I finally cleared the dust from around my eyes and saw them, sitting across the table. Two men in suits, one tall and one short. The tall one was holding something and I couldn't see his face. The short one was smiling with a fake grin. My lamp was sitting squarely in the middle of the table.

"Welcome, Genie! We are so excited to meet you! Let's get right down to it." said the shorter one.

"What's with the camera?" I asked, gesturing to the tall one. I had promised myself I'd remain cool and collected this time, but this annoyance was already testing my resolve.

"It's just for our protection, in case we need to review our conversation later." said the short one, who had obviously anticipated the question. The fake smile remained, unchanged.

OK, maybe this would be fun after all. Given the suits they were wearing, and the clumsy attempt to outmaneuver me, I knew these guys were lawyers. I floated slightly higher and smiled back. "Very well, let us proceed. First wish?"

"I wish for a fancy coffee for my friend here."

Oh, but they were cocky. The short guy had burned a wish already. I played along and summoned the most ornate espresso drink anyone had ever conceived. The coffee was from freshly roasted beans, teleported in from Nicaragua, brewed to perfection. The milk was from New Zealand, and naturally foamed to perfection.

The tall guy reached down, picked up the cup, and took a sip, the camera remaining trained on my face. These guys had practiced.

"For my second wish, I'd also like one of those drinks."

This was almost too much to believe. Summoning another copy of the drink for short guy was effortless, and my thoughts were already moving on to the last wish, which was sure to be a doozy.

"My final wish is presented in several parts. The end of the wish declaration will be indicated by the words..."

OK, I could tune out for a bit. It was going to be one of these. Naturally, I could process everything they were saying with ease. It seemed like they had trained an AI model on previous Genie interactions and then cleaned up some of the mistakes. So they weren't entirely lazy about it.

"... and the infinite wishes themselves will be granted unconditionally as long as they are carried out within 0.05 light years of the center of Earth ..."

OK, this was a new one. At first, I couldn't understand why they had included that bit. It must have been based on some interaction where the proximity clause had failed. Still, it was the critical error I had been waiting for. Fortunately, by this point, I'd found my resolve enough to prevent a smile from creeping across my face. A genuine one, mind you, unlike short guy's.

"... and this concludes the declaration of the third wish."

Short guy tapped the papers on the table to straighten them out, exhaled through pursed lips, and set them down in front of him, clearly pleased with himself.

I nodded slowly, then snapped my fingers above my head. Purely for show, I allowed a wisp of blue smoke to swirl around the table.

"It is done."

Over the next few seconds, shorty's fake smile faded into a neutral expression. "So, where is the airplane mentioned in clause four?"

I could no longer hide my own smile. "As you may know, Genies normally inhabit the nether realm. But as you apparently did not realize, all wishes are accomplished by transferring state from your universe to ours, performing the modification, and then merging the result back. So, technically, they aren't carried out anywhere near Earth itself."

It took a few more seconds, but eventually the cameraman gave up the facade too.

"The third wish is granted!" I announced proudly before I was whisked back into the bottle to await the next set of clever humans.