Hell Comes to Springfield
by Jason Bertovich
©2005 by Jason Bertovich and Matthew Atanian
Kenny's Laboratory created by Matthew Atanian,
based upon Boy Scouts ½ created by Matthew Atanian
by Jason Bertovich
©2005 by Jason Bertovich and Matthew Atanian
Kenny's Laboratory created by Matthew Atanian,
based upon Boy Scouts ½ created by Matthew Atanian
Deep inside of the cavernous recesses of the most advanced scientific research facility the world never knew about, things were afoot. Strange and wondrous things that would dazzle, amaze, confound, delight, confuse, and occasionally even enlighten.
Sitting on four concrete blocks was a partially dissembled Porsche 911 Turbo. Laying below the blocks was a rather large tarp with scattered parts laying on top. Most were unnecessary now as this car could now do what was thought only possible in dreams: It ran on ordinary tap water. Even more impossible: It got 320 miles to the gallon.
Elsewhere, resting under a dusty sheet sat the long fabled, but never believed possible perpetual motion machine. Elsewhere still rested other things never known to exist and which, any one of them, would turn the world on it’s head. Cold Fusion light bulbs. A device that could change the molecular structure of Coca-Cola and turn it into Pepsi. A video monitor with a live 24-hour feed of the city of Atlantis. These were only a handful of the things that Kenneth Pendrell had brought forth from his mind.
And they were all now sitting alone in disuse and neglect. They no longer occupied Pendrell’s attention. They were trifling things that could not equal 1/100th the importance of what he was currently focused with.
Which was an apple.
An ordinary apple.
Less than ordinary, in fact. It was smallish and was slightly bruised and had two ugly brown spots. If you saw this in the produce aisle, you would likely push it aside and pick a better one to put in you produce bag.
But this apple, this ugly apple, was currently more important to Kenny than even his beloved‘Stargate’ Transdimensional Conduit. Though, truth be told, the conduit was like a faithful dog. No matter what new fangled contraption Kenny would create, his love would inevitable return to the Stargate.
Kenny took the ugly apple and brought it over from his workbench to a designated testing area. Suddenly, his ears were assaulted by the sound of a cat being hit with a brick while being drowned. Kenny glanced up and guessed right. Mr. Becker, his new “lab assistant,” had arrived, 12 minutes and 56.13 seconds late, as predicted.
“Hey Kenny,” Becker greeted, “Sorry I’m late. I had…”
“To stop at the convenience store to pick up new batteries for your portable compact disc player,” Kenny finished the sentence for him.
“Yeah,” Becker said impressed. Then his tone turned suspicious. “How did you know that?”
“Calculating the average battery life of your compact disc player, added to the distance to make a detour to the nearest convenience store, adjusting for average store traffic at this time of day, making for an average of two customers ahead of you in line, plus time for digging out enough loose change to pay for said batteries, then time to open package with your teeth, replacing batteries in the player, adds up to an average delay time of twelve minutes and fifty-six point thirteen seconds,” Kenny explained.
“But, to calculate that so exactly, that’s just impossible,” Becker reasoned rolling his eyes upward as he tried to add up the math himself.
“Not really. Science is all about observation. If you observe the same thing over and over again with the same result, you have what we can call a pattern.”
“What’s that mean?”Becker asked.
“It means that you always stop to buy batteries on your way to the lab every Monday and Thursday, like clockwork.”
“Oh,” Becker said sheepishly.
“Anyway, that’s not important. You’re here now, and I need you for a vital experiment,” Kenny said, almost giddily. Well giddy for Kenny.
“Really?” Becker said excitedly, then stopped dead in his tracks and eyed Kenny even more suspiciously than before. “Wait a second, this doesn’t involve any sort of large syringe does it?”
“What? Heavens no! See this apple?” Kenny said holding the apple in his hands out to Becker.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to take a bite of it,” Kenny said confidently.
“And while I’m doing that, you inject me with a large syringe?” Becker asked.
Kenny rolled his eyes in frustration and then pulled out the pockets of lab coat and pants and held both his arms out. “There are no syringes involved, whatsoever. Now, will you please take a bite of this?”
Becker took the apple and eyed it. “So you used the syringe on the apple and now whatever was in the apple will be in me?”
“Mr. Becker, I know I will one day have to genetically re-grow your shattered eardrums, but I know you’re not deaf now, so please listen carefully: Never, in the course of this experiment, has there been, nor will there ever be, any involvement, even in the slightest, of syringes, or other pointed objects,” Kenny said with a slightly annoyed tone.
“This is an ordinary apple?”
“Yes.”
“No syringes?”
“Yes.”
“Yes there will be syringes?” Becker asked, now confused.
“No. Yes, as in ‘Yes, there will be NO syringes involved.’ Okay?”
Kenny explained with an annoyed sigh.
“Cool,” Becker said. He then looked over the apple again for a place to bite in. He avoided the bruise and the two bad spots and finally settled on a target. Polishing it briefly on his shirt, he then raised it to his mouth, shifted his eyes nervously to Kenny one last time, who responded by taking a step back and holding his hands out to show no weapons, then bit in.
Becker chewed the bite of apple a couple times, then swallowed. He then looked at Kenny and wondered what would happen next.
“Well, how was it?”Kenny asked.
“The apple?” Becker asked, confused.
“Yes.”
Becker mulled it over and hazarded a reply, “Not bad, I suppose. At least, as far as apples go.”
Kenny smiled and nodded. “But not the best you ever had?”
Becker arched an eyebrow, confused at this line of questioning. He decided to play along with this and see where Kenny was going, whom he suspected was light years down the road in the conversation from where he stood. “No, not really. Probably would rate it a four. Edible, but not delicious.”
“Good. That’s the reaction was hoping for. Can you please hand me the apple back?” Kenny asked holding his palm out. Becker complied and Kenny immediately turned toward the designated testing area. He rested the apple on top of a metal pedestal. Pointed directly at pedestal was a rather stereotypical ray, which was attached to a robot arm and comprised of a large antennae in
which several concaved discs lined the shaft in ranks of descending sizes until reaching the knobbed tip, out of which, presumably, shot the stereotypical beam.
Kenny went to the work bench and took a small remote-control device and started fiddling with it. He then looked to Becker, “You may want to shield your eyes.” As Kenny said this, he flipped down a set of detachable black lenses over his normal glasses. Becker covered his eyes with his hands and Kenny hit a button.
There was a blinding bolt of energy and in a flash, the ugly apple was gone.
In its place was something amazing.
Another apple.
But unlike the ugly apple, this one was anything but. First off, it was bigger, nearly double in size the original and it was perfectly symmetrical in shape. It’s skin was a bright, almost firetruck-red, and it actually glistened in the fluorescent lights of the laboratory. In essence, if there could ever be a supermodel of apples, this was it. This was, as Kenny would likely have said, the Kirstin Porter of apples; perfect in every way.
Kenny looked at it and his eyes beamed with excitement. Becker stood there, like he usually did after some sort of beam was fired in the lab, and blinked dumbly a few times. Kenny hurriedly walked over and examined the now beautiful example of produce.
He turned it around a few times, looking for any flaws or imperfections, knowing in his heart that he would find none. So far, it appears, his experiment was a success. But then, perfection is sometimes only skin deep. He needed to measure it against the original.
He then looked to Becker, put his hand with the apple out to Becker and smiled. “Mr. Becker, care for another bite?”
Becker took the apple and eyed Kenny suspiciously. “Still no syringes, right?”
“Yes.”
“And this is still an ordinary apple?”
Kenny smiled ever so slightly. “If my calculations are correct, no. This will definitely not be an ordinary apple.”
Becker shrugged, took a bite, and chewed it. Suddenly, his eyes lit up in pleasant delight. It was like the entire collective positive energies of Wenatchee, Washington, the apple growing capital of the world, was concentrated into one perfect specimen of deliciousness. This was not so much an apple as it was looking into the face of God and finding him offering you free apple pie. Becker closed his eyes in ecstasy and Kenny could see a solitary tear of joy roll down his cheek.
That was all Kenny needed to see. The experiment was a complete success.
Becker opened his eyes and turned from his reverie to Kenny, “Why did you waste my time with that other piece of crap? If you wanted to see how I would react to eating your perfect apple, you should have just given it to me in the first place.” Then Becker frowned and eyed the apple. “Hey, what did happen to that other crappy apple?”
Kenny smiled again.“You’re eating it now, Mr. Becker.”
“Wha…? That can’t be. I took a bite out it. Plus, believe me, there is no way I could confuse those two in the taste department,” Becker contradicted. Kenny continued to smile, waiting to prove Becker wrong, again.
Becker shifted nervously and took another bite of his treasured apple and was not shocked to find that the second bite was better than the first. He swallowed and then eyed Kenny and finally asked what he knew Kenny was waiting for him to ask so he could go off on a long explanation. “What exactly is that beam?”
“Glad you asked, Mr. Becker. I would like to introduce you to the IKP Perfection Extractor.”
Kenny walked over and Becker followed. Kenny then looked at Becker and spoke, “Posit: two acorns fall from the same parent tree. One grows into a mighty oak. The other grows into a sickly sapling and then dies. Why?”
“Um… bad gardening technique?”
“Maybe, but say they each received the same attention and the same result happened?”
“Dunno,” Becker said with a shrug, “Bad roll of the dice maybe? Life is random, isn’t it?”
“Ah, now you’re thinking like a scientist. Now stick with me. Despite the end results, both acorns started with the same potential. They were cut from the same cloth, as they say. So, despite the outcome, they both had a chance to be the same magnificent oak,” Kenny said holding his finger up to make his point.
“Okay. So what?”
“So, the same goes for this apple, or two fish spawn, or two children. It all comes down to potential.”
“Potential?”
“Yep, inside that ugly apple was the blueprint of what a perfect apple could be. All I did was bring all that potential out and this created the peak of what an apple could be,” Kenny explained.
“Okay, that’s great, but other than making better snacks, what good is it?” Becker asked, not grasping what Kenny was obviously seeing.
“It doesn’t just work on food, It works on anything living. It can bring out that inner perfection. Imagine the applications!” Kenny said, now with full-blown excitement.
“Such as?” Becker asked, still not fully grasping it.
“Well, let’s just say we applied it to Humans. Imagine what this would do to the criminal justice system.”
“Huh?”
“Imagine it, Mr. Becker. No more need for prisons. We could take the most dangerous criminally insane people and with an application of this beam transform them into upstanding citizens.”
Becker shifted nervously, “That sounds kinda Big Brother-ish to me.”
Kenny noticed the nervous tone and decided to temper his own enthusiasm. “Well, maybe not yet, and certainly not until it has been extensively tested. But it could be an application.”
“Okay, say we can do that. Here’s a question, can we reverse the process? I mean, permanent changes are, well, permanent.”
Kenny grasped what Becker was throwing out there. “I see what you mean. Yes, to totally change a person and not have an option to change them back would be disconcerting. It shouldn’t be hard though. It’s just a simple reversing of the polarity of the beam.”
Kenny then took Becker’s apple, though not before Becker took one last bite and was overjoyed to see that the third bite rivalled the second for best bite of an apple ever. Kenny placed the apple on the pedestal and then opened a panel on the beam’s housing. After tinkering with it with a small tool set, he closed the panel and stepped out of the beam’s path. He then pulled out the control box and flipped his dark lenses down. Becker once again shielded his eyes.
Kenny pushed a button and the beam roared to life. This time something was off and Kenny knew something was wrong. He got an indication of this when the lights in the lab started to blow out like popcorn kernels. Suddenly, there was a blood red flash and then darkness.
Becker lifted his hands from his eyes and screamed, “I’m blind! My God, I’ve gone blind!!”
“The power grid has blown. You’re fine, Mr. Becker.”
“Oh,” Becker said sheepishly. “How long till the lights come back on?”
“If the emergency grid was spared, then about a minute. If not, then not until I fix the generator,” Kenny answered in the darkness. A minute passed and no lights came on.
“Guess you blew both grids. Nice trick. You and an apple are a very dangerous thing, Kenny.”
“A minor setback. Otherwise, the experiment was a total success.”
“Blackout aside,” Becker agreed. Silence enveloped the two and Becker decided to break it.“Kenny, what do we do now?”
“Hold on,” Kenny said. Becker could tell that Kenny had moved to a new location from the distance of his voice. “I keep a flashlight in my workbench drawer. We’ll use it to see out way to the exit and then we’ll come back tomorrow with more flashlights and start on repairs.”
Becker could hear Kenny rooting through his drawers and then the familiar click of a MagLite button. Becker blinked a few times as the beam managed to hit him square in the eyes. Kenny waved the beam aside and looked for the secondary entrance. He looked past Becker’s shoulders and found it.
Something, however, was off. He couldn’t quite place it, but he was sure that something was wrong with the lab. But the darkness and excitement of his success were clouding just was it was. He decided to file it away for later and to get him and Becker back to light before his batteries ran dead. Because the elevator was shut down by the power failure, he knew it was at least a couple hours worth of steps ahead of him to get back to his room. Kenny sighed and waived Mr. Becker over with the light.
“Hey Kenny, do you feel ok?” Becker asked cautiously.
“What is wrong, Mr. Becker?” Kenny asked back.
Becker shrugged. “I dunno. I feel kinda… off. Like there’s something wrong but I can’t place my finger on it. Like the air is funny or something.”
“Do you feel physically ill?”
“No. Not really. Maybe. Are you sure there was nothing wrong with that apple you gave me?”
Kenny nervously shifted. He didn’t want to admit it, but Becker was describing exactly how he himself felt. Kenny was now sure that he had to get back to his room so he could start making plans to repair the lab immediately. “I hope not. We should try to make good time to get back to the top. Let’s pick up the pace, agreed?”
“Yeah, okay,” Becker said and the pair began to double their pace on the ascent up the winding stone stairwell.
About an hour and a half later, Kenny and Becker stumbled through the door. Becker took two steps and promptly fell on his face and groaned. Kenny shared the sentiment.
“Mr. Becker, remind me later to install a default mechanism, so if the power grids blow, all outside exits unlock. Especially the wind tunnel,” Kenny groaned, supporting himself against the wall. It was an unnecessary statement as this experience was enough to ensure that he would retain this thought in his long term memory.
“Water…,” was all Becker could managed to reply with.
Kenny stumbled over to the collapsed Becker and helped him up so they could jointly stumble toward the kitchen.
Maybe it was the exhaustion from the climb, or his own thirst, but that uneasy feeling was coming back. That uneasy feeling turned to mild despair when he entered his kitchen.
“Hey, what happened here?” Becker asked.
“Good question,”Kenny answered with a surprised tone. The kitchen was an absolute sty. It looked like a pack of bears tore through it and then left. The cupboards were mostly open and there were empty boxes and containers everywhere. The sink was overloaded with dishes in such a manner that if he dared put a single spoon on top of the pile, he risked a distasteful avalanche. On the kitchen table was an ashtray overflowing with grimy ashes and cigarette butts.
Kenny was struck dumb. Did someone break in and trash his kitchen? Kenny dared to hope the fridge was at least safe from whatever hit his kitchen. He slowly opened and was literally assaulted by the most foul odour of spoiled milk, rotten eggs, mould, and bad lunchmeat. Inside, something that was blue, furry, and that kind of resembled a gelatine mold opened it’s eyes and said, “Momma!”
Kenny slammed the door and felt bile rising up in his gullet and choked it back. Kenny was always seeking new life and new civilizations. But he had to draw the line on the ones that had formed in his refrigerator.
“What in the name of Schrödinger’s Cat is going on here?” Kenny asked aloud.
“Did someone fire the cleaning lady or something? The living room looks like a biker gang just had a piñata party and the piñatas were all the… uh, well… everything. ” Becker said from another room. Kenny turned from the kitchen and ran excitedly to where Becker was. He didn’t know why he hurried. It was just as Becker has described. His living room was trashed.
“But the house is hermetically sealed, and only authorized people should have access to it,”Kenny whispered as he surveyed the wreckage that was once his living room. “Who would do such a thing?”
Kenny then looked to Becker and Becker looked back. Both bolted for Kenny’s room. Kenny reached the door first and threw it open. He stopped dead in his tracks.
Someone had stolen his room.
What they replaced it with was an insult to intellect everywhere. First off, it was filthy. Sty wouldn’t be adequate enough to describe it. Heck, even “toxic waste dump”didn’t seem to really grasp the look of this place.
Next, someone had replaced all his beloved posters and paintings. Einstein had been replaced with some tramp humping a motorcycle. His periodic table had been removed in favour for some heavy metal band named “Satan’s Port-a-Potty.” His bookshelves were in similar condition. Scientific journals and science magazines were replaced with Fangoria and Metal Edge and inside those were hidden issues of Penthouse and Hustler. Kenny tore through the shelves in hopes of finding something, anything that was his.
“Check out the movie collection!” Becker said from across the room. Kenny turned around in despair.
“I take it that my collection of the History Channel’s Modern Marvels is no longer occupying my shelf,” Kenny asked sadly.
“Not unless there was an episode called Revenge of the Splat Gore Monster! Hey, there’s another one called Die Screaming with Sharp Things in your Eyes, Mother…Um…ampersand pound sign dollar sign asterisk percentile exclamation point exclamation point...”
“I get the point, Mr. Becker,” Kenny interrupted.
Becker shrugged and tossed the video on the large pile of moving clothing. Whether it was moving because there was something living under it, or because the clothes themselves were alive, Kenny didn’t have the heart to find out.
“What’s going on here, Kenny?”
“Splatter movies. Pornographic magazines. Everything that stifles the mind and can be called low or base. It’s like a living tribute to insulting my intelligence,” Kenny stated coldly.
“Just how long were we down there? What the hell happened?” Becker asked with a confused tone.
“We were only down there a few hours, even adding the walk up the steps. There was no way that all of this could’ve happened in that period of time,” Kenny reasoned, taking the edge out of his voice.
“Maybe that beam sent us to the future? Maybe this some post-apocalyptic nightmare future,” Becker hypothesized.
While it warmed Kenny’s heart a little to see Becker taking a logical approach to this situation, Kenny still knew he had to set him straight. “There was nothing even remotely chrono-related or even dimensional-related with that beam. No, we are definitely in the same time and place.”
“Then what?” Becker asked.
“I don’t know.” Of all the words in the English language, those were the words Kenny hated to say out loud most. Worse still, they sounded like the scariest ones he knew as well.
Becker looked around and moved toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. I think we’ll think clearer with some fresh air.”
“Agreed,” Kenny said.“Oh, and Mr. Becker?”
“Yes?”
“Leave the magazine.”
Becker dropped the copy of Hustler and he and Kenny made their way through the trashed house and out the front door.
If shock was a word that could’ve described the look on Kenny and Becker’s face when they saw his kitchen and bedroom, then the word for their expression when they saw the outside world had to be a touch stronger. Possibly the only candidate, rude as it sounded, was “F&%#ING STUNNED.”
Yes, Kenny and Becker were F&%#ING STUNNED at what they were seeing.
“I guess it goes without saying that I don’t need to say that I have a bad feeling about this,” Becker said quietly.
“I am no longer ready to outright discount your nightmare future theory, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said just as quietly.
Kenny and Becker stood in the middle what might have been, at one time, a pleasant suburb. Now it looked more like a ghetto. The houses were all in various states of disrepair and some were boarded up, others had bars on the windows. Graffiti littered the area and the lawns were either overgrown or dead, or, in some cases, overgrown with dead grass. The road was cracked and full of so many pothouses, one could’ve confused it with a Bosnian mine field.
The sky was overcast and it looked positively sullen. The dark atmosphere suited the darkness of this place. Sirens echoed in the distance from several directions and Kenny and Becker could see billows of smoke from several places. Gunshots rang out somewhere close by and Kenny and Becker instinctively looked around nervously.
“I don’t think it’s safe to stand around here,” Becker said, stating the obvious.
“I think we should try and find the others. Maybe they know what happened,” Kenny reasoned.
“Yeah, Matt and the guys can fill us in on what’s going on here. Presuming they’re still around,” Becker added.
“I said I wasn’t discounting your future theory. I didn’t say that was what happened,” Kenny corrected.
“I know. I just hope they’re okay, future or no,” Becker said, annoyed.
“Agreed. We should head for the Church in the Acres. If something really bad happened, that would be where Mr. Atanian would assemble the others.”
“Yeah, Matt would want to set up a place to help people who were hurt or needed protection. Let’s go,” Becker said excitedly and started toward the direction with Kenny following.
A short while later, the pair approached the second home of their Scout troop. It didn’t look promising. From even a distance, it looked like a mess and Kenny was sure it looked like some of the windows were boarded up as well.
As the pair entered the lot, Kenny heard a low hum. That hum got louder and was no longer a hum after a few moments but rather a high pitched screechy whine that could only belong to a Japanese street motorcycle.
Which is was exactly what zoomed by the pair before screeching to a stop, u-turning, and then growling to a stop behind the pair. Kenny and Becker slowly turned around, with their backs now to the dilapidated church. There were a pair of people riding on the black Kawasaki and neither wore helmets so it didn’t Kenny long to recognize them and to then be shocked yet again.
The man in the front wore heavy boots and black leather pants along with a black jacket adorned with studs and chains. His face was unshaven and his hair was scraggly and even though he wore a pair of sunglasses, Kenny was sure recognized him from the recent Christmas party as one Jason Bertovich.
The person behind him was even more shocking. His female companion wore thigh-high black leather hobnailed high-heeled boots, and a black G-string accompanying a black bustier. Her hair was cropped short and dyed raven black and her lips were crimson red. Prominently tattooed on her left shoulder in red gothic font was the word “BITCH.” Sarah Porter would have most certainly had a conniption, possibly a seizure, if she was here right now and she saw this.
“Mr. Bertovich?”Kenny asked meekly.
“Nicole?!!” Becker said not so meekly.
Jason slid his glasses down his nose and looked at the pair with a sneer, “Hey Nicky, aren’t these a pair of those scouts giving your girls a hard time?”
Nicole grinned evilly. “Yep.”
“Good,” Jason said with a grin as he pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it Kenny and Becker from across his body. Kenny and Becker tensed up in surprise and terror.
“Listen meat, you’re hired muscle first. No killing unless I say so,” Nicole said sternly, slapping Jason in the back of the head.
Kenny and Becker let out a small sigh of only mild relief.
Nicole then reached to her right side and pulled out an Uzi 9mm submachine gun and aimed it at the pair. “That’s my fun,” she said with a sly smile and fired.
Becker and Kenny knew to instinctively dive out of the way. Luckily they dove to opposite sides. The bullets splintered the wall behind them and both scrambled to their feet to take off running. “Take that side of the building and find a way in, Kenny! I’ll do the same! They can’t chase us both!” Becker shouted as he rounded the corner, ducking his head as more mason and wood disintegrated around him from the Uzi’s spread.
Kenny scrambled his short legs for all he was worth and the ground exploded at his feet from Jason’s handgun. Kenny rounded the corner and hoped that Mr. Becker made it safely as he could hear Nicole cackle as she fired another volley.
Alone in the parking lot, Jason looked to Nicole who stopped firing. “Which one do we waste first?”
Nicole smiled seductively.“Forget them, I got a better idea.” She then dismounted and climbed in front on him and straddled his waist.
“God I love it when you do that kind of stuff, you slut,” Jason said with a smirk.
“You’re only adequate as a hired gun, but as a piece of meat, you’re worth my money,” Nicole said, licking her lips.
“Just shut up already, bitch,” Jason said grabbing the back of her hair and kissed her forcibly on the mouth. She responded by digging her long fingernails into the back on his neck with her left hand, while her right fired the Uzi into the air. Jason revved up the cycle and the pair sped away in that position.
Becker heard the Uzi fire again and the engine revving and figured that meant Nicole wanted to finish him off. Becker thought this was not how he wanted to go out so he decided that it was imperative to make his way inside. On the side of the building, a board that looked to have been used to board up one of the windows was lying on the ground. Becker found an unprotected window and proceeded to smash the glass out. Glancing back to make sure he was not in anyone’s crosshairs, he ran the board across the edges to windowsill in hopes of avoiding any major lacerations and then proceeded to hoist himself up and through the window.
Becker swore lightly as broken glass still managed to cut and scrape his hands and arms, and he swore even louder when his momentum caused him to land on his head.
Picking himself up gently, he could barely make out anything in the darkness of the room. He assumed it was one of the meeting halls, but he wasn’t positive. It looked abandoned now and the air was musty. He didn’t care what Kenny said, he still thought his theory had more merit than anything Kenny had suggested so far.
Wait a minute… oh shit, Kenny! Becker suddenly panicked. That was right, he left Kenny out there with those two nut jobs. He hoped he made it inside safe. He didn’t just want to call out to him, because that might alert the before mentioned nut jobs as to where they could find him and then, presumably, shoot him.
“Kenny,” Becker hissed. He then took a few steps forward and tried again.
“Kenny?” Becker hissed again.
“Looking for someone?” A husky voice asked from the darkness.
Becker stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned around as the source of the voice was from his back. He could hear the sound of a match scraping along the matchbook cover and an eerie yellow glow welcomed his eyes as the orange flame moved toward a lantern hanging from the ceiling.
The lantern came to life and the room filled with a sickly yellow half-light. Becker took a step forward to see who his company was. The person… he… she… was still partially in the shadows. From what Becker could see, this… figure was certainly making a fashion statement.
It started with the combination of combat boots and black fishnet stockings and continued onward to the interesting choice of cut-off jeans that gave Daisy Duke a run for her money. Next was the blue bustier that seems to not fit quite right underneath the white leather jacket that appeared to be two sizes too small and the blood red feather boa wrapped like a scarf.
The figure stepped out into the light and Becker gasped. He was almost positive he had just seen the scariest thing he would ever witness in his entire life. The person wearing this psycho-sexual combat gear of the disturbed was none other than his Assistant Scoutmaster, Matt Atanian.
Becker took a stunned step back and could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. From the darkness he could hear a growling, followed by a sinister hissing, a creepy chittering, and a positively demonic… quacking?!
A small, feral looking, squirrel ran into the light and up Matt’s leg. It came to a rest on his shoulder and frothed at the mouth slightly. This was followed by mangy dog that snarled and bore his teeth to Becker and a scrawny cat that yowled at Becker while giving him the evil eye. Finally, a half-moulted duck waddled in and, while Becker would never have believe it, actually flipped him off with its wing.
Matt looked at his menagerie and grinned. Becker noticed that he had something coiled in his right hand. Was it some rope? Matt saw where Becker’s gaze had fallen and smiled again. “Something caught your eye?”
“Matt?” Becker asked, not knowing what else to say.
Matt uncoiled the item and Becker realized that it was a long leather bullwhip. Becker had a bad feeling that Matt wasn’t about to proclaim his love of Indiana Jones. The whip unfurled to the floor and with a snap of his wrist, Becker’s cheek was in excruciating agony.
Becker grabbed the side of his face in pain. The whip had actually broken the skin and a small amount of blood begin to ooze from the gash on his cheek. Matt gave a haughty laugh.
“I’m going to lash you to within an inch of your life. I’m going to do things,” Matt paused and sucked in a breath which he seemed to relish, “Terrible, terrible things to you.” Matt cracked the whip again and Becker felt a sharp pain in his right arm. Matt continued, “and only after I have left you wishing for the Devil to come and end your miserable life, then…”
“Then what?” Becker asked, not liking what he might hear.
“Then I will have you,” Matt oozed with a look of coyness mixed with psychosis.
“Wh… wh… why?!”Becker stammered, wondering what could have made his friend into this sick, perverted fiend.
“Because, I’m not a very nice person,” Matt said coldly and than began to laugh at Becker’s terror. The menagerie joined in, which was even more disturbing.
“Well then, let’s get started, shall we?” Matt asked cruelly, raising the whip again for another lashing. Suddenly, the lantern went out and there was the sound of clattering metal and shattering glass.
Becker felt something, no someone, grab his hand and then pulled him along. Becker found himself stumbling in the dark down what he thought was a corridor. Suddenly, he found himself colliding with a large door which gave way and he and the mystery person stumbled out into the back of the Church in the Acres. Becker rubbed his eyes and saw that it was Kenny who was reaching out to help him up. Becker accepted the hand and Kenny began to drag him again.
“Kenny, you’re ok! What about the lunatics with the guns?”
“If you would rather stay in there with that lot, you’re more than welcome. I’ve decided to try experimenting with running in this direction,” Kenny said between short breaths.
Becker weighed the options for about the time it took for him to open the shrink wrap on a new CD (two-tenths of a second, mind you) and nodded as he and Kenny made for the backstreets of Springfield.
After frantically ducking through yards and zigzagging through alleyways, Becker and Kenny took a moment to catch their breathes. They came to rest behind what appeared to be the abandoned, burnt out remains of Perfume’s Pizza. Kenny looked around nervously and then finally gathered his breath and slumped down by a foul smelling dumpster. Becker joined him and the pair sat there for a moment in silence.
“Fuck!! What the hell is going on here?! I know that was certainly not a future version of Matt or Nicole! What is wrong with them?! It’s like we’re or hell or something,” Becker said frantically to himself.
Kenny looked skyward and sighed. “No, it’s still Springfield, though I ‘m not sure that Hell would be much worse.”
“Kenny?”
Kenny sighed. “I’m afraid that that this is my fault, Mr. Becker. This is all my fault,” he said tiredly.
“Wha…? Do you know what’s happening? Tell me damn it!” Becker shouted angrily.
“It all comes down to potential, Mr. Becker,” Kenny sighed.
Becker frowned. His world had been stolen, he had been shot at, and just recently had harm of a perverted natured threatened upon his fragile person. He didn’t want to play Kenny’s game of ‘ask me, I’m oh so smart.’ “Damn it, Kenny, will you quit with the riddles and questions for once! I know you know more than I ever will! Just save the lecture and tell me what the hell is going on god damn it!”
Kenny jerked back with a slightly hurt expression. He nodded and pushed his glasses up his the bridge of his nose. “My apologies. What I meant was this goes back to my original experiment.”
“The apple?” Becker asked. Kenny nodded. “What does the apple have to do all this?”
“Remember how I said that in that ugly apple was the blueprint for what a perfect apple could be? The same applies to the opposite. Inside that ugly apple was a blueprint for an apple so foul, it seemed unlikely to have even made it off the tree. Rancid, rotted, and thoroughly inedible,” Kenny explained.
“Okay, so how does that bring us to us cowering behind what used to be that Chinese chick’s pizza place, hiding from people who used to be our friends but are now determined kill, maim, or worse, molest us?”
“Remember how you asked if the perfection extraction could be reversed? I told you it would be a simple reversing of the beam’s polarity,” Kenny continued.
“So when you reversed the beam…?”
“I got careless, Mr. Becker. I was too excited about the success of the experiment. I didn’t think that I could do anything wrong. I messed up, Mr. Becker. I messed up in the most horrible way,” Kenny confessed.
“What exactly happened?” Becker asked, not sure if he would understand it even if Kenny did explain it to him.
“The perfection extractor was set to maximum levels of extraction. That was my first mistake, but I wanted to prove total success and making something only partially better seemed pointless. My second mistake was not paying attention to the reversal. I just tuned all the settings to the exact opposite of what they were. I not only reversed the polarity of the beam, but also the field,” Kenny said.
“So, instead of just targeting the apple…” Becker started, kind of grasping the direction Kenny was heading.
“The beam tried to target everything. That’s what caused the massive power drain and my power grid to blow out. The beam tried to compensate for the tremendous task by using more power and thus my grid was pushed to beyond maximum. Worse still, the beam was still set on maximum extraction, but in reverse polarity.”
“Which means?” Becker asked.
“Which means that all those people out there are still our friends. It’s just that the worse aspects of their personalities have been pushed to the outside and are magnified. In essence, they have become the living embodiments of the devil that rests on their shoulders,” Kenny said as he banged the back of his head against the dumpster.
"Wait, wait, wait. Now I’m really confused. Are you saying that inside Matt Atanian, there lives a cross-dressing sadomasochist who secretly desires to train feral ducks and squirrels?”
“Mr. Becker, What we just witnessed was the very worst possible Matt Atanian that could possibly exist. A Matt Atanian that could be the product of corrupted genes, terrible upbringing, and any number of intangible factors.”
“Those would have to be one hell of an incredible set of intangibles to create that,” Becker said exasperated, still unaware of Matt’s or the others’ curses and what kind of thing that did to their sense of self. Kenny could only imagine what kind of daily stress that had caused the others.
“Indeed, but still, inside you, Mr. Becker could very well be a person who would push his own grandmother in front of a bus for a new Discman,” Kenny rationalized. “No offense.”
“Depends. 40 second skip protection or G-skip?” Becker said wryly.
“That’s not funny, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said coldly. Becker nodded apologetically.
“Sorry. Okay, I see your point. But still, that explains the people, what about everything else? Why is the town like this?”
“I would be lying if I said I knew completely, but I would have to assume that the beam works on inorganic material as well. Considering that the beam had very basic A.I. with a link up to my main database, it most likely made a distinction of what was“good” and what was “bad” and made adjustments to the environment, thus a great piece of literature becomes a trashy dime store novel, a high performance sports cars becomes a battered wreck, etc,” Kenny hypothesized.
“I think I understand. It all comes down to potential. A piece of paper could either hold the most brilliant poem or a worthless doodle. It all depends on what you choose to use it for,” Becker said, pleased that he managed to make up his own analogy. Then he frowned again and scrunched up his brown in confusion. “One last question. Why are we unaffected?”
Kenny stopped lightly banging his head off the dumpster in self pity and arched an eyebrow. “If I had to hypothesize, then I say that we escaped being affected because we were at the epicentre of the effect. As the targeting field spread outward, we were encased in a pocket bubble of normality. In essence, we were safe from the hurricane because we were in the eye of the storm.”
“We should try to get out of town. Get to outside the effect and, I dunno, get some science stuff and then you could fix it. You can fix it right?” Becker asked.
Kenny closed his eyes again and sighed. “Mr. Becker, the beam’s affect continued outward until it lost power. From that point, it would still continue outward but at a weaker and weaker rate until it dissipated,” Kenny said as he banged his head lightly again.
“So you’re saying that not just Springfield was affected?”
“A lot more than Springfield was affected. My power grid was run by three independent cold fusion reactors with a standard U-232 Nuclear reactor acting as an emergency back-up. They were supposed to be an almost unlimited supplied of power. We managed to blow both out. The more power, the greater the spread of the affect.”
“How much more? Like the whole state?”
“Most likely, the beam didn’t start to dissipate until it started reaching past our solar system,” Kenny answered.
Becker’s face fell into utter despair. This was bad. This was very bad. This was turning into a three change of underwear type day. Becker looked at the slumped Kenny and began to feel a wave of hopelessness. “So you’re saying that the entire world is like this nightmarish hell? Is there no one we could turn to help us?”
Kenny opened his eyes and then sadly shook his head. “You saw what it did to Mr. Atanian and Ms. Porter. Everyone we know is mostly likely like them, or even worse. I mean, you would have to be the living embodiment of a saint or Buddha to…” Kenny started then slowly trailed off.
“To what? What were you going to say?” Becker asked.
“It’s a long shot, but maybe there is one person who might be able to act as an ally in this whole mess,” Kenny said, his face brightening a little. He then stood up and nodded for Becker to do the same.
"Where are we going?” Becker asked. Kenny didn’t answer. He was too busy hoping that this one person was beyond the beam’s affect. It was that person who inspired the perfection extractor in the first place. Kenny had invented it because he was to unseal the Inner Kirstin Porter in everything because she had shown Kenny that a person could be just that… Perfect.
After a short run, Kenny and Becker found themselves lurking around a familiar apartment complex. Kenny and Becker hid around the corner checking to see if the coast was clear of any “Friends,” or worse “Enemies,” waiting to make a surprise visit.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Kenny? I mean what if Sarah is there? You already saw what this beam did to Nicole, and she LIKES us. Sarah might not grant us the niceties of speaking to us before she kills us,” Becker hissed under his breath.
Kenny shook his head.“I’m willing to take the risk. You can stay out here, however, if you feel it’s safer.”
Becker mulled this and then the familiar sound of gunfire rang out in the far distance. Becker gulped nervously. “Okay, I’m for it. But if I die, you’re gonna have a really angry lab assistant waiting for you in heaven.”
Becker decided to skip the metaphysical debate and instead to begin slinking toward the second story apartment. They made it up the stairs with no incidents, but now was the big test. With sweat forming on his brow, Kenny nervously licked his lips and then lightly rapped on the door.
Both tensed up when they heard the sound of a dead-bolt unlocking. Becker closed his eyes and prayed to God, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Vishnu, and to be safe, the Brazilian Voodoo Man. Kenny simply hoped that his theory was correct.
The door opened and Kirstin Porter greeted them with a warm smile. “Kenny, Becker, hi! What a nice surprise. Won’t you come in? Oh, please wipe your feet and take your shoes off first, I was doing a bit of straightening up.
Kenny sighed in relief. Becker blinked dumbly. He was relieved, but he still felt ill at ease. Kenny complied with Kirstin and removed his shoes, while Becker did the same and then the pair walked in.
“Please forgive the mess, I’ve really got to get this place in shape. You must think I’m a terrible housekeeper,” Kirstin said from the kitchen while reaching for a teapot in the top cupboard. “Oolong tea, okay? It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Becker felt a chill running up his spine. Kirstin seemed about right, but there was still something wrong with this picture. Maybe it was the way her place was reminding him way too much of his grandmother’s. There was plastic on all the furniture and the place had the cold feel of a museum. Antiseptic. Sterile.
If this was messy, then most hospitals would be considered pigsties in comparison.
Kenny was making his own observations and Becker noticed that his once happy expression was becoming more and more grim. Kirstin returned with a tray of tea and some Danish biscuits and sat them on the living room coffee table. Becker noticed that Kirstin had semi-dark circles under her eyes and she looked exhausted. Kenny frowned slightly more.
Kirstin handed a cup and saucer to Becker who graciously accepted it and then one to Kenny. Becker saw the cookies and decided that if this was hell, who knew when he would see sweet treats like these again. He grabbed a few and sat them on the saucer. He then sat the saucer on the table and sipped his tea. He then put the teacup down, but instead of back on the saucer, he set it on the table.
Kenny noticed that when Becker did this Kirtsin’s expression grew into a panicked one, but she tried to hide it. Kenny frowned more. She nervously glanced at the saucerless teacup and then glanced at Becker who was biting into the pretzel-shaped sugar cookie, snapping it in his maw with crumbs flaking off the edges and onto the table and carpet.
Kirstin looked queasy as she watched this. Kenny was hoping he was wrong, but he knew that he wasn’t.“The tea is very good. Thank you.”
“Huh? Oh yes. Thank you,” Kirstin said, distracted by the teacup and the cookies that Becker continued to bite into. Becker picked up the teacup and took another sip. He then placed the teacup back on the table, but not before accidentally splashing a little tea over the cup’s edge and onto the table.
Kenny saw that Kirstin’s leg was twitching nervously. She nervously sipped her tea, her eyes lasered in on Becker’s little mess. Becker took a spoon from the tray and took a spoonful of sugar from a dish and brought it to his teacup. Granules of cane sugar falling from the spoon onto the table as he dumped the sugar into his cup.
Kirstin let out a squeak and tried to contain it. Becker noticed this and looked at Kirstin worriedly. “Is there something wrong?”
Kenny held up his hand to Becker to signal for him to not go there. He then looked at Kirstin softly and sighed. “It’s alright Ms. Porter. I know you are trying. Please forgive us for intruding. We’ll leave you now.”
Kenny stood up and signalled for Becker to follow. Kenny made his way to the door and looked back to Kirstin who was already stacking everything on the tray and clearing everything off the table. Kenny spoke, with purpose, “I’m very sorry, Kirstin. I promise you, I’ll fix this.” He then walked out to get his shoes.
Becker turned around.“Thanks for the tea,” He said politely, but Kirstin didn’t hear him. She had already pulled a rag from her back pocket and was busy polishing the coffee table. She then reached to one of her buckets and pulled out a mini-vacuum which she proceeded to furiously attack the few crumbs that Becker had let escape from his jaws.
Becker arched a confused eyebrow and felt himself being pulled through the doorway by his shoulder. He looked to Kenny with an exasperated look.
“Why did you say we had to leave? Plastic on the furniture aside, compared to the others, she was positively delightful,” Becker asked.
Kenny frowned. “She’s not herself right now.”
“Who is?” Becker stated matter-of-factly.
“You don’t understand. We were hurting her. Our presence was physically making her ill.”
“Whooza-jigga-wha? Come again?” Becker asked, his head half-cocked like a confused dog.
Kenny slipped on his shoes and sighed, “Ms. Porter has always carried a quiet pride and dignity about her domestic skills. But when pride gets twisted, it becomes obsession. If we would have stayed, she would’ve had either a nervous breakdown trying not to clean up after us, or worse. She’s having a hard enough time right now, we don’t need to make it worse.”
“Really?” Becker asked.
“Sadly, yes,” Kenny said. He was feeling ill too. Not only had his ideal that there was nothing imperfect about Kirstin been shattered, but he had done something terrible to her and forced her to live a nightmarish existence where her obsession would eventually drive her mad. He could not let that happen. “Come Mr. Becker, we’re going.”
“Okay, but where are we going now?” Becker asked.
“We’re going to fix this,” Kenny said with a resolved voice.
“Great! Um… How?”
Kenny stopped cold and sagged his shoulders. “Good question.”
“And the answer?”Becker asked.
“Still working on it,” Kenny said then turned around with a weak smile.
Becker felt his mood lighten for the first time in hours. Kenny might have been feeling the effects of the stress this situation was causing them both, but that smile, weak as it may be, was the same one he gave when he was positive he was going to succeed. Becker smiled in return to encourage him.
“Let’s get out of here and work it out before Sarah gets home and decides to mount our heads as trophies or something.”
As darkness came over the town, Becker and Kenny found themselves hiding once again in the back alleyways. Climbing up a fire escape, the pair sat next to a massive air conditioner vent on the roof of a four story apartment complex.
Keeping a nervous eye on the surroundings, Becker frowned at hearing the quiet, sullen rumble of thunder. “You know, with as much that has gone wrong today, you would think at least the weather would cut us a break.”
Kenny shrugged. “Just another consistency of the universe I’ve noticed. In this hellish one, or the one we know.”
“Murphy’s Law in action?” Becker asked.
“Second extension.”
Becker sighed and rested his head next to the vent. Kenny sat crossed-legged and appeared to be meditating. Becker figured it be best to leave him to it, because if anyone was going to figure out a way to fix this, it was Kenny.
That didn’t mean he was going to let Kenny off the hook for this particular “error” if they did get through this relatively unscathed. Becker thought back to his first encounter with Kenny and his Laboratory. In fact, so far, in the short time Becker had been the pseudo-official lab assistant, he had made one observation of his own. Kenny sometimes took risks that didn’t need to be taken. From what he had been told, Kenny had almost got himself nuked the first time he used the Stargate. And what was Kenny thinking putting a lunatic like Becker in a time machine?
Becker started chuckling. He was beginning to sound a little like Kenny now. Maybe the little twerp was starting to rub off on him. More likely, it was symptoms of headphone withdrawal. Becker was now giggling harder now. All this rational thought was cracking him up like gangbusters.
Kenny opened an eye and peered at the chuckling Becker. “Something you wish to share?”
“Just trying to figure out what the hell you saw in me to think it was a good idea to put me behind the wheel of a time machine, that you yourself said could cause the end of the universe,” Becker explained between giggles.
“You think I take too many risks?”
Becker blinked a few times. “Um… well, maybe. Don’t get me wrong, I mean most of the time, they pay off, but…”
“Sometimes, we get this,” Kenny said waving his hand outward. “No need to apologize for speaking your mind. Actually it’s that trait that saved you from having your memory erased by my neuralizer the first time you trespassed in my lab.”
“Come again?” Becker asked, surprised.
“I could have easily built an android to be my lab assistant, but who wants a soulless lackey? The simple truth is that you tell me when I screw up. You give me something to strive for. If anything, I work harder these days to avoid some smart aleck comment from you,” Kenny said with his own sheepish grin.
Becker blinked dumbly and then opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He closed it and mulled this over. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that Kenny just made a crack at his expense. He wasn’t’ entirely sure if he was pissed off at or actually proud of the little four-eyes.
Kenny saw this reaction and started to chuckle and Becker couldn’t help but join in. Soon the pair were grabbing their sides from laughing so hard. Eventually, the laughter subsided and Becker wiped a tear from his eye. “I think we needed that.”
“Yes, I think you are right. Anyway, to answer your previous question about the risks I take. I admit that sometimes, the potential for disaster seems to outweigh the possible perceived good, but if anything, I have learned one thing.”
Becker eyed Kenny suspiciously wondering if he was going to make another crack at his expense.“What is that?”
“Fortune favors the bold,” Kenny said with a proud stare.
Becker had to admit, the conviction in Kenny’s voice was quite impressive and he could see the logic behind that philosophy, but still, Becker was not about to let this opportunity pass without getting Kenny back for his previous crack. “Fortune cookie?”
Kenny didn’t miss a beat, “Star Trek.”
Becker waved his hands in defeat. He knew that today was not the day to try and one-up Kenny.“Well, as far as boldness goes, putting a guy like me inside a time machine is pretty damn bold. I mean, one wrong left turn in time and dolphins run the world and we’re in humantariums,” Becker said grinning stupidly.
“Mr. Becker, could I just ask… When you were testing my time machine, you never did anything with a sports almanac, did you?”
Becker denied that he had.
“Just checking one last possibility that this could be something other then my fault,” Kenny explained. “Too much to hope for, I suppose.”
Becker furrowed his brow and his eyes suddenly bulged. For Becker it was as if insight was a Brooklyn pimp and he had backhanded Becker across the brain.
Kenny noticed the ambivalent look on Becker’s face and decided to ask what was on his mind,“Something wrong?”
Becker suddenly smiled and slapped himself on the forehead. “Holy shit! Kenny!! We can fix this!! We got a time machine!!! A Friggin’ time machine!!! We can stop this from ever happening!!” Becker shouted triumphantly at Kenny with a grin that had to be at least a mile wide, partly because he could escape this hell, and partly because he was the one who thought of it.
Which is why he was confused when Kenny did not smile back. Kenny sadly shook his head. “Good idea, but I already eliminated it as an option.”
“Huh?”
“Even if we could travel back in time to stop an event in which we were directly involved and NOT cause a temporal paradox that would destroy the universe, the time machine still wouldn’t be a feasible solution.”
“Why not?” Becker asked exasperated.
“Because, most likely, the time machine is currently a rusted bucket of scrap sitting in the trashed remained of my lab.”
“Wha…?”
“Remember how I told you that we were in a pocket of normality? If I had to guess, I would say that pocket was no more than fifteen, maybe twenty feet in diameter. Everything outside of it was affected by the beam, including most of my lab, which includes the Stargate and the time machine,” Kenny explained.
Becker slammed his fist on the roof. Kenny, as usual, was light years down the road from where he was standing. “Okay, so you’re saying that all your scientific equipment is probably all junked and useless, right?”
“Precisely.”
“Okay, so what do we have to work with?”
Kenny mulled this over. “My workbench, some tools, the testing area, and the extractor itself. Those in themselves would be more than enough to fix the entire mess, save for the most important thing that we don’t have and that I’m wracking my brain to figure out how we get.”
“What’s that?”
“Power. More than all of Earth’s combined nuclear, coal, wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermic energy sources could possibly produce, if they were running at one hundred percent efficiency, which given the current state of everything, is very doubtful,” Kenny said bitterly.
“Can’t you fix the power grid?” Becker asked, hoping for positive news but expecting more bad.
“Of course, I can fix it. If I had the right parts and equipment. A power grid run from three cold-fusion power cells is a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment. You really can’t get parts to repair one at your local RadioShack. Plus, since the power grid was also affected by the negativity effect of the extractor, it’ll be in even worse shape than if it had just blown normally.”
“Ah, cripes! This just takes the cake, you know that?!” Becker said, angrily standing up and kicking the ventilation ducts. “Man, this sucks! We have a grid, but it’s broken and we have a working beam, but it needs power. If only we could use the damn beam, then the grid would be fixed, but we would need the grid to be fixed already to power the beam to fix the grid. Grrrrrr, I hate walking around in frustrating circles like this!!” Becker shouted while pacing.
Kenny stared at him. He stared and grinned. That smile returned. That cocky, self-assured, nothing-is-gonna-stop-me grin that Becker had, on occasion, really wanted to wipe off Kenny’s face. This was mainly because Kenny mostly used it when he was about to make Becker feel stupid.
“Mr. Becker, please repeat what you just said,” Kenny asked.
“What? About using the beam to fix the grid that would have to already be fixed in order to use it to fix the grid?”
It was now Kenny’s turn to slap himself on the forehead and give a hearty laugh. “Mr. Becker, you’re a genius! That’s absolutely brilliant! I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. You’re quite something, Mr. Becker.”
“I am? It is? Saw what? What exactly am I, again? Am I walking in circles, or have we all just gone nuts?”
“You are. It is. The solution to our problems. And no, you’re more pacing than walking in circles,”Kenny answered and then stood up and made his way toward the stairwell back down to the ground. “Come, Mr. Becker. It’s time to be bold.” Kenny then started down the stairwell, leaving Mr. Becker alone on the roof.
“Will someone explain to me what the hell just happened?” Becker asked no one and then hurried after Kenny.
A short while later, after sneaking through the darkness and avoiding everything and everyone, the pair came to the small strip mall. It was closed down for the evening and locked up tight. Everything was gated up and the windows were all fenced. It looked like the local shopkeepers weren’t taking too many chances with the local populace.
Kenny and Becker made their way to the back to where all the employee entrances and trash dumpsters were. Kenny looked at the doors and saw the one he wanted. It read “RadioShack.”
“Um, Kenny. I think it’s closed and I don’t think they’ll open it just for us,” Becker said, looking around.
“Mr. Becker, what I’m about to do just about compromises every ethic I have as a scientist,” Kenny said and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar looking red Scout knife. Kenny flipped out what should have been the blade, but in its place was instead a rather small thin stub.
“Um, what are you going to do?”
Kenny pushed the Scout emblem. There suddenly was a soft “Vawoom” and then there was a familiar green glow that Becker could recognize in his sleep. A small, three inch blade of green light was emitting from Kenny’s knife.
Kenny looked at the locked door and stabbed the sabre blade into the door and started to cut around the knob. After a minute, the door swung open and Becker whistled, impressed.
“Obi-Wan has taught you well, young Pendrell.”
Kenny shrugged off the comment and walked inside. Kenny looked to his left and saw a lighted keypad that was flashing. Kenny took the blade and stabbed the pad and it stopped flashing and went still.
“Now what do we do?”Becker asked.
“Now, we go shopping. Mr. Becker, I need you to go three stores down. I believe it’s a sporting goods shop. Use this,” Kenny said, handing the glowing blade to Becker, “and use it like I did here. Security should all be set up pretty much the same. Secure us a couple bikes and some book bags. I’ve got my list in here. Move quickly, I prefer to not be here if my anti-security measures didn’t take.”
Becker blinked dumbly. Kenny wasn’t messing around. Becker looked at the glowing blade and nodded and made his way out.
Kenny looked at the darkness and saw the racks of wire, batteries, and other assorted electronics and he then grinned like a Cheshire cat. He slapped his hands together and then started grabbing things from pegs and dumping them in a big pile on the floor.
Ten minutes later, Becker ran in and tossed the bags on the floor next to the pile and smiled.“Figured you might not be a ten-speed guy, so I got you a kickass mountain bike.”
Kenny nodded absently as he dug through his pile. He tossed Becker a roll of duct tape, a large packet of D batteries and a pair of heavy duty MagLites. “Great. Can you secure these to the bikes? It’ll be a lot easier if we’re not riding blind.” Becker nodded and ran back out as Kenny proceeded to stuff the bags full of everything he could. He then slung them over his shoulders and grabbed a couple of larger boxes.
Kenny grunted as he walked through the back exit. Becker finished taping the second flashlight to the bikes’ handlebars and guessed that the two large boxes he carried were probably heavy.
Kenny walked over and smiled when he saw that the bikes Becker picked has a rear rack for hiking packs. He placed one of the boxes on the rack and with another roll of duct tape, he secured it. Becker grabbed the second box and did the same. Becker then grabbed one of the bags and put it on his back. Kenny readjusted his and mounted the bike. After checking the gears and brakes, he nodded and he and Becker started pedalling away with their ill-gotten, but very necessary, booty.
The pair rode through the slummish streets and made their way back to Kenny’s house. They slowed to a stop and took cover behind some dead shrubbery. Outside the house was parked twelve large Harley Davidsons, and from within Kenny’s house was abuzz with loud heavy metal and raucous crashing sounds.
“Now we know why it looked like a biker gang just had a piñata party in the living room. What you reckon, wait till they go to sleep?” Becker asked.
“No.”
“No?” Becker asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Ever ride down stairs?”
“Yeah, why?” Becker asked, now eying Kenny suspiciously, not liking where he was going with this.
“See you at the bottom then,” Kenny said as he clicked on the light and started peddling toward the house. A moment later, he crashed through the front door and, through the commotion, Becker could hear another door being kicked down.
“Aw, hell’s bells,”Becker muttered, then with a heavy sigh, he too clicked the light, remounted his bike and begged his butt’s forgiveness for the bumpy torture he was about to put it through. He then sped toward the house and charged into it like a bat out of hell, past a group of angry looking, very grungy bikers and biker chicks who were apparently squatting in Kenny’s house. He dove his bike right into the stairwell. Gravity took over and Becker clung for dear life and began to pray to Rah, Yahweh, St. Christopher, Uzume, Odin, Zeus, and even Yoda that he live through this.
Becker didn’t find God waiting for him at the end of his nightmarish twenty-three minute jaunt down the spiral stairway, instead he found Kenny frantically dismantling the rear tire from his own bike. Kenny had set up several battery powered lanterns in a semi circle and Becker could se that Kenny’s calculations were right. Beyond a small circle that contained the workbench and testing area, everything else was trashed. Becker has no clue how Kenny was going to fix this, but apparently he himself was the genius who came up with the solution.
If only he knew was it was.
“So, um, Kenny. Yeah, about this great idea I had. Just to remind me of how much of a genius I am, care to share it with me?”
“We are going to use the extractor to fix the power grid,’ Kenny said matter-of-factly.
“Um… I thought we needed the grid to power the beam?”
“No, we need the grid to power the beam enough to fix the whole area affected by the negativity effect. The beam itself uses any power source. The more power, the more widespread the beam can be,” Kenny explained.
“So, we’re not going to fix the world?” Becker asked scratching his head.
“Oh, we most certainly are. We are just taking the scenic route as it were,” Kenny said as he started unspooling heavy gauge electrical wire. He then snipped some with his small multi-tool and tossed it to Becker. “I need fifteen more lengths of this gauge wire like the one I gave you. Please strip each end at about two inches in. After you finish that, start removing the back wheel from your bike. The tool box is over by the one set of lanterns.”
Becker blinked dumbly and then nodded. He went over to the toolbox and pulled out a pair of pliers and ratchet. He then sat down and started unspooling.
Kenny, meanwhile, had torn into one the boxes, pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and quickly scanned it. He then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a mechanical pencil. He started jotting notes on the paper, frowning, then scrawling something else, and then smiling.
Becker finished his task and looked to Kenny, who had now removed the beam from the swing arm it had been mounted to in the testing area. Kenny sat it down and opened the housing. He poked around and Becker heard a slight popping noise as Kenny carefully slipped out what appeared to be a memory card or cartridge of some sort.
“What’s that?”
“The last memory of the world as we knew it. Stored on this flash memory device is a cache snapshot of the world before the beam changed it. Sort of a fail-safe. When the beam tried to exceed its targeting range, the A.I. took a picture of everything how it was. I intended for it to be used as a study tool to compare whatever I changed with the extractor and the original item.”
“Why are you taking it out?”
“Because, Mr. Becker, we’re going to use the beam to fix the power grid first. This is only temp memory so after every use, it is written over. Can’t have that, so I’m going to replace this with some makeshift temporary memory so we can fix the grid. Are you finished with the wire?” Kenny asked.
“Um, yeah. What you want me to do now?” Becker asked.
“Walk to the south wall and in about fifty or so feet you’ll see a large winch. Take a lantern with you. That winch will open up my bookcases to give access to the power grid generators.”
“You mean those huge, Library-of-Congress-size shelves? Those open up?” Becker asked exasperated.
“Yes. Normally, I could have them opened up with a push of a button, but alas, with no power, well, you know. Anyway, that should take you a couple hours to open those enough. That will give me time to set up our temporary power station.”
Becker sighed and grabbed a lantern. “You seriously owe me big time for this, Kenny. I’m talking extra-cheese, triple toppings big,” Becker grumbled as he set off into the darkness.
As Kenny worked, he could hear the slow, tired creaking of his bookcases being forced open. A slow creak was usually followed by a low-volume cursing afterward. Meanwhile he was focused on making connections between the extractor’s inside and the new mini-grid he was making. Converting the voltage and ampage output was nuisance enough, and now Mr. Becker was most definitely not going to like his part in the next phase.
Becker decided to make his reappearance known by walking up while groaning slightly as he gripped his shoulders and Kenny looked over to the one wall. Becker had opened it enough for them to get a nice clear shot at the primary generator. If this worked out like he had planned, the backup wouldn’t be needed.
“Kenny, we almost ready? I need a nap and a Gatorade like you can’t believe!”
“Almost. We’re ready to initiate phase one. Please take your place on the first bike,” Kenny said pointing to the pair of bikes fixed in place facing the generator.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“Beg your pardon?”Kenny asked.
“You expect me to power the beam-thingy by pedalling, don’t you? I just spent the last two hours opening your damn oversized shelves!” Becker complained.
“Yes, but your legs should be well rested. Besides, I’ll be helping on that end of things. Anyway, we’ll both need to hold the beam steady,” Kenny explained trying to keep a positive tone.
“That payment just increased to extra-large, quadruple supreme… plus desert,” Becker grumbled as he mounted the bike.
Kenny mounted his and balanced the extractor on the handlebars. He looked to the voltage meter duct-taped to his cross bar and nodded to Becker. The pair began pedalling. The meter jumped slightly. Kenny began to pump harder and Becker did likewise.
The meter slowly increased.
“Kenny, when the hell do you shoot that damn thing?” Becker asked panting.
“When we get enough power stored. We’re almost there,” Kenny said as he reached into his coat pocket with his left hand and pulled out the extractor’s remote. Kenny eyed the meter and as it approached the red mark. Once the meter indicated the time was ripe, he pushed the button.
Becker forgot about the flash and jerked his head back. Kenny remembered it as he pushed the button and was able to close his eyes in time. Lucky for him, he was reduced to just seeing big white spots. To Becker, everything looked like it was encased in a white fog.
Becker blinked some and then some more in hopes of clearing up his sore retinas. Kenny blinked too, but figured it would clear itself up in a few minutes.
“And I want it delivered too!” Becker grumbled between blinks.
“Your eyes will be fine. If not, when the lab is restored, I will grow you a new set,” Kenny said half-interested. He was more focused on what was beyond the partially opened shelves.
It looked like his power generator, but then again, it looked much, MUCH more impressive. Kenny was so impressed that he let out a shrill whistle to compliment this piece of technology.
“Did it work?” Becker asked, still blinking.
“Indeed it did. Better than I could have hoped. If I had to make a guess, this unit might very run at more that four-hundred percent efficiency if compared to my current unit,” Kenny said in awe.
“Will it be enough?”
“Oh yes. Now we initiate phase two. Let’s get our home back, shall we?”
“It’s about time!”Becker agreed.
Kenny walked over to the bikes and started disconnecting the wires from the emitter. He then lugged it over to the generator. Kenny then gathered his tool and some necessary components to connect the emitter directly to the new power core.
Kenny jury-rigged his extractor in short order and the reached into his pocket and pulled out the original memory storage chip. Kenny turned in over in his fingers and then looked to Becker.
“You know, we could very see what would happen if we simply set the extractor to maximum on the positive scale. After seeing this hell, aren’t you even a little bit curious as to what kind of utopia we could turn the world into? I mean, we still have the stored memory of our original world,” Kenny asked Becker, mulling the decision over.
Becker sighed.“Kenny, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If this experience has taught us anything, it is that.”
“You’re not curious?”
“Not in the slightest. The only utopia I wanna see is my old town and my old room and my old bed and my old pizza shop where you’re gonna be treating me for the next year,” Becker said tiredly.
“I guess, for you, an imperfect world is your perfect world,” Kenny mused.
“It may be imperfect, but it’s home and that’s perfect enough for me. Let’s stop with the philosophy and get back there, okay?” Becker asked with a relieved voice.
Kenny slipped the memory chip into the extractor’s house and then made some adjustments. Kenny looked to Becker. “Extractor’s targeting set outward, recall mode initiated, please cover your eyes.”
Kenny then pushed the button and suddenly the extractor shook violently, there was a bluish flash of light and then the extractor went still. Kenny opened his eyes and immediately realized that there was more light than before. The overhead lights were working again and the lanterns were gone.
In fact, as Kenny looked around, he realized that the lab was exactly as it were before he initiated the last test. The recall function had worked as it was intended to. It was as if the hours spent in the bad-potential universe had never happened.
Becker opened his eyes and blinked some more. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. Then suddenly he snapped his fingers and ran over to the miniature refrigerator that Kenny kept near his workbench. Becker opened it, ignored the various containers with their biohazard labels and pulled out a perfectly chilled bottle of grape Gatorade…or at least it was some fruit the colour of purple. Becker didn’t care. He popped the top and started chugging. Draining the bottle, he sighed contently.“An average universe never tasted so good.”
Becker then tossed the empty bottle in a nearby trashcan, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the door. Becker gave a half-wave to Kenny. “I’m sure you want to run some sort of post-beam-thingy analysis or something. I’m going home to make sure everything is back to normal. Meet you at Perfume’s in say three hours? Remember, you’re treating,”Becker said with a laugh as he entered the express lift to Kenny’s room. The doors closed and Kenny was left alone.
Kenny looked at the extractor, now sitting on the floor. The victim of hasty jury-rigging and excessive use. For a moment. He thought of destroying it, but then he relented. It still had applications, juts right now may not be the best time to explore them.
Besides, he had been wanting to run some new experiments of the dimensional gate anyway. Tomorrow seemed like a good time to start those. Yes, tomorrow, he and Mr. Becker would return to safer fair like tinkering with interdimensional physics. He had some ideas concerning the Stargate and the Edsel.
Kenny lifted the extractor and lugged it to a cleared off metal table in a disused section of his lab. He then removed the memory chips and set them down next to it. He then pulled out a dusty sheet from under the table and covered the extractor.
Just another experiment that had his undivided attention for a brief time, but now another memory and another lesson learned.
Just like all the other items found under the many dusty sheets in that place of wonders known as Kenny’s Laboratory.
Sitting on four concrete blocks was a partially dissembled Porsche 911 Turbo. Laying below the blocks was a rather large tarp with scattered parts laying on top. Most were unnecessary now as this car could now do what was thought only possible in dreams: It ran on ordinary tap water. Even more impossible: It got 320 miles to the gallon.
Elsewhere, resting under a dusty sheet sat the long fabled, but never believed possible perpetual motion machine. Elsewhere still rested other things never known to exist and which, any one of them, would turn the world on it’s head. Cold Fusion light bulbs. A device that could change the molecular structure of Coca-Cola and turn it into Pepsi. A video monitor with a live 24-hour feed of the city of Atlantis. These were only a handful of the things that Kenneth Pendrell had brought forth from his mind.
And they were all now sitting alone in disuse and neglect. They no longer occupied Pendrell’s attention. They were trifling things that could not equal 1/100th the importance of what he was currently focused with.
Which was an apple.
An ordinary apple.
Less than ordinary, in fact. It was smallish and was slightly bruised and had two ugly brown spots. If you saw this in the produce aisle, you would likely push it aside and pick a better one to put in you produce bag.
But this apple, this ugly apple, was currently more important to Kenny than even his beloved‘Stargate’ Transdimensional Conduit. Though, truth be told, the conduit was like a faithful dog. No matter what new fangled contraption Kenny would create, his love would inevitable return to the Stargate.
Kenny took the ugly apple and brought it over from his workbench to a designated testing area. Suddenly, his ears were assaulted by the sound of a cat being hit with a brick while being drowned. Kenny glanced up and guessed right. Mr. Becker, his new “lab assistant,” had arrived, 12 minutes and 56.13 seconds late, as predicted.
“Hey Kenny,” Becker greeted, “Sorry I’m late. I had…”
“To stop at the convenience store to pick up new batteries for your portable compact disc player,” Kenny finished the sentence for him.
“Yeah,” Becker said impressed. Then his tone turned suspicious. “How did you know that?”
“Calculating the average battery life of your compact disc player, added to the distance to make a detour to the nearest convenience store, adjusting for average store traffic at this time of day, making for an average of two customers ahead of you in line, plus time for digging out enough loose change to pay for said batteries, then time to open package with your teeth, replacing batteries in the player, adds up to an average delay time of twelve minutes and fifty-six point thirteen seconds,” Kenny explained.
“But, to calculate that so exactly, that’s just impossible,” Becker reasoned rolling his eyes upward as he tried to add up the math himself.
“Not really. Science is all about observation. If you observe the same thing over and over again with the same result, you have what we can call a pattern.”
“What’s that mean?”Becker asked.
“It means that you always stop to buy batteries on your way to the lab every Monday and Thursday, like clockwork.”
“Oh,” Becker said sheepishly.
“Anyway, that’s not important. You’re here now, and I need you for a vital experiment,” Kenny said, almost giddily. Well giddy for Kenny.
“Really?” Becker said excitedly, then stopped dead in his tracks and eyed Kenny even more suspiciously than before. “Wait a second, this doesn’t involve any sort of large syringe does it?”
“What? Heavens no! See this apple?” Kenny said holding the apple in his hands out to Becker.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to take a bite of it,” Kenny said confidently.
“And while I’m doing that, you inject me with a large syringe?” Becker asked.
Kenny rolled his eyes in frustration and then pulled out the pockets of lab coat and pants and held both his arms out. “There are no syringes involved, whatsoever. Now, will you please take a bite of this?”
Becker took the apple and eyed it. “So you used the syringe on the apple and now whatever was in the apple will be in me?”
“Mr. Becker, I know I will one day have to genetically re-grow your shattered eardrums, but I know you’re not deaf now, so please listen carefully: Never, in the course of this experiment, has there been, nor will there ever be, any involvement, even in the slightest, of syringes, or other pointed objects,” Kenny said with a slightly annoyed tone.
“This is an ordinary apple?”
“Yes.”
“No syringes?”
“Yes.”
“Yes there will be syringes?” Becker asked, now confused.
“No. Yes, as in ‘Yes, there will be NO syringes involved.’ Okay?”
Kenny explained with an annoyed sigh.
“Cool,” Becker said. He then looked over the apple again for a place to bite in. He avoided the bruise and the two bad spots and finally settled on a target. Polishing it briefly on his shirt, he then raised it to his mouth, shifted his eyes nervously to Kenny one last time, who responded by taking a step back and holding his hands out to show no weapons, then bit in.
Becker chewed the bite of apple a couple times, then swallowed. He then looked at Kenny and wondered what would happen next.
“Well, how was it?”Kenny asked.
“The apple?” Becker asked, confused.
“Yes.”
Becker mulled it over and hazarded a reply, “Not bad, I suppose. At least, as far as apples go.”
Kenny smiled and nodded. “But not the best you ever had?”
Becker arched an eyebrow, confused at this line of questioning. He decided to play along with this and see where Kenny was going, whom he suspected was light years down the road in the conversation from where he stood. “No, not really. Probably would rate it a four. Edible, but not delicious.”
“Good. That’s the reaction was hoping for. Can you please hand me the apple back?” Kenny asked holding his palm out. Becker complied and Kenny immediately turned toward the designated testing area. He rested the apple on top of a metal pedestal. Pointed directly at pedestal was a rather stereotypical ray, which was attached to a robot arm and comprised of a large antennae in
which several concaved discs lined the shaft in ranks of descending sizes until reaching the knobbed tip, out of which, presumably, shot the stereotypical beam.
Kenny went to the work bench and took a small remote-control device and started fiddling with it. He then looked to Becker, “You may want to shield your eyes.” As Kenny said this, he flipped down a set of detachable black lenses over his normal glasses. Becker covered his eyes with his hands and Kenny hit a button.
There was a blinding bolt of energy and in a flash, the ugly apple was gone.
In its place was something amazing.
Another apple.
But unlike the ugly apple, this one was anything but. First off, it was bigger, nearly double in size the original and it was perfectly symmetrical in shape. It’s skin was a bright, almost firetruck-red, and it actually glistened in the fluorescent lights of the laboratory. In essence, if there could ever be a supermodel of apples, this was it. This was, as Kenny would likely have said, the Kirstin Porter of apples; perfect in every way.
Kenny looked at it and his eyes beamed with excitement. Becker stood there, like he usually did after some sort of beam was fired in the lab, and blinked dumbly a few times. Kenny hurriedly walked over and examined the now beautiful example of produce.
He turned it around a few times, looking for any flaws or imperfections, knowing in his heart that he would find none. So far, it appears, his experiment was a success. But then, perfection is sometimes only skin deep. He needed to measure it against the original.
He then looked to Becker, put his hand with the apple out to Becker and smiled. “Mr. Becker, care for another bite?”
Becker took the apple and eyed Kenny suspiciously. “Still no syringes, right?”
“Yes.”
“And this is still an ordinary apple?”
Kenny smiled ever so slightly. “If my calculations are correct, no. This will definitely not be an ordinary apple.”
Becker shrugged, took a bite, and chewed it. Suddenly, his eyes lit up in pleasant delight. It was like the entire collective positive energies of Wenatchee, Washington, the apple growing capital of the world, was concentrated into one perfect specimen of deliciousness. This was not so much an apple as it was looking into the face of God and finding him offering you free apple pie. Becker closed his eyes in ecstasy and Kenny could see a solitary tear of joy roll down his cheek.
That was all Kenny needed to see. The experiment was a complete success.
Becker opened his eyes and turned from his reverie to Kenny, “Why did you waste my time with that other piece of crap? If you wanted to see how I would react to eating your perfect apple, you should have just given it to me in the first place.” Then Becker frowned and eyed the apple. “Hey, what did happen to that other crappy apple?”
Kenny smiled again.“You’re eating it now, Mr. Becker.”
“Wha…? That can’t be. I took a bite out it. Plus, believe me, there is no way I could confuse those two in the taste department,” Becker contradicted. Kenny continued to smile, waiting to prove Becker wrong, again.
Becker shifted nervously and took another bite of his treasured apple and was not shocked to find that the second bite was better than the first. He swallowed and then eyed Kenny and finally asked what he knew Kenny was waiting for him to ask so he could go off on a long explanation. “What exactly is that beam?”
“Glad you asked, Mr. Becker. I would like to introduce you to the IKP Perfection Extractor.”
Kenny walked over and Becker followed. Kenny then looked at Becker and spoke, “Posit: two acorns fall from the same parent tree. One grows into a mighty oak. The other grows into a sickly sapling and then dies. Why?”
“Um… bad gardening technique?”
“Maybe, but say they each received the same attention and the same result happened?”
“Dunno,” Becker said with a shrug, “Bad roll of the dice maybe? Life is random, isn’t it?”
“Ah, now you’re thinking like a scientist. Now stick with me. Despite the end results, both acorns started with the same potential. They were cut from the same cloth, as they say. So, despite the outcome, they both had a chance to be the same magnificent oak,” Kenny said holding his finger up to make his point.
“Okay. So what?”
“So, the same goes for this apple, or two fish spawn, or two children. It all comes down to potential.”
“Potential?”
“Yep, inside that ugly apple was the blueprint of what a perfect apple could be. All I did was bring all that potential out and this created the peak of what an apple could be,” Kenny explained.
“Okay, that’s great, but other than making better snacks, what good is it?” Becker asked, not grasping what Kenny was obviously seeing.
“It doesn’t just work on food, It works on anything living. It can bring out that inner perfection. Imagine the applications!” Kenny said, now with full-blown excitement.
“Such as?” Becker asked, still not fully grasping it.
“Well, let’s just say we applied it to Humans. Imagine what this would do to the criminal justice system.”
“Huh?”
“Imagine it, Mr. Becker. No more need for prisons. We could take the most dangerous criminally insane people and with an application of this beam transform them into upstanding citizens.”
Becker shifted nervously, “That sounds kinda Big Brother-ish to me.”
Kenny noticed the nervous tone and decided to temper his own enthusiasm. “Well, maybe not yet, and certainly not until it has been extensively tested. But it could be an application.”
“Okay, say we can do that. Here’s a question, can we reverse the process? I mean, permanent changes are, well, permanent.”
Kenny grasped what Becker was throwing out there. “I see what you mean. Yes, to totally change a person and not have an option to change them back would be disconcerting. It shouldn’t be hard though. It’s just a simple reversing of the polarity of the beam.”
Kenny then took Becker’s apple, though not before Becker took one last bite and was overjoyed to see that the third bite rivalled the second for best bite of an apple ever. Kenny placed the apple on the pedestal and then opened a panel on the beam’s housing. After tinkering with it with a small tool set, he closed the panel and stepped out of the beam’s path. He then pulled out the control box and flipped his dark lenses down. Becker once again shielded his eyes.
Kenny pushed a button and the beam roared to life. This time something was off and Kenny knew something was wrong. He got an indication of this when the lights in the lab started to blow out like popcorn kernels. Suddenly, there was a blood red flash and then darkness.
Becker lifted his hands from his eyes and screamed, “I’m blind! My God, I’ve gone blind!!”
“The power grid has blown. You’re fine, Mr. Becker.”
“Oh,” Becker said sheepishly. “How long till the lights come back on?”
“If the emergency grid was spared, then about a minute. If not, then not until I fix the generator,” Kenny answered in the darkness. A minute passed and no lights came on.
“Guess you blew both grids. Nice trick. You and an apple are a very dangerous thing, Kenny.”
“A minor setback. Otherwise, the experiment was a total success.”
“Blackout aside,” Becker agreed. Silence enveloped the two and Becker decided to break it.“Kenny, what do we do now?”
“Hold on,” Kenny said. Becker could tell that Kenny had moved to a new location from the distance of his voice. “I keep a flashlight in my workbench drawer. We’ll use it to see out way to the exit and then we’ll come back tomorrow with more flashlights and start on repairs.”
Becker could hear Kenny rooting through his drawers and then the familiar click of a MagLite button. Becker blinked a few times as the beam managed to hit him square in the eyes. Kenny waved the beam aside and looked for the secondary entrance. He looked past Becker’s shoulders and found it.
Something, however, was off. He couldn’t quite place it, but he was sure that something was wrong with the lab. But the darkness and excitement of his success were clouding just was it was. He decided to file it away for later and to get him and Becker back to light before his batteries ran dead. Because the elevator was shut down by the power failure, he knew it was at least a couple hours worth of steps ahead of him to get back to his room. Kenny sighed and waived Mr. Becker over with the light.
“Hey Kenny, do you feel ok?” Becker asked cautiously.
“What is wrong, Mr. Becker?” Kenny asked back.
Becker shrugged. “I dunno. I feel kinda… off. Like there’s something wrong but I can’t place my finger on it. Like the air is funny or something.”
“Do you feel physically ill?”
“No. Not really. Maybe. Are you sure there was nothing wrong with that apple you gave me?”
Kenny nervously shifted. He didn’t want to admit it, but Becker was describing exactly how he himself felt. Kenny was now sure that he had to get back to his room so he could start making plans to repair the lab immediately. “I hope not. We should try to make good time to get back to the top. Let’s pick up the pace, agreed?”
“Yeah, okay,” Becker said and the pair began to double their pace on the ascent up the winding stone stairwell.
About an hour and a half later, Kenny and Becker stumbled through the door. Becker took two steps and promptly fell on his face and groaned. Kenny shared the sentiment.
“Mr. Becker, remind me later to install a default mechanism, so if the power grids blow, all outside exits unlock. Especially the wind tunnel,” Kenny groaned, supporting himself against the wall. It was an unnecessary statement as this experience was enough to ensure that he would retain this thought in his long term memory.
“Water…,” was all Becker could managed to reply with.
Kenny stumbled over to the collapsed Becker and helped him up so they could jointly stumble toward the kitchen.
Maybe it was the exhaustion from the climb, or his own thirst, but that uneasy feeling was coming back. That uneasy feeling turned to mild despair when he entered his kitchen.
“Hey, what happened here?” Becker asked.
“Good question,”Kenny answered with a surprised tone. The kitchen was an absolute sty. It looked like a pack of bears tore through it and then left. The cupboards were mostly open and there were empty boxes and containers everywhere. The sink was overloaded with dishes in such a manner that if he dared put a single spoon on top of the pile, he risked a distasteful avalanche. On the kitchen table was an ashtray overflowing with grimy ashes and cigarette butts.
Kenny was struck dumb. Did someone break in and trash his kitchen? Kenny dared to hope the fridge was at least safe from whatever hit his kitchen. He slowly opened and was literally assaulted by the most foul odour of spoiled milk, rotten eggs, mould, and bad lunchmeat. Inside, something that was blue, furry, and that kind of resembled a gelatine mold opened it’s eyes and said, “Momma!”
Kenny slammed the door and felt bile rising up in his gullet and choked it back. Kenny was always seeking new life and new civilizations. But he had to draw the line on the ones that had formed in his refrigerator.
“What in the name of Schrödinger’s Cat is going on here?” Kenny asked aloud.
“Did someone fire the cleaning lady or something? The living room looks like a biker gang just had a piñata party and the piñatas were all the… uh, well… everything. ” Becker said from another room. Kenny turned from the kitchen and ran excitedly to where Becker was. He didn’t know why he hurried. It was just as Becker has described. His living room was trashed.
“But the house is hermetically sealed, and only authorized people should have access to it,”Kenny whispered as he surveyed the wreckage that was once his living room. “Who would do such a thing?”
Kenny then looked to Becker and Becker looked back. Both bolted for Kenny’s room. Kenny reached the door first and threw it open. He stopped dead in his tracks.
Someone had stolen his room.
What they replaced it with was an insult to intellect everywhere. First off, it was filthy. Sty wouldn’t be adequate enough to describe it. Heck, even “toxic waste dump”didn’t seem to really grasp the look of this place.
Next, someone had replaced all his beloved posters and paintings. Einstein had been replaced with some tramp humping a motorcycle. His periodic table had been removed in favour for some heavy metal band named “Satan’s Port-a-Potty.” His bookshelves were in similar condition. Scientific journals and science magazines were replaced with Fangoria and Metal Edge and inside those were hidden issues of Penthouse and Hustler. Kenny tore through the shelves in hopes of finding something, anything that was his.
“Check out the movie collection!” Becker said from across the room. Kenny turned around in despair.
“I take it that my collection of the History Channel’s Modern Marvels is no longer occupying my shelf,” Kenny asked sadly.
“Not unless there was an episode called Revenge of the Splat Gore Monster! Hey, there’s another one called Die Screaming with Sharp Things in your Eyes, Mother…Um…ampersand pound sign dollar sign asterisk percentile exclamation point exclamation point...”
“I get the point, Mr. Becker,” Kenny interrupted.
Becker shrugged and tossed the video on the large pile of moving clothing. Whether it was moving because there was something living under it, or because the clothes themselves were alive, Kenny didn’t have the heart to find out.
“What’s going on here, Kenny?”
“Splatter movies. Pornographic magazines. Everything that stifles the mind and can be called low or base. It’s like a living tribute to insulting my intelligence,” Kenny stated coldly.
“Just how long were we down there? What the hell happened?” Becker asked with a confused tone.
“We were only down there a few hours, even adding the walk up the steps. There was no way that all of this could’ve happened in that period of time,” Kenny reasoned, taking the edge out of his voice.
“Maybe that beam sent us to the future? Maybe this some post-apocalyptic nightmare future,” Becker hypothesized.
While it warmed Kenny’s heart a little to see Becker taking a logical approach to this situation, Kenny still knew he had to set him straight. “There was nothing even remotely chrono-related or even dimensional-related with that beam. No, we are definitely in the same time and place.”
“Then what?” Becker asked.
“I don’t know.” Of all the words in the English language, those were the words Kenny hated to say out loud most. Worse still, they sounded like the scariest ones he knew as well.
Becker looked around and moved toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. I think we’ll think clearer with some fresh air.”
“Agreed,” Kenny said.“Oh, and Mr. Becker?”
“Yes?”
“Leave the magazine.”
Becker dropped the copy of Hustler and he and Kenny made their way through the trashed house and out the front door.
If shock was a word that could’ve described the look on Kenny and Becker’s face when they saw his kitchen and bedroom, then the word for their expression when they saw the outside world had to be a touch stronger. Possibly the only candidate, rude as it sounded, was “F&%#ING STUNNED.”
Yes, Kenny and Becker were F&%#ING STUNNED at what they were seeing.
“I guess it goes without saying that I don’t need to say that I have a bad feeling about this,” Becker said quietly.
“I am no longer ready to outright discount your nightmare future theory, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said just as quietly.
Kenny and Becker stood in the middle what might have been, at one time, a pleasant suburb. Now it looked more like a ghetto. The houses were all in various states of disrepair and some were boarded up, others had bars on the windows. Graffiti littered the area and the lawns were either overgrown or dead, or, in some cases, overgrown with dead grass. The road was cracked and full of so many pothouses, one could’ve confused it with a Bosnian mine field.
The sky was overcast and it looked positively sullen. The dark atmosphere suited the darkness of this place. Sirens echoed in the distance from several directions and Kenny and Becker could see billows of smoke from several places. Gunshots rang out somewhere close by and Kenny and Becker instinctively looked around nervously.
“I don’t think it’s safe to stand around here,” Becker said, stating the obvious.
“I think we should try and find the others. Maybe they know what happened,” Kenny reasoned.
“Yeah, Matt and the guys can fill us in on what’s going on here. Presuming they’re still around,” Becker added.
“I said I wasn’t discounting your future theory. I didn’t say that was what happened,” Kenny corrected.
“I know. I just hope they’re okay, future or no,” Becker said, annoyed.
“Agreed. We should head for the Church in the Acres. If something really bad happened, that would be where Mr. Atanian would assemble the others.”
“Yeah, Matt would want to set up a place to help people who were hurt or needed protection. Let’s go,” Becker said excitedly and started toward the direction with Kenny following.
A short while later, the pair approached the second home of their Scout troop. It didn’t look promising. From even a distance, it looked like a mess and Kenny was sure it looked like some of the windows were boarded up as well.
As the pair entered the lot, Kenny heard a low hum. That hum got louder and was no longer a hum after a few moments but rather a high pitched screechy whine that could only belong to a Japanese street motorcycle.
Which is was exactly what zoomed by the pair before screeching to a stop, u-turning, and then growling to a stop behind the pair. Kenny and Becker slowly turned around, with their backs now to the dilapidated church. There were a pair of people riding on the black Kawasaki and neither wore helmets so it didn’t Kenny long to recognize them and to then be shocked yet again.
The man in the front wore heavy boots and black leather pants along with a black jacket adorned with studs and chains. His face was unshaven and his hair was scraggly and even though he wore a pair of sunglasses, Kenny was sure recognized him from the recent Christmas party as one Jason Bertovich.
The person behind him was even more shocking. His female companion wore thigh-high black leather hobnailed high-heeled boots, and a black G-string accompanying a black bustier. Her hair was cropped short and dyed raven black and her lips were crimson red. Prominently tattooed on her left shoulder in red gothic font was the word “BITCH.” Sarah Porter would have most certainly had a conniption, possibly a seizure, if she was here right now and she saw this.
“Mr. Bertovich?”Kenny asked meekly.
“Nicole?!!” Becker said not so meekly.
Jason slid his glasses down his nose and looked at the pair with a sneer, “Hey Nicky, aren’t these a pair of those scouts giving your girls a hard time?”
Nicole grinned evilly. “Yep.”
“Good,” Jason said with a grin as he pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it Kenny and Becker from across his body. Kenny and Becker tensed up in surprise and terror.
“Listen meat, you’re hired muscle first. No killing unless I say so,” Nicole said sternly, slapping Jason in the back of the head.
Kenny and Becker let out a small sigh of only mild relief.
Nicole then reached to her right side and pulled out an Uzi 9mm submachine gun and aimed it at the pair. “That’s my fun,” she said with a sly smile and fired.
Becker and Kenny knew to instinctively dive out of the way. Luckily they dove to opposite sides. The bullets splintered the wall behind them and both scrambled to their feet to take off running. “Take that side of the building and find a way in, Kenny! I’ll do the same! They can’t chase us both!” Becker shouted as he rounded the corner, ducking his head as more mason and wood disintegrated around him from the Uzi’s spread.
Kenny scrambled his short legs for all he was worth and the ground exploded at his feet from Jason’s handgun. Kenny rounded the corner and hoped that Mr. Becker made it safely as he could hear Nicole cackle as she fired another volley.
Alone in the parking lot, Jason looked to Nicole who stopped firing. “Which one do we waste first?”
Nicole smiled seductively.“Forget them, I got a better idea.” She then dismounted and climbed in front on him and straddled his waist.
“God I love it when you do that kind of stuff, you slut,” Jason said with a smirk.
“You’re only adequate as a hired gun, but as a piece of meat, you’re worth my money,” Nicole said, licking her lips.
“Just shut up already, bitch,” Jason said grabbing the back of her hair and kissed her forcibly on the mouth. She responded by digging her long fingernails into the back on his neck with her left hand, while her right fired the Uzi into the air. Jason revved up the cycle and the pair sped away in that position.
Becker heard the Uzi fire again and the engine revving and figured that meant Nicole wanted to finish him off. Becker thought this was not how he wanted to go out so he decided that it was imperative to make his way inside. On the side of the building, a board that looked to have been used to board up one of the windows was lying on the ground. Becker found an unprotected window and proceeded to smash the glass out. Glancing back to make sure he was not in anyone’s crosshairs, he ran the board across the edges to windowsill in hopes of avoiding any major lacerations and then proceeded to hoist himself up and through the window.
Becker swore lightly as broken glass still managed to cut and scrape his hands and arms, and he swore even louder when his momentum caused him to land on his head.
Picking himself up gently, he could barely make out anything in the darkness of the room. He assumed it was one of the meeting halls, but he wasn’t positive. It looked abandoned now and the air was musty. He didn’t care what Kenny said, he still thought his theory had more merit than anything Kenny had suggested so far.
Wait a minute… oh shit, Kenny! Becker suddenly panicked. That was right, he left Kenny out there with those two nut jobs. He hoped he made it inside safe. He didn’t just want to call out to him, because that might alert the before mentioned nut jobs as to where they could find him and then, presumably, shoot him.
“Kenny,” Becker hissed. He then took a few steps forward and tried again.
“Kenny?” Becker hissed again.
“Looking for someone?” A husky voice asked from the darkness.
Becker stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned around as the source of the voice was from his back. He could hear the sound of a match scraping along the matchbook cover and an eerie yellow glow welcomed his eyes as the orange flame moved toward a lantern hanging from the ceiling.
The lantern came to life and the room filled with a sickly yellow half-light. Becker took a step forward to see who his company was. The person… he… she… was still partially in the shadows. From what Becker could see, this… figure was certainly making a fashion statement.
It started with the combination of combat boots and black fishnet stockings and continued onward to the interesting choice of cut-off jeans that gave Daisy Duke a run for her money. Next was the blue bustier that seems to not fit quite right underneath the white leather jacket that appeared to be two sizes too small and the blood red feather boa wrapped like a scarf.
The figure stepped out into the light and Becker gasped. He was almost positive he had just seen the scariest thing he would ever witness in his entire life. The person wearing this psycho-sexual combat gear of the disturbed was none other than his Assistant Scoutmaster, Matt Atanian.
Becker took a stunned step back and could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. From the darkness he could hear a growling, followed by a sinister hissing, a creepy chittering, and a positively demonic… quacking?!
A small, feral looking, squirrel ran into the light and up Matt’s leg. It came to a rest on his shoulder and frothed at the mouth slightly. This was followed by mangy dog that snarled and bore his teeth to Becker and a scrawny cat that yowled at Becker while giving him the evil eye. Finally, a half-moulted duck waddled in and, while Becker would never have believe it, actually flipped him off with its wing.
Matt looked at his menagerie and grinned. Becker noticed that he had something coiled in his right hand. Was it some rope? Matt saw where Becker’s gaze had fallen and smiled again. “Something caught your eye?”
“Matt?” Becker asked, not knowing what else to say.
Matt uncoiled the item and Becker realized that it was a long leather bullwhip. Becker had a bad feeling that Matt wasn’t about to proclaim his love of Indiana Jones. The whip unfurled to the floor and with a snap of his wrist, Becker’s cheek was in excruciating agony.
Becker grabbed the side of his face in pain. The whip had actually broken the skin and a small amount of blood begin to ooze from the gash on his cheek. Matt gave a haughty laugh.
“I’m going to lash you to within an inch of your life. I’m going to do things,” Matt paused and sucked in a breath which he seemed to relish, “Terrible, terrible things to you.” Matt cracked the whip again and Becker felt a sharp pain in his right arm. Matt continued, “and only after I have left you wishing for the Devil to come and end your miserable life, then…”
“Then what?” Becker asked, not liking what he might hear.
“Then I will have you,” Matt oozed with a look of coyness mixed with psychosis.
“Wh… wh… why?!”Becker stammered, wondering what could have made his friend into this sick, perverted fiend.
“Because, I’m not a very nice person,” Matt said coldly and than began to laugh at Becker’s terror. The menagerie joined in, which was even more disturbing.
“Well then, let’s get started, shall we?” Matt asked cruelly, raising the whip again for another lashing. Suddenly, the lantern went out and there was the sound of clattering metal and shattering glass.
Becker felt something, no someone, grab his hand and then pulled him along. Becker found himself stumbling in the dark down what he thought was a corridor. Suddenly, he found himself colliding with a large door which gave way and he and the mystery person stumbled out into the back of the Church in the Acres. Becker rubbed his eyes and saw that it was Kenny who was reaching out to help him up. Becker accepted the hand and Kenny began to drag him again.
“Kenny, you’re ok! What about the lunatics with the guns?”
“If you would rather stay in there with that lot, you’re more than welcome. I’ve decided to try experimenting with running in this direction,” Kenny said between short breaths.
Becker weighed the options for about the time it took for him to open the shrink wrap on a new CD (two-tenths of a second, mind you) and nodded as he and Kenny made for the backstreets of Springfield.
After frantically ducking through yards and zigzagging through alleyways, Becker and Kenny took a moment to catch their breathes. They came to rest behind what appeared to be the abandoned, burnt out remains of Perfume’s Pizza. Kenny looked around nervously and then finally gathered his breath and slumped down by a foul smelling dumpster. Becker joined him and the pair sat there for a moment in silence.
“Fuck!! What the hell is going on here?! I know that was certainly not a future version of Matt or Nicole! What is wrong with them?! It’s like we’re or hell or something,” Becker said frantically to himself.
Kenny looked skyward and sighed. “No, it’s still Springfield, though I ‘m not sure that Hell would be much worse.”
“Kenny?”
Kenny sighed. “I’m afraid that that this is my fault, Mr. Becker. This is all my fault,” he said tiredly.
“Wha…? Do you know what’s happening? Tell me damn it!” Becker shouted angrily.
“It all comes down to potential, Mr. Becker,” Kenny sighed.
Becker frowned. His world had been stolen, he had been shot at, and just recently had harm of a perverted natured threatened upon his fragile person. He didn’t want to play Kenny’s game of ‘ask me, I’m oh so smart.’ “Damn it, Kenny, will you quit with the riddles and questions for once! I know you know more than I ever will! Just save the lecture and tell me what the hell is going on god damn it!”
Kenny jerked back with a slightly hurt expression. He nodded and pushed his glasses up his the bridge of his nose. “My apologies. What I meant was this goes back to my original experiment.”
“The apple?” Becker asked. Kenny nodded. “What does the apple have to do all this?”
“Remember how I said that in that ugly apple was the blueprint for what a perfect apple could be? The same applies to the opposite. Inside that ugly apple was a blueprint for an apple so foul, it seemed unlikely to have even made it off the tree. Rancid, rotted, and thoroughly inedible,” Kenny explained.
“Okay, so how does that bring us to us cowering behind what used to be that Chinese chick’s pizza place, hiding from people who used to be our friends but are now determined kill, maim, or worse, molest us?”
“Remember how you asked if the perfection extraction could be reversed? I told you it would be a simple reversing of the beam’s polarity,” Kenny continued.
“So when you reversed the beam…?”
“I got careless, Mr. Becker. I was too excited about the success of the experiment. I didn’t think that I could do anything wrong. I messed up, Mr. Becker. I messed up in the most horrible way,” Kenny confessed.
“What exactly happened?” Becker asked, not sure if he would understand it even if Kenny did explain it to him.
“The perfection extractor was set to maximum levels of extraction. That was my first mistake, but I wanted to prove total success and making something only partially better seemed pointless. My second mistake was not paying attention to the reversal. I just tuned all the settings to the exact opposite of what they were. I not only reversed the polarity of the beam, but also the field,” Kenny said.
“So, instead of just targeting the apple…” Becker started, kind of grasping the direction Kenny was heading.
“The beam tried to target everything. That’s what caused the massive power drain and my power grid to blow out. The beam tried to compensate for the tremendous task by using more power and thus my grid was pushed to beyond maximum. Worse still, the beam was still set on maximum extraction, but in reverse polarity.”
“Which means?” Becker asked.
“Which means that all those people out there are still our friends. It’s just that the worse aspects of their personalities have been pushed to the outside and are magnified. In essence, they have become the living embodiments of the devil that rests on their shoulders,” Kenny said as he banged the back of his head against the dumpster.
"Wait, wait, wait. Now I’m really confused. Are you saying that inside Matt Atanian, there lives a cross-dressing sadomasochist who secretly desires to train feral ducks and squirrels?”
“Mr. Becker, What we just witnessed was the very worst possible Matt Atanian that could possibly exist. A Matt Atanian that could be the product of corrupted genes, terrible upbringing, and any number of intangible factors.”
“Those would have to be one hell of an incredible set of intangibles to create that,” Becker said exasperated, still unaware of Matt’s or the others’ curses and what kind of thing that did to their sense of self. Kenny could only imagine what kind of daily stress that had caused the others.
“Indeed, but still, inside you, Mr. Becker could very well be a person who would push his own grandmother in front of a bus for a new Discman,” Kenny rationalized. “No offense.”
“Depends. 40 second skip protection or G-skip?” Becker said wryly.
“That’s not funny, Mr. Becker,” Kenny said coldly. Becker nodded apologetically.
“Sorry. Okay, I see your point. But still, that explains the people, what about everything else? Why is the town like this?”
“I would be lying if I said I knew completely, but I would have to assume that the beam works on inorganic material as well. Considering that the beam had very basic A.I. with a link up to my main database, it most likely made a distinction of what was“good” and what was “bad” and made adjustments to the environment, thus a great piece of literature becomes a trashy dime store novel, a high performance sports cars becomes a battered wreck, etc,” Kenny hypothesized.
“I think I understand. It all comes down to potential. A piece of paper could either hold the most brilliant poem or a worthless doodle. It all depends on what you choose to use it for,” Becker said, pleased that he managed to make up his own analogy. Then he frowned again and scrunched up his brown in confusion. “One last question. Why are we unaffected?”
Kenny stopped lightly banging his head off the dumpster in self pity and arched an eyebrow. “If I had to hypothesize, then I say that we escaped being affected because we were at the epicentre of the effect. As the targeting field spread outward, we were encased in a pocket bubble of normality. In essence, we were safe from the hurricane because we were in the eye of the storm.”
“We should try to get out of town. Get to outside the effect and, I dunno, get some science stuff and then you could fix it. You can fix it right?” Becker asked.
Kenny closed his eyes again and sighed. “Mr. Becker, the beam’s affect continued outward until it lost power. From that point, it would still continue outward but at a weaker and weaker rate until it dissipated,” Kenny said as he banged his head lightly again.
“So you’re saying that not just Springfield was affected?”
“A lot more than Springfield was affected. My power grid was run by three independent cold fusion reactors with a standard U-232 Nuclear reactor acting as an emergency back-up. They were supposed to be an almost unlimited supplied of power. We managed to blow both out. The more power, the greater the spread of the affect.”
“How much more? Like the whole state?”
“Most likely, the beam didn’t start to dissipate until it started reaching past our solar system,” Kenny answered.
Becker’s face fell into utter despair. This was bad. This was very bad. This was turning into a three change of underwear type day. Becker looked at the slumped Kenny and began to feel a wave of hopelessness. “So you’re saying that the entire world is like this nightmarish hell? Is there no one we could turn to help us?”
Kenny opened his eyes and then sadly shook his head. “You saw what it did to Mr. Atanian and Ms. Porter. Everyone we know is mostly likely like them, or even worse. I mean, you would have to be the living embodiment of a saint or Buddha to…” Kenny started then slowly trailed off.
“To what? What were you going to say?” Becker asked.
“It’s a long shot, but maybe there is one person who might be able to act as an ally in this whole mess,” Kenny said, his face brightening a little. He then stood up and nodded for Becker to do the same.
"Where are we going?” Becker asked. Kenny didn’t answer. He was too busy hoping that this one person was beyond the beam’s affect. It was that person who inspired the perfection extractor in the first place. Kenny had invented it because he was to unseal the Inner Kirstin Porter in everything because she had shown Kenny that a person could be just that… Perfect.
After a short run, Kenny and Becker found themselves lurking around a familiar apartment complex. Kenny and Becker hid around the corner checking to see if the coast was clear of any “Friends,” or worse “Enemies,” waiting to make a surprise visit.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Kenny? I mean what if Sarah is there? You already saw what this beam did to Nicole, and she LIKES us. Sarah might not grant us the niceties of speaking to us before she kills us,” Becker hissed under his breath.
Kenny shook his head.“I’m willing to take the risk. You can stay out here, however, if you feel it’s safer.”
Becker mulled this and then the familiar sound of gunfire rang out in the far distance. Becker gulped nervously. “Okay, I’m for it. But if I die, you’re gonna have a really angry lab assistant waiting for you in heaven.”
Becker decided to skip the metaphysical debate and instead to begin slinking toward the second story apartment. They made it up the stairs with no incidents, but now was the big test. With sweat forming on his brow, Kenny nervously licked his lips and then lightly rapped on the door.
Both tensed up when they heard the sound of a dead-bolt unlocking. Becker closed his eyes and prayed to God, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Vishnu, and to be safe, the Brazilian Voodoo Man. Kenny simply hoped that his theory was correct.
The door opened and Kirstin Porter greeted them with a warm smile. “Kenny, Becker, hi! What a nice surprise. Won’t you come in? Oh, please wipe your feet and take your shoes off first, I was doing a bit of straightening up.
Kenny sighed in relief. Becker blinked dumbly. He was relieved, but he still felt ill at ease. Kenny complied with Kirstin and removed his shoes, while Becker did the same and then the pair walked in.
“Please forgive the mess, I’ve really got to get this place in shape. You must think I’m a terrible housekeeper,” Kirstin said from the kitchen while reaching for a teapot in the top cupboard. “Oolong tea, okay? It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Becker felt a chill running up his spine. Kirstin seemed about right, but there was still something wrong with this picture. Maybe it was the way her place was reminding him way too much of his grandmother’s. There was plastic on all the furniture and the place had the cold feel of a museum. Antiseptic. Sterile.
If this was messy, then most hospitals would be considered pigsties in comparison.
Kenny was making his own observations and Becker noticed that his once happy expression was becoming more and more grim. Kirstin returned with a tray of tea and some Danish biscuits and sat them on the living room coffee table. Becker noticed that Kirstin had semi-dark circles under her eyes and she looked exhausted. Kenny frowned slightly more.
Kirstin handed a cup and saucer to Becker who graciously accepted it and then one to Kenny. Becker saw the cookies and decided that if this was hell, who knew when he would see sweet treats like these again. He grabbed a few and sat them on the saucer. He then sat the saucer on the table and sipped his tea. He then put the teacup down, but instead of back on the saucer, he set it on the table.
Kenny noticed that when Becker did this Kirtsin’s expression grew into a panicked one, but she tried to hide it. Kenny frowned more. She nervously glanced at the saucerless teacup and then glanced at Becker who was biting into the pretzel-shaped sugar cookie, snapping it in his maw with crumbs flaking off the edges and onto the table and carpet.
Kirstin looked queasy as she watched this. Kenny was hoping he was wrong, but he knew that he wasn’t.“The tea is very good. Thank you.”
“Huh? Oh yes. Thank you,” Kirstin said, distracted by the teacup and the cookies that Becker continued to bite into. Becker picked up the teacup and took another sip. He then placed the teacup back on the table, but not before accidentally splashing a little tea over the cup’s edge and onto the table.
Kenny saw that Kirstin’s leg was twitching nervously. She nervously sipped her tea, her eyes lasered in on Becker’s little mess. Becker took a spoon from the tray and took a spoonful of sugar from a dish and brought it to his teacup. Granules of cane sugar falling from the spoon onto the table as he dumped the sugar into his cup.
Kirstin let out a squeak and tried to contain it. Becker noticed this and looked at Kirstin worriedly. “Is there something wrong?”
Kenny held up his hand to Becker to signal for him to not go there. He then looked at Kirstin softly and sighed. “It’s alright Ms. Porter. I know you are trying. Please forgive us for intruding. We’ll leave you now.”
Kenny stood up and signalled for Becker to follow. Kenny made his way to the door and looked back to Kirstin who was already stacking everything on the tray and clearing everything off the table. Kenny spoke, with purpose, “I’m very sorry, Kirstin. I promise you, I’ll fix this.” He then walked out to get his shoes.
Becker turned around.“Thanks for the tea,” He said politely, but Kirstin didn’t hear him. She had already pulled a rag from her back pocket and was busy polishing the coffee table. She then reached to one of her buckets and pulled out a mini-vacuum which she proceeded to furiously attack the few crumbs that Becker had let escape from his jaws.
Becker arched a confused eyebrow and felt himself being pulled through the doorway by his shoulder. He looked to Kenny with an exasperated look.
“Why did you say we had to leave? Plastic on the furniture aside, compared to the others, she was positively delightful,” Becker asked.
Kenny frowned. “She’s not herself right now.”
“Who is?” Becker stated matter-of-factly.
“You don’t understand. We were hurting her. Our presence was physically making her ill.”
“Whooza-jigga-wha? Come again?” Becker asked, his head half-cocked like a confused dog.
Kenny slipped on his shoes and sighed, “Ms. Porter has always carried a quiet pride and dignity about her domestic skills. But when pride gets twisted, it becomes obsession. If we would have stayed, she would’ve had either a nervous breakdown trying not to clean up after us, or worse. She’s having a hard enough time right now, we don’t need to make it worse.”
“Really?” Becker asked.
“Sadly, yes,” Kenny said. He was feeling ill too. Not only had his ideal that there was nothing imperfect about Kirstin been shattered, but he had done something terrible to her and forced her to live a nightmarish existence where her obsession would eventually drive her mad. He could not let that happen. “Come Mr. Becker, we’re going.”
“Okay, but where are we going now?” Becker asked.
“We’re going to fix this,” Kenny said with a resolved voice.
“Great! Um… How?”
Kenny stopped cold and sagged his shoulders. “Good question.”
“And the answer?”Becker asked.
“Still working on it,” Kenny said then turned around with a weak smile.
Becker felt his mood lighten for the first time in hours. Kenny might have been feeling the effects of the stress this situation was causing them both, but that smile, weak as it may be, was the same one he gave when he was positive he was going to succeed. Becker smiled in return to encourage him.
“Let’s get out of here and work it out before Sarah gets home and decides to mount our heads as trophies or something.”
As darkness came over the town, Becker and Kenny found themselves hiding once again in the back alleyways. Climbing up a fire escape, the pair sat next to a massive air conditioner vent on the roof of a four story apartment complex.
Keeping a nervous eye on the surroundings, Becker frowned at hearing the quiet, sullen rumble of thunder. “You know, with as much that has gone wrong today, you would think at least the weather would cut us a break.”
Kenny shrugged. “Just another consistency of the universe I’ve noticed. In this hellish one, or the one we know.”
“Murphy’s Law in action?” Becker asked.
“Second extension.”
Becker sighed and rested his head next to the vent. Kenny sat crossed-legged and appeared to be meditating. Becker figured it be best to leave him to it, because if anyone was going to figure out a way to fix this, it was Kenny.
That didn’t mean he was going to let Kenny off the hook for this particular “error” if they did get through this relatively unscathed. Becker thought back to his first encounter with Kenny and his Laboratory. In fact, so far, in the short time Becker had been the pseudo-official lab assistant, he had made one observation of his own. Kenny sometimes took risks that didn’t need to be taken. From what he had been told, Kenny had almost got himself nuked the first time he used the Stargate. And what was Kenny thinking putting a lunatic like Becker in a time machine?
Becker started chuckling. He was beginning to sound a little like Kenny now. Maybe the little twerp was starting to rub off on him. More likely, it was symptoms of headphone withdrawal. Becker was now giggling harder now. All this rational thought was cracking him up like gangbusters.
Kenny opened an eye and peered at the chuckling Becker. “Something you wish to share?”
“Just trying to figure out what the hell you saw in me to think it was a good idea to put me behind the wheel of a time machine, that you yourself said could cause the end of the universe,” Becker explained between giggles.
“You think I take too many risks?”
Becker blinked a few times. “Um… well, maybe. Don’t get me wrong, I mean most of the time, they pay off, but…”
“Sometimes, we get this,” Kenny said waving his hand outward. “No need to apologize for speaking your mind. Actually it’s that trait that saved you from having your memory erased by my neuralizer the first time you trespassed in my lab.”
“Come again?” Becker asked, surprised.
“I could have easily built an android to be my lab assistant, but who wants a soulless lackey? The simple truth is that you tell me when I screw up. You give me something to strive for. If anything, I work harder these days to avoid some smart aleck comment from you,” Kenny said with his own sheepish grin.
Becker blinked dumbly and then opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He closed it and mulled this over. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that Kenny just made a crack at his expense. He wasn’t’ entirely sure if he was pissed off at or actually proud of the little four-eyes.
Kenny saw this reaction and started to chuckle and Becker couldn’t help but join in. Soon the pair were grabbing their sides from laughing so hard. Eventually, the laughter subsided and Becker wiped a tear from his eye. “I think we needed that.”
“Yes, I think you are right. Anyway, to answer your previous question about the risks I take. I admit that sometimes, the potential for disaster seems to outweigh the possible perceived good, but if anything, I have learned one thing.”
Becker eyed Kenny suspiciously wondering if he was going to make another crack at his expense.“What is that?”
“Fortune favors the bold,” Kenny said with a proud stare.
Becker had to admit, the conviction in Kenny’s voice was quite impressive and he could see the logic behind that philosophy, but still, Becker was not about to let this opportunity pass without getting Kenny back for his previous crack. “Fortune cookie?”
Kenny didn’t miss a beat, “Star Trek.”
Becker waved his hands in defeat. He knew that today was not the day to try and one-up Kenny.“Well, as far as boldness goes, putting a guy like me inside a time machine is pretty damn bold. I mean, one wrong left turn in time and dolphins run the world and we’re in humantariums,” Becker said grinning stupidly.
“Mr. Becker, could I just ask… When you were testing my time machine, you never did anything with a sports almanac, did you?”
Becker denied that he had.
“Just checking one last possibility that this could be something other then my fault,” Kenny explained. “Too much to hope for, I suppose.”
Becker furrowed his brow and his eyes suddenly bulged. For Becker it was as if insight was a Brooklyn pimp and he had backhanded Becker across the brain.
Kenny noticed the ambivalent look on Becker’s face and decided to ask what was on his mind,“Something wrong?”
Becker suddenly smiled and slapped himself on the forehead. “Holy shit! Kenny!! We can fix this!! We got a time machine!!! A Friggin’ time machine!!! We can stop this from ever happening!!” Becker shouted triumphantly at Kenny with a grin that had to be at least a mile wide, partly because he could escape this hell, and partly because he was the one who thought of it.
Which is why he was confused when Kenny did not smile back. Kenny sadly shook his head. “Good idea, but I already eliminated it as an option.”
“Huh?”
“Even if we could travel back in time to stop an event in which we were directly involved and NOT cause a temporal paradox that would destroy the universe, the time machine still wouldn’t be a feasible solution.”
“Why not?” Becker asked exasperated.
“Because, most likely, the time machine is currently a rusted bucket of scrap sitting in the trashed remained of my lab.”
“Wha…?”
“Remember how I told you that we were in a pocket of normality? If I had to guess, I would say that pocket was no more than fifteen, maybe twenty feet in diameter. Everything outside of it was affected by the beam, including most of my lab, which includes the Stargate and the time machine,” Kenny explained.
Becker slammed his fist on the roof. Kenny, as usual, was light years down the road from where he was standing. “Okay, so you’re saying that all your scientific equipment is probably all junked and useless, right?”
“Precisely.”
“Okay, so what do we have to work with?”
Kenny mulled this over. “My workbench, some tools, the testing area, and the extractor itself. Those in themselves would be more than enough to fix the entire mess, save for the most important thing that we don’t have and that I’m wracking my brain to figure out how we get.”
“What’s that?”
“Power. More than all of Earth’s combined nuclear, coal, wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermic energy sources could possibly produce, if they were running at one hundred percent efficiency, which given the current state of everything, is very doubtful,” Kenny said bitterly.
“Can’t you fix the power grid?” Becker asked, hoping for positive news but expecting more bad.
“Of course, I can fix it. If I had the right parts and equipment. A power grid run from three cold-fusion power cells is a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment. You really can’t get parts to repair one at your local RadioShack. Plus, since the power grid was also affected by the negativity effect of the extractor, it’ll be in even worse shape than if it had just blown normally.”
“Ah, cripes! This just takes the cake, you know that?!” Becker said, angrily standing up and kicking the ventilation ducts. “Man, this sucks! We have a grid, but it’s broken and we have a working beam, but it needs power. If only we could use the damn beam, then the grid would be fixed, but we would need the grid to be fixed already to power the beam to fix the grid. Grrrrrr, I hate walking around in frustrating circles like this!!” Becker shouted while pacing.
Kenny stared at him. He stared and grinned. That smile returned. That cocky, self-assured, nothing-is-gonna-stop-me grin that Becker had, on occasion, really wanted to wipe off Kenny’s face. This was mainly because Kenny mostly used it when he was about to make Becker feel stupid.
“Mr. Becker, please repeat what you just said,” Kenny asked.
“What? About using the beam to fix the grid that would have to already be fixed in order to use it to fix the grid?”
It was now Kenny’s turn to slap himself on the forehead and give a hearty laugh. “Mr. Becker, you’re a genius! That’s absolutely brilliant! I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. You’re quite something, Mr. Becker.”
“I am? It is? Saw what? What exactly am I, again? Am I walking in circles, or have we all just gone nuts?”
“You are. It is. The solution to our problems. And no, you’re more pacing than walking in circles,”Kenny answered and then stood up and made his way toward the stairwell back down to the ground. “Come, Mr. Becker. It’s time to be bold.” Kenny then started down the stairwell, leaving Mr. Becker alone on the roof.
“Will someone explain to me what the hell just happened?” Becker asked no one and then hurried after Kenny.
A short while later, after sneaking through the darkness and avoiding everything and everyone, the pair came to the small strip mall. It was closed down for the evening and locked up tight. Everything was gated up and the windows were all fenced. It looked like the local shopkeepers weren’t taking too many chances with the local populace.
Kenny and Becker made their way to the back to where all the employee entrances and trash dumpsters were. Kenny looked at the doors and saw the one he wanted. It read “RadioShack.”
“Um, Kenny. I think it’s closed and I don’t think they’ll open it just for us,” Becker said, looking around.
“Mr. Becker, what I’m about to do just about compromises every ethic I have as a scientist,” Kenny said and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar looking red Scout knife. Kenny flipped out what should have been the blade, but in its place was instead a rather small thin stub.
“Um, what are you going to do?”
Kenny pushed the Scout emblem. There suddenly was a soft “Vawoom” and then there was a familiar green glow that Becker could recognize in his sleep. A small, three inch blade of green light was emitting from Kenny’s knife.
Kenny looked at the locked door and stabbed the sabre blade into the door and started to cut around the knob. After a minute, the door swung open and Becker whistled, impressed.
“Obi-Wan has taught you well, young Pendrell.”
Kenny shrugged off the comment and walked inside. Kenny looked to his left and saw a lighted keypad that was flashing. Kenny took the blade and stabbed the pad and it stopped flashing and went still.
“Now what do we do?”Becker asked.
“Now, we go shopping. Mr. Becker, I need you to go three stores down. I believe it’s a sporting goods shop. Use this,” Kenny said, handing the glowing blade to Becker, “and use it like I did here. Security should all be set up pretty much the same. Secure us a couple bikes and some book bags. I’ve got my list in here. Move quickly, I prefer to not be here if my anti-security measures didn’t take.”
Becker blinked dumbly. Kenny wasn’t messing around. Becker looked at the glowing blade and nodded and made his way out.
Kenny looked at the darkness and saw the racks of wire, batteries, and other assorted electronics and he then grinned like a Cheshire cat. He slapped his hands together and then started grabbing things from pegs and dumping them in a big pile on the floor.
Ten minutes later, Becker ran in and tossed the bags on the floor next to the pile and smiled.“Figured you might not be a ten-speed guy, so I got you a kickass mountain bike.”
Kenny nodded absently as he dug through his pile. He tossed Becker a roll of duct tape, a large packet of D batteries and a pair of heavy duty MagLites. “Great. Can you secure these to the bikes? It’ll be a lot easier if we’re not riding blind.” Becker nodded and ran back out as Kenny proceeded to stuff the bags full of everything he could. He then slung them over his shoulders and grabbed a couple of larger boxes.
Kenny grunted as he walked through the back exit. Becker finished taping the second flashlight to the bikes’ handlebars and guessed that the two large boxes he carried were probably heavy.
Kenny walked over and smiled when he saw that the bikes Becker picked has a rear rack for hiking packs. He placed one of the boxes on the rack and with another roll of duct tape, he secured it. Becker grabbed the second box and did the same. Becker then grabbed one of the bags and put it on his back. Kenny readjusted his and mounted the bike. After checking the gears and brakes, he nodded and he and Becker started pedalling away with their ill-gotten, but very necessary, booty.
The pair rode through the slummish streets and made their way back to Kenny’s house. They slowed to a stop and took cover behind some dead shrubbery. Outside the house was parked twelve large Harley Davidsons, and from within Kenny’s house was abuzz with loud heavy metal and raucous crashing sounds.
“Now we know why it looked like a biker gang just had a piñata party in the living room. What you reckon, wait till they go to sleep?” Becker asked.
“No.”
“No?” Becker asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Ever ride down stairs?”
“Yeah, why?” Becker asked, now eying Kenny suspiciously, not liking where he was going with this.
“See you at the bottom then,” Kenny said as he clicked on the light and started peddling toward the house. A moment later, he crashed through the front door and, through the commotion, Becker could hear another door being kicked down.
“Aw, hell’s bells,”Becker muttered, then with a heavy sigh, he too clicked the light, remounted his bike and begged his butt’s forgiveness for the bumpy torture he was about to put it through. He then sped toward the house and charged into it like a bat out of hell, past a group of angry looking, very grungy bikers and biker chicks who were apparently squatting in Kenny’s house. He dove his bike right into the stairwell. Gravity took over and Becker clung for dear life and began to pray to Rah, Yahweh, St. Christopher, Uzume, Odin, Zeus, and even Yoda that he live through this.
Becker didn’t find God waiting for him at the end of his nightmarish twenty-three minute jaunt down the spiral stairway, instead he found Kenny frantically dismantling the rear tire from his own bike. Kenny had set up several battery powered lanterns in a semi circle and Becker could se that Kenny’s calculations were right. Beyond a small circle that contained the workbench and testing area, everything else was trashed. Becker has no clue how Kenny was going to fix this, but apparently he himself was the genius who came up with the solution.
If only he knew was it was.
“So, um, Kenny. Yeah, about this great idea I had. Just to remind me of how much of a genius I am, care to share it with me?”
“We are going to use the extractor to fix the power grid,’ Kenny said matter-of-factly.
“Um… I thought we needed the grid to power the beam?”
“No, we need the grid to power the beam enough to fix the whole area affected by the negativity effect. The beam itself uses any power source. The more power, the more widespread the beam can be,” Kenny explained.
“So, we’re not going to fix the world?” Becker asked scratching his head.
“Oh, we most certainly are. We are just taking the scenic route as it were,” Kenny said as he started unspooling heavy gauge electrical wire. He then snipped some with his small multi-tool and tossed it to Becker. “I need fifteen more lengths of this gauge wire like the one I gave you. Please strip each end at about two inches in. After you finish that, start removing the back wheel from your bike. The tool box is over by the one set of lanterns.”
Becker blinked dumbly and then nodded. He went over to the toolbox and pulled out a pair of pliers and ratchet. He then sat down and started unspooling.
Kenny, meanwhile, had torn into one the boxes, pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and quickly scanned it. He then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a mechanical pencil. He started jotting notes on the paper, frowning, then scrawling something else, and then smiling.
Becker finished his task and looked to Kenny, who had now removed the beam from the swing arm it had been mounted to in the testing area. Kenny sat it down and opened the housing. He poked around and Becker heard a slight popping noise as Kenny carefully slipped out what appeared to be a memory card or cartridge of some sort.
“What’s that?”
“The last memory of the world as we knew it. Stored on this flash memory device is a cache snapshot of the world before the beam changed it. Sort of a fail-safe. When the beam tried to exceed its targeting range, the A.I. took a picture of everything how it was. I intended for it to be used as a study tool to compare whatever I changed with the extractor and the original item.”
“Why are you taking it out?”
“Because, Mr. Becker, we’re going to use the beam to fix the power grid first. This is only temp memory so after every use, it is written over. Can’t have that, so I’m going to replace this with some makeshift temporary memory so we can fix the grid. Are you finished with the wire?” Kenny asked.
“Um, yeah. What you want me to do now?” Becker asked.
“Walk to the south wall and in about fifty or so feet you’ll see a large winch. Take a lantern with you. That winch will open up my bookcases to give access to the power grid generators.”
“You mean those huge, Library-of-Congress-size shelves? Those open up?” Becker asked exasperated.
“Yes. Normally, I could have them opened up with a push of a button, but alas, with no power, well, you know. Anyway, that should take you a couple hours to open those enough. That will give me time to set up our temporary power station.”
Becker sighed and grabbed a lantern. “You seriously owe me big time for this, Kenny. I’m talking extra-cheese, triple toppings big,” Becker grumbled as he set off into the darkness.
As Kenny worked, he could hear the slow, tired creaking of his bookcases being forced open. A slow creak was usually followed by a low-volume cursing afterward. Meanwhile he was focused on making connections between the extractor’s inside and the new mini-grid he was making. Converting the voltage and ampage output was nuisance enough, and now Mr. Becker was most definitely not going to like his part in the next phase.
Becker decided to make his reappearance known by walking up while groaning slightly as he gripped his shoulders and Kenny looked over to the one wall. Becker had opened it enough for them to get a nice clear shot at the primary generator. If this worked out like he had planned, the backup wouldn’t be needed.
“Kenny, we almost ready? I need a nap and a Gatorade like you can’t believe!”
“Almost. We’re ready to initiate phase one. Please take your place on the first bike,” Kenny said pointing to the pair of bikes fixed in place facing the generator.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“Beg your pardon?”Kenny asked.
“You expect me to power the beam-thingy by pedalling, don’t you? I just spent the last two hours opening your damn oversized shelves!” Becker complained.
“Yes, but your legs should be well rested. Besides, I’ll be helping on that end of things. Anyway, we’ll both need to hold the beam steady,” Kenny explained trying to keep a positive tone.
“That payment just increased to extra-large, quadruple supreme… plus desert,” Becker grumbled as he mounted the bike.
Kenny mounted his and balanced the extractor on the handlebars. He looked to the voltage meter duct-taped to his cross bar and nodded to Becker. The pair began pedalling. The meter jumped slightly. Kenny began to pump harder and Becker did likewise.
The meter slowly increased.
“Kenny, when the hell do you shoot that damn thing?” Becker asked panting.
“When we get enough power stored. We’re almost there,” Kenny said as he reached into his coat pocket with his left hand and pulled out the extractor’s remote. Kenny eyed the meter and as it approached the red mark. Once the meter indicated the time was ripe, he pushed the button.
Becker forgot about the flash and jerked his head back. Kenny remembered it as he pushed the button and was able to close his eyes in time. Lucky for him, he was reduced to just seeing big white spots. To Becker, everything looked like it was encased in a white fog.
Becker blinked some and then some more in hopes of clearing up his sore retinas. Kenny blinked too, but figured it would clear itself up in a few minutes.
“And I want it delivered too!” Becker grumbled between blinks.
“Your eyes will be fine. If not, when the lab is restored, I will grow you a new set,” Kenny said half-interested. He was more focused on what was beyond the partially opened shelves.
It looked like his power generator, but then again, it looked much, MUCH more impressive. Kenny was so impressed that he let out a shrill whistle to compliment this piece of technology.
“Did it work?” Becker asked, still blinking.
“Indeed it did. Better than I could have hoped. If I had to make a guess, this unit might very run at more that four-hundred percent efficiency if compared to my current unit,” Kenny said in awe.
“Will it be enough?”
“Oh yes. Now we initiate phase two. Let’s get our home back, shall we?”
“It’s about time!”Becker agreed.
Kenny walked over to the bikes and started disconnecting the wires from the emitter. He then lugged it over to the generator. Kenny then gathered his tool and some necessary components to connect the emitter directly to the new power core.
Kenny jury-rigged his extractor in short order and the reached into his pocket and pulled out the original memory storage chip. Kenny turned in over in his fingers and then looked to Becker.
“You know, we could very see what would happen if we simply set the extractor to maximum on the positive scale. After seeing this hell, aren’t you even a little bit curious as to what kind of utopia we could turn the world into? I mean, we still have the stored memory of our original world,” Kenny asked Becker, mulling the decision over.
Becker sighed.“Kenny, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If this experience has taught us anything, it is that.”
“You’re not curious?”
“Not in the slightest. The only utopia I wanna see is my old town and my old room and my old bed and my old pizza shop where you’re gonna be treating me for the next year,” Becker said tiredly.
“I guess, for you, an imperfect world is your perfect world,” Kenny mused.
“It may be imperfect, but it’s home and that’s perfect enough for me. Let’s stop with the philosophy and get back there, okay?” Becker asked with a relieved voice.
Kenny slipped the memory chip into the extractor’s house and then made some adjustments. Kenny looked to Becker. “Extractor’s targeting set outward, recall mode initiated, please cover your eyes.”
Kenny then pushed the button and suddenly the extractor shook violently, there was a bluish flash of light and then the extractor went still. Kenny opened his eyes and immediately realized that there was more light than before. The overhead lights were working again and the lanterns were gone.
In fact, as Kenny looked around, he realized that the lab was exactly as it were before he initiated the last test. The recall function had worked as it was intended to. It was as if the hours spent in the bad-potential universe had never happened.
Becker opened his eyes and blinked some more. Then he breathed a sigh of relief. Then suddenly he snapped his fingers and ran over to the miniature refrigerator that Kenny kept near his workbench. Becker opened it, ignored the various containers with their biohazard labels and pulled out a perfectly chilled bottle of grape Gatorade…or at least it was some fruit the colour of purple. Becker didn’t care. He popped the top and started chugging. Draining the bottle, he sighed contently.“An average universe never tasted so good.”
Becker then tossed the empty bottle in a nearby trashcan, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the door. Becker gave a half-wave to Kenny. “I’m sure you want to run some sort of post-beam-thingy analysis or something. I’m going home to make sure everything is back to normal. Meet you at Perfume’s in say three hours? Remember, you’re treating,”Becker said with a laugh as he entered the express lift to Kenny’s room. The doors closed and Kenny was left alone.
Kenny looked at the extractor, now sitting on the floor. The victim of hasty jury-rigging and excessive use. For a moment. He thought of destroying it, but then he relented. It still had applications, juts right now may not be the best time to explore them.
Besides, he had been wanting to run some new experiments of the dimensional gate anyway. Tomorrow seemed like a good time to start those. Yes, tomorrow, he and Mr. Becker would return to safer fair like tinkering with interdimensional physics. He had some ideas concerning the Stargate and the Edsel.
Kenny lifted the extractor and lugged it to a cleared off metal table in a disused section of his lab. He then removed the memory chips and set them down next to it. He then pulled out a dusty sheet from under the table and covered the extractor.
Just another experiment that had his undivided attention for a brief time, but now another memory and another lesson learned.
Just like all the other items found under the many dusty sheets in that place of wonders known as Kenny’s Laboratory.
Jason's Post-Story Notes
Yeah, I know I say this every couple years or so, but I’m back. Just feeling some old writing muscles out and this is the result. Hey, my own
little self-insert is only half a page! I must be slipping in my old age.
Anyway, before Matt can so graciously point it out, this story is heavily influenced by an episode of Red Dwarf called “Angels and Devils,” especially in a scene involving one author who I know has been apt to wear stockings in public…
Anyway, in terms of timeline, this is not really part of the main Kenny’s Lab story (Which I am still curious to see how it turns out and may end up contributing more that that like I had originally planned but then got distracted by ten million other things.) Obviously it has to take places sometime after part 2. If you wanna say it falls in between parts 2 & 3, fine, but frankly, it can happen pretty much from now to infinity.
I really like the character of Kenny and how he’s almost two characters. If you notice that in the main series he’s much more soft-spoken and timid, but in the Kenny’s Lab stories, he really busts out of his shell. I tried to keep that same flavour with this little story.
Anyway, as for me, I have been dabbling with finally finishing Perspectives (Yeah I say that every couple years) and I DO actually have some written for it and with Matt writing again, it seems more likely that it will finally become a reality as the main series catches up time-line wise with Perspectives.
Anyway, let’s see if old Matt-kun has anything to say before we put this bad boy to bed. Matt?
little self-insert is only half a page! I must be slipping in my old age.
Anyway, before Matt can so graciously point it out, this story is heavily influenced by an episode of Red Dwarf called “Angels and Devils,” especially in a scene involving one author who I know has been apt to wear stockings in public…
Anyway, in terms of timeline, this is not really part of the main Kenny’s Lab story (Which I am still curious to see how it turns out and may end up contributing more that that like I had originally planned but then got distracted by ten million other things.) Obviously it has to take places sometime after part 2. If you wanna say it falls in between parts 2 & 3, fine, but frankly, it can happen pretty much from now to infinity.
I really like the character of Kenny and how he’s almost two characters. If you notice that in the main series he’s much more soft-spoken and timid, but in the Kenny’s Lab stories, he really busts out of his shell. I tried to keep that same flavour with this little story.
Anyway, as for me, I have been dabbling with finally finishing Perspectives (Yeah I say that every couple years) and I DO actually have some written for it and with Matt writing again, it seems more likely that it will finally become a reality as the main series catches up time-line wise with Perspectives.
Anyway, let’s see if old Matt-kun has anything to say before we put this bad boy to bed. Matt?
Matt's Notes
If you hadn’t made a point of saying I would have pointed it out myself, I would have just quietly fixed your error, and none would be the wiser. But now I must display my superior geekdom by pointing out that the Red Dwarf episode was actually titled “Demons & Angles.” (Also, for extra geek points, it was filmed under the working title of “High and Low.”)
Interesting story, Jason my friend. Only one small problem. I had intended for Kenny’s Lab to have no side stories. So I suppose I have no choice but to slip it into the series proper, facilitated by the fact that unlike the main series and your Perspectives series, the instalments of the Kenny’s Lab series are unnumbered. And so this one shall be quietly slipped in between the second and third ones, the only clues that anything is amiss being the copyright date, and the fact that the file names on the website do indeed contain a number and this one shall be numbered in the order it was written, not in the order in which it appears on the index. (And for those reading this offline without access to such clues, I’ll just spill the beans and
say that in the order they were written this is actually the seventh one.)
Well, that’s all from me, I suppose. As far as the future of Kenny’s Lab? Well, I don’t know. I know the series had some fans, particularly Mark Abert, but while I would like to finish things up some day, right now I am concentrating on the continuing resurrection of the main series. But patience will hopefully some day be rewarded, and someday, somehow, Kenny’s Lab will return!
Interesting story, Jason my friend. Only one small problem. I had intended for Kenny’s Lab to have no side stories. So I suppose I have no choice but to slip it into the series proper, facilitated by the fact that unlike the main series and your Perspectives series, the instalments of the Kenny’s Lab series are unnumbered. And so this one shall be quietly slipped in between the second and third ones, the only clues that anything is amiss being the copyright date, and the fact that the file names on the website do indeed contain a number and this one shall be numbered in the order it was written, not in the order in which it appears on the index. (And for those reading this offline without access to such clues, I’ll just spill the beans and
say that in the order they were written this is actually the seventh one.)
Well, that’s all from me, I suppose. As far as the future of Kenny’s Lab? Well, I don’t know. I know the series had some fans, particularly Mark Abert, but while I would like to finish things up some day, right now I am concentrating on the continuing resurrection of the main series. But patience will hopefully some day be rewarded, and someday, somehow, Kenny’s Lab will return!