Mark Dunn - The Age Altertron

“Lookit!” Wayne called to his brother. “Petey’s used his own head as a beam deflector!”

Lonnie cursed and tried to block the reflected light with his hand but by then it was too late. Rodney and Wayne had disappeared into the darkness of the adjoining yard.

“Don’t just stand there! Go after them!” Lonnie yelled to his two rookies, one of whom was now crying.

“We can’t!” said the one who was still dry-eyed.

“Why can’t you?”

“Because we’re both afraid of the dark!”

“Where are we going?” said Wayne, huffing and puffing at his brother’s side.

“To City Hall. I have a feeling that the deflector is somewhere in Jackie’s office.”

“Why would you think that? Why wouldn’t he just toss it away?” “Because I just thought of another reason that Jackie might

want to meet us tomorrow. Something else that he might want to bargain for.”

“And what is that, Rodney?”

“Let’s stop here, at this picnic table and catch our breaths.”

The boys were now in City Park. It was quiet and dark and cool. It was a sweater kind of night. “Don’t forget your sweaters, boys!” Rodney could picture his great aunt saying as the two boys rushed out to meet up with their buddies for some moonlight touch football. Sometimes their father would also join them. “And you too, Mitchell!” Aunt Mildred would add. “The night has a nip to it!”

This night had a nip to it too.

“Did you ever think, Wayne, that Jackie might start to get tired of being the mayor of a town in which nobody is younger than fiftytwo? And next year will be fifty-three and then fifty-four. We will be an old and dying town for the rest of our days, Wayne. Now at some point, if you were the mayor of a town like that, wouldn’t you start to think about maybe turning back the clock a few years— maybe not all the way back, but just far enough back so you’d get to keep your power and your guns and get to keep telling everybody what to do, but still get to be a young man while you’re doing it? Remember how much Jackie’s father wanted to stay a younger man? So much that he sent Jackie to the Professor’s laboratory to destroy the original Age Altertron!”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. It makes sense.”

“It actually makes a lot of sense,” said a voice from the darkness. The owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows and revealed himself. It was Jackie. “In fact, I was thinking about it this very night.” “What are you doing here?” asked Wayne.

“Well, certainly not chasing after you two. You’re a lot faster than I am, I can tell that.”

“Lonnie tried to kill us,” said Rodney.

“That sounds like Lonnie. He’s a juvenile delinquent you know.”

“So what are you doing here?” repeated Wayne.

“Sitting here thinking. Remembering how much fun Lonnie and I had turning over all those baby carriages. I miss those days. Simpler times. Good times.”

Jackie sat down on the top of the picnic table. He took something out of his pocket and set it down next to him. It was the tertiary beam deflector. “Is this what you guys want?”

Rodney and Wayne nodded, too surprised even to speak.

“And you’re right, Rodney. It’s a pretty good bargaining chip. So why don’t you listen to my proposal and tell me what you think?” Jackie didn’t wait for a response. “Give me a year to put things in place — to firm up my hold on this town. One year. And during that year and all the years after that, you two will be free men. You have my promise. Give me that year and then we’ll pull the Professor out of mothballs and get him to activate his Age Altertron, and take off, let’s say thirty years from all of our ages. I’ll be — let’s see — thirtyseven then. That’s not a bad age to be, don’t you think? Think of all the things we could do that our parents would never let us do. And all the things that we could keep them from doing for a change.”

“There’s nothing I can think of that I would want to keep my dad from doing,” said Wayne. “I’d be pretty happy just to have him come home!” Wayne stared into a bank of moonlit clouds, his thoughts partly on his father and partly on the tertiary beam deflector he had just slyly picked up and slipped into his pocket.

“And what are you going to give us , Jackie?” asked Rodney. “Besides not throwing us in jail for the rest of our lives.”

“How about the privilege of working with the Professor, just as you always have, to save this town from future calamities — to be the big heroes two, three times a month. I mean, that’s what you guys love, right?”

“I’ll tell you what we would love even more,” said Rodney. “Not having to live in a town with a Jackie Stovall for a mayor — a town where my Aunt Mildred has to lie on a cot, and nobody knows if they’re going to get shot at by your crazy police chief.”

“I can’t speak for my crazy police chief, monkeys, but I’ll tell you this: we’ll close that nursing home down the minute we’re all young again, and those old folks can start pulling their weight around here again. Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a Boy Scout, Jackie,” said Wayne. “And you know what else, Jackie? I have the deflector in my pocket now. And you know what else? I’m going to knock you right off this picnic table the same way you knocked over all those baby carriages last week.” With that, Wayne did exactly what he said he would do. He took a big swing at Jackie that sent him straight to the ground. Then he and Rodney took off.

Out from behind a stand of evergreen trees, several police officers now appeared. “What were you doing back there — playing Tiddly Winks?” Jackie shouted at them and then waved at them to go after Rodney and Wayne. As they ran off, Jackie pulled himself to his feet and massaged his throbbing hip at the place where it had struck the ground. He started walking — with a slight limp — in the direction that Rodney and Wayne and his police officers had gone. He continued his conversation with his twin adversaries as if they were still there: “I was giving you boys the chance to keep yourselves out of jail! I was giving us all a way to be young again! And you blew it! You stupid goofball idiot-numskulls!”

Every now and then an officer would fire a shot, but it was too dark for them to get a good aim, and besides, most of them had never even picked up a gun before, except a toy cowboy six-shooter. But Rodney and Wayne weren’t taking any chances; they ran faster that night in their sixty-six-year-old bodies than they had ever run as thirteen-year-olds.

“ They’re on foot and we’re on foot,” said Wayne panting, as the boys reached Old Hickory Road.

“So we have to get the upper hand. We have to get a car.”

“There’s the Professor’s house just a block away,” said Wayne.

“And lookit! Lonnie’s patrol car is gone,” said Rodney, noting the Professor’s empty driveway. He grinned. “I’ll bet that ol’ Nash will give us just the head start we need to beat Jackie and all of those nursery school police officers to our house.”

Wayne nodded, a big grin curling his own lips.

Rodney raised the garage door. And Wayne drove her out. And she was beautiful. And Wayne thought it was a shame that there wasn’t time to pull down the top and give the Nash Ambassador convertible the full appreciation she deserved.

Rodney was surprised at what a good driver his brother was. He only drove up over the curb twice.

The tertiary beam deflector was put into place. And the cover plate was screwed on. And once again the Professor found himself in the frustrating position of having to engage one of his inventions without properly testing it first. But Rodney and Wayne and the Professor had no choice. Jackie and his thugs would soon be at the McCall house. And it would not take long for them to figure it all out — that there had always been a secret room underneath the house — a perfect room for Professor Johnson’s new laboratory. And why wouldn’t it be? Wasn’t the Professor fond of secret cellars? And it would not take Jackie and his men long to find the door and break it down, or they could always remove the floorboards— anything to get to that cellar as quickly as possible and stop the Professor and Rodney and Wayne from activating the new Altertron.