’ve ever heard tell of," she said. "But you’re the wizard. What’s it good for?"
"Well, what you see here is really just a user interface. It virtualizes what I was used to in my world and that makes it easier for me to relate to."
"Seems to me any relations you had with a demon would have to be illegitimate," the tall thief said. "But what’s it good for?"
"Just about anything I want it to be. Right now I’m setting up an Internet connection so I can talk to my friends."
"More magic, eh?"
"No, it’s technology. I need a machine on the other side," Wiz explained to the uncomprehending but fascinated woman. "So I’ve created a little dialer demon to troll the net for systems I can set up accounts on."
Malkin cocked an eye at him. "I see. So it’s demons and trolls but it’s not magic."
"No, it’s… Okay, have it your way. It’s magic."
Just then the system emitted a bell-like tone. "Boy there’s luck. Less than five minutes and I’ve found one. Uh, excuse me will you?" With that he turned back to the console.
"Now what are you doing?" Malkin asked. "Magic aside."
"I guess the easiest way to explain it is to say I’m breaking into something that’s locked. Something a good ways from here."
For once the tall thief seemed impressed. "Burglary without being there," Malkin said wonderingly. "Wizard, I think I’d like this world of yours."
Wiz thought about Malkin as a computer criminal. Then he shuddered and turned his attention back to the computer.
Exploiting a hole in the system’s security was easy. In a matter of minutes Wiz had two new accounts set up. The final wrinkle was a simple little shell script to take messages from one account and pass them to the other. Anyone who tried to trace him back could only follow him as far as this machine.