Chapter 1
I was awoken with a strange feeling; my body and mind were reshaping which could mean only one thing. How long had I been out though? And where would I be when I was finally released? Looks like I was about to get my answer, I could feel the summoning. Show time I guess.
"Greetings, I am the gen...wow you're young!!" I was looking down on a slack jawed boy who must have been in his teens, standing in a room stranger than any I had been in before. He had short, brown hair and paler skin than I was used to seeing; he also seemed to be wearing quite loose fitting but well-tailored clothes. I looked around the room and the only thing I vaguely recognised was what looked to be a bed, everything else was a mystery. "What the fuck? Where am I? And why am I speaking so strangely?" The boy carried on staring for a bit longer until he finally found his voice.
"Who are you?" He asked.
"I thought we'd established that, I'm the genie from that lamp you look like you're about to drop."
"Oh, sorry." He held the lamp a little tighter and carried on staring in wonder.
"Are you going to stand there gawping at me all day or are you going to tell me where I am?"
His face flushed red and he replied, "Err you're in England."
"Where?"
"England." He stated again, like it was the most obvious thing.
"Ok, repeating it isn't going to help, where the fuck is England?"
"It's in Europe." I pinched the bridge of my nose in exasperation as he continued looking blankly at me. This was going to be hard work.
"Right, that didn't really help, I have no idea where England or Europe are, you got a map?" He picked up this strange ball on a stand and turned it around slightly then pointed to England. Holy shit this was a map!! "Well I'll be damned, you lot finally figured out the Earth is round after all."
"Oh err...yeah...there's some idiots that still think it's flat though." He replied with a little smile. "Where were you before then? You sound like you're from here."
"Yeah that's the weird thing, when I get a new master I kinda change to reflect the area I'm released in so that's why I talk like this. Before here I was in Persia but I have no idea when that was, what century are we in now?"
"The 21st."
"Great, seems like someone's fucked about with the calendars as well. I reckon I've been out of it for at least two thousand years or so; this is gonna take some time to fill in the blanks."
"Wait, you're over two thousand years old? You don't look it." He said.
"Have you seen anyone my age before? I don't even know how I look anyway, it changes every time."
"There's a mirror over there." He pointed to the wall and I went over to see what I had become. I was really surprised to see a younger face than I'd ever seen before staring back at me from the mirror. Normally when a new master picks up the lamp I become someone they would find unthreatening so I usually end up as someone around their age, but this kid was younger than anyone who'd had the lamp before so this was all new. I think my attitude came from the fact that I was an all-powerful, magical being going through puberty. I had short, fair hair for the first time since I can remember with quite a handsome face and a fairly toned body. I still had a smoke trail from the waist down leading back to the lamp so I conjured up some legs and stood at the same height as the kid. "So you can do magic then?" He asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"Of course I can! Here, pick a card." He looked at the cards that were suddenly in my hand and gave me a very incredulous look."
"That's not magic." He replied.
"Oh yeah, well how about I saw you in half?" I made a huge sword appear above his bed.
"Err I'll pass, so how does this genie thing work then? Do I get three wishes or something?"
"Yeah you do, but there are a few rules that go with them." I said, making the sword disappear again.
"I know, I've seen Aladdin."
"Aladdin? Urgh, don't get me started on that little twat!! He was my last master and he was a right arsehole!"
"He seemed nice in the movie; he even freed the genie at the end." He replied looking confused.
"Of course he seemed nice, the story was about him. He never freed me though; he used his first two wishes so he could shag that slapper then he used his last wish to send me away. I think I ended up flying for miles and landing in a volcano which sucked."
"That makes sense, my dad was a geologist."
"What's a geologist?"
"He studied rocks and things like that to find out more about the Earth."
"Wow, I bet he's the life and soul of a party."
"He was actually pretty cool; I found some of the old volcanic rocks he'd brought home to study before he got ill. When I broke one of them open I found your lamp inside."
"So he's dead then?" He gave a sad little nod but didn't say anything. "Oh well. Anyway, the rules."
"Yeah yeah, only three wishes, I can't wish anyone dead, can't bring anyone back from the dead and can't get anyone to fall in love with me, is that about right?" I was beginning to see where my attitude was coming from.
"Almost, you also can't travel through time cos you could accidentally kill someone or change events so you might create life where you shouldn't. I can't mess with free will too much either, so if you tried to wish for world peace or something like that then it wouldn't happen as I'd have to change everyone's attitudes. The other thing as well is make sure you really mean what you wish for otherwise I won't grant it."
"What does that mean?"
"That means if you say something like `I wish you'd shut the fuck up' then I'm not going to shut the fuck up." That made him smile and he seemed to mellow a bit. "Basically think about what you really want. If you make a wish and it's not really what you want then the only way to get rid of it is to use another wish. You can also be really specific, so say for instance you wished for a tree in the garden you could say what tree, how old, how tall, even how many individual leaves on it if you wanted. That all make sense?"
"I think so. How long do I have to make these wishes?" He asked.
"Until you die or until you've used them all up, whichever comes first. See the way it works is you're my master now until I'm released from your service, so even if someone else picks up the lamp I won't grant wishes for them until yours are all used up or you come to a sticky end." He stood there in silence for a while trying to take in what I'd said, then he set the lamp down and sat on his bed as the enormity of what he now possessed became apparent. I took the opportunity to look around the room I was in and noticed he had some pictures on the walls of fairly muscular men in skin tight costumes, some of them seemingly flying or having what looked like energy beams coming out of various limbs or their eyes. The next thing that caught my eyes was a window to the outside world. I walked over to look out and was stunned at what I saw. Before it had all been deserts and palm trees with either small, run down huts or grand palaces. Here the houses looked bigger and sturdier and beyond them I saw new species of trees I'd never seen before and green fields. There were also solid looking, black roads with strange metal contraptions lined up along it and a few travelling past this house. Suddenly I started to feel very uncomfortable in this new world and I think he could sense that.
"I bet it's kinda weird isn't it? How much the world has changed since you were last in it?"
"Definitely. Sorry if I came across as an ass earlier, it's always weird meeting a new master and I guess I kinda resent not being given a choice in who picks up the lamp. You seem ok though, what's your name?"
"Thomas, well...Tom actually, I prefer that."
"Pleased to meet you Tom." I replied with a smile.
"So what do I call you?"
"I dunno, I've never had a name before. I'll let you pick one so I don't pick some weird name that been lost in the sands of time."
"How about Aladdin?" He asked with a cheeky smile.
"How about I fuck up all your wishes?"
"You wouldn't!" He looked shocked at the suggestion.
"Nah, I couldn't anyway, but I'd rather not be named after that prick."
"How about Grant?" He suggested.
"Haha, yeah, that seems kinda fitting." Ok, so this kid was starting to grow on me now. "So what do you want for your first wish?"
"I have no idea to be honest, I mean there are things I'd like but I don't want to throw them all away on trivialities." I was definitely starting to like this kid. "What happens to you when I've used them all up? Do you just go back into the lamp and wait for someone else or could you hang around for a while?"
"I go back into the lamp until someone else gets their hands on it, then I'd come out as a slightly different genie."
"Well that sucks, so if I wanted to keep you around as a friend then you'd pretty much be my slave?" I was quite taken aback by that question, no one had ever wanted me as a friend, they usually just wanted what I could give them.
"I suppose so yeah, I'd pretty much have to do anything you wanted if you told me to. I might come across as being in charge but I don't have a lot of free will." I could see a sad look come over his face and I knew that he was starting to feel sorry for me. "It's not all bad though, I can do loads of cool things but I just can't make them stick around." I waved my hand and his room was suddenly decorated like an Arabian palace suite, with throw rugs, ornate fixtures and no electricity but it soon faded when I stopped thinking about it.
"So what about if I wished you free from the lamp? Would you still look like this? Would you still have powers or would you just cease to exist?" He asked.
"I don't know to be honest, it's never happened before." I was actually curious about it myself but the thought of everything changing was quite scary, I mean, how would I cope as a human?
"Has it never happened to another genie?"
"I hate to break this to you but there's no big genie reunions going on where we get to discuss people's wishes. I'm the only genie in existence, but don't ask me where I came from cos I have no idea."
"Wow that must be lonely." He seemed to have a real sympathy for me which was nice to see.
"Not so much, when I'm in the lamp time stands still so the last few millennia seem like an instant for me, then when I come out I'm usually doing my master's bidding so I don't really get time to be lonely."
"Tell you what, and this isn't a wish, I want you to be out of the lamp all the time when I'm around ok? I think it'd be cool to hang out like friends." He said.
"I can do that if you want me to."
"It's not about what I want as such, all I really want is for you to have more of a life and not be so subservient. Do you have any desires?" Wow, he was really hitting me with the heavy questions today.
"I don't know, I can pretty much do anything but I've never really been given choices so I've never really felt desires."
"Ok then, let's try something. Do you like the way you look? You said yourself that you change depending on the master so what do you think of your current body?"
I went to look at myself in the mirror again taking in the sight of the young boy I now was. I didn't really feel any desire to change the way I looked, nor did I feel like there were any good things about the way I looked, I just simply was. "I don't really feel anything, I just know I looked different to the way I was before."
"Ok, so is there anything you prefer about this look, or anything you miss from your last body?"
"No." I stated bluntly.
"Hmmm...Well you clearly do have some opinions on things, you seemed to like the name Grant so maybe we need to give you more of a personality."
"The only way you could do that would be to use a wish but don't you think that would be wasting them? I mean, you could have anything you wanted so why use them on someone who will be gone once you've used them up?"
"Cos one thing I want is a good friend, I know you said I can't make anyone fall in love with me but what about having someone liking me?" He asked with a really hopeful look in his eyes.
"That would be manipulating free will though which is dodgy ground."
"Even your own free will?"
"Only one way to find out, but would you want to use a wish for that?"
"Let's do it. Grant, I want you to have desires and dreams, aspirations and hopes. I want you to want and need things, to have passions and interests. That's my first wish." He said and I could feel the magic working. All around me was an intense glow and I saw Tom shield his eyes before everything went dark.