Mark Dunn - The Age Altertron

Each of the two masked men carried a large duffel bag over his shoulder. Mr. Roessler wondered from the size of the duffel bags how much money the masked men were hoping to steal from the store that night.

“This is a stick up,” said the taller of the two men. “I can see that,” said the night watchman. “But I should tell you: I don’t have the combination to the office safe. I don’t even have a key to the office. I’m just here to chase away all the mice who come out at night to nibble on Mr. Toland’s fruits and vegetables.”

“We don’t want money , Gramps,” said the tall man. “Do you think we would have brought these duffel bags if we had wanted money ?”

Mr. Roessler shrugged. “I just figured you were being optimistic.”

“Why don’t you just be quiet, you stupid old man?”

“I do look old, don’t I? It’s the strangest thing. I feel old too, but I’m only thirty-three. So what have you come for? Why are you pointing those guns at me?”

“Direct us to the cereal aisle, Gramps. My partner and I will be taking all the oatmeal, Cream-of-Wheat and other soft cereals you have.”

“But I don’t understand,” said the night watchman. “There are fresh T-bone steaks and rib-eyes in the meat section. If I were robbing a supermarket that’s what I’d take.”

“And that would make you stupid-times-ten, old man. Now show us to the cereal aisle, and when we’re done there, take us to where you keep the Jell-O and soft custard. And you’d better be quick about it, if you know what’s good for you.”

Mr. Roessler did as he was told, and stood by as the two masked men filled their duffel bags with all manner of soft food, and then disappeared into the night.

“Professor? Can you wake up, Professor?” asked Becky. “Tap him again,” said Wayne. “Tap him harder.”

“Well, I’m not going to hit him, Wayne. He’s in a deep sleep.

We’ll just have to wait for him to wake up.”

“We can always wait, of course,” said Rodney, “but then again, Wayne and I are his apprentices. This is what he called us last night: his trusted and worthy apprentices in the field of cataclysmic science. And as such—”

“That isn’t what he called us,” interrupted Wayne. “He called us his worthy and trusted apprentices. You got it backwards.” “My point is…”

“You don’t have to tell me your point, Rodney,” said Becky. “I’ll shake him a little harder.”

“That won’t be necessary, Miss Craft,” said a groggy Professor Johnson, opening his eyes into thin slits. “I am awake now and more than willing to bring you all up to speed. But first, Rodney, tell me who these other people are, crowded around my bed. And if you will all take a step back from this bed, I should be able to

breathe a little better.”

Everyone took a step back to give the Professor more breathing room.

“Well, it’s Wayne and me, and Becky, of course. And that large man over there is Grover. And that smaller man over there is Petey Ragsdale.”

“Oh, Petey! It’s nice to see that you have come down from the clouds. How were you transported here? You must make detailed notes that I can put into my log. Write down everything you can remember about the experience.”

Petey nodded.

“Well, hello to the rest of you children. Of course, you’re no longer children any more, thanks to me. Someone help me sit up in bed. I haven’t much strength.”

Grover and Wayne helped the Professor prop himself up in his bed. “Thank you, boys. I could sleep another twenty years. Just like Rip Van Winkle. Of course, the result would be the same as what has just happened, wouldn’t it?”

“Give or take about thirty years,” said Rodney.

“Yes, I see what you mean. You’re all looking a bit long in the tooth. Well, blame me for it. I did it. I was right there to see the end-product of my stupidity. My punishment started immediately, for I could hardly get myself up all those stairs. You see, I have now only a small fraction of the energy that I used to have. And I must

have a little rest for all the days of work that lie ahead. By my calculation I am now in possession of the body of a one-hundredand-seventeen-year-old man.”

“Wowee!” said Petey.

“And what would that make us ?” asked Wayne.

“Let me see,” said the Professor. “You were all born in 1943, is that correct?”

“Our birthdays are all within six months of each other,” said Becky with a nod.

The Professor did a calculation in his head. “Then you would all be around sixty-six-years-old, give or take a few months.” “I’m sixty-six ?” asked Becky with a look of distress. “But you don’t look anywhere near that age, Becky,” said Wayne. “Thank you, Wayne. That was sweet,” said Becky, who was beginning to resign herself — at least for the moment — to her present state of “Age Change-Derangement-Estrangement.” The Professor heaved a heavy sigh of fatigue. “I suspect, though, that none of you will be able to guess why the machine has added so many more years to our physical ages.”

Rodney and Wayne shook their heads.

“It was my fault — entirely my fault. I wasn’t thinking. I suppose it was because I was too tired. I had two pieces of paper. On one piece I had written ’eleven years, eight months, one week, four days, thirteen hours, ten minutes, and forty-five seconds.’ That is how much aging would have to occur to restore us all to the age we were at the moment when the original age reduction occurred. On the second piece of paper I had jotted down ‘sixty-four years, seven months, two weeks, one day, three hours, fifteen minutes and fiftyeight seconds.’ That was my exact age at the pivotal moment of the age reduction. You see, I had been using my own age as a base variable to calculate the constant that represented the difference between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ of our ages. I accidentally inputted this second figure — my age — when I was setting the coordinates for the machine.”

Rodney looked at Grover and Petey who were both scratching their heads. “In other words,” explained Rodney, “instead of having eleven-and-a-half years added to our ages, the machine added sixtyfour-and-a-half years.”

“That’s right. Due solely to human error. My error. It was a disastrous, numskull mistake that will now have grievous consequences for us all.”

“What kind of consequences?” asked Grover, who did not like the word “consequences” even when the word “grievous” wasn’t attached to it.

“Well, you no doubt see them all about you, already. There is no one left in this town now who is below the age of fifty-two. There are no more children — no more spry young people to give our town energy and vim and, and…”

“Verve?” asked Grover.

“Yes, verve. There are, conversely, people now living among us— if you call lying in a bed and sleeping for most of the day living — who are as old as 153—for I know of at least two residents of Shady Acres Nursing Home who had already passed the century mark.” “But I don’t understand, Professor,” said Wayne. “It seems like a pretty easy thing to fix. You just go back down to the lab and enter the correct age coordinates and ‘Wham! Bam! Allakazam! We’re all back to our right ages again.”

“If only it were that easy, Wayne,” sighed the Professor. “But unfortunately, as I found myself in the midst of that rapid aging process a little while ago — a process that was wholly unexpected, and which startled me immensely, well, I let out a most frightening shout of dismay. Right there in my laboratory I screamed like a terrified little child. And the intensity of this unexpected eruption from my vocal cords surprised Gizmo, my cat, who had been sleeping soundly next to me, and she sprang into the air in that way that cats sometimes do, in which all their limbs become extended and all of their claws protracted, and she came down not upon that same spot on the floor in which she had uplifted herself, but she came down — I am sorry to report — right upon the back of my poor terrier Tesla, protracted claws and all, and a most terrible row