The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister - Landon Wark (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

The cashier stuffed the clothing into a bag quickly, using a separate one for the shoebox. If she saw the damage to the magazine as she scanned it, she said nothing. Jonah gathered the bags up in his arms, not sparing a moment for the straps, and, after throwing a cluster of bills at the girl, practically ran for the exit. Anyone watching him would have thought that he had just stolen the entire jewellery counter.

He sat on the bus, madly scribbling on the receipt the check-out girl had thrown into the bag containing the shoebox. He racked his brain trying to remember exactly what it was he had said to make the magazine cover smoulder the way it had. It lay on his lap complete with promises of psychic riches and success in love. The crispy, flaking face of the Amazing Mento glared accusingly up at him. New questions sprang up with this new development. There were more words than just the ones that had allowed him to make the money to buy his new clothes!

With a quick pen stroke he crossed off several of the things he thought he had said and set to writing new ones. He dared not speak any of them while surrounded by people the way he was. He would have to wait for the privacy of his apartment before he was able, but the temptation was there, almost irresistible. It nearly overrode his self control as the bus rattled down the street, over the last bridge that separated him from his building. The door flew open and he flew out, trailing the bags of clothing after him as he ran toward the door, not stopping to catch his breath until he was safely secured inside his tiny apartment.

He leaned back against the door, propping himself against it so that no one would be able to barge in on him. He ran his hands through his hair, streaked with sweat even at minus twenty degrees.

“There’s other things out there,” he breathed quietly, almost afraid to speak the words.

He took the receipt with the scribbled words out of his pocket and stared at what he was confident was what had caused the combustion of the magazine in the store.

There was a moment of chewing thoughtfully on his tongue and then he was all the way into the apartment, tearing open his backpack and throwing textbooks out onto the floor until he wrenched free one of the many coiled notebooks full of practice problems and professors’ ramblings. Page after page ripped free of the bindings until there was a clean white sheet staring him in the face. He carefully laid the notebook on his bed and took one of the many pens lying around. With all the delicacy of a calligrapher he inscribed the words he had used in making the money on the first line. Two lines below he transcribed the words from the receipt. The way he had written them was awkward, even with his purposely careful handwriting. Trying to write it in a way that resembled English syllables was imprecise. If he had to come back to it at a later date he doubted he would be able to discern what it said.

He spent the better part of an hour looking vacantly at the series of words before him, his powerful sense of observation noting that two of the syllables were the same. He ran his tongue over the sharp ridges of his teeth and let out a long breath.

“So exactly how much more is there?”

Jonah McAllister Makes a Deposit

He sat, staring at the remaining six bills in the strip of sunlight spearing through the blind slats for longer than he would have thought it possible to stare at a few pieces of paper. He was already kicking himself for not realizing it sooner. He had risked getting caught copying bills when it would have been so much easier to copy coins. They had no numbers and would never be traced as bills were. Certainly whoever kept track of this sort of thing would not spend as much time and effort tracking something that required molten metal to make. It would definitely take more time than copying a ten-dollar bill, but the lower risk was worth the extra time.

He fished around in the change jar on the nightstand next to his bed until he managed to find a two-dollar coin. He stared at both sides of it as if he had never seen one before. No serial numbers. No numbers at all save for denomination and date. He placed it on the small folding table and glared down at it as if it were a specimen under the microscope. He began to wonder exactly what would happen to the economy if there were a sudden upsurge in the number of two-dollar coins.

He muttered something casually under his breath before he caught himself, stopping mid-syllable. His eyes darted back and forth to make certain nothing had changed, hand poised over a nearby pen, brain desperately reeling back over what it had unconsciously pushed out of his mouth. Nothing seemed any different. He relaxed, placing his fingers over his eyebrow and rubbing back and forth.

“So, what did you do today, Jonah?” he asked the empty room. “Oh nothing,” he replied right back. “Just destroyed the world economy.”

He glared at the coin a little longer.

“Well, think of it like a research grant.”

The line at the bank was long, consequence of a Friday afternoon. He waited patiently, not sharing the cares of his still-employed brethren with their clock punching and lunch hours. Over the past few days he was able to appreciate more and more how different the world looked when there was money and time enough to enjoy it. The clouds in the sky, made grey and looming by the