The Age Altertron (11 page)

“I was for a while. You may wish to know that poor Delores finally got her
memory back. But then a brick fell on her head and the amnesia returned. Just
as the program was switching to a commercial for Plash Detergent—you know the
one I like with those sweet little girls who sing: ‘Plash, Plash, won’t give
you a rash!’—well, all of the sudden there he is—the new mayor, giving a speech!
Can you believe it? That hooligan interrupting
Helen Grant, Backstage Nurse
for no good reason at all!”

“Well, he had to have
some
reason,” said Rodney.
“Yes,” said Wayne. “What did the hooligan have to say?” “Let me see if I remember.
Something about plans to put everyone over the age of one hundred into a special
city nursing home. But he wasn’t very clear: did he mean people who were over
the age of one hundred
before
all this happened, or after? If he means
after, why, that’s over one third of all the people in this town!”

“I think that’s exactly what he means, Aunt Mildred,” said Rodney. “Well, dear
me. I don’t want to go to a city nursing home. There won’t be nearly enough
beds and we’ll probably all have to share. And what if I get someone in my bed
who doesn’t like cinnamon and won’t let me put my cinnamon sachet under my pillow
every night?” Rodney looked at Wayne. Things were about to get even worse than
they already were. Jackie was going to get rid of all the old people, pure and
simple! He was going to place them all into a big industrial-sized nursing home
and lock all the doors and put the matter of how best to care for all the old
people totally out of mind. Wayne took his great aunt’s hand, and laid it tenderly
into the palm of his own hand. “Rodney and I have a favor to ask of you, Aunt
Mildred. It’s something that the Professor wants too.”

Aunt Mildred’s face suddenly lit up. “The Professor wants me to do something
for him? What is it? You know I would do anything for that lovely man.”

“We have to hide the Professor’s laboratory. Otherwise the police are going
to come and destroy it. Then we won’t be able to finish the new Age Altertron.

“Oh dear. Where are you thinking about hiding it?” “In Dad’s cellar.”
“You mean the one downstairs? You mean the one underneath

Wayne and Rodney both nodded. “The Underground Railroad station,” said Rodney.
“But his
project
is down there—the project he was working on for almost
a dozen years. He started it shortly after you were born. It helped him to ease
the pain of missing your mother so much.”
“Is it finished?” asked Rodney.
“Well, I don’t know if he’s finished it or not. I suppose he hasn’t. It wasn’t
scheduled to be completed, as you know, until 1960.”
“What is so special about 1960?”
“I promised him that I wouldn’t spoil his surprise and tell you anything else
about it.” Aunt Mildred thought for a moment, and then she added: “And he would
be most upset should you see it before he wanted you to.”
Rodney swallowed hard. “Aunt Mildred. This is probably the only cellar in Pitcherville
that Jackie and Lonnie don’t know about. Dad would understand. I’m sure of it.
Besides, what if the project he was working on had something to do with his
disappearance? Isn’t it important for us to go down there for
that
reason
alone? So you have to give us the key that unlocks that secret door inside the
broom closet. We really need you to do this. The
Professor
really needs
it too. Our father may never be coming back. So it may end up making no difference
at all whether he would be disappointed that we saw his surprise before he wanted
us to see it. But Wayne and I don’t want to lose you. And we don’t want to lose
the Professor. That’s what’s important right now.”
“You really think Dad’s not coming back, Rodney?” asked Wayne.
“There is that chance—the chance we may never see him again.”
“Gee, Rodney. I always try not to think about that.”
“I know. I do too. But I’ve also known that there would come some day when we’d
have to face that possibility. Maybe that day is today, Wayne.”
Wayne wiped the moistness in his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Oh dear,” was all that Aunt Mildred could say. Then she grew quiet as she studied
a pattern on her bedroom wallpaper. Tears began to form in her own eyes. She
turned back to her greatnephews and said, “The official name for The World of
Tomorrow exhibit inside the big Perisphere at the World’s Fair was ‘Democracity.’
It was a diorama that imagined what the world could look like in the future—a
perfect world where there was peace and freedom, and no one went to bed hungry.
A place where everything ran smoothly and efficiently. You stood upon a walkway
and looked down at the city from the sky. I think it was the largest diorama
ever made—tiny cars and miniature buildings, little in size but quite large
if one were to actually build them to full scale.
“Well, your father started to build his own Democracity diorama right there
on the floor of his secret cellar, fashioning every little tree, every house,
every tiny car with his own hands. He wanted to have it finished by the year
1960 for a reason. You see, that is the exact year that was depicted in the
diorama at the World’s Fair. It was to be a city of the future—what could the
world be like in that far-off year? Every night he would go down there to work
on it after he had put you boys to bed. It was quite a labor of love.”
”I wish that you had let us see it right after he left,” said Wayne sullenly.
“Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to make us wait nearly a whole year.”
“Well, considering the circumstances in which we now find ourselves I’m almost
positive that your father would now agree to using it for the Professor’s new
laboratory. So take the key from that top drawer of my dresser and unlock the
padlock and go down to your father’s secret cellar and tuck his city away as
carefully as you can. I have not seen it in over a year, but I remember that
he was making fine progress with it. Take care not to crush a single tree or
wrinkle a single bright-green lawn.”
“We will, Aunt Mildred,” said Rodney and Wayne in perfect unison.
And so down the two boys went into their father’s secret cellar to see the product
of twelve years of painstaking, meticulous work. There was no light switch at
the top of the stairs but there was a pull cord that hung two or three steps
down. Wayne gave it a yank as each boy held his breath, not even imagining how
strange and wonderful their father’s own version of Democracity would look to
their eager eyes.
Unfortunately, all that lay before them was a bare floor. There was nothing
there. Democracity II, or “The World of Tomorrow Revisited,” as Mitch McCall
had hoped to call his project, had disappeared along with its maker.

he laboratory was quickly and safely installed within
the McCall cellar—every diode and every triode, every notebook and tiniest scrap
of scribbled paper, every caliper and slide rule, every screwdriver and wrench
and pair of needle-nose pliers. This was all accomplished that very night under
the helpful cover of darkness and by use of one of Mr. Craft’s appliance delivery
vans.

Rodney and Wayne and the Professor had sought to keep the circle of those who
knew the location of the new laboratory to a very small number of trusted individuals:
Mr. Craft, of course, and his daughter Becky, and Petey Ragsdale and Grover
Ferrell, and Officer Wall and Aunt Mildred. There were others such as Mrs. Ferrell
and Mr. and Mrs. Ragsdale who knew some things about the laboratory’s relocation
but didn’t know everything, and then there was a large group of people, including
Mayor Stovall and Police Chief Lonnie Rowe, who knew absolutely nothing at all.
And that was the way that Rodney and Wayne and the Professor liked it.

The next morning, the Professor and his two apprentices set up their new laboratory.
The morning after that they resumed work on Age Altertron II. Comings and goings
at the McCall house were kept to a minimum to reduce suspicion. The sofa in
Mr. McCall’s bear cave was turned into a bed for the Professor. Places were
made on the floor for Gizmo and Tesla (at opposite ends of the room). The Professor
was not concerned by the small size of the room so long as its occupancy did
not exceed six at any one time. All the nights he stayed there he never once
found it necessary to put his head out of the window and suck in air.

For her part, Aunt Mildred was so delighted to have the Professor for a live-in
guest that she found the strength to leave her bed and even to prepare a light
snack or two for him in the kitchen. In return for her hospitality Professor
Johnson spent a little time instructing Rodney and Wayne in the invention of
a “Rotary Liquidizer,” which worked the same way as a blender. The Professor’s
Liquidizer allowed the two oldest members of the household to eat more foods
than they had previously been able to eat.

When she heard about the Professor’s new invention, Becky, being a considerate
girl, decided to come over to the McCall home each night to liquefy food for
the benefit of the hungriest of her older neighbors—and especially those who
had run out of things to barter with the Mayor. Then, when she was finished
at that late hour when the Professor could no longer keep his eyes open, either
Rodney or Wayne, or both of the boys together, would walk her home.

During these walks Becky would open her heart and talk about how much she had
wanted to be a pediatrician, and how much she loved little children, and how
much she wanted at least seven children of her own, and how sad it would be
if she lost her youth forever. Rodney and Wayne would become silent and tongue-tied
in the face of her deep, empty longing. The twins would feel affection for her
but not know quite how to show it, since she was a girl and since girls had
to be handled in a different way than other people.

After they had delivered Becky to her door, the boys would continue on to the
Professor’s house to see if the police had come. For several nights there was
no evidence that they had. The halves of playing cards that Rodney and Wayne
had discreetly placed between each of the outside doors and their jambs were
always in the very same spots in which they had been left. This was an indication
to the boys that no one had entered the house in their absence.

In fact, it wasn’t even necessary for Rodney and Wayne to enter the house themselves,
since they could see from the outside that it remained secure.

Much had happened during the day that led up to that important night: the Professor
had pronounced the new Age Altertron nearly finished. All that was required
was a couple more hours of work and then the machine would be ready for testing.
If the tests went well the next day, Age Altertron II could be switched on the
very next night at midnight, the time at which both calamities and their corrections
took place.

Most people would be safe in their beds and would not find themselves startled
or liable to do injury to themselves during that transformational moment in
which the correction took place. The unfortunate circumstances surrounding the
loss of the first Altertron is a good example of the bad that can happen when
one is up and about at that moment. Perhaps this was the reason that the unknown
force chose to inflict its calamities upon the town so late at night.

Or not. (The unknown force had not otherwise demonstrated much concern for
the health and well-being of the citizens of Pitcherville.)

The day had been busy and productive, and hopes ran high among the Professor’s
small circle of helpers that this newest calamity would soon be a memory.

Hopes and spirits remained high, in fact, right up to 2:17 p.m., when a ringing
doorbell set off a chain of events that would upend every effort to save the
town of Pitcherville from this latest calamity
and
from those who would
use it to their own sinister advantage.

Rodney and Wayne and the Professor did not hear the doorbell because of the
noise being made by Wayne’s pneumatic hypersonichammering and Rodney’s dyna-turbonic
drilling. And, besides, the cellar was a very tightly sealed room with no windows
and its only door hidden in a broom closet. It was hard for them to hear
anything
down there.

The only person who did hear the ring was Aunt Mildred. She was upstairs in
her bed listening to her radio program. Like most of the very old residents
of Pitcherville, Aunt Mildred had grown weaker over the last few days, as if
her body were giving up in its struggle to keep its occupant alive until the
calamity could be reversed. A great number of older Pitchervillians, in fact,
were now drawing very close to their final hours, their super-aged bodies ready
for permanent and eternal retirement.

Aunt Mildred could not have reached the door in any reasonable amount of time.
So she lay there in her upstairs bedroom and wondered who the visitor was. If
his reason for coming was important, he would, no doubt, come back, and if it
wasn’t he wouldn’t.

Or there was a third thing that could happen. The visitor could break the door
down. Which he proceeded to do with the help of two police officers.

Such activity tends to make a fairly loud noise
and
a reverberation
in all the walls of a house, and so down in the cellar Wayne had every reason
to ask, “Hey! Did either of you feel that?”

“Yes I did,” replied the Professor. “It is probably the transducer oscillating
too low. Take it up to 7.8.”
Upstairs, Aunt Mildred not only felt the vibrations of her front door being
knocked down, she also
heard
it, and quickly grew frightened. She sat
up in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin (in that way frightened people
in beds often do, believing that the sheets and blankets will serve as a good
shield against bedroom intruders.)
“Miss McCall! Miss McCall!” came a man’s voice from downstairs.
Aunt Mildred didn’t know if it would be wise to keep silent or to let the home
invaders know where she was. Thinking they would find her eventually, she saved
them a little trouble and directed them to her bedroom. “I’m up here! But please
bear in mind that I am not inviting you up here to hurt me!”
A couple of moments later, three men entered the room: Police Chief Lonnie Rowe
and two of his officers. There was also a woman with them, Miss Carter, who
had been hired to assist the police department in a special operation that had
begun that day. You see, it was Miss Carter’s job to help the women centenarians
(that is, those women who had reached the age of one hundred or older) gather
up their things so that they could be transported to the brand new city nursing
home.
“The new nursing home is finished already?” asked Aunt Mildred after Miss Carter
had explained everything to her.
“Yes. The mayor wanted it completed as soon as possible. It really is nothing
more than our town high school gymnasium fitted with cots and footlockers. I
am sorry to report that we haven’t enough cots for all of you so a few will
have to sleep on pallets on the floor.”
“But I do not wish to go, Lucinda. Why do I have to go?”
“It is the law.”
“Why is it the law? What is wrong with my staying in my own home? I have people
to look after me.”
“But that is the problem. Everyone is wasting too much time taking care of the
old ones and cannot do the jobs that must be done in our town. We have had no
milk deliveries or egg deliveries for three days. The barbershops and beauty
parlors are all closed. And there is no one at the filling stations to pump
our gas and check under our hoods. My own grandmother, to give you an example,
requires constant care. Now all of you will receive care together in one large
group. It is very economical this way. Now gather up your things. You are permitted
a small piece of luggage and one shopping bag.”
As Miss Carter was helping Aunt Mildred up from the bed, Lonnie asked, “Where
are your nephews? Are they not here?”
“No, they are with the Professor.” Aunt Mildred didn’t mean to say that. It
just slipped out.
“And where
is
the Professor? We’ve been looking for him for several days.
We know he isn’t at his house anymore. Do you know where he’s gone?”
Aunt Mildred shook her head.
“Well, when you see one of your nephews or the Professor, you should mention
that the playing-card-in-the-door trick hasn’t worked since 1932. We’ve been
visiting his house every day this week. We’ve been all over it, looking for
clues to where he could have taken his laboratory. We’ve found no clues yet
but we did find something that might be of interest to the Professor. We’re
surprised that he hasn’t missed it yet.”
“What is it?”
“I am not at liberty to tell you.”
“May I leave a note for Rodney and Wayne to tell them where I’ve gone?” asked
Aunt Mildred, as she put one of her several tubs of night cream into her one
allowable shopping bag.
The new police chief nodded. “You may also add the fact that there is now a
warrant for your nephews’ arrest.”
“For doing what?”
“For obstructing the law by helping Professor Johnson move his laboratory to
a secret location. And as of this afternoon for harboring a fugitive.”
“What fugitive?”
Police Chief Rowe laughed. “Well, Professor Johnson, of course. As of this afternoon
he is officially a fugitive from the city nursing home. Mayor Stovall is not
a man to be taken lightly, lady.” Downstairs in the cellar, Wayne was about
to put the cover housing over the Age Altertron II, which, when properly contained,
looked like a large console record player with the doors shut. There was a bank
of knobs and buttons inset into its front, and a number of antennas of various
lengths sprouting from the top and from both sides. “Do we need to do another
inspection, Professor, or is everything okay?”
“It is fine as far as I can tell,” answered the Professor, “and ready for testing
to begin first thing in the morning. What is it, Rodney? Is something wrong?”
Rodney chewed upon his lower lip for a moment. He was thinking. “Well, I see
the primary beam deflector and there is the secondary beam deflector, but there
is no tertiary beam deflector. Your diagram shows that it should be right behind
the capacitor.”
“My boy, you’re exactly right. Did we not install it?”
Wayne shook his head. “It isn’t there.”
“Could we actually have left it behind?” The Professor stroked his several-day-old
whiskers (which were still not much more than his several-day-old whiskers (which
were still not much more than year-old men). “Yet the room was totally empty
when we left—not a paper clip, not even the smallest triode prong.”
The Professor thought for a moment, pacing in his chair by moving his feet back
and forth. Then it hit him. In that next moment he knew: “Because the tertiary
beam deflector wasn’t
in
the laboratory. I had taken it from the rubble
of my first ruined machine and put it into the pocket of my lab coat.”
“Why would you want to do
that
, Professor?” asked Wayne.
“Oh, I intended to spend the rest of the night scavenging all of the parts that
I could use again, but exhaustion overtook me in just the short time it took
to deposit the deflector. I suspect it is still in my coat pocket, which I am
certain is still hanging in my bedroom closet.”
“I’ll go and get it,” volunteered Wayne.
“Let me go with you, Wayne,” said Rodney. “One of us should serve as look-out
for the other in case the police show up.”
“Be careful, boys,” said the Professor, easing back into his chair.

Rodney and Wayne climbed the cellar stairs, opened the door that put them into
the hallway broom closet and then the second door that opened onto the hallway
itself. “Aunt Mildred!” Wayne called up the stairs. “We have to go to the Professor’s.
We’ll be back soon.”