The "move bangle" on Karyn's wrist was a jingle of turquoise she'd designed with the wishing stone. After Jon used the stone to go search for the universe's greatest unemployed doctor, Karyn took the inclined elevator down the hospital's arch to Karyn Island. The island's rim looked cracked and sheer, as though it had been ripped out of some greater landmass -- as it probably had been. Tall blue-green grass tickled her legs under the red swimsuit she wore, and her toes through her sandals. She'd decided she didn't care much for the whole otter thing. She grinned, thinking, well, maybe some other night with Jon.
She eased down a little ledge, where the island's rocky edge had crumbled into beach, and stared up at the hospital arch and the glass dome above. The water energized her, and she felt like swimming clear to Jon's Island. Instead she tapped at her bangle and a kayak appeared around her. She twirled the oar in her hands, then tapped again and summoned a windsurfing board. "Whoa!" she said, flailing her arms as it collapsed with her falling onto the sail.
Time to get to work, she thought as she struggled back to the surface. She switched back to the kayak and rowed it the few yards to shore, then dismissed the kayak and stood twirling the bangle, thinking of what to say.
The bangle could summon any unpowered vehicle -- hang glider, roller skates, parachute, and so on -- but for someone who knew to tap the pink amythyst while saying, "I wish I were..." and a location, no vehicle was necessary. Around her neck she had a Babel charm (fish-shaped), in case they met people who didn't know English. Jon had been weird during the hours of planning, insisting that they not directly give themselves more powers than they already had. But then he'd taken the stone with him...
Glora the android had stayed behind at the hospital, happily accepting her new life as a healer. But then she'd been trapped at the bottom of the sea for who-knew-how-long. Karyn thought about home, and about how she'd explain her own new job to her indifferent parents.
"See, we found this magic stone," Karyn said out loud to a rabbit that wandered through the grass. "Then there was something about counterfeiting pennies, and then housekeeping, and then..." She broke off, laughing. "Okay." Time to go recruit more people for the hospital of Glora. As for the rest of her life, she'd wing it.
"I wish I were..."
