Chapter 4 -- A GLOBAL WARNING final chapter -- First place winning Short Story

The sound woke Mehdi. No longer befuddled by my talents, he realized what had happened and wailed louder than the imam on the minaret. He grabbed KC's arm and pointed at me. “Get him back in the bottle.”
KC looked puzzled . . . almost sober.
Mehdi shook his arm and pointed at me. “That’s a genie. He’s evil. They’re all evil. They love to destroy things.”
KC heard the word evil, took a good, hard look at me and realized I resembled the pictures he had seen in Sunday school. Suddenly sober, he backed toward the door, all the while staring at my wings and claws, occasionally craning his neck trying to see if I had a tail hidden in my red pantaloons. “Okay, keep your shirt on, storekeeper,” he said. “I agree, it’s time to quit. I’ve one wish left. Genie,” he ordered, “fix the bottle and get inside.”
I smiled and flipped him the one finger salute that seems to have replaced the old heart, lips, and mind greeting. “Sorry,” I said. “No bottle, no wishes. Tough luck, but I don’t make the rules.”
I picked up a small piece of the bottle, no bigger than a finger nail. As long as even a sliver of glass was missing, the bottle and the spell couldn’t be fixed. It was against the rules for me to destroy even this small a piece, so I’d hide it. There was a rock at the bottom of the Mariana Trench that would do. Giving them another one finger salutation, I strode out the door.

The rest is history. No one found any weapons of mass destruction. Reputations were destroyed. A President was made to look foolish, a Secretary of Defense was left foaming at the mouth. Old friends became enemies and the powers of the world realigned.
Kinda nice, huh?
On the personal level, Bob was now a fumbling klutz. His commanding officer refused to trust him with anything that could explode. Mehdi, after his father disowned him and stopped paying his tuition, found a new career as a New York cab driver.
But KC was unfinished business; he had come out ahead, and we don’t let that happen. There are all sorts of rules against it, and all sorts of very, very unpleasant penalties for the genie stupid enough to let it happen.
I knew what I had to do, but I hadn’t decided whom to use. Should I report to Army Intelligence that a ranger sergeant had deposited a half million untraceable dollars in his account the day before the invasion? Or should I tell the IRS he hadn’t paid taxes on it?
As I sipped my beer and listened to KC talk, I made up my mind. It would be Army intelligence. I wouldn’t involve the IRS. After all, I’m a malicious spirit, not a truly evil one, even if the difference is sometimes hard to tell.
I stood up to go, flipped a penny onto the bar and changed it to gold as it arched through the air. KC would find it, realize I had been here, and maybe sweat a little. I‘d like to watch, but I’d be busy. Things were beginning to warm up.
So far my job at the National Weather Service has been a real ball. After all, weather is nothing but air, water, and fire, and I’ve played games with them for centuries. I’m still keeping the drought areas dry, and the sliding hillsides wet, but it isn’t much of a challenge. The snow is gone from Florida now, and the ice from Georgia, and it’s too soon for another blizzard. But it has been an outstanding year, one for the record books. Hurricane season is rapidly coming to an end, and it’s time to get ready for the tornadoes. I have some new tricks I want to try.
After that I think I’ll work with Wall Street. I could have a real effect there.
But first the tornadoes. Thinking of them, I strode out the door, whistling a song from The Wizard of OZ. I stopped a moment on the threshold, took a deep breath of freedom and smiled as another tray of glasses hit the floor.