"What did you say?" I asked the far too beautiful woman who kept staring at me.

For the last five stops, that’s all she’d done. The bus’s cheap overhead lights flickered, casting moving shadows over the passengers. A woman and her son huddled together near the front, and several more people occupied the other stained, thread-bare seats. But this woman had eyes only for me.

She wasn’t threatening, necessarily, just very, very intent. I mean, there wasn’t much in the way of scenery to be sure, but there were other people she could have looked at. Talk about the heebie-jeebies.

Her scrutiny lasted a few more uncomfortable moments. "I said it's nice to finally meet one that isn't trying to kill me." She moved to my side and held out her hand. “I'm Jinn, by the way.”

Her voice matched her look, stilted and stern, but pretty.

"Um...meet one what?" I said.

She fixed her dark eyes on me. I couldn't tell if the eyes made her face look so pale, or if it was the other way around, but it didn't matter. Porcelain had nothing on this woman's complexion. As for the rest of her—let's just say I didn't put my backpack on my lap because it was convenient.

"You mean, you don't know?” she said. “I find that hard to believe, but I’m not going to look a gift genie in the mouth."

I tried to wrap my mind around her words. "You said your name was Jen? Is that short for Jennifer?"

She frowned. "No. Just Jinn. J-I-N-N."

"That's a pretty amazing coincidence,” I said, “that's my last name."

"Let me guess, your first name starts with D, right?"

I laughed. "How did you know that? It's David."

"So, your name is D. Jinn?"

"Uh, yeah," I said.

"In that case, I wish for a million dollars."

I laughed even harder—right up until my vision blurred, and an anvil crashed into my head. At least that’s what it felt like as the world I'd always known morphed into a hellscape of swirling colors. Pressure built behind my eyes, and the sound of the bus echoed in my ears. Before I could even raise my hand to my head, the pain left, and I gazed upon a new world.

Swirls of color moved in and around everything, leaving trails like thread in their wake. If I focused, I could see the world as it had been under the writhing mass. It was hard to do; something about those threads demanded my attention. I somehow knew they represented probability.

I could tell the exact color didn’t have any bearing on the affected outcome, except blue. That was pure chance. However, where the color was solid and bright, I knew a higher chance of a result existed. It was like looking at a painting close up. I could see the brush strokes, but not the entire image. I slacked my vision, and The Mona Lisa appeared before me.

Beauty like I’d never experienced crowded my vision. Within this tapestry of serpentine threads of chance, I could see everything. What’s more, I knew I could manipulate it.

I zoomed my vision back onto the brush-strokes of reality and reached for a thin green tendril. It was barely solid enough to hold and was so dark as to almost be black. I combined it with a vibrant pink one and then braided the tendrils together. I reached for a blue rope, virtually a cable. As if I'd been doing it my whole life, I combined it all into one solid mass.

Several bricks of bills dropped to the floor like rain, and the loud thumps got the attention of the other passengers. Like most veterans of public transportation, they spared a passing glance and went about minding their own business. Only one person paid attention long enough to see what had happened.

The small boy with his mother looked back at me, his arms draped on the back of his seat. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up, but I didn’t smile back. I couldn’t. His aura was erratic and dark red, the red of imminent death.

"Tell the Zaeim Aljiniy, I’ll see them in hell before I let one of their errand boys take me out!" Jinn said, interrupting the tableau.

She pulled violent energy to her. With instinct I didn't understand, I grasped several white tendrils and wove them together with as many other colors as I could find. Jinn did the same, and just as I finished gathering my defense, she launched her ball of swirling color at me. The masses warred with one another for maybe a second. BOOM!

The resultant explosion ripped the bus apart. It hurled me head over heels into the night, and I landed hard on the pavement. My head ached, and blood dripped into my eyes. I tried to stand, but my legs didn't want to support me. I saw Jinn walking calmly away from the mangled mass of metal.

"What the fuck?' I said.

"You're stronger than you look. But, this genie doesn't die easily," Jinn said.

Sirens blared, and emergency lights came into view. Jinn looked at the approaching vehicles. She gathered threads around her and disappeared. Just then, a hand rested on my shoulder.

"Genie, huh, you’re my ticket outta here," a man said.

My new instincts forced me to reply. "Your wish is my command, master."

I looked at the homeless man holding my arm. A thin, gold, ethereal rope connected me to his dull, washed-out core. His tendrils were mostly gray and brown, although there were some brighter hues mixed in. I couldn't see the man; only a collection of colors in a humanoid shape. It caught me off guard, but I still gleaned some critical information.

"Bizarre," I said.

The man tugged on my arm, helping me to my feet. "Ya know, buddy, I thought the same thing til that chick just up and vanished talkin bout genies."

"You're going to die soon," I said.

"Ain’t no point threatening me. I've been beaten, mugged, and even stabbed once."

I looked closer at his colors. If the world was The Mona Lisa, then he was the brush water. I had no doubt he’d be dead soon, but that didn't bother me so much. What did bother me was the matter of fact way I’d told him. I had more tact than that.

"You don't understand," I said. "You're sick."

I inspected him again. This time I focused on the tendril of gold. I knew it marked me as a bound genie, and I was bound to a dying homeless man, yippee. It was also fading. Not quickly, but in a few days, I was sure it would be gone, and I would be free. All I had to do was nothing.

"Ain’t nothin I don’t already know," the man said. "But hey, I got you now. I'll just wish it away."

"You don't really believe I'm a genie?" I said.

The man frowned. "Nah, but ain’t like I got much else to hang my hat on. What’s the risk in takin a chance on you?"

As soon as he expressed some doubt, the golden rope faded even more.

"What do you risk?" I asked. "Oh, I don’t know, dying a needless death because you decided some random stranger could magic your problems away."

"Nah, I'm just gonna take my three wishes."

The fading rope broke into three smaller segments. They were rock solid. Fuck me, that just didn’t seem fair.

"Fine,” I said. “I suppose your first wish is to be healthy?"

"You got it, pal. I wish to be healthy as a horse."

My newfound inner asshole cackled. I could screw with this guy in so many ways. Wait—why did I immediately want to fuck this guy over? He just wanted to be healthy. I ignored the instinct and searched the ether for the colors I'd need. He was so close to death; it took a long time.

I grabbed a few pulsating reds, some beige, and even a little black. Spinning them into a thick cord, I searched for the blue tendrils of chance. It took a very long time to weave enough of them together to bind to the life cord I'd created for him. It was more significant than the rope I'd designed for the million dollars. So, there was a higher chance of a million dollars appearing out of thin air than of this man surviving?

Once I had his new health settled, I set to work unraveling his aura. It made me sick just touching it. I let go of the disgusting stuff and watched as it integrated into the ether. Holy crap. I was sure I'd just made life a lot harder for a lot of people. Shrugging, I spun the cord around the man, and it snapped into place. He was now going to live a very long time.

"No way!" the man shouted. He danced around, flailing his arms. He stomped his feet and laughed like a lunatic. "You're the real deal! Oh man, we're gonna get along great."

My stomach ached. The man continued to celebrate, but I found no joy in what I'd done. As with everything so far, knowledge came to me, unbidden. I'd just discovered the Genie's first law; The Universal Law of Probability.

"Um," the man said, "shouldn't we get moving?"

"Why?" I said. "It's not like you've got anywhere to go." Jesus! What was wrong with me?

"Nah, man," he said, "but we're about to be surrounded by a ton of cops. I ain't keen to get picked up again."

Oh yeah. How could I forget about the bus that had literally just exploded? I turned around, then paused. Blood no longer flowed from my wounds, and my legs felt strong. Okay…mega healing is pretty cool.

The bus lay in two pieces. Flames danced happily as shapes of fading color crawled away from the wreckage. I ran to help.

"Easy," I said, trying to calm one of the victims, but she resisted my attempts to pull her free. "It's okay. I'm trying to help."

I dragged her a few feet away. Her colors, though faint, stopped fading, so I let her be. I hurried back to the wreck to attend to people whose colors weren't as stable. That’s when I saw it. A too-small bundle of color trapped beneath what I assumed was the drive axle. The boy whimpered, and I knew he only had moments of life left in him. I didn't have time to pull him free.

Tears clung to my cheeks as I watched. This disaster was my fault. I was sure of it. If I hadn't pulled so much life from the ether, these people wouldn't be dying.

I slapped my forehead—duh, I'm apparently an all-powerful genie now.

I reached out to collect the tendrils I needed. Catching smoke would have been more likely as they slipped through my grasp. I tried again, but no matter how careful I was, I couldn't get control. It was like trying to catch a fart with a butterfly net.

"That's not going to work," Jinn said.

I jumped. The bitch was standing next to me. "Why not?"

She laughed. "You're a bound genie. Your powers can only be used at the behest of your master."

I looked from her to the dying child. "Then, you do something!"

"I plan to," she said. "I was expecting a fight, but this makes things much more straight forward."

She reached into a pocket and withdrew a large revolver. With no affectation whatsoever, she pointed the gun at me and fired. The bullet ripped into my chest. I flew back a few feet, landing on my back. I don't think I felt the gunshot, but when I gasped for breath, the pain overcame me. I couldn't even scream.

The homeless man—I needed to get his name, ran to my side. "I still got two wishes left!"

Somehow, his pain and terror seemed worse than my own. The gun fired again, and the man landed on me. I heard Jinn laughing. It was eerie how well the crackling flames and her laughter mingled. The homeless man's ragged breathing provided an apt baseline to the soundtrack of my death.

"I wish we weren't dying," he croaked.

My eyes widened. My first thought was to save myself and let the man die. After all, if I lived, there would be no more we. Again, I ignored the shameful impulse. The homeless man had just given me a chance to save all these people. He didn’t specify who we were. On top of that, I didn't even need to rob the ether of the power to do it. All the energy I needed was standing just a few feet away.

I reached out to Jinn's aura. I wasn't sure how I knew how to do what I was, but she stopped laughing when I tugged at her cords. When I pulled a few free, she squealed. Then she screamed as I pulled even more.

"What are you doing?"

"My job," I said through gritted teeth.

I located a thick lavender tendril and lassoed her with it. She wasn't going anywhere until I had everything I needed. Her aura jerked and pulled against my grip. I could feel the lasso slipping. I didn't know why lavender was good for binding, but I did know Jinn was stronger than me and wouldn't stay held for long.

I worked as fast as I dared, twisting, and knotting the tendrils. The homeless man's breathing shallowed, the child's whimpering stopped, and my own heart felt like it was slowing. I ignored it all.

Jinn pulled the ether to her and began wrapping the lavender lasso in yellow and black. I tied a thin tendril of gray to the bullet in my chest and joined it to the lavender tendril just beyond Jinn's work. And I waited.

I wanted to check on the child, but my eyes no longer worked. It had to happen soon. Crack! The lasso snapped. I felt an explosion of pain as the gray tendril ripped the bullet away. I released all the cords I'd been holding. Jinn screamed as her bullet, propelled by the force of the lasso's backlash, slammed into her.

I had no active control over the cords I'd created. All I could do was hope they found their targets. The homeless man gasped and rolled off me. One of the smaller cords seeped into my body. It combined with my aura, and this time I was able to scream as flesh, bone, and viscera put itself back where it was supposed to be.