[Patreon Exclusive] THREE WISHES: Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2

He was extremely confused until he looked down at his hand and realized he was still carrying that bottle. “Are you—”

“—A genie? Yes. And you’ve rescued me, so I suppose I owe you, right?”

Seth closed his eyes for a moment and tried to gather his sanity. Genies are impossible. Certainly, this was either some very vivid hallucination, or he was being tricked. But why would anyone be way out in the middle of nowhere, looking for lost soldiers to prank? “Prove it,” Seth said.

“Prove that I owe you?”

“Prove that you’re a genie,” he said.

“Look. I’ll do three things for you. If you want one of them to be me proving myself to you, then that’s your choice. A better choice would be to make a wish, and see if it comes true. Then you get your proof and you don’t waste a wish.”

Seth didn’t even have to think about his first wish. “I wish I was back at basecamp,” he said. Nothing happened. The girl continued to stand there, staring at him with a sly smile. “Well?” Seth said.

“I can do it if you’d like, but then how are you going to make your last two wishes? Or is that all you want—just the one wish?” She giggled cutely. She seemed to find this whole thing very funny. Seth returned to his assumption that she was just some local girl having some fun. Maybe she was out for a walk, saw him sleeping in those old ruins, and she decided to put that bottle there for kicks. It seemed like almost as much of a stretch as the genie theory.

“Why wouldn’t I be able to make any more wishes?” Seth asked.

“Because I would still be here.”

“So transport both of us.”

“I can, but I think that would count as two wishes.”

“What? Why? That’s not fair,” Seth said. He looked over at the town, realizing he’d just raised his voice loud enough to potentially be heard. He took a breath and gathered his composure.

“Well, it just wouldn’t be fair. Think about it. If you can cram whatever you want into a single wish, then there would be no limit to what you could get out of three wishes. You could say, ‘I wish I was a billionaire with a big mansion and a dozen cars and a hot wife and my own private island,’” she said. “That’s a lot of work for me. I like to think I’m powerful, but I’m not that powerful.”

Seth thought about it for a moment. If he did wish to have himself and Idri sent back to basecamp, he would still have one wish left—assuming that Idri was even a genie at all. Then he could easily wish for something like infinite money, or perhaps something a bit less selfish like an end to the war. He wondered if she would be able to end the war? But why stop there? Why not wish for world peace in general?

A thought occurred to him: why not wish in the other order? Wish for world peace first, unlimited money second, and a teleport back to basecamp third. “What about world peace?” Seth said.

Idri rolled her eyes. “I might be able to get you an hour-long ceasefire at best,” she said.

“I don’t think you’re actually a genie. You’re just fucking with me, aren’t you?”

“Look, man, if you don’t want your wishes, that’s your decision. I only offered because I’m feeling nice. I was in that bottle for about three-hundred years. I really want to get out of this godforsaken country—I was thinking of going to the beach for the next hundred years or so—maybe the Dominican. What do you think?”

Seth continued to think. In the off-chance she really did have the power to grant wishes, he didn’t want to fuck up the opportunity. He thought about wishing for a dune buggy—surely that would be within her abilities, right? But that wouldn’t necessarily be the safest way back to his base. There would be nothing stopping the Taliban from chasing him down and blowing him up. He thought about wishing for water, but then he still needed to figure out a way home.

Even if she created some sort of transportation device for him, he still had no idea where home base was. He would have to wish for a map, and then that was two wishes wasted—he may as well just have himself teleported back to base with Idri.

He looked over at the town. There were parked jeeps along the town’s perimeter that he could probably steal, and there was probably a map in one of the buildings. If he had a disguise, he could get the transport and the map without a wish. So was he going to wish for a disguise? He thought for another minute. It was the only way he could think to maintain two wishes. “I want a disguise—a good disguise—that I can use to sneak into that town without being shot at,” he said reluctantly.

It seemed like such a waste when he could have had anything—a dream car, a mansion, money, a sexy girlfriend… Instead, he was getting some clothes he would wear once.

“Your wish is my command,” Idri said with a big smirk, and then she snapped her fingers. A poof of smoke blinded Seth for a moment. He shut his eyes and winced away from the sudden smoky display. When he opened his eyes, everything was dark, save for a thin slit, as if he suddenly suffered from tunnel vision. But when he looked down, he realized he was wearing a long, black burka.

Holy shit, he thought, she really was a genie. There was no other possible explanation, unless she somehow knew he was going to ask for a disguise, she somehow had one ready, and she was somehow able to get it onto his body in a split second. He looked up at her, with wide eyes she couldn’t see through the black, total-covering garment. “I told you,” she said with a smirk. “I better come up with a disguise of my own if we’re going down there.”

She snapped her fingers, conjuring up another plume of smoke. It settled, revealing her transformation into an Arabic-looking man, complete with dark skin and a turban. “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re my wife,” she said in a deep, manly voice, and then she laughed.