Mark Dunn - The Age Altertron

“It is also regrettable that my father is now confined to his bed and can no longer carry out his duties as mayor. Nor is there anything in the house that he and my poor mother can eat. It is a most difficult situation however you look at it.

“Now, friends and neighbors, I will show all of you how this works: I will take my poor, bedridden and toothless father a cup of Malt-o-Meal. In exchange for this, he will make me , his son, the new mayor of the town of Pitcherville.”

There rose up another collective gasp from the crowd. One man shouted, “Outrage!”

“Who said that?” asked Jackie, craning his head to look around. “Whoever said that will not be doing business with me. No soft cereal, no custard, not even a squishy over-ripe plum! Now, once I have gotten myself settled into the mayor’s office at City Hall, you may all begin to form a line outside my door. I will open my door promptly at eight o’clock tomorrow morning to see the first people in the line. My deputy, Mr. Rowe, will dispense the foodstuffs after we have come to our individual agreements. I assure you all that no one will go hungry in this town, not while I am the mayor! Good day, my good friends and neighbors and bon — bon — what is the word?”

“Voyage?” asked a woman in the crowd.

“No, no. The other word. The food word.”

“Appetit,” offered Virgil confidently.

“Yes, bon appetit to you all.”

With that, Jackie stepped down from the speaking crate and departed, along with his newly appointed deputy Lonnie.

A stunned silence followed, and then a soft, whispered exchange or two, and in no time at all a big noisy, earnest and fearful buzz.

“I do not want my mother to starve in her bed!” said one woman. “I’ll give the man anything he asks for.”

“What else can we do?” said her companion.

“He certainly has us over a barrel,” said Davy Rockwell, shaking his head despondently. “I have to feed all of my grandparents. I have a grandfather who must now be nearly 130 years old! He wasn’t eating solid food even before all of this happened. I’m going over to the mayor’s office right now. I want to be first in line when he opens his door tomorrow. Goodbye, boys. It was good to see you again.”

Davy hurried off. There were others who, probably thinking the same thing, hurried off in the very same direction.

In which Officer Wall delivers bad news and Rodney and Wayne learn what is in their father’s secret cellar

When Rodney and Wayne explained the situation to the Professor, the old man said, “That’s extortion! It’s monstrous! That bully-boy intends to be an outright dictator!”

“What can we do about it, Professor?” asked Rodney. “You and Aunt Mildred will have to eat.”

“You must be resourceful, boys. Doesn’t your great aunt do a little canning? What has she put up from last year?”

“Some green beans and squash.”

“Nothing soft and squishy and not too acidic or too seedy?

Seeds are never good for the tracts of old people.”

“We’ll find out,” said Rodney. “Also, there is still a little oatmeal in her cupboard. And we noticed a box of pudding mix in your pantry.”

“Is it Tapioca? I love Tapioca.”

‘I don’t remember.”

“Well, there is enough food around — if we do a thorough job of scrounging — to feed your great aunt and me for the next two days — perhaps even three or four if we each take small bites. And in the meantime, we must work as hard as we are able to finish the new Age Altertron. Now go down and complete your inventory and then, if there is time left, I would not mind some hot pudding.”

Rodney and Wayne completed their inventory and cooked some pudding and then worked through the night on the first phase of construction for the new machine. The Professor sat in an arm chair not too far from the work area, wrapped in a blanket to keep away the chill, consulting his calculations and his diagrams and shouting out instructions in his increasingly raspy voice: “Tighten that bolt! Excellent! The red wire and now the green wire! Now why is there no charge in that auxiliary battery? I wonder what has happened to the multi-volt charger? Can you find the thermionic triode pentode? What have I done with it? Think, Russell, think! And why have I reversed the electrostatic charge? Would someone please tell me that? Ah, there is our oddleg caliper. Gizmo had been sleeping on it!”

The Professor also took time to explain the mechanics and physics of the Age Altertron II so that Rodney and Wayne would have a better understanding of what they were doing. “When we age, boys, the cells in our bodies decay and die. Conversely, if a man were to grow incrementally younger, there would be a rebirth of cellular tissue within his body. Now this is what the Age Altertron does: depending on whether you wish it to age a man or give him sudden youth, the machine sends signals throughout a prescribed area — in our case, the town of Pitcherville — that either destroy the components of human cellular growth or stimulate them. The pulse of the signal is multiplied exponentially to create a nearly instantaneous result. Now did you understand any of that?”“A little,” said Wayne sheepishly.

By morning the boys were exhausted but proud of all they had accomplished. The Professor was equally proud of his two apprentices and how hard they had worked. “I was afraid that we would be unable to recover from the damage that I did last night,” the boys’ scientific mentor said with a crusty voice, “but this is a most admirable start. I wish that there were some way I could repay you two for all the good work you are doing.”

“You’ve repaid us enough with everything you’ve done for this town over the last year, Professor,” said Rodney.

Becky, who had come by to bring egg-and-olive sandwiches to Rodney and Wayne, nodded in agreement.

“But there is nothing that I can do, specifically, for you kids?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” said Wayne, grinning mischievously, “you could let me take your Nash out for a spin.”

“What is that, Wayne? I didn’t hear you.”

Wayne was about to repeat his request with more volume when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Becky jumped up to answer it. “Hello, Officer Wall. Won’t you come in?”

Officer Wall, who now had the wrinkled face of a man in his eighties, hobbled into the laboratory using a cane. He was no longer wearing his policeman’s uniform. “Good morning, Professor. Good morning, Rodney, Wayne, Becky.”

“Are we being too loud?” asked Wayne.

“No, no. You are well within the noise limit. I have come to tell you something I believe you should know.”

“Please sit down, Officer,” said Rodney. Together he and Wayne helped the slow-moving officer down onto a bench.

“Ah. That feels good. It is a long walk from City Hall. I no longer have my patrol car, you see.”

“Why is that?” asked Wayne.

“It doesn’t belong to me anymore. I have been fired — no, I believe that the proper word is ‘retired.’ I have been purposefully ‘retired’ from the police force.”

“But why?”

“Look at me. I can hardly walk. Let alone breathe. My asthma is much worse. It is for the best. I was at the new mayor’s office this morning. There was a very long line. People are worried and depressed. This calamity is taking a terrible toll on the oldest citizens of this town and on everyone who loves them. But the ones waiting in line took some pity on me and let me go ahead. When I stand for too long, my knee joints seize up and then I walk around as if I am walking on stilts.”